Fred Koch / K-8 Technology Coach

Since I missed the opportunity to post some Delicious highlights in November, this month’s list runs a little long. But I promise you that they are all great finds – with lots of iPad resources and recommendations.

Remember you can find the links to these bookmarks and more at delicious.com/fredkoch.

Here are my top 10 picks (of 100+ bookmarks) since October 4:

October 5 | StarBoard Video Tutorials
10 video tutorials for StarBoard Software 9.2 plus “11 new Features” video for Version 9.3.

October 19 | Digital Storytelling Resources
Very comprehensive list from Dr. Alec Couros.

November 2 | Ten Steps to Transforming Past Lessons for 21st Century Learners
“Many times these perennial gems can be reinvented, mixed, and transformed to bring about a new 21st century lesson that will be even more engaging and applicable to today’s digital learner.”

November 7 | 65+ iPad Apps Perfect for Elementary School
From Edudemic.

November 7 | 100 iPad Apps Perfect for Middle School
Second in a series from Edudemic.

November 22 | Digital Storytelling with the iPad
“This site will help guide you in what you need for success in the iPad Digital Storytelling classroom.”

November 22 | The Eyeballing Game
“This interactive was intended for woodworkers but works very well in Geometry class. The activity works by showing you a series of geometric figures that need to be adjusted a bit to make them correct.”

November 23 | Using iPads in the Classroom
How to use the iPads to help students learn better and help teachers teach better – lots of great app recommendations, too. An Edutopia article.

November 24 | World Topographic Map
Google Maps are cool, but I found this map extremely easy to use to find longitude/latitude, distance and area.

December 14 – Maths – Shape, space & measures
Great math review for students age 7-11 from BBC Learning. Very interactive and fun! Be sure to check out the other subject areas, too.

Image Source:
http://www.yaseen.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/0a492_20110423-89851-apple-ipad-child-500×332.jpg

It has been just about a week since I shared my short presentation with my fellow educators at Sauganash School in Chicago. Since Delicious was one of the two tools I shared, I want to give you an update of bookmarks that I have added to my account since last Wednesday.

Of the 24 new bookmarks, here are 8 which demonstrate the range of sites, articles and tools that have been collected.

30 Sep 2011 | MomsWithApps.com – great source for finding recommended apps (iPad and more…)

30 Sep 2011 | 10 Awesome Apps for Learning about Music, Nature, History and Math

03 Oct 2011 | Minigroup – simple sharing for groups

04 Oct 2011 | Shapescape – a new geometry game for grades 1-6

04 Oct 2011 | Web Tools That Every Educator Should Have in the Bag

04 Oct 2011 | Skype in the Classroom – with new improvements for global communication

04 Oct 2011 | 40 Amazing iPad Apps for the Learning Disabled

04 Oct 2011 | Brilliant Implementation of the iPad – from November Learning

To view all 24 new additions, click here.

One More Thing
I did add another great article to the Teachers Reading Corner on our Sauganash workshop page. Check out Not Just The Facts, Ma’am to read Karl Fisch’s recount of a recent school assignment his daughter brought home…

Image Source: www.fiendishlyclever.com

Today Lucy Gray tweeted that she subscribed to AVENUEdotORG’s YouTube channel. Since I was not familiar with the organization and since I greatly respect Lucy’s sensibilities, I decided to check it out.

IT Chapter 1: The 21st Century Library was so good, I had to watch it twice. And since my attention span today is unusually short, the 5:19 video was just about all I could handle. I am so glad I took the time.

About half way through the presenter spoke about how we have sacred notions that we hold on to – like the one that says there is a library in the school. At that point, I said to myself, “Wait a second, Mister…” But he quickly turned my head around with the idea that this notion might not be true anymore and that the school of the future, or the school of the present, could be better described as “a school within a library.”

At that point I got it. Since the school is digitally networked and set up with all the tools and resources, he contends the “library” will be ubiquitous. But hopefully not as quiet.

What are your thoughts?

Image Source: http://jimsmuse.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/library-assistant/

We all get busy with all the important (and unimportant) things we have to do in our lives as teachers, I get that. But I find it hard to believe that my last “Delicious Highlights” post was January 12.

I follow others in my PLN (personal learning network) who share their favorite sites and links weekly – but my goal was not as ambitious. Once a month was my hope. And here we are three and a half months later…

That being said, I am excited to share 10 of my favorite links from over 90 of my Delicious bookmarks since 1.12.11.

Summer Resources for Continued Success (April 25) – an amazing list of fun and educational online destinations for teachers and students recommended by Rushton Hurley.

Science of Everyday Life (April 25) – a fabulous site from Discovery Education, with strategy games for students, authentic resources for teachers and activities for families. Recommended by TeachersFirst.com.

Knoword (April 25) – is a fun and challenging vocabulary game where the definition and first letter of the word is provided as a prompt, and you type in the rest of the word. Very addicting…

Primary Preoccupation / Thoughts of a First Grade Teacher (April 16) – whenever early primary teachers ask me for an example of teachers using 21st century skills with young children, I always point them to Kathy Cassidy, a first grade teacher from Canada. This is her blog.

HOTTS /Higher Order Thinking Technology Skills (April 16) – by Kevin Creutz, an assistant principal. “Examining the verbs and activities in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy can help our classrooms become student-centered, 21st century learning environments.”

Flubaroo (April 9) – a Google Docs script that lets you create self-grading quizes! Save time by letting technology work for you.

The Educators PLN / The Personal Learning Network for Educators Video Page (March 28) – get connected with other educators and become that “model learner” you need to be for your students. Don’t miss the Alan November video from the TEDxNYED conference on March 5, 2011.

18 Best Sites to Download Free Audio Books (March 20) – the title says it all…

Joliprint (February 21) – the best application I have found for printing out web pages. Joliprint creates a cleanly formatted pdf document for you to download and print. A quick, easy and FREE solution.

53 (and counting) Interesting Ways to Use an iPad in the Classroom (January 13) – if you have been wondering how the iPad might be useful in a classroom setting, check out this Google Docs presentation by Tom Barrett.

Enjoy! And please remember to share your experiences with these and other great resources with your fellow teachers and staff.

Image Attribution:

http://nurturingyoursuccessblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/busy3.jpg

Since April is National Poetry Month, it is only appropriate to feature a couple of student projects.

One of my favorite authors of poetry for children is Bill Buczinsky. Bill is very well-known around Chicago and the Midwest area for his engaging school residencies and performances. Bill is poet through and through but his magic comes to life as he inspires students – often the reluctant writers – to discover their own voice as writers. The empowerment students feel about themselves as writers is the long lasting gift he leaves the students.

During one of Bill’s recent visits to our school district, we thought it would be fun to create a showcase website and spotlight some of the fabulous work generated by our students. The tough part was choosing which poems to feature because there were plenty of inspiring, well-written, and deeply felt poems to choose from. We finally decided to share one poem from each fourth grade class from each of our elementary schools.

Students also decided that it they should interview Bill. You will find their interview on the Videos page.  Plus we captured the ending of “Jump” – one of Bill’s most requested poems. You will see from that short video clip that poetry is an active, participatory activity when Bill Buczinsky comes to your school.

Click here to go directly to the website we created to spotlight the student poetry inspired by Bill’s recent visit.

Haikus in 4th Grade
Mrs. Rielly’s fourth grade Explore language arts students recently completed a haiku project which we created using Pixie2, the fabulously creative multimedia authoring tool. These students are highly motivated and so it is always a pleasure to work with them.

The haiku, with its inherent form and structure, provided students with a formidable challenge. Some students chose to write their haiku first, then find an image to help tell the story, others found their image first, then composed their verse inspired by the image.

Click here to directly to the Haikus in 4th Grade project.

Enjoy!

For some reason I started to think about song titles as I began to write this post about Doug Johnson’s review of The Passion-Driven Classroom, a new book by Angela Maiers and Amy Sandvold.

Quite a few song titles came to mind as possible titles to this post: “What’s Love Got To Do With It?,” “What’s Goin’ On?” and, of course, “Where Is The Love?” All three seem to be great questions as we think about the idea of a passion-driven classroom.

It seems counter intuitive, certainly counter productive and extremely sad to even entertain the thought of a passion deprived classroom. But I am afraid to admit that they do exist.

Is it because passion is not a prescribed part of the curriculum? Really? Is it something that needs to be mandated for teachers to employ? God, I hope not…

Johnson gives a glowing review of The Passion-Driven Classroom – A Framework for Teaching and Learning. Others including Will Richardson (as far back as 2006, and again in 2007) have also written eloquently and passionately (pun intended) about the power of passion in teaching and learning.

In his review, Johnson states, “Research shows that most educators prefer compliance to passion in our kids despite teachers’ protests to the contrary. At the same time there is growing recognition that today’s students need to demonstrate creativity, innovation and flexibility – anti-compliance traits.”

Johnson also points out that The Passion-Driven Classroom is not merely another one of those books which spews out lofty ideas without any practical application. “The real strength of this book lies in the very concrete and practical suggestions for putting the passion-driven classroom theory into practice. Lessons, activities and classroom management techniques move this book from the ivory tower into the real classroom.”

And he concludes with, “We’ve all known kids who will never be reached through the brain, only through the heart.”

The more time I spend in schools and the more I reflect about how we can improve the learning environment for students, the more I come away knowing that passion is a key element often missing in our classrooms. Passion is essential for great teaching and it is vital for learning. Just imagine the consequence of a passionless classroom. How far will students get without their own passion and the “love of learning” and “lifelong learning” we hear so much about?

As I think about it, what would it really cost to embed more passion into the classroom? Nothing but investment of the teacher’s self. And what might the pay off be? Well, we might have students who enjoy coming to school a little bit more and teachers who do more than dutifully follow a scripted curriculum, hold student compliance in high regard and reinforce the idea in students that the classroom belongs to the teacher.

Johnson’s call to action is, “Get the book, read it and apply it. You can thank me later for the recommendation.”

I ordered the book today. I can’t wait to read it and I’ll thank him now rather than later.