Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Lab Workout #5

Teachers need to use technology wisely in their classrooms. It should not be about bells and whistles; if technology is distracting then it certainly is not helping students to learn or grow. When using technology, we need to make sure it is either Effective, Efficient, or Enhancing our lesson.

Here are three tools that I found to be useful and which "E" they fall under:

1. http://www.educatorresourcecenter.org/view_lesson.aspx?lesson_plan_id=417
I found this lesson plan through the Smithsonian's educational site. It includes descriptions of standards that it meets, subject categories it falls under, additional resources, and how-to's. This is an example of Efficiency through technology. This offers quick access to thorough and in-depth knowledgeable resources.

2. http://www.carolhurst.com/subjects/history/livinghistory.html
Bring history to life in the classroom! This offers an idea of how to instill a curiosity about history in students. This is an example of Enhancement, because first students learn in-depth about a certain time period, place, and event, then use role-play to explore life had they been alive at that time.

3. http://www.easytestmaker.com/default.aspx
This easy test maker site allows teachers to Efficiently create tests and quizzes. This saves time on formatting and looks more professional.

Lab Workout #4 for Lab 9-22

Here are some useful sites for educational resources.

1. http://www.pacificnet.net/~mandel/EducationalResources.html
This website may or may not be operated on a small-time level; it is less professional than many other sources for educational tools. However, while clicking around on the links, I stumbled across all kinds of categories of resources, from Language Arts links to Early Elementary links, etc. Most of these are personal sites of teachers and contain useful activities they have experienced and are tried and true in their own classrooms. This site presents what real-life teachers working with children rely on in order to be effective.

2. http://www.proteacher.com/
This site is a community directory for teacher resources that includes links to teachers' blogs...ideas for lesson plans...classroom activities...games...etc. Relevant for Elementary teachers grades PreK-8th.

3. http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/
This is the Smithsonian's educational site. Provides lesson plans that you can search by topic, age group, subject, etc. Amazing! Along with the lesson plan, you can click on links to get to additional related resources, such as books to use, coloring pages.....etc.