Friday, May 21, 2010

New Links and Ideas For You



Now that you have been using your Document Cameras daily, you probably are looking for new ideas for using your Document Camera in your classroom. Find many lesson ideas here:
http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us/t4/content/view/323/37/

Start planning for next year to participate in the 2011 Jordan District Film Festival. Students and Techers submitted great films and the award winning films can be found at:
http://web.me.com/bonniemmuir/filmfestival/Home.html
If you have any great student projects to share with us, please leave a comment and share!

Continue learning technology by checking out the resources at UEN and the T4 Professional Development page:
http://profdev.uen.org/register/view_course_by_month
http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us/t4/content/section/6/35/

Be sure to check out the T4 front webpage in June to find great summer learning ideas for you and your students.
http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us/t4/

Have fun in the sun! Thank you for continuing to move technology forward for you and your students.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Safe Images for the Classroom

There have been some questions lately about finding appropriate images for classroom use.  A Google Image search can lead to some questionable results.  Following are some suggested sites for finding plenty of useable images, clip art and photos.
SIRS Discover Pictures:  (http://discoverer.prod.sirs.com/discoweb/disco/do/frontpage) This can be accessed through Pioneer Library.  Lots of good pictures for elementary use are found here.
eMedia:  There are hundreds of still images here as well as videos, all preapproved by UEN. (http://eq.uen.org/emedia/access/search.do?hier.topic=72fb35ab-18e5-2fbe-2439-6cfacaa2782b )
World Book Online: (http://www.worldbookonline.com/kids/Home ) All the articles here will come with beautiful images, that we are able to use.
Morgue Files: (http://www.morguefile.com/) Beautiful pictures that have “died” as far as copy write is concerned.  You still may need to watch for content but they are searchable by topic. 
KidRex: A child friendly search engine, the images here are filtered to remove questionable content. (http://www.kidrex.org/ )

Monday, May 3, 2010

Soundzabound-Another great tool from UEN

Soundzabound is another great tool from UEN that can be used by Educators and Students for any educational project. Soundzabound is a library of music and sounds that you and your students can use without worrying about copyrights or other legal issues, and best of all it is free for you thanks to UEN. Soundzabound is accessed through the K-12 Pioneer resources. Have you ever had a student ask you where they can find music or sounds to use for their school projects? Have you ever been concerned about your students using “just any music”? I know that I have. If you use Soundzabound you wont have to worry about the lyrics or the content. It is an easy one-stop shop for all of your classroom sound needs. Check it out for your next class project.

Monday, April 26, 2010

OpenOffice - a free alternative to Microsoft Office

Teachers sometimes ask about getting Microsoft Office for home use. Rather than buying Office, I would like to suggest a free alternative, OpenOffice.

OpenOffice includes powerful applications for making text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, diagrams, databases, and much more. Given that the full suite is free, this is one of the best deals you'll find in all of computing.

OpenOffice has six full-blown applications; 1-Writer (a word processor very similar to Word), 2-Calc (a spreadsheet program similar to Excel), 3-Impress (a presentation program similar to PowerPoint) 4-Base database (similar to Access), 5-Math equation editor, and 6-Draw graphics program.

Let's open OpenOffice and see how it looks:


The OpenOffice interface is looks a lot like the MS Office interface, and even advanced Office users will find nearly everything they're used to in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Let's take a look at a few screen shots from three of the applications in OpenOffice:

Writer (similar to Word)


Calc (similar to Excel):


Impress (Similar to PowerPoint):


Most of your questions about OpenOffice can be answered at their website, but let's go through a few frequently asked questions here:

FAQ's
Can I open my Office documents in OpenOffice?
Yes. Writer opens Word documents, Calc opens Excel documents, Impress opens PowerPoints.

How do I get OpenOffice?
Download it at http://www.openoffice.org.

Is it available for Mac, Windows, and Linux?
Yes. It is available on several platforms, all free downloads.

It starts out free, but will it always be free?
Yes, OpenOffice is an open source software. It will always be free.

How do I update OpenOffice?
In the OpenOffice Help menu, choose "Check for Updates"

Where can I get training on how to use it?
http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org
YouTube.com has a plethora of very good OpenOffice tutorials.

Is Jordan District switching from Office to OpenOffice?
No. There is no current plan to move teachers from Office to OpenOffice.

Can I use Office and OpenOffice on the same computer?
Yes, you may have both programs installed on your computer and choose which program you wish to use.

Do I have to switch to OpenOffice?
No. The program is available for anybody to download and use as they wish.

Is OpenOffice better than Office?
The best thing to do is to try it for yourself and make that determination. Over 500 million people have downloaded OpenOffice. It is available in many different languages.

Is support available for my questions about OpenOffice?
Yes. http://support.openoffice.org

What is the coolest thing about OpenOffice?
In my opinion, Portability. A revolutionary feature of OpenOffice is that you can download a portable version, write it to a flash drive and keep it in your pocket to use on any computer you meet on your way. Can you imagine doing so with Microsoft Office?

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Virtual Field Trips

Educational Funding is limited. One of the first cuts at your school could be a bus field trip with your students. Don’t worry, you can still take field trips electronically. Virtual field trips remove classroom walls and opens windows out into the world.
Virtual field trips can offer students more opportunities because you can take them to places they wouldn't normally be able to go to otherwise. In addition, virtual field trips may even boost students' reading comprehension skills and will expose them to different cultures and environments.

Below are a variety of links for virtual field trips. Try ending your school year by taking an exciting virtual field trip with your students. Have students experience different field trips and then create a multimedia presentation of their field trip to share with other students.
Please comment and share new virtual field trips that you have used.

Virtual Field Trip Collections

This organization hosts electronic field trips with four main parts: the Trip Journal, the Virtual Visit (a streaming video), an Ask the Expert tool, and a hosted Web chat.
http://www.efieldtrips.org

Ball State Electronic Field Trips
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/search.php?institution=Ball%20State%20University%20Electronic%20Field%20Trips

Blackwell’s Virtual Field Trip Lists
http://www.vickiblackwell.com/vft.html

eThemes
http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00000995.shtml

Gail Lovely provides a hot-linked list organized into live journeys, "interactive environments," travelogues, e-museums, building and place tours, map-based visits, and read-along visits.
http://www.gaillovely.com/VirtualFieldTrips.htm

Lists of Virtual Field Trips
http://www.techtrekers.com/virtualft.htm

Scholastic Internet Field Trips
http://teacher.scholastic.com/fieldtrp/science.htm

Simple K12 Virtual Field Trips
http://www.simplek12.com/virtualfieldtrips

The Teacher’s Guide Virtual Field Trips
http://www.theteachersguide.com/virtualtours.html

UEN Virtual Field Trips
http://www.uen.org/tours/fieldtrips2.shtml

Virtual Webams (teachers should search and check these sites first)
http://www.virtualfreesites.com/cams.html


Museum Virtual Field Trips


1000’s of Museums Online
http://www.museumstuff.com/

National Air and Space Museum
http://www.nasm.si.edu/education/online_fieldtrips.cfm

Examples of Virtual Field Trips
http://www.thwt.org/virtualtours.htm


Historical Virtual Field Trips

Henry “Box” Brown Underground Field Trip
http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/fieldtrips/brown.html

Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trip
http://www.history.org/trips/

George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate
http://www.mountvernon.org/learn/index.cfm

Online Field Trips from Think Classroom
http://www.thinkport.org/Classroom/trips.tp

The National WWII Museum
http://www.nationalww2museum.org

Smithsonian’s History Explorer
http://historyexplorer.americanhistory.si.edu/

Utah and National Parks

Glacier National Park
http://sd5.k12.mt.us/glaciereft/

National Parks Electronic Field Trip
http://www.nationalparks.org/npf-at-work/electronic-field-trip/

Windows into Yellowstone Wonderland
http://www.windowsintowonderland.org/

Utah National Parks
http://www.uen.org/utahnationalparks/

Science Virtual Field Trips

Exploritorium
http://www.exploratorium.edu/

Adventures in Medicine & Science (AIMS) Program of Saint Louis University http://aims.slu.edu

Cleveland Museum of Natural History
http://www.cmnh.org

Monterey Bay Aquarium
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/efc/cam_menu.aspx


This site lists a collection of mainly science and health-related VFTs and online labs.
http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/virtual.php

Mote Marine Laboratory
http://www.mote.org

NASA Digital Learning Network (Kennedy Space Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Johnson Space Center, and Goddard Space Flight Center)
http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/catalog

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI)
http://www.omsi.edu

Additional Distance Learning Field Trips

Center for Puppetry Arts
http://www.puppet.org

Monday, April 12, 2010

"eMedia" A Resource Wonder

I am so impressed with the resources provided to teachers and students through UEN (Utah Educational Network).  I have to confess that when I was teaching in another state I discovered many of the lesson plans and materials that are provided. 

eMedia is another one of the resources that you can use in your classroom without causing you an anxiety attack over “one more thing to learn”.  eMedia is an ever-growing selection of videos, movies, images, documents and more that are correlated with Utah Core Standards and appropriate for school.  This can save you hours of looking for materials. 
The materials are organized by grade level, subject, type and standard. There are even popular series here.   Many have lesson plans.
If you have questions there is a starters guide to eMedia.  Have fun exploring.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Earth to Jordan Teachers---literally :-)

"How geeks show they care" http://www.geogreeting.com.
(if the movie doesn't play, click here)



Do you want a fun, 'earthy' way to send a greeting to a friend? Then go to GeoGreetings:

Be prepared to spend a lot of time when you go there. You will be hooked and you will want to send GeoGreetings to all your family and friends.

It's fun to spell words using buildings that are shaped like alphabet letters. These building have been found on Google Earth by avid searchers. The letter A is found in Bangkok, B is located in the Canary Islands, C is in Germany. D is a lake in Moscow, and so on. Utah gives us the letter K --found in Salt Lake City.

Student will love this site. They might even enjoy seeing their spelling list written in GeoGreetings. Maybe they can find letters or symbols elsewhere on Google Earth.

Just for fun: Take a look at this heart-shaped island found in Croatia!