admin

26
Sep
2010

Real Life Applications

Okay.
The first few weeks of school have taken over my life. No surprise.
I am still trying to find a balance, but in the meantime…..
 
I came across this website through my Twitter network. Mathalicious tries to address the never-ending question of “but when are we ever going to need this?”. As teachers of mathematics, we know that there are many parts of the math curriculum that are easy to connect to the outside world. Unfortunately, there are other parts where we struggle to explain to students when the average adult would ever need that particular information. Mathalicious strives to take math curriculum subjects and connect them to the world in which our students live.
 
Upon entering the Mathalicious site, the first step is to choose a particular strand of the math curriculum. You are then taken to a series of activities that support that strand, each presented in a slideshow view. Under the slideshow are additional resources for the user, including the big ideas of the lesson, essential questions, and potential performance and assessment tasks.
 
Worth a few moments of your time.
Posted by admin in Math, 0 comments
13
Aug
2010

Advise the Advisor

I have been appointed one of the middle school student council advisors for the coming year, and I have been looking for resources to support this endeavor. So far, this is what I have come up with:

1) Canadian Student Leadership Association

Here you can find various publications to purchase online, links, videos, lists of speakers, fundraising links, among other things. My favourite part of this site was the Idea Share Shop on the resources page.

This was a good starting place for me, but I was looking for handouts/booklets that I could access right away. There were a few resources that came up from different countries, such as:

2) Student Council Manual for Secondary Schools – Although I was looking for middle school resources, this manual had information about the function and structure of student council, the election process, planning meetings, and communication. There is some data specific to their school, but there is still relevant information. (Update – link no longer active.)

3) Second Levels Student Council Resource Pack – This resource is from Ireland. It goes through the role of student council, how to set up a student council, structures, elections, operation, communication, and some activity ideas. Pretty good.

Surprisingly enough, these were the best resources that I found, despite searching the internet for over an hour. I can’t believe that is all that is available online. If you know of any better resources, I would love to hear about them. Direct message me on twitter.

Posted by admin in General Education, 0 comments
27
Jul
2010

A Smart Educator

I have been very good at using my Smartboard to enhance my curriculum with interative websites, but I feel as if I could be doing more with the Notebook software. So I have been searching the internet for Notebook files that have already been created, that I can either use as is or make slight modificaitons in order to fit my needs. So far, this is what I have found:

1. Smart Educator Resources

This is usually the first place that I check. There are a few different ways to search. You can go into the SmartExchange, where you can search for lessons by keyword, grade, or subject. You can also search the lesson activities by country and related curriculum expectations.

2. Scholastic’s Interactive Whiteboard Lessons Page

Another set of Notebook collections.

3. Mathgains

From the Edugains website – they have added TIPS interactive whiteboard lessons. There aren’t many, but they have to start somewhere…..

4. There are also a series of blogs that you can find regarding Smartboard use. Here are a few to start you off….

Teachers Love SmartBoards

SmartBoard Revolution

Posted by admin in Using Tech, 0 comments
14
Jul
2010

A Starting Point

In my quest to engage students and encourage them to think creatively and with inquiring minds, I have spent many hours this week reading blogs, internet sites, and tweets and listening to various TED talks. So far, these are my faves, in no particular order:
 
This site has extensive resources for K-12 classes with a focus on engineering, or how humans have designed our world. You can search by individual lesson, activities, or entire units. The plans are detailed, providing learning objectives, a materials list, background information for teachers, step-by-step procedures, and extension activities. Assessment ideas and worksheets are also given. All of these things are provided free of charge.
 
This site focuses on developing rich mathematics tasks. Once again, all resources are provided free of charge. It is based in the UK, so check out the key stage/age equivalencies on the help page. They put out a monthly publication with new tasks, or you can search the archives in the “For Teachers” section.
 
3. Sir Ken Robinson on TED talks
Humorous and thought provoking, he speaks about creativity, or lack of it, in educational settings.
 
4. Dan Meyer on TED talks
Asks us to consider a new perspective on teaching math – check out his blog when you are done.
Posted by admin in General Education, General Science, Math, 0 comments