Professional Development Web Resources

Fellow teachers and educators,
I invite you to check out my list of resources for professional growth and development. I have compiled a list of 11 sites, including blogs, newsletters, and discussion forums that revolve around keeping in touch with the current strategies for educators. They offer a wide range of resources for you and your classroom. Many involve integrating technology into lessons. I hope you find them useful. Click here for my direct link.

Digital Posters

The website edu.gloster is a website that allows you to create a visually appealing, interactive poster. You can include text, pictures, clipart, and movies. It is a little like a scrapbooking software, with interactive tools. You are able to change the look and feel of your glog to fit whatever subject or topic you are wanting to explore.

I chose to base my glog on reading comprehension. In 4th grade, there is a shift in learning to read to  understanding what you read. I thought this would be a visually appealing way to introduce reading during the first weeks of school. I included a video that helps with comprehension strategies, a word cloud with other strategies we would focus on throughout the year, as well as a hyperlink to a page we use throughout the year to practice reading.

Click here to view my digital poster.

Internet Search Tools

The following are a list of my favorite kid-friendly websites. Click on the title to be taken to the website.

Scholastic Magazines

This website has articles written by kids as well as adult authors. It is a great kid's news website. The articles are written in a way that kids can understand. They can search for articles or catch up on the latest news in the nation or world. However, it may be overwhelming for kids to navigate this site. I think there would need to be a lot of teaching to help kids find their way around the site. 

Search Engine for Kids

This site searches for kid-friendly websites based on the subject. This website will bring up a variety of subjects that kids can research, such as science, language arts, reading, and social studies. Once the student has selected a subject, they will be redirected a a page that has several different websites that the students can explore. I could see using this in my classroom for a variety of things. Kids need to have a safe place to explore different topics and websites. I feel this is a great site for that. The drawback is, I feel some kids would use only the game sites and not explore the other options.

Kids Click

This website was designed by librarians for students to search for books for specific topics. I have used this website in my own classroom. The students use this site to search for a famous person to do a research project on. As with the some of the other sites, I feel this is not an especially easy website for kids to use independently at the younger levels. You would need to walk through how to use the website carefully. It is easy to get lost in it.

Fact Monster

Kids can use this website to do research for papers or projects. It has a dictionary link, a homework link for help on homework, games and quizzes, and more. This would be a good tool for kids to do research on a specific topic to write a paper. I can see using it the classroom for kids to find extra information and help. The drawback is there are advertisements on the side. They are distracting and often not very kid-friendly. 

Kid's National Geographic

Designed with kids in mind, this site allows kids to explore articles, games, and fun facts about things from animals, world, and nature. It allows kids to search for key words, from there it will bring up articles, games, and even coloring pages. It gives you the option of "joining". However, even without joining you can search many things. It is free to join, and once you do, you are able to save things to find later. It is a great tool for teachers and kids alike.

Educational Websites

I compiled a list of some of my favorite websites that I use in my classroom. Some are are for educators and parents, while the others are for the kids in my class. I use the teacher websites almost on a daily bases to enhance my lessons and find engaging activities for the students in my class. Parents are able to use there sites to better help their students, as well as check on their progress. The student websites are both fun and educational. Most of the sites I list for students are for younger grades, since I teach 4th grade, however some could be used in upper levels as well. As a bonus, most are linked to common core standards. I hope you find these sites useful in your own classrooms.

Inference You Tube Playlist

A You Tube playlist is a way to organize several videos that you would like to use to introduce a concept, enhance a lesson, or study as class. It allows you to save them all under one heading which makes organization of the videos easy. Instead of having to search for each video separately, you can keep them all under the heading of what ever concept you are using them for. I think this is a great way of introducing concepts in a classroom. Kids are so much more engaged when you can use a variety of ways to demonstrate something, especially when it is using video. I like to use funny clips, or clips they are familiar with, and then have them think about them in a different way.

I chose to show commercials as a way of introducing inference. When kids read, watch television, socialize, and almost any other activity, they need to infer. It is a skill that kids need. It is vital for reading comprehension, but also helps in social settings as well. The commercials I chose do not explain exactly what is happening. You have to make an educated guess based on what the commercial shows you, as well as your background knowledge. I invite you to watch the three short clips I chose. Can you infer what is happening?

Animoto Photo Story

Photo stories can be used to introduce a series of pictures for a variety of purposes. These could include introducing a topic by showing a "story", showing multiple examples of content or class work, and engaging students in learning a specific lesson. It could also be used by students to help create an introduction to a project or tell a story through a series of pictures.

The story that I have created goes along with 4th grade Idaho History. The first several slides show different landforms in Idaho. These were taken by me, and I feel that because of this, it would engage students even more, since I have stories with each picture. The second set of slides show what students can expect to see at our field trip to a Mountain Man Rendezvous. Lastly, I show some examples of previous Idaho History projects done by students in years past. I would use this after introducing Idaho History as a subject we will be studying. I would hope that it would excite students and bring about questions and curiosity about our state. I have a great love of Idaho, and I hope this story portrays that and encourages that same love in others.

Assistive Technology

When I looked into the assistive technology, I was blown away to find how many things are considered “technology”. I had a very limited idea of what constituted technology. I think it is vital, as teachers, that we are aware of the many things available to students with disabilities. I have found that some of the adaptations I make for those students who are disabled are good for the entire class as well. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, if you will. I researched an audio system that can be installed within the classroom so that the teacher’s natural voice can be heard anywhere in the room. So the student sitting in the back can hear as clearly as the student sitting right next to the teacher. 

The particular audio system I looked into was by Lightspeed. The selling point of this product is that teachers have the ability to address the whole class, wherever they are standing. The microphones are wireless, which gives teachers mobility to freely walk around the room. They are easy to use and charge. They also come with a handheld microphone that students could use for reading aloud to the class or presentations. Many students speak quietly and are hard to hear. The common core standards state that students need to be able to engage effectively in range of collaborative discussions. With the pass around microphone, they are able to be heard by all the students. I could use this in my room in discussions to teach students that whoever has the microphone has the floor and others need to listen respectfully to their comment.