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Apps Are this Weeks Feature

4/25/2016

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I know that many teachers at the elementary level are continually on the lookout for apps for reading.  I came across this site called Reading Rockets and within the site I found a  number of apps for reading.  Click here to go to the site and check out the apps.  In addition to the apps, Reading Rockets has a number of resources for teachers.  One of the tabs I found interesting was the strategies tab. It includes a library of strategies, organized by category.  Each strategy in the library includes: 
  • Instructions on how to use the strategy
  • Downloadable templates
  • Examples
  • Recommended children's books to use with the strategy
  • Differentiation for second language learners, students of varying reading skill, students with learning disabilities, and younger learners
  • Supporting research
Click here to check out the strategy library.

Good Websites for Teaching Reading

I came across a listing of web site that can be used to teach reading.  I have shared a few that provided free resources within them.

Reading Rockets

This week I am sharing sites that are helpful in teaching reading.  Please check them out.  I have seen lots of good information on them.  The first site is mentioned above.  Here is the link to Reading Rockets.  This site has a varied collection of resources for those looking to develop their bag of teaching strategies for reading.  Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of research-based reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in helping struggling readers build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.’ Found lots of free things on this site.

Read Write Think

ReadWriteThink is a great platform that provides a wide variety of educational materials covering different literacy areas including reading, writing, listening and speaking. You can use the integrated search functionality to filter resources based on criteria such as grade level, resource type, themes, learni​ng objectives and many more. I love this site because it has a collection of resources that can easily be searched for grades K-12.  Love the many free things that can be found on this site.

Reading Bear - FREE

Reading Bear, a project of WatchKnowLearn.org, is the first free program online to teach beginning readers vocabulary and concepts while systematically introducing all the main phonetic patterns of written English, all using innovative rich media. We spent an enormous amount of time developing 50 presentations, covering even more phonics principles and illustrating over 1,200 vocabulary items. There is nothing else like it, free or otherwise.  Click here to go to the Reading Bear Site.

Excellent YouTube Channels for Science Teachers

The Crash Course Kids channel provides educational video content to introduce kids to key scientific concepts through the use of short and professionally animated lessons. Video content in this channel is organized along five major categories: Engineering, earth science, life science, physical science, and space science. Click on any of these categories and you will access a collection of video lessons related to the topic under study.
Life Nogin is basically an animated educational series that provides entertaining yet intellectually challenging explanations and answers to some vexing questions such as : what if the earth were twice as big? what happens inside your body? what causes cramps... and many more. There is also a section called Myths Debunked that features some very informative videos regarding popular scientific myths.  Browse through the collection and see what works for you.
It's Okay To Be Smart This is a channel created by Joe Hanson, Ph.D. Joe takes you into a journey to explore the world of science and space through short informative video clips. In each of these clips, Joe tackles a challenging question or concept related to areas such as biology, physics, space, and earth. You may want to go through some of his collections and you will definitely find something interesting to share with your students. When I went to this site, I did get a pop-up asking me to subscribe, which I did.  There was not cost to any of these from what I could see and all looked very informative and visually engaging.

Powerful Graphic Calculator Apps for Math Teachers and Students

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Desmos Graphing Calculator This is one of the most popular graphic calculator out there. Students can use it to ‘plot polar, cartesian, or parametric graphs; input and plot data; find best fit lines and parabolas; Adjust values interactively to build intuition, or animate any parameter to visualize its effect on the graph; type in any equation you want to solve and Desmos will show you the answer. It can handle square roots, logs, absolute value, and more. FREE iPad and iPhone
 Quick Graph  is a powerful, high quality, graphic calculator that takes full advantage of the multi-touch display and the powerful graphic capabilities of the iPad and iPhone, both in 2D and 3D. A simple, yet intuitive interface that makes it easy to enter and/or edit equations and visualize them in mathematical notation.  It's capable of displaying explicit and implicit (opt) equations as well as inequalities (opt) in both 2D and 3D, in all standard coordinate systems: cartesian, polar, spherical and cylindrical, all with amazing speed and beautiful results, which can be copied, emailed or saved to the photo library. FREE iPad and iPhone
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Good Grapher is another excellent scientific graphing calculator. Some of its features include: ‘carefully-designed graph visualization with multi-touch support; cartesian y(x) and x(y), polar r(θ) graphs (parametric x(t)y(t) and implicit in Pro version); inequalities drawing (in Pro version); function tracing and automatic min/max, zeros, intersections scanning for all function types; intersection discovering between different function types, e.g. between cartesian y=x and polar r=1; unlimited number of functions can be drawn simultaneously; standard, trigonometric and logarithmic axes; proportional and non-proportional scaling; customizable graph colors; table of graph values; copy, save, email screenshot…and many more. FREE ipad and iphone
Scientific Graphing Calculator 2  is an upgraded version of Scientific Graphing Calculator. It provides users with a set of powerful features including: a sophisticated keyboard with the ability to perform many functions, the ability to graph up to nine equations at once, a vector and matrix calculator, triangle and polynomial solvers, a unit converter and many more. $.99
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Watch YouTube Videos without all the distractions!

I came across this cool tool that allows you to watch YouTube videos without all the distractions or the potential for an inappropriate video to be sitting elsewhere on the screen.   The tool is called Watchkin and here is a link of what it looks like when you drop a YouTube URL into Watchkin. https://youtu.be/kDdrhJgtvhc  It's so easy.  You just create a sign in.  I signed in with my Google account, which was an option, or you could create another login and not use Google.  You then will be prompted to drop the URL into a field you are provided and you hit enter and that's it.  It's that simple.  Click here to go to the Watchkin site to sign up.
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Summer Workshops Included in this Post

4/18/2016

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Summer Staff Development Schedule

Below is the information for this Summer's Professional Development.  HR will have these workshops posted by Friday in the Act 48 system.  You should go there to register.  The link is https://act48.iu12.org/ .  You log in with your first initial and last name (ex: ksipe) and the password is the last four digits of your social security number.  If you have any issues logging in, please contact Joni Swope at extension 1006.

JUNE WORKSHOPS

Web Based Assessment June 6, 1-4 PM Room 550, New Oxford High School.  Participants in this workshop will be shown a variety of assessment tools to utilize in their classroom.  Tools present will include Kahoot!, Socrative, Spiral, Poll Everywhere, and Plickers. Participants will leave with 1-2 assessments completed for use in the 16-17 school year.  2 hours Act 48 credit,  Instructor Karen Sipe

Google Camp June 7. 8-4, Google Camp will be an all day event with workshops being offered at varied times
  • 8-11 Google Classroom - Participants will set-up a Google Classroom
  • 11-12 Google Calendar - Participants will learn how to utilized their calendar
  • 1-2 Google Mail - Participants will establish their mail settings and learn how to utilize gmail.
  • 2-4 Google Drive - Participants will learn how to create and share folders and files.  Those with their own devices will also download Google Drive to the device and be shown how to transfer folders and files to it.

Discovery Education Camp June 8, 8-3, Lunch break 12-1, Participants will learn the ins and outs of Discovery Education’s site.  Items covered will include searching for content, teacher tools, and strategies.  Participants will leave the class with a variety of content organized for use in the 16-17 school year. 6 hours of Act 48 credit, Instructor Karen Sipe

Schoology Workshop - June 13, 8-1, Participants will be shown the basics of setting up a Schoology Course.  This class is for those just getting started and it will be using the free version of Schoology.  Participants will leave with an understanding of the capabilities of the free version of Schoology as well as a shell of their course. 5 hours of Act 48 credit, Instructor:  Karen Sipe

Web-Based Tools for Home and School - June 14, 8-11, This course will include a collection of web-based tools that can be used to engage students in class as well as communicate with both students and parents outside of class.  Participants will leave with the knowledge to establish resources for student and parent communications as well as tools for student engagement. Tools covered will include Class Dojo, Remind, Padlet, and Symbaloo, plus a few additional tools if time permits.  3 hours of Act 48 credit, 3 local credit hours Instructor: Karen Sipe

Digital Storytelling Tools - June 15, 8-2:30, Lunch break 12-12:30,  This course will include the review of a number of Digital Storytelling Tools that teachers can use to creatively engage students and make real-world connections.  Participants will leave with the knowledge of a variety of tools available.  In addition, participants will create one digital storytelling activity. 5 hours of Act 48 credit, 5 local credit hours.  Instructor:  Karen Sipe

AUGUST WORKSHOPS
Google Classroom  - August 2,  8-11 - Participants will set up their Google Classroom and learn how to use the features of Google Classroom with their students.  Room 550 of the High School, 3 Act 48 Hours, Instructor: Karen Sipe

Google Docs/Drive - August 2, 1:30-3:30 - Participants will learn how to create and share the various types of Google Documents. Room 550 of the High School  2 Act 48 Hours, Instructor: Karen Sipe

Discovery Education - August 3, 8-11 - This will be an overview of Discovery Education and the many resources available to staff and students.  Participants will learn how to set up their My Content within the DE site. In addition, users will be be aware of the many teacher tools available to them and how those tools can connect to Google via Google Classroom.Room 550 of the High School,  3 Act 48 Hours, Instructor: Karen Sipe

Assessment - August 3, 1-3 - This workshop will walk users through web-based assessment tools to use with their students.  Tools showcased will be Kahoot!, Socrative and Plickers.  Users will create an assessment to take back to their classroom. Room 550 of the High School, 2 Act 48 Hours,  Instructor: Karen Sipe

Schoology - August 4, 8-11 - Participants will learn how to set up their Schoology site and add content to it. Room 550 of the High School, 3 Act 48 Hours, Instructor: Karen Sipe

Google Classroom  Updates - New Feature Users Should Know About

I have been trying to keep  you up-to-date with new features of Google Classroom as they are occurring. Here are 3 new ones that users will want to know about.

Teachers are now able to ‘create polls for a wide variety of educational purposes  including comprehension check in class and feedback gathering. You can easily create single or multiple-choice question polls right in your class stream and see who have and haven’t answered your polls.’_Click here for instructions.

The two main updates that were released for Classroom on iPad and Android are: the ability to save a post (e.g an assignment, question or announcement) as a draft and schedule it for a later posting; and the ability to re-use existing materials (e.g assignments or questions) from previous or actual posts. Additionally, for teachers and students using Classroom on Android, they are now able to see new notifications in the form of a red circle right in the Classroom menu.  Click on any of the links below for more information posting and reusing of posts and notifications.  If you have questions or need further assistance, please contact me.  I would be happy to meet individually.
  • Teachers can draft any type of post--assignment, question, and announcement—and save for posting at a later date. Teachers can attach YouTube videos and post to multiple classes.
  • Teachers can reuse existing posts—assignments, questions, and announcements—from a current or previous class.
  • On Android, teachers and students can configre notifications to immediately see any new notifications they have—a little red circle on the Classroom menu indicates that there are new notifications.

Here is one tip to share with your students.  Students are now able to see their work in the class stream, on the class card and on the Work page. Here is how to view it on the Work page:
  • 'Click  and click Work.
  • Click the title of the work to see any instructions or feedback.
  • (Optional) To filter your work by class, at the top of the Work page, click All Classes and select a class.
  • The work for the class you selected is listed.
  • (Optional) To add a class comment, click Add class comment, enter your comment, and click Post.
  • If a comment is already posted, click number class comments to see comments by your classmates or post your own comment.
  • (Optional) To send your teacher a private comment, click Add private comment, enter your comment, and clickPost.
  • (Optional) To see any work you already submitted, at the top of the Work page, click Done. If the work is graded, the grade is listed. If your teacher provided other feedback, you can see it by clicking the title of the work.'

Publish Beautiful Documents with Google Doc Publisher

I am always on the lookout for Google tools and I just learned about this one called Google Doc Publisher.  Here is a sample.   It allows users to publish beautiful Google documents to the web. Now you can take student work to a new level and provide a public audience.   Click here to learn more.
Here is how to use Google Doc Publisher. First, head over to your Google Doc and click on ‘File’ and select ‘Publish to The Web’.
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Grab the generated link and paste it in Google Doc Publisher as shown below.
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Eduspire Summer Courses at IU 12

​Attached you will find  three flyers with information for 3-credit graduate level summer professional development courses that will be held at the Lincoln Intermediate Unit 12, New Oxford. Brandman University and Eduspire, www.eduspire.org will be offering these courses.
 
·         iPads in Special Education – July 13-14 and July 27-28, 2016
·         Creating Effective Video for the Classroom – July 25 and 28, 2016
·         iPads in Education – July 25 – 28, 2016
 
Please click on the link below (or see attached flyers) for specific times along with registration information, and pass on the information within your district. Check with your administrator prior to registering.
 
https://goo.gl/FZhwns
 
If you have any questions pertaining to the course or questions about registrations, please contact Karen Fry from Eduspire (karenfry@eduspire.org).

PBS Resources - Don't Forget about PBS - You can find lots of great resources there.  Some are showcased below.

Shakespeare Uncovered

To mark the 400th Anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, PBS has compiled a collection of resources of his work.  Additional resources will continue to be added throughout the spring.  Click here to see the collection.

Discovering Poetry - Arthur - Grades PreK-4

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Teaching children about poetry opens a whole new world of wonderful sounds and images. This fun activity from Arthur makes poetry accessible to young children by helping them to create their own poems about things that make them feel happy, sad, or mad. Click here to preview the activity.

The Poetry of Sylvia Plath - Literature - Grades 9-12

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​​When many people think of Sylvia Plath, they first think about her struggles with mental illness and eventual suicide. This video from Crash Courser focuses on her contributions as a feminist poet and her ability to recreate the experiences of real life in a beautiful and relatable way. Click here to preview this material.

Stop Bullying - Another Resource from PBS

​How to Develop a School Culture that Helps Stop Bullying | Mind/Shift
 
Looking for ways to reduce bullying among students at your school, both on school grounds and online? This article from Mind/Shift offers a restorative justice approach that treats bullying as a violation of shared values, rather than a character defect.  Click here to read the article called Mind/Shift.  In addition, when at this link, if you scroll down to below the article there are additional resources related to school climate.

Apps- Apps to Develop Spacial Reasoning

Pictorial is a free app.  Click here for more information.
How quickly you can guess what pictures are hidden from you in the night sky full of stars?
Can you discover the story behind the dance of snowflakes in the arctic blizzard?
Will you be the first to solve the mystery of the pirate's map?  

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Flow Free® is a free and simple yet addictive puzzle game. 
Connect matching colors with pipe to create a Flow®. Pair all colors, and cover the entire board to solve each puzzle. But watch out, pipes will break if they cross or overlap!
Free play through hundreds of levels, or race against the clock in Time Trial mode. Gameplay ranges from simple and relaxed, to challenging and frenetic, and everywhere in between. How you play is up to you. So, give Flow Free a try, and experience "mind like water"!
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Symbaloo- Easy to Use and a Great Tool to Organize Resources for Your Students

4/6/2016

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CThis weeks feature tool is Symbaloo.  Wouldn't it be great to have all the resources you want your students to use in one location.  That's the benefit of Symbaloo.  Any teacher can organize their own collection of web resources for students to access from one location - Symbaloo.  Click here to go to Symbaloo.com.  Symbaloo Tutorial click here. Symbaloo is a great tool to collect and organize tools for your students.  Here is an example of a math related Symbaloo that I recently learned about at a Discovery Education workshop.    Math Tools and Resources


Here are some examples of other Symbaloo mixes.
Boyd7scienceSymbaloo
DCS K-5 Math Resources Symbaloo
Poetry Power Symbaloo
_5th Grade Math Symbaloo
Google for EDU - Symbaloo
Music examples - Symbaloo

4th Grade Symbaloo
ESOL Linguistics

English 1 - COHS - Symbaloo
Symbaloo Gallery is a collection of lots of symbaloos created on a variety of topics.

Padlet

Padlet is a great tool to get students all engaged.  It is also a great tool to use with your fellow faculty members.  It has many uses.  Some examples are to get students to collaborate on a project, use for faculty to respond to an item for discussion prior to the meeting or during, exit tickets, to generate questions from students, to generate responses during class to a topic, to post answers to quick checks for understanding  Click here to go to a Padlet Tutorial.  Padlet Many Uses In the Classroom Tutorial.  Here is a padlet gallery with lots of examples of how Padlet is being used in the classroom. 

Would You Rather Math Blog - Great site to Find Engaging Statements to Get Your Students Thinking.

I recently was introduced to this cool site called Would you Rather Math and it has lots of fun statements to engage students in math.  Check it out, even if you aren't a math teacher these statements get kids thinking.  There are lots of examples and maybe you can then generate more of your own.  Would You Rather click here.

Google

Don't forget to check out last weeks post sharing how to  load Google Drive onto your teacher computer.  Also, there were screencasts two posts ago that explained how to move your files from the G drive to Google Drive.  
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Conewago Valley School District Contact Information
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Phone (717) 624-2157 |Fax (717) 624-5020


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