Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

  • We Give Books - LitWorld

    Have you read w/ us & @WeGiveBooks yet? Read a book, and one book will be donated! http://t.co/OBnSGzgF

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Labels: | 0 comments

Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Labels: | 0 comments

Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Discovery Education Science TechBook

by Kim Collazo
Current information from Discovery Channel and other places put into the Techbook content right away.

Streamlined pathway to address NCSCOS

Built around the 5E's model!

PD - Related to the needs and tools in your county
Silver Springs, MD - Discovery World Headquarters for training
Once a month streamed PD and Newsletter

When you login to Techbook through your Discovery Streaming account (new tab at top (Science Techbook)

Each lesson includes objectives, key questions, and list of vocabulary
5 E's - each section includes live links to the resources you need so you don't have to search.

Includes a 5 minute "teacher prep" video to give teacher information they may need to help teach the unit.

Quick links with each lesson - concept review, hands-on activities, student assignments, materials list

Science notebooks - right side = teacher input; left side = student output

Provides reading passages - ie. "Getting to know" documents (on grade level)
Provides more authentic article-type passages at 3 levels (above, at and below)
Provides e-books that have the read aloud function

Interactive Glossary - tabs for visual animation with text, written definition, video, and image

Virtual Labs that they can compare with the Hands On lab

Content is also in Spanish with translation tools to help with vocabulary

Student Center gives kids access 24/7

Virtual assessments that are graded for you for each topic. Assessments tied to concepts or standards, you can also add your own. Teacher gets students' scores in chart. Can look at each individual student's assessment broken down by concept. Those concepts the student didn't do well on, it gives you a list of resources for reteaching. Gives the teacher proficiency graphs for topics so you can easily pre and post test.
Under Builder Tools - Assessment Manager

Teacher Center - Process Skills Library (contains all virtual labs, hands-on labs, hands on activities, science sleuths, and mythbusters. Contains "student peer review sheet" Kids complete it as they watch the video to evaluate the scientific process Adam and Jamie used to conduct the experiment.

North America (to follow Life and Earth) coming in Spring 2012.

Full replacement for the textbook adoption. Can be purchased with textbook funds. Elementary for 6 years - $38/student (for all 6 years) Middle School - $40/student. One time purchase gets all updates put out over the 6 years. Training is included with the 6 year purchase. School or district purchase.
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Geocaching 101

by Kim Collazo
NCSTA 2011 Conference
Mark Case, Southern Guilford High

Gets kids interested with technology they are already using.

Worldwide game of hide and seek! http://www.geocaching.com/

What do students learn?
1. navigation
2. elevation
3. how soil affects what grows; drainage
4. how to understand legends and scale
5. environmental stewardship: cache in - trash out
6. high level thinking: research, reading, and understanding
7. provides physical activity (brain-smart!)

Idea: Put 6 clipboards around campus with questions and place for kids to sign their names (no credit if they don't sign). Each clipboard has the coordinates to the next clipboard.

LINGO
1. Traditional cache -log sheet and treasure hidden (log sheet, container with small items, etc.)
2. Multi-cache - involves two or more locations to record the cache
3. Mystery/Puzzle cache - requires solving a problem to get credit for the find.
4. Letterbox - use GPS coordinates to get to the starting point and use clues to solve the puzzle. http://www.letterboxing.org/
5. Event cache - a gathering of people involved in geocaching (ie. geocachers' flashmob)
6. CITO - Cache in Trash Out - events when geocachers clean out caches
7. Earth Cache - an earth science based cache
8. take something, leave something
9. leave the location better than you found it

GPS devices (Magellan, iPod touch, smart phones, anything that has a GPS chip in it) **Geomate Junior - http://www.mygeomate.com/

IDEA - Give kids list of coordinates and clue (ie. inside stump)

Questions for the kids:
How does the terrain affect your route to the location?
What happens to the elevation as you move around the school grounds?
Where is the highest elevation?
Where is the lowest elevation on campus?
What was the farthest point west/north?
What relationship did the elevation on the GPS have with the lines on the topographic map?

IDEA: Allows his students to sign a contract and sign out a GPS device. They have to fulfill a list of geocaching activities and he replaces their lowest test grade with a 100.

Waymarking - http://www.waymarking.com/

Werigo - Games, stories, challenging next step to geocaching - http://www.wherigo.com/ GPS adventures in the real world!
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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Labels: | 0 comments

Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Labels: | 0 comments

Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Finding New Solutions

by Kim Collazo
These first few weeks in our school system have been filled with technical difficulties. Although our IT personnel are working hard to resolve issues with the new image that was placed on our laptops, major tech problems make it difficult to run a successful 1:1 program.

One of the problems we've been having is saving documents, pictures, and other important things we are working on. We try to be as paperless as possible, and to upload documents and other creations to many of the Web 2.0 sites that are the backbone of our program, involves having to save them first!

The second problem is that our system blocks Google Docs for the kids. Not exactly sure why, but that is our reality at this time. So, that wonderful alternative for moving all our document creation to the cloud is out.

The good news is we have found a GREAT solution! This past week I had all my kids create a ZohoWriter account. ZohoWriter allows them to create, share, and collaborate on all kinds of documents and other projects. Its format is familiar looking for them, and very user-friendly. They have been raving about it ever since, and have asked to do many of their written assignments there even though our Saving issues (to the school server) are slowly being resolved.

This is great news for me as a teacher because it allows my kids to become much more independent and gets them used to the cloud computing that is inevitable in their future. We are no longer strapped by what the IT gods have fixed or not fixed. It is wonderful to see the kids take on the responsibility for their learning tools!

Stay tuned, I'll continue to share more about our journey to the clouds!

http://thripp.com/blog/files/photos/stock/source/beautiful-blue-sky-with-clouds-ss.jpg
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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Science Fun with Vocaroo!

by Kim Collazo
Today we watched a great video on Discovery Education about weathering and erosion. I am always looking for interesting and creative ways for my kids to digest and respond to things we are learning, especially when the learning comes from a video. I think very often we sit kids in front of a video and they zone out, having learned nothing and having wasted 20 or 30 minutes of opportune learning time.

So during the video, the kids were asked to write down at least 8 interesting things they thought the video shared in their science notebooks. They were then asked to go to Vocaroo and record their 8 items orally. For those of you who have never used Vocaroo, it is the most user-friendly, awesome, online recording tool out there! No login is required, and you receive an embed code of your recording for wonderful sharing opportunities. We are also in the lucky position of being a 1:1 netbook classroom, where all of my students also have a headset with a microphone (although it works just as well with our netbooks' built in microphones!).

So after recording their audio weathering and erosion information, some sitting outside on the benches for less background noise, they learned quickly how to upload their recordings onto their Kidblogs!  And as if that wasn't magical enough, the real magic is happening tonight! My computer email is dinging off the hook as the kids (and parents) go in and listen to each other's recordings! They are leaving the sweetest comments for each other! What a great way to reinforce the curriculum. Not only will they probably remember the facts THEY recorded about weathering and erosion, they are listening to each other and picking up some things they may not have caught while watching the movie!

I'm so proud and psyched! Please check them out and leave some comments, they'd be thrilled.
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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Why My Kids Blog

by Kim Collazo
It's hard to believe we have completed 3 weeks of school already! I am so thankful for the group of kids I have this year. After looping for two years with my last group, and missing them dearly, I was afraid this year would be difficult. Not to worry! I have the best group of 28 dynamos a teacher could ask for!

We began blogging early! For one thing it allows my most introverted student to express him/herself and, I have found, it allows me to get to know my students in a way nothing else can! Plus, they LOVE it! They love writing new blog posts AND they love commenting on each other's. I recently received the following email from one of my student's mothers and she gave me permission to share it here. It gave me goosebumps and made my day. If your students are not blogging yet, don't wait another day to get them started! Please feel free to visit and leave comments on ours HERE!
"I wanted to share with you a cool experience I just had with James.
The boys and I went to the public library to return and check out new books.  James picked out a Hardy Boy title he said this boy had recommended.  Turns out the boy is a child who commented on a Hardy Boy post James made on KidBlog.  He said he wanted to read this book so they could "talk" about it.
Awesome.
Thanks for all you do,
Jane"
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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Why the Cove LOVES LiveBinders!

by Kim Collazo
My kids have been doing some amazing things during our first full week of school! There are many blog posts coming to share what we've been up to, so stay tuned!  One of my favorites from the week has occurred thanks to the dedicated work of the ladies behind the creation of LiveBinders!  Here is how we are using these digital online 3-ring binders at Collazo Cove:

  • I asked permission from the creators of LiveBinders AND got written permission from parents for my students, who are 5th graders, to create their own accounts.  After registering on the site, they have each created a private binder that will be used as their Digital Portfolio this year.  They all set the same "Access Word" to keep the binders private, but this allows me to access them as well as parents.  They each sent me the link to their Digital Portfolio Binder today through Edmodo. Nice!



  • I have decided to create several independent exploration activities each week for whatever Science Unit we are studying at the time. These activities will be due by the end of the week, and accompany many hands-on inquiry labs we'll be doing. Since my kids are in a true 1:1 program, they can work on many of these activities in the evenings if they'd like. The LiveBinder format is perfect for organizing the sites, games, and activities into week-long chunks of cool and interactive learning!  You can view this week"s Becoming Scientists Binder HERE.



  • My favorite of all, are our Independent Reading Binders. My language arts program incorporates Reader's Workshop. One of the requirements for each independent book my kids read is to create or add to a LiveBinder that expands the joy of reading the book. I created a class account (all the kids know our class username and password) where the kids create the Binders for their books. When we found out last week that we could all (29 of us) be in there at once creating a unique Binder, I literally jumped up and down clapping!  The kids thought I was crazy, but I know you 1:1 teachers out there understand the joy that comes with that! The kids learned how to search for kid-friendly websites that others might like to visit related to their book/topic of their book.  They learned how to create a new tab for each fun activity they found to expand the book. Today they worked on getting a picture of the book cover on the front of the Binder, as well as add an introductory tab which will include their name and which tabs they are responsible for adding to the Binder.  This will allow me to see who is adding tabs to the Binders so they can receive credit for their work.  Now the best part!  The kids will now be creating QR codes that will link back to the book's binder, They will print out and tape the QR codes into the backs of the books for other kids to find and explore!  They are so excited and I'm speechless about how well this is going!!  I've embedded our class shelf on our website, so you can check them out HERE without the QR codes!  Enjoy!  And remember, they are a work in progress, and may change often!!


So, here's a BIG SHOUTOUT to Tina and Barbara at @livebinders for the wonderful work they have done to give us such a fantastic educational tool!



[caption id="attachment_558" align="aligncenter" width="191" caption="LiveBinders.com"][/caption]

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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Great Beginnings!

by Kim Collazo
Today was the first day of the 2011-12 school year, and I was greeted with 28 anxious and intelligent 5th graders.

We started off the day by creating various items to place in our Time Capsule.  These items included a paragraph about their summer in their best handwriting (they're always amazed at how much their handwriting changes in a year), a tracing of their hand, a colored self portrait, and a questionnaire about their "favorites".  We sealed them up in plastic bags, packed them in a box, and I "buried" it in the back of a large cabinet in our room.

We then took a tour of our class website, which is the guiding hub of our classroom.  Linked on the site, I opened a Powerpoint which led us on a tour of the classroom and various procedures. Then it was on to the "Serious 17"!  Ron Clark would be proud.  After reading his new book this summer, The End of Molasses Classes, and re-reading, The Essential 55, I decided to choose 17 non-negotiable behaviors that would be required for success in our room.  After a lively class discussion about them (they are all posted above our front board), the kids finally got their laptops.  We are a 1:1 county, and this group of kids first got their individual netbooks in the spring of last year.  I was anxious to see how tech savvy they were.

To assimilate the rules into their thinking, they were asked to create a PowerPoint with 3 slides.  Each slide was to contain one of the 17 rules they thought was most important, a reason why it was most important, and a clip art picture that would demonstrate the rule.  I know creating a PowerPoint is not a great measure of "tech-savvy-ness", but these kids have not had much experience with the online tools my previous class used daily, so it was a good starting point.  They LOVED it, as supported by the comments on their first blog posts.

To end the day (which went extremely quickly) I introduced them to Kidblog which we will use often throughout our year together.  They were very excited to create their first blog post! We found out that evening however, that Internet Explorer (which had been this group's browser of choice) does NOT play nicely with the new Windows 7 that was included on the new image installed over the summer.  Oh well, they were great sports, and re-blogged the following day.  You can read their first posts HERE (they'd love comments if you have an extra minute!)

What a GREAT first day!

 
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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Baby QR Code Steps Toward Independence

by Kim Collazo
I've decided one way I'd like to start integrating QR codes into my classroom is in my math class.  I have chosen to "flip" my classroom this year so my students will be watching the lesson at home each night.  When they return the next day, one of their math centers will be to practice using their new skills with problems in our math book.  In order to move toward giving them more independence over analyzing their work, I want them to self-correct their problems and comment/question any they miss.  Here's where the QR codes will come in. 

After completing their work they bring it to me to initial and I will give them a sheet with a big QR code.  When they return to their laptop, they will use the fantastic and easy to use online QR code reader at http://miniqr.com/reader to read the QR code.  This will take them to a Google Doc that contains the PDFs of the answers keys (I've made the Doc private only to those who have the link so I am not breaking copyright concerning our math materials).

To get to this point took a few steps, but once I got going I was able to put together a binder of QR codes for my entire first unit in 20 minutes.  Here's what I did:

  1. Open the Teacher's Edition Math book on the disc that came with our Math series materials (the online version wouldn't allow the print command).

  2. Navigate to the pages the students will be doing, click the Print icon that is part of the disc formatted pages, and choose Adobe PDF instead of the printer.  This converts the pages you want to PDF's, which I saved in a file.

  3. Merge the two PDF documents so they are together (I use Gios PDF Splitter and Merger). Save to the file.

  4. Upload the new merged PDF to Google Docs.

  5. In the SHARE settings of Google Docs, click the Private only to those who have the link.

  6. Copy and Paste link of the new doc into http://qrcode.kaywa.com which will create the QR code.

  7. Copy and Paste the QR code onto a Word Document with the heading of the Lesson, Print several copies, and put in my notebook, ready to give to the kids!


Went smoothly once I got it going!  Can't wait to see how it works with the kids soon!  I know there's probably an easier way, but this works for now!

 
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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Labels: | 0 comments

Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Labels: | 0 comments

Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Labels: | 0 comments

Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

by Kim Collazo

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Labels: | 0 comments
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