There are millions of websites… and the number grows daily. It can take time to sort great teaching sites from those that aren’t as helpful. Yet, there is a tool to make the job easy. It’s called social bookmarking. Watch this helpful YouTube video about the value of del.icio.us, one of the top social bookmarking sites. You may also want to read some of the earlier posts about social bookmarking for a list of things to consider when starting to use social bookmarks. Tell your colleagues about del.icio.us too. If they find great educational resources, they can share them and that will save you a lot of time, which means more time to teach … and more time to relax. That’s a winning combination.
Dr. Noah St. John has created a way to help you change your life. It’s called afformations. It’s a method of asking questions that focuses on what you’d like to create. Most people, including teachers and our students, ask lousy questions. Questions such as “Why am I so broke?” and “Why is math so difficult?” are rampant. The problem is that when you ask lousy questions, you get lousy answers, and hence create a less than desirable life circumstance.
I taught my students a little about how to use afformations at school and at home to change their lives and many had incredible shifts. Some of my colleagues also used it in their classrooms with delightful outcomes.
We know that kids (and adults) learn in different ways. Why not find or make some songs about your subject? Create some appropriate hand gestures that further support learning.
On Pi Day my students had to create a poem or song about Pi using at least 5 facts about the number. There were a number of exceptional poems and songs written. The top 5 songs are going to be recorded and posted on this blog as podcasts.
Here is an excellent example of using best teaching practices that addresses multiple intelligences and total physical response in Mrs. Burk’s math class. I can see this song being helpful for a wide range on students. It uses a lot of strategies to support ELD too. (The video is hosted on a new site called TeacherTube.com, an educational alternative to YouTube. It often slows down a bit to buffer the video, but once you’ve watched it, it’ll play smoothly the second time.)
I knew it wouldn’t be too long before someone got smart and created a YouTube-like site that was geared specifically to students and teachers. Anne Bubnic of CTAP emailed me to let me know about TeacherTube.com.
TeacherTube has 11 channels for teachers to upload videos about best teaching practices, student projects and tutorials. The channels include technology, professional development and subject areas. Like YouTube videos can be rated, shared or embedded on other sites. Users can also post comments. Unlike YouTube there isn’t any offensive material…And of course, TeacherTube isn’t blocked at schools. Yippee!
Did you know? The rate of change on this planet is increasing at an exponential rate. The amount of information on the planet has doubled in the past few years and continues to increase at an amazing pace. We can only begin to imagine what the world will look like in 10 years. We live in exciting and wondrous times - and perhaps, it’s a bit unnerving.
Did you know? As educators, we have an important role in preparing our students for a world that is only just starting to take form. We live in the Information Age, a time of connection and expansion.
Did you know? China will soon be the largest English speaking country on the planet.
Did you know? Karl Fisch, Director of Technology at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, has created an amazing video presentation entitled Did You Know? It takes us on a brief journey into the future world of astounding facts that will make you think about where we need to be as educators and as a society. He has some additional presentations that you will also want to see. (Note:The music in Did You Know? is a mix of three tracks from The Last of the Mohicans.)
Did you know? Scott McLeod, Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration at the University of Minnesota, has has an excellent blog, Dangerously Irrelevant. If you are interested in exploring the value and direction of education, you’ll appreciate what he has to contribute. He has also has links to Karl Fisch’s presentations.
For more information about the skills our students will need, read this post about 21st Century Skills.
Be in the know… it is the Information Age after all.
Here is a fun educational video from the folks at Free Range Graphics to launch a discussion about biodiversity in your class. You may recognize the plot from the DaVinci Code. If you’d like to share the video with your class, you may want to download it since YouTube is blocked at most schools. Here are instructions on how to download educational YouTube videos.
Resources You Can Use
A book I highly recommend is Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. The story line is a bit odd, a gorilla acting as a teacher, but the content and the vision are profound.
Before reading Ishmael I was wondering, “How can we be complacent about destroying our environment? This is maddness!” I now understand how that is possible. When I read the book it was like watching a huge jigsaw puzzle being assembled, and when the picture came into view it was life transforming. The book provides a clear alternative to destroying our environment and a new, expansive vision for humanity.
NOTE: Free Range Graphics only works with socially responsible companies. They rely on people sharing the videos with others to promote important messages. Please email it to friends and colleagues who will enjoy it.
What is Squidoo? Squidoo is a website where people can create their own “lenses.” A lens is your perspective or favorite resources on a topic. For example, I created a lens on Fractions. It includes websites that have clear explanations of fractions, fun math games and practice, educational YouTube videos and books for further individual study. Squidoo lenses have great potential for teachers to aggregate helpful resources for students on a particular topic. I hope that this article inspires you to create your own and become a lensmaster.
You can build a site for free with the easy to use module-based templates. My first lens on integers took me about 3 hours to build. When I created it, I used my del.icio.us account to organize the different sites that I was interested in including. When I posted a site to my del.icio.us account, I tagged it with the lens topic. I’ve continued to add to it over the months and it’s now an excellent resource for both students and teachers. I’m delighted that it was included in the March National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) News Bulletin in the “Web Bytes” section.
There are a variety of modules that you can add to build your lens, including text/write, link list, amazon.com, poll, make a list, YouTube, Google maps and iTunes. The lens can be made more interactive by adding polls. I added a poll to my Ecological Footprint Education site about the size of people’s ecological footprint.
Most of the modules can be made more interactive with the “Plexo” feature. Plexo is a tool that allows your readers to rank or add to the data in your site. For example, on my Vedic math site readers can give feedback on which resources they found most valuable. The feedback automatically rearranges the sites from most to least popular. I’ve just started playing with Plexo modules this week. It feels like a nice way to help your readers sort through data and become an active learner. Plexo is also helpful because people can add other valuable resources to your site.
As the creator of the site, you can moderate how much interactivity you want. You can allow comments or not. You can also require that additions to your site be approved before they are published. So there is an element of quality control. As with most sites that allow rating, people must have a Squidoo account.
So what would you like to share with your students? What topic would you like to be a lensmaster on?
As most students and teachers know, school servers block YouTube. Don’t despair. There is a way to bring good educational videos from YouTube into your classroom. You can download a video at home, carry it on a flash drive (or store it on a virtual disk) and then bring it to school.
Anne Bubnic, CTAP Region IV County Specialist, shared this link on how to download YouTube videos. She recommends following the directions exactly. Be sure to use the Firefox browser. One of her colleagues tried it in Safari and couldn’t get it to work. You will also need to download the VLC application for it to work.
If you haven’t heard of Metacafe, you’ll want to read this post about an alternative to YouTube. One fabulous benefit of Metacafe is it isn’t blocked at school. You may want to check if the video you are interested in is uploaded there too.
If you haven’t heard about Metacafe, you’ll be happy to know that there is another company like YouTube on the web. There are a couple of noteworthy similarities and differences between the two companies:
Similarities
You can watch a variety of home, as well as professionally produced, videos.
You can upload videos.
You can rate other people’s videos, if you have an account.
Differences
Metacafe videos are moderated. They aren’t immediately available on the web. I’m not sure how much they screen, but they do have a comment that says, “Do not post p*rn*graphic, excessively violent, illegal, abusive or hateful videos.”
Metacafe allows you to submit your videos for a “Producer’s Award.” If your video meets the criteria and is rated at over 3.0, you can be eligible to be paid for your video. The rating system is an algorithm, which includes viewer rating, comments and some other factors. You can earn $5 for every 1000 views, but payment doesn’t start until your video has reached $100 or 20,000 views.
Metacafe isn’t blocked at my school! So I can use it on my class blog and in the computer lab to preteach and reteach. I’m going to upload all of my videos. (I use rebeccanewburn and newburn as tags on all of my videos so people can readily find them.) I’d be interested to hear if other people can access it from their schools.
Here is one of my videos that I’ve uploaded to Metacafe about Vedic Math, the ancient mental calculating system from India. Whether you are “a math person” or not, you’ll enjoy this one. Promise!
YouTube is a free website with a tagline of “Broadcast Yourself.” It’s full of junk and gems and it has great potential to support learning.I unknowingly created my first YouTube videos a year ago when my dad gave me a digital camera. For my sister’s birthday, I made some how-to videos on “hooping”, a dance form using a hula hoop. She emailed me asking if it would be okay if she posted the videos to YouTube, and then added, “Well, let me know if it’s a problem because I’ve already posted them.” Jessie received so much positive feedback and requests for additional instructional videos that she created a how-to hoop dance YouTube group and a Squidoo Hooping lens featuring the videos. (You can click on the link to see my first dance video. If you are a PE teacher, you’ll want to check out my sister’s other lens on how-to-make a hoop. Even if you’re not a PE teacher, you may be inspired to learn hooping. It’s fun!)
All of the positive feedback from the dancing videos inspired me to make some math videos. I’ve received dozens of appreciative emails about the videos. Now I have two YouTube groups specifically for helping people to learn math. One group is a pre-algebra group and the other is about Vedic math, the ancient mental calculating system from India. I refer students to these video collections for pre-teaching and reteaching and often post clips to my math classes’ blog.
