I FOUND A GOLDMINE!

I did. It's called Tammy's Technology Tips for Teachers.

It is put together by one Tammy Worcester. It is full of links for all kinds of cool links. I haven't had a chance to look at it all but I saw a lot of creative math and reading links. I already have a couple of new ideas to try in my classroom and I just started looking at her site.

She has a tab called Tech Tip of the Week and another called Ideas and Activities you should check out.

If you find an idea that works (or doesn't) for you, hit the comment button and share your experience.

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

I teach fifth grade and our class has a class blog. It is called "The Skinny". As I was typing today's post to that blog I though that you might like to know this stuff too. When you are done reading this entry please hop on over to our class blog and check it out.

I haven't confirmed this yet but I just got an email that says that on Monday, August 27th (at 12:30) there will be two moons in the sky.

Well, not two moons . What you will see is our moon and the planet Mars.

Mars is traveling very close to our home planet and it will only be 35 million miles away and although seems like a long ways off, and it is, its going to look pretty big in the sky.

The neat thing about this is that it is not going to happen again until the year 2287. No one alive now will be alive then to see it.

Soooooooooooooo, don't miss out on the chance of a lifetime.

Can anyone tell me why Mars is called the Angry Red Planet?

#

> HOW NOT TO POWERPOINT

PowerPoint can be a great tool to use in the classroom. It can also be easily abused. I know because I've done it. I've shown kids lessons with 20-40 slides in it. I couldn't figure out why they were falling asleep during my amazing PowerPoint show. I now use Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 rule whenever I put a PowerPoint presentation together. Although Guy's main focus is marketing his rational works for teachers as well.

Don McMillian has put together a funny video to show you some the of the perils of using PowerPoint.

> NAME IN LIGHTS

They say everyone craves their 60 seconds of fame. Well now you and your kids can have yours. This is a neat little program called Name in Lights. It allows you to put your name up on a billboard. I used it to start my daily blog. How might you use it in your classroom?

#

> Truth Happens

"Despite the ignorance, ridicule and opposition… truth happens."


What a cool piece of video. This is an old Linus ad. Linux and Bill Gates have been at odds with each other for a long time. You can google that story up if you are interested.

I intend to use this with my fifth graders as an introduction to our Civil Rights study. You can use it in science class when your talking about inventing.

Anyone else see a place for it in their curriculum?

#

SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM

No, not that kind of spam, I am think more the Monty Python type of SPAM. Enjoy this easy little game.

#

Tips for Starting School

This post was going to be full of great ideas for getting your school year off to a great start. I had all kinds of neat ideas to share with you. But last night I was cruising the Cool Cat Teacher Blog and discovered Vicki had already written about it. Actually she wrote three great articles about starting school off with a bang so I'm just going to quit talking her and let you check it out.

Setting the Pace
Establishing the Flow
Create the Plan

#

SHIFT HAPPENS

I know, not another PowerPoint show, but I think you are going to like this one. It's full of amazing statistics on the digital revolution, our kids, and the kids around the world. This is the show that really got me thinking that its time to start using these new tools for a new age.




Did you know that Apple has sold over 90,000,000 IPODS? That's just Apples. wait till you see how many phones and laptops, and other devices are floating around out there.


This show is by a guy named Karl Fisch. I have not heard him speak but I have read his blog and its pretty interesting. I linked his name to his blog so you can check it out.

This show, by the way, is pretty slick. The graphics are amazing. I showed this to my fifth graders last year. I was amazed at their reaction to it. They saw the implications of the numbers in a whole different way than I did. They also began to think about how important a good education will be for them.

Well, when it's over hit the comment button and let me know what you think.

#

Middle Ages Tech Support

If I had a top ten list of funny tech video's this would be on it. I wish I was clever enough to have written it. After you watch it hit the comment button and let me know what you think.

#

Ok, here is my first attempt at adding video to the blog. This is kinda funny. Especially if you have every received a letter from a relative in Nigeria. Hit the comment button and tell me what you think. It's from The Onion.

#

THREE BLOGS TO VISIT

As I add more blogs to the Blogs I Read section I will take a few minutes and tell you about each of them. The first one I added is called A New Adventure. It's by my friend Jim Wenzloff. He's one of the tech consultants at the MISD. He's the guy that got me into blogging and pod casting and all kinds of neat things. Whenever he finds things on the web that might be a help in the classroom he posts them on the site. He also shares a lot of great ways to integrate tech and teaching.

The next site on my list is called Cool Cat Teacher. It's written by a lady named Vicki Davis. It has links to everything. I will be sharing some of her best ones tomorrow. But don't wait till then. Click on over and check out all the great stuff she has there.

The last one is called How to Change the World. It's written by this guy oddly enough named Guy Kawasaki. He's a marketing guy, not a school teacher but I think a lot of the things he talks about work for us too. If you use PowerPoint in your classroom, you must read his 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint. It will save you from putting countless numbers of kids and adults to sleep over the next few years.

Well, you gotta start somewhere!

Hello and welcome to my first attempt at blogging for adults. My name is Jim and I teach 5th grade in the Great State of Michigan. I have been blogging with my class for a year now and I love it. I will share more about that with you a little bit later.

It took me two weeks to find the right title for this blog. Picking a title was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. I must of tried out 27 of them before I settled on this one. I was reading a post by my friend Jim Wenzloff. In his post titled Change he talks about how we need to change how we are dealing with technology in our classrooms right now:

"We need to change and change fast. We need to look at our way of doing things and find new ways of meeting the needs or our students. We need to take advantage of “New Tools for a New Age.” I think there are three things educators can do to begin the change..."

It's a great article and you should really read it all. I am ready to make that change and this blog is my first step So that's how I came up with the name. I want to share with you how to use some of those "new tools" and I want you to share with me how you do it.

I would also like to share with you neat stuff I find on the web. Everyday I discover new sites, videos, and blogs that can help us and the kids do things quicker, deeper, and more efficiently.

That's enough for now.

#