Lately I’ve been asked many questions by educators about tools that can be used for pedagogical documentation - particularly Kindergarten Teams. Well, it just so happens that a friend and mentor of mine, Dr. Lyn Vause of the Ontario Elementary Catholic Teachers’ Association, Professional Development Dept., brought this really simple app to my attention. Introducing Three Ring I’ve been testing it out for about 3 weeks now and have yet to find anything that would stop a teacher from successfully implementing its use in the classroom. The app is available for iOS and Android as well as online here: http://threering.com/ Download the free app, create a class and setup your students.. That’s all there is to it. Teachers and students have the option to tag their work with keywords to make events easy to find. Check out the quick start-up demonstration below.  

Tried, Tested and True Apps for Kindergartners! Looking for apps to integrate into your FDK classroom? Think about your purpose and see if any of these will do the trick. Carabache Kids Certified! Some are free and some are paid, so be sure to check. All of the paid ones featured here are worth every penny and then some. Exploration, Practice & Immersion Exploration, Practice & Immersion Exploration, Practice & Immersion Exploration, Practice & Immersion Exploration, Fine Motor & Problem Solving Creativity, Story-Telling Read Aloud Exploration, Practice & Immersion Exploration, Fine Motor & Problem Solving Exploration, Fine Motor & Problem Solving Read Aloud Read Aloud Exploration, Fine Motor, Problem Solving & Creativity Pedagogical Documentation Pedagogical Documentation Exploration, Practice & Immersion    

 Having had to stand in front of thousands of educators and educational leaders over the last year, I’ve endured my share of skepticism and criticism about true integration of technology in the classroom. I use ‘true‘ as it relates particularly to Dr. Ruben Puentedura’s model for Technology Integration - SAMR. Too often, colleagues in the profession have satisfied themselves with a very basic use of technology - that of a mere SUBSTITUTION. Digitizing a text book or putting a test online is not really what we’re talking about here. With my arsenal of rebuttals depleted, I finally came to the conclusion that many of my adversaries had utterly dismissed the notion of creating a plan for true integration. I realized quickly that I had to shift my focus from actual use to planning for use! Teachers, Principals, Vice-Principals and Superintendents - here is why you are doomed to fail if you have no plan. 1. A Contract Between You and Thyself - A Vision Let’s face the well known fact that if it’s not in writing we hold an idea or promise to no account. The first step to any successful change begins with a visualization of what the learning activity will look like. This visualization can only be achieved when it has been articulated, in word or picture or recording. The plan is the first step towards visualizing what a successful lesson will look like from beginning to end. Without this contract - we let ourselves off the hook if we don’t get around to the lesson because it becomes too intimidating. Visualization is the true means to success. 2. Guaranteeing More Than Substitution: If your plans are older than 3 years then they are already outdated. The plain fact is that most tenured educators and educational leaders are doing what they’ve always been doing. Unless you examine your plans, you will never really find opportunities to move them along a spectrum of evolution. A lesson from 1990 that sits on Power Point instead of an overhead is really a poor excuse for a 21st Century Lesson. The existence of a plan ensures a deeper examination of engagement and results attained by true integration - and a move towards evolution.  3. An Opportunity to Improve Even if the plan disintegrates into a furious ball of chaos (which it may…) it still provides a backbone from which to add new approaches and new ideas. No plan - no real new opportunities. I know it’s not revolutionary, but like I used to say to the kids in my swim classes about practice - it’s not flashy - but it works.

Catholic and non-Catholic alike can take great value from the Ontario Catholic Graduate Expectations Educators globe-wide have set out to find a road map for the 21st century, regardless of being almost 15 years in. Whether you are a parent, educator or business, you are looking for quality people that will execute quality work. But on the journey to execution of this great work it’s the way we treat people,  the relationship and the long-lasting, sustainable partnerships that make all the difference. Great work and its effect is rooted in relationships. Students of the Catholic school system here in Ontario Canada have been exposed to the Ontario Catholic Graduate Expectations for well over a decade and the effect of these expectations have been measured in the latest study conducted by the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.  Commissioned by the Institute for Catholic Education, the study provides data that sustains the need to continue promoting the OCGE’s.   The expectations have been crafted in such a beautiful way that it doesn’t take much to be circumspect about how you could apply them the 21st-century living. Rooted in Christ’s teachings, they are easily interpreted and so overarching that people of all faiths and denominations can reflect on their application with ease. All around the world there are instances of the perfect skill set for 21st century learners, but take a look at the Ontario Catholic Graduate Expectations and you will come to realize that we’ve been sitting on the perfect roadmap for close to a decade. A roadmap that takes us through the exact quality of a person that we want to contribute ideas to, share opinions with, innovate for and form a sustainable bond with 21st-century society.   In Ontario, the Institute for Catholic Education governs the CGE’s. The original documents may be viewed here. *** 1. The Discerning Believer Believe it or not, we as Catholics are encouraged to reflect, to question and to reform our beliefs and our faith. But in doing so, we are called into action, which is the key element of discernment. Only when we take action for a just cause can we call ourselves ‘Discerning Believers’. Reflection without action is not discernment, it is simply reflection. One could compare it to a social media revolution that takes no hold in the physical world. Until there are tangible, measurable results that come from a course of action, there can be no real change.  2. The Effective Communicator The entire world of education agrees that the skill of Communication is one that the graduate of 2030 and beyond will need to master in order to be a contributor to society. Looking at the graphic, you will notice that the ears are quite exaggerated to show how important a role listening plays in communication. Now more than ever, we need people who are honest and clear about their ideas, and who integrate their faith in the use of arts, media and technology. 3. The Creative and Holistic Thinker I’m not entirely sure this one needs to much explanation. Creativity always tops the list of needed skills for 2030 and beyond. It’s when we add the beauty of holistic thinking that we solve problems in an innovative and responsible way. This thinker cannot be trapped within one subject area - this thinker longs to integrate all parts of the whole. 4. A Self-Directed, Responsible, Life-Long Learner Yet another skill that educators have identified to guide our future into 2030 and beyond. Leadership, innovation, initiative, flexibility and adaptability. This skill helps develop confidence, respect and dignity for one’s self and others. This skill resides in those who constantly self-reflect, self-evaluate and make changes to improve. Our future depends on this skill more than any other for the sake of balance and a higher standard of living for us all. This is every educator’s dream… 5. The Collaborative Contributor It has become the mantra for all of education to call for our schools to provide more and more opportunities for collaboration. Yet, time and time again they fail to provide the ‘HOW-TO’ of collaboration - especially for the youngest members of our society. What does it mean to be interdependent, to think critically and to not only work to your own potential but to help those around you reach theirs? There must be respect and appreciation for originality and integrity especially in the 21st Century. Contributions made to the growth of the team are just as important to the growth of the project. 6. A Caring Family Member It would be very hard to argue that the family structure is under immense pressure to stay together. Words like compassion and love are only effective when they are bound by respect - not the bottom dollar as so many clever marketing campaigns will have us believe. Intimacy and love are bound to value and honour within the family context. Unity, strength and honour bind the family together and that strength feeds the community in the light of our God-given gifts. What a beautiful and critically important principle. 7. A Responsible Citizen When we look at some of the horrible things that streak across the web, it’s hard not to panic. Cyber-bullying, harassment, defamation and degradation can all be weakened, if not eliminated if we embrace the basic principles of accountability, equality, democracy, peace and justice. The responsible citizen in our Catholic view, should find it difficult to walk away when there is someone in need, seeks and grants forgiveness but also respects and affirms diversity of our world’s people and cultures. This is all done in the formation of Catholic traditions. I realize that it may not be ‘trendy’ to use faith as a TOP 10 article but let me tell you something - if it’s right, it’s right and if it works, it works.  No system is perfect, but this one has such beauty and a positive outlook that is hard to overlook.  

Technology Tool Box for Beginning Teachers (Actually… all teachers!)  

The 4 Culprits of Weak Online Courses: Why All Online Courses Are Not Created Equal You deserve better. You pay big bucks to take an online course so why shouldn’t you expect quality? Having designed a very successful template for a provider of Additional Qualifications courses in Ontario - it’s time for you to be more discerning about where you take your AQ’s. There is no shortage of teachers taking online courses and one can easily argue that the teaching profession has adopted the online format for continuing education at a respectable pace.  The online course however is another matter. Laborious content, multiple clicks, poor navigation, broken links and outdated information plague most online content out there.  Now don’t get me wrong, the MOOCs are intensely groomed by their curators and I have nothing but positive reviews for most but when it comes to professional development provided by colleges and universities, I have seen little evidence of an online course format that has evolved with the times. Unfortunately you cannot climb a pay grid with a MOOC period. Culprit #1 - PDF’s and Word Docs If your online course content is based on PDF’s or Word docs then you’ve already paid too much.  The diversity of the web is lost in such format not because you cannot hyperlink and embed within such formats (which of course you can), but because the course writer’s imagination is still linked to the limits of document files instead of a dynamic engagement with everything the web can offer - from external links, to video conferencing, to embed codes, to interactive objects, to sounds, to engaging discussion boards, to blogs and even simply making the course accessible to the blind/low vision or deaf and hard of hearing. Culprit #2 - Too Much Navigation! If your online course requires you to read content then navigate via the top menu to another area of the course to submit work or participate in a discussion, then precious time and mental energy is wasted on navigation. ALL LMS’s are capable of delivering every aspect of a course topic or unit on one simple page - with all links embedded within the content.  Culprit #3 - Gangly Discussions Whether you want to admit it or not, the elephant in the room is actually sitting on top of 537 unread discussion posts. You know it, I know it and the entire online world knows it - so why do we continue to produce forums where deep thoughts go to die? Fewer discussions that are more thought provoking and allow for meaningful feedback are crucial. Culprit #4 - Instructor Non-Presence As a professional learning community we should be well aware that online courses are not correspondence/distance learning courses. Instructor presence is the first differentiating feature for a well run and well written online course. The advent of online meeting software and recording software allow for both instructor presence and flexibility to provide anyone who misses out with some form of contact with the instructor. Online courses worth the money have constant instructor presence throughout with plenty of time built in for flexibility to meet. Anthony Carabache is a course writer and instructor for the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association. He is a consultant for the OECTA PD Department for all online course material. OECTA PD has embraced the evolution of online courses, their delivery and quality of material to better the online experience for its registrants. http://www.oecta.on.ca/wps/portal/courses  

Let’s Talk Discussions…c’mon don’t be afraid.. Much of what we do for the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association’s Professional Development Dept. is now centred upon online instructor training and development. As a team we have come to understand that knowing the environment constitutes about 20% of what it takes to deliver a good course experience. We estimate that 20%-30% then resides in the instructor’s knowledge of the content and 50% lies within what we have come to call ‘The BIG 3’ of online learning. This post will discuss the first of the Big 3 - Gangly Discussions. GANGLY Discussions If your course is designed to have meaningful discussions then by all means - let’s make them meaningful. Begin by removing any and all discussion expectations that have participants respond to a minimum # of posts. Go on - trust me on this one - just do it! Make those discussions meaningful and then have a great read! I promise that only good things will come of this! Once you’ve taken that courageous first step, it’s time to look at real issues that flatten our discussions and here they are: A. The Discussion Bandit We all know that participant whose voice is so strong that they become the de facto course instructor. Keep in mind that this participant wants to share and should never be penalized for their zeal, however many often zoom through the entire course posting initial thoughts on every subject matter available. To make the field a fair one try some of these strategies: 1.Opening up discussions as per restrictions; 2.Ask a question that is particular to the course material at the time; 3.Leaving the Discussion visible and not available - this allows participants to view the topic to reflect; 4.Should you implement a rule like: "Please read before your post" or "Post before you read". 5.What really resonated with you? Just one thought - a sentence to break into the subject matter; B. The Gleeful Respondent Most course instructors will have also had a brush with what we endearingly call the ‘Gleeful Respondent’ - a participant who is always too happy to agree with everyone else’s opinions. With either a ‘Ditto’ or ‘Jamie pretty much said what I wanted to say’ response, an instructor is usually challenged to draw some meaningful opinions out of this type of participant. Try some of the strategies below and see if they help: 1.Once in while pipe in - Have you considered? (Use of your expertise); 2.Establishing the expectations at the onset; 3.Make the discussion an opportunity to make a decision not necessarily an opinion; 4.Pose a question that directly relates to their own personal experience. C. The Reflective Thinker The reflective thinker glides in that magical space between the harried march of content consumption and the gangly forest of discussions where someone shares a truly inspiring and thought provoking idea. In such a case, it is absolutely critical that the instructor not only acknowledges the reflection but to also - with permission - expose it to as many of the other participants as possible. Finally - as a course instructor, consider whether or not you accept discussion posts using the full fury of the world wide web. Why on earth do we continue to accept typed responses in an editor capable of so much more? Why not video interviews, Prezi’s, Podcasts etc? There is no reason for an instructor not to open these options up to their participants unless the instructors themselves need support to rekindle their imagination.  That’s what we are here for! To be continued… (Grouping, Voice Responses and Featuring Great Posts in Your Course)

Just in time, just right and just for you! Take control of your own learning and sign up for an OECTA module for the spring! Experience professional development for teachers unlike any other. Click any button below for information or to register.

Unbundled Learning for Education Professionals Below are excerpts of an article that will appear in the @OECTA Magazine that will be published in January 2015. More and more, consumers are demanding the unbundling of preset product packages so why shouldn’t teachers have unbundled professional learning opportunities? Modular AQ’s unbundle full courses and offers them as ‘Just Right, Just in Time and Just for You" packets to all teachers. The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association has always been committed to professional development and in the face of an ever evolving profession, module offerings demonstrate just how incredibly passionate the Association is about respecting its members time, it’s members’ workload, and importantly its members’ professional development needs.  Take a module with OECTA! Feel the difference and learn at your own pace!   Join us: Register or Learn More about OECTA Modules

How a Teacher’s Union is Changing the Game of Online Learning in Ontario These are busy times… and the speed of new technologies, access to information and split-second decision making only make things busier and busier. Whether you are a teacher of 25 years or just newly hired, a young parent with children or an empty-nester, time is a premium and many say the most valuable currency. Despite these demands, when it comes to professional development, some way, somehow teachers always find a way to fit it into an already full day. The drive to continue to learn and apply new information to the classroom has always made teachers life-long learners in every sense of the word, yet Additional Qualifications providers rarely acknowledge the need to mitigate stress and promote the well-being of their teachers… until now. OECTA always seeks to improve the teacher experience which has led us to disrupt the typical AQ pathway by offering Modular AQ’s.  Introducing OECTA Modules for Additional Qualifications or Professional Learning In a world that’s continuously accelerating and pulling us in different directions, teachers in Ontario and all over the world, have been given an option to take full courses in smaller, manageable bites. Understanding that life-balance and well-being are integral to all teachers, OECTA Modules respect time constraints, budgetary concerns and most importantly the need to balance personal and professional life. The teacher can take one fifth of the course, at a time, over a six-week period. Unbundled Learning More and more, consumers are demanding the unbundling of preset product packages so why shouldn’t teachers have unbundled professional learning opportunities? Modular AQ’s unbundle full courses and offers them as ‘Just Right, Just in Time and Just for You" packets to all teachers. In the United States and to a lesser degree in Canada, there is a growing movement towards Massively Open Online Courses or MOOC’s. In fact, MOOC’s have garnered so much attention that studies are being conducted globally to determine how they have disrupted traditional tertiary education. Though the mechanics of the module and the massively open online course are similar, at their core they are very different. Your Needs, Your Choice Modules come accredited by the Ontario College of Teachers. If you take five modules in the same course you will receive accreditation for that one course. In essence, a teacher can choose to complete a course in one session or break the course up over 2 years. Imagine how that releases stress and anxiety on those who wish to continuously develop! OECTA also offers modules that have no bearing on additional qualification status. In fact we have embraced the idea that teachers would like to take professional development courses out of interest and desire for their own learning. In these cases teachers can take a module without worrying about completing the assigned tasks in order be officially credited, rather a certificate of completion would be issued. The Association has always been committed to professional and in the face of an ever evolving profession, and in light of ever changing tides module offerings demonstrate just how incredibly passionate the Association is about respecting its members, it’s members’ workload, and importantly its members’ professional development needs. Take a module with OECTA and feel the difference and learn at your own pace! Join us: http://www.oecta.on.ca/wps/portal/courses

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE # SIGN? This article originally appears in OECTA’s publication @OECTA which can be found here. Have you heard of Rip Van Winkle Syndrome? It gets its name from a short story called "Rip Van Winkle," written by American author Washington Irving and published in 1819. It tells the story of a man who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains of New York, only to wake up 20 years later. Essentially, the man slept through the entire American Revolutionary War and then found himself in a world that was quite alien. Sound familiar? The Hashtag Fast forward to 2015 and consider Twitter - a revolution of sorts, and the most popular social media network on earth. It is hard to believe it has only been around for nine years, and particularly popular in the last five. It was during this incredibly short time that we began losing touch with the # sign, or pound sign, the hardest working of all telephone buttons. This # sign has now evolved into something called the hashtag. Simply put, the hashtag is a breadcrumb for the explorer, a signal for the curious, and a beacon for anyone who is lost in the river of information that is Twitter. Its origins are actually highly technical in the world of programming code, but in our world our beloved # acts as a guide toward shore, a dock or even a fireside chat that gives a breath of calm and focus in an otherwise distracted medium. At OECTA, we decided to create our own breath of calm just for teachers, one that talks about the intangibles we often forget about in the world of teaching. We have started the hashtag #WhatTeachersDo and we invite you to share the warmth of this unique fireside chat with us. What is #WhatTeachersDo? #WhatTeachersDo is meant to be about the little things we do that make a difference in our school communities. It is meant to be a place of sharing where we can show each other that news doesn’t always have to be negative. It is meant to bring to light just how beautifully we touch the lives of students. It is a small opportunity to demonstrate our passion for what we do.   Clearing up misunderstandings at recess. It’s just #WhatTeachersDo Whether it’s a Band-Aid on a skinned knee or taking a phone call from a teary parent - these are the stories that drive our passion. It’s the little things that matter to our students; it’s the little things that keep us up at night thinking about them; and it’s the little things that bring our students back to our classroom doors years later. Putting themselves out there to connect with their students. It’s just #WhatTeachersDo #WhatTeachersDo celebrates the little things that make teaching unlike any other profession on Earth. Check out the feed  below - it truly is inspiring! #WhatTeachersDo Tweets How to #WhatTeachersDo? Twitter is a wonderful source of self-directed professional development. If you have never used it before, it is worth the five minutes to sign up. There is a short tutorial on YouTube that is available by searching the following terms in Google: How To #WhatTeachersDo. There, you will find a five-minute lesson showing you how to participate. Anthony Carabache is a secretariat member in the Professional Development Department at OECTA Provincial Office.

Greetings all! Following hard on the heels of the Biology Interactives Edition, here’s an edition devoted to students and teachers of Chemistry! The resources listed below are a sampling of the over 50 chemistry focused sites in my resource archive and do not include more generic STEM/science related sites of which there are hundreds more. Nope. For this edition it’s all about chemistry. Here goes… Chemical Elements, and ChemReference are both interactive periodic tables with oodles of features. While the interface on ChemReference is more fluid and easy to use, with both simply click on an element in the Periodic Table and voila… just about everything you wanted to know about it pops up: and thorough list of properties, orbitals, and visualizations. A third similar site, ChemiCool offers much the same features as the above two but with the added bonus of video experiments involving the element, and a historical perspective on its discovery. Very cool, ChemiCool! If you’re looking for lesson plans and teaching resources here are a few sites that might suit your tastes: SciFun’s HomeExperiments, General Chemistry Online!, and Chemistry Lecture Notes. SciFun’s HomeExperiments contains a variety of clever engaging experiments such as exploring Acids and Bases with Red Cabbage, investigating Density with Layered Liquids and many more. General Chemistry Online! contains everything you need to run an intro course in chemistry. Here you’ll find a compound library, companion notes, trivia quizzes, a searchable glossary of terms, flash based interactives and simulations, and a wide range of tutorials. Chemistry Lecture Notes is exactly what the title suggests, a thorough set of lecture notes developed by a teacher over several years of teaching chemistry. The notes are designed to prepare students for all the types of problem found on   high school or college chemistry tests and exams as well as on the SAT II Chemistry Subject Test and the AP Chemistry Exam. On the video front, here are two sites with a wide range of videos to support learning in Chemistry classes. First, from LearnersTV, a division of Annenberg Media, comes an large set of video lectures, on topics ranging from the discover of the nucleus to valence bond theory to chemical kinetics and acid-base equilibrium. The US National Science Foundation sponsors a series entitled Chemistry NOW, an online video series that uncovers and explains the science of common, physical objects in our world and the changes they undergo every day. In the chemical database department, here are two very useful finds: ChemSynthesis, and ChemSpider. ChemSynthesis is a free searchable chemical database containing over 40,000 compounds. In addition you can browse through references in a number of scholarly journals such as the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and the Journal of Organic Chemistry to name just a couple. ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database providing fast text and structure search access to over 30 million structures from hundreds of data sources. To close out our chemistry edition, here is a fun site that might come in handy in a pinch. Chemistry Crossword Index is a quick visit where you find printable crossword puzzles using chemical terms. A fun quick drill/review for the content section of a chem test. That’s it for this Chemistry Edition of Web 2.0 Weekly. As I mentioned in the introduction, this is only a sampling of the wide variety of chem resources you can find in my archive. I hope you find the sites referenced here useful and share them with colleagues and students. Til next time… peace and love Paul The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Chemistry Edition appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings! Pi Day comes but once a year and is just over a week away. March 14th to be precise or rather 3.14 to be more precise. Regrettably, Pi Day here in Ontario usually falls during March Break so our festivities will have to take place at home. Whether you’re in school or out, here are a bunch of resources to help you celebrate Pi Day! LessonPlanet (a great source for lesson plans on many subjects) is a good starting point for your PI Day celebration. Here you’ll find 336 different teacher resources all celebrating the original irrational number. Lesson plan and activities clearinghouse EdHelper has a whole raft load of PI Day activities divided up by grade level, subject (we’re talkin’ PI Day across the curriculum!), and language (need PI Day in German or French… you’ll find it here). WikiHow is a great source for how to’s, and they’ve even got a How to Celebrate Pi Day tutorial! Cute. Clever. Creative! PI Day even has an Official Site! There you’ll find all sorts of stuff from PI Day paraphernalia such as T-Shirts, and Gifts, to videos, to lessons, and activities. The PI Day Challenge was created by a teacher in Massachusetts and consists of a series of logic based Pi oriented puzzles. Fun brain teasers these. I’ve loved WolframAlpha since the day I ran across it a few years back. The folks at Wolfram keep adding features that make it more attractive to teachers and students alike. Indeed, all sorts of ancilliary sites have sprung up on different aspects of the computational world of WolframAlpha. One in particular is called MathWorld, and wouldn’t you know it MathWorld has 33 separate resources all devoted to PI! If you happen to live in San Francisco, the Exploratorium goes all out in its celebration of PI Day. If you don’t live there you can join in the festivities with the activities and resources at their site or join in virtually on Second Life. I hope that’s enough to get your PI Day celebrations rolling. Here’s a couple of PI funnies to help you remember maths are fun.     Til next time… peace and love Paul The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Pi Day Edition appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings all! Lesson planning is a necessary fact of life for teachers and trainers. Back in the dawn of time when I started teaching, lesson plans were something we kept in binders, and collected over the course of years. My old Computer Science department head had shelf after shelf of lesson plan binders organized by course… a veritable library collected over 20 years of teaching the subject. An invaluable resource for a starting teacher as I was at the time. Teacher attitude towards their lesson plans tends to fall into two camps. Those who feel proprietary towards the plans they’ve created and those willing (and often enthusiastically) to share the wealth. This distinction is maintained when looking for lesson planning sites, and resources on the Internet but increasingly it seems that the egalitarian sharers have the upper hand. This is due, in no small part, to three factors. First, the wide array of lesson plan sharing sites out there. Second, the increasing role open courseware (lead by MIT, Stanford, and others) is playing in tertiary education - not to mention MOOCs. Third, the number of non-governmental organizations, teaching associations, publishers, museums, etc., who view the development and sharing lesson plans and teaching resources as part and parcel of the added value of their services. What follows here, and in several subsequent posts, is sampling of significant lesson plan sharing sites (in no particular order) available for free to teachers, trainers, and education workers gleaned from my archive of over 5000 educational resources. Here we go… The Curriculum Corner by teachers Jill McEldowney and Cathy Henry provides a variety of tips, advice, and lesson plans all geared toward integrating the US’ Common Core Curriculum into you classroom practice. An Australian counterpart to the above site is Australian Curriculum Lessons developed by teacher Scott McGlynn. A teacher driven site housing lesson plans in most disciplines all developed by teachers to be shared with other teachers. The US National Education Association (NEA) has a seachable data base of literally thousands of lesson plans. You can refine your search by both subject and grade level. TaughtIt! is a straightforward lesson plan sharing site with only one purpose in mind: sharing lesson plans. The stie associates you with your school board such that when you search for lesson plans ones from your home province or state are prioritized on the results list. LessonPlanCentral is just that, a central location for scads of lesson plans, worksheets, web links, and more. Lots of good stuff. At LessonCorner you’ll find not only lesson plans (over 200,000 of them) by subject but also apps such as a crossword puzzle maker, and lots of worksheets. TeachFirst is a rich collection of lessons, units, and web resources. Other features include a monthly calendar listing up coming events in the education world, weekly polls, featured sites, and other useful items, Finally, for this edition is EducationWorld magazine web portal. Here you’ll find a repository of lesson plans, professional development articles and opportunities, technology reviews, and lots of other useful features. Stay tuned for the Lesson Plan Edition Part 2 later this week.       The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Lesson Plan Edition Part 1 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings! Here’s the second part of this series on free multidisciplinary lesson plan and lesson planning sites available to students, teachers, and education workers. Subsequent editions will highlight sites focused on single or narrowly defined academic disciplines. Here we go… LessonPlanz is a searchable directory of free online lesson plans and lesson plan resources for all grades and subjects. Hotchalk’s Lesson Plans Page bills itself as "lesson plans by teachers for teachers" where you will find more than 4,000 lesson plans on pretty much all subjects, all classroom tested. The University of North Carolina’s LearnNC contains several hundred lesson plans that span the wide range of curriculum areas for every grade from K to 12 created by North Carolina educators to sync with US state and national standards. LessonPlanSearch is a site containing more than 1400 lesson plans on subjects ranging from cooking to technology to media studies. Suite101 is a general sharing site that includes a wide variety of sharing streams driven by the interests of its users… including lesson plans. Lesson Plans and Teaching Strategies from CalState Northridge is a fairly large clearinghouse of lesson plan links and resource links. While there is a lot of good stuff here, it hasn’t been updated recently and some of the links are broken. The Teacher’s Corner isn’t a place to go when you’re bad, far from it. Rather it’s a place to go for lesson plans, worksheets, and other useful resources. BetterLesson (I’ve been a member for years) is a browsable database of over a million lesson plans and resources on practically any subject imaginable. OERCommons (Open Educational Resources) is a searchable collection of public domain resources such as lesson plans, projects, and classroom activities that align to US Common Core standards. OK. That’s it for Part 2 of the Lesson Plan Edition. Tune in later this week for Part 3.   The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Lesson Plan Edition - Part 2 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings, and welcome to Part 3 of my series on lesson planning, and lesson plan sharing resources out there on the interwebs. In this edition I’m still wading through the plethora of multidisciplinary lesson plan websites available to educators. A couple of issues down the line, I’ll be examining single discipline or narrowly define lesson plan and resource sites. Here we go… ReadWriteThink is an all around great educational site with more resources than you can shake a stick at. Here you’ll find a large lesson plan bank, interactives, videos, tutorials, PD opportunities, and more. Their lesson plan and resource bank covers all grade levels and subjects. One of the best sources of educational material out there is the US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). They’ve been creating useful resources for teachers since before I was born (I remember my kindergarten teacher using PBS shows in class and that was in 1965) so they’ve pretty much got it down by now. PBSLearningMedia is one of a host of sites operated by PBS with an aim to assist educators. The site contains learning resources, lesson plans, activities, and videos across all grade levels and most subjects. You can use 3 without registering, but registration is free in any case. Curriki is another site I’ve belonged to for years. Once run by a consortium lead by NorTel (remember them?) Curriki survived their demise through sponsorship by Oracle and ATT. In any case, Curriki has over 300,000 members who have contributed and shared over 50,000 educational resources for every subject under the rainbow. One of the best features is that you’ll find educational resources here in a variety of languages. LessonWriter is a bit different. LessonWriter is a lesson plan creation platform that also lets users share the lessons they’ve created. Do note that this is a freemium site but the basic free level is serviceable for most needs. K2.0ALT is an interesting collaboration site that bills itself in the following terms: "collaborate, dialogue, engage in lesson study and creation, and acquire content-specific PD all at the touch of a button through Virtual Communities of Practice." Ranking up there with PBS as a source of high quality educational resources is the BBC. BBCSchools: Knowledge and Learning is a centralized portal for scads of educational resources. While it by no means exhausts the cornucopia of excellent educational sites created by the BBC, it is an excellent place to start exploring what they have to offer. My last offering this time out is TeachBuzz. TeachBuzz "serves as a global community of educators creating, sharing, rating, and using lessons online. Designed by teachers, the lessons are searchable" by age, grade, subject, and uniquely by duration. You can also filter results by "special needs", or "developing world" That’s all for this missive. Check in later in the week for Part 4 of my series on lesson planning resources.   The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Lesson Plan Edition Part 3 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings, and welcome to the Lesson Plan Edition Part 4. Here I’ll continue my exploration of the cornucopia of sites designed primarily for finding, creating, and sharing lesson plans, printables, worksheets ready to use in the classroom in all disciplines. In subsequent editions I’ll explore lesson plan sites dedicated to a narrow range of disciplines or single subjects. Teachers Printables is devoted to provided free printable worksheets. These cover a wide range of class managements topics ranging from seating plans to homework forms, from signup sheets to rubric and lesson plan templates. As well, you can find blackline masters for a variety of maps, flags, and some for maths. At AtoZTeacherStuff you can find lesson plans, thematic units, downloadable teaching materials, printable worksheets and blackline masters, emergent reader books, themes, and more. Most items are geared to the elementary school level. PlanBoard is more than just a lesson plan web app. Essentially, it takes the place of the teacher’s not so little Red Book: the day planner. Once you register, it takes about 5- 10 minutes to set up your classes. Once that’s done you can search for or create new lesson plans, and slot them into your calendar. You can quickly align daily lessons with provincial or state standards using the onboard standards bank (you’ll be surprised how many different jurisdictions are included). This is the sort of app I wish I’d had when I started teaching, and definitely one to use when getting ready for the next performance appraisal. 42Explore is a nifty site that is sort of like a webquest repository but slightly different. While not exactly lesson plans, each topic provides "four to explore": links that provide you (or your students) information, definitions, links, and other resources. Last up for this missive is Share My Lesson. Conjointly operated by the American Federation of Teachers and the Times Education Supplement, Share My Lesson pledges that their users will be able to download user-generated content free for ever, which is a pretty nice thing to see up front. The site contains nearly 300,000 ready to use teacher resources covering all grade levels and all subjects. Good stuff. Well, that’s it for the fourth installment of my Lesson Plan Edition. Check back in a couple of days for Part 5 wherein I’ll start sharing subject specific lesson plan sites gleaned from my archive of over 5000 educational resource sites.   The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Lesson Plan Edition Part 4 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings and welcome to Part 5 of the Lesson Plan Edition. In what follows, I’ll be looking at subject specific lesson plan sites. This list is by no means exhaustive. I intend here merely to give you a flavour of what’s out there and sample the wide range of lesson plan sites I’ve archived over the last few years. 21st Century Skills The Gateway contains a variety of educational resource types from activities and lesson plans to online projects to assessment items all with a focus on developing "21st century skills". History The US Library of Congress’s Classroom Materials site contains ready-to-use materials to provide easy ways to incorporate the Library’s unparalleled primary sources into instruction. All materials available here were created by teachers for teachers. Children in History is a unique site examining history from the role children have played in it. The site features not only a variety of excellent primary sources but an array of teaching modules to take your students through an exploration of children in history in different cultures and civilizations. Media Literacy The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the same group that brings us the Oscars) has developed a series of teacher’s guides that explore the art and science of motion pictures. "The activities are designed to capitalize on students’ natural interest in current films and the excitement generated by the Academy Awards to teach valuable lessons in critical thinking and creative writing, and to develop visual literacy skills. Each teaching guide is available in its entirety to download and print." Life Skills LifeDojo perhaps stretches the definition of lesson planning a bit but I thought it still worthwhile to bring to your attention. LifeDojo is a series of behaviour modification apps "designed to inspire, educate, and reliably improve health & life outcomes." Worth a look see. STEM PBS’s Nature hosts an extensive catalogue of support materials (including videos, lesson plans, and teacher guides) in the biology and environmental studies. The site is searchable by grade level, topic, and animal. The Science Spot is jam packed with lesson plans, interactives, class starters, projects, and activities. A great starting point for teaching resources in the sciences. OK. I am, at last, going to bring an end to this EP 5 Part excursion into sources of lesson plans on the interwebs.  Remember it wasn’t meant to be exhaustive and is just a sampling of the over 5000 web resources in my archive. I hope you found it useful. Check back in a couple days for an edition on new sites I’ve found in the last couple of weeks.     The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Lesson Plan Edition - Part 5 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings all! Over the next week or so I’ll be publishing a 5 part edition devoted exclusively to Geography. Hope you enjoy… here we go. Map of life - an online resource for mapping, monitoring and analyzing biodiversity worldwide Submarine Cable Map 2014 - check out this contemporary map of every major underwater cable. I love this one as my great-great grandfather helped lay the very first transatlantic cable. Mapillary | Crowdsourced Street View - Mapillary consists of a smartphone app, a website, and an API. With the app, you can take street level photos of roads, bike paths, buildings, and other areas relevant for mapping. These photos are uploaded to Mapillary’s servers where they are processed and then put on a map. 40 maps that explain the world - from the Washington Post comes this very clever (and sometimes not quite appropriate for school) series of eye-opening maps. 40 more maps that explain the world - Washington Post does it again with another collection of very clever series of maps that reframe your perspective on a variety of subjects. Where The Streets Have Your Name - Now With Places And Things, Too! -  Just enter your name and locate every street in the world that shares it Global Forest Watch - a dynamic online forest monitoring and alert system that empowers people everywhere to better manage forests. For the first time, Global Forest Watch unites satellite technology, open data, and crowdsourcing to guarantee access to timely and reliable information about forests. Jauntful - Create shareable, printable guides to the cities you love Atlas Obscura | Curious and Wondrous Travel Destinations - the weird, the astonishing, the freaky, and curious. Mapfaire - create any kind of map, for business, education, or pleasure. Natural Earth - Free vector and raster map data at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110m scales 40 Maps They Didn’t Teach You In School | Bored Panda - OK this one is just plain fun… fun with maps. MapFight - visually compare country sizes earth wind map - real time visualization of global wind patterns EOSDIS Worldview (Alpha) - interactively browse global, full-resolution satellite imagery and then download the underlying data. Most of the 100+ available products are updated within three hours of observation, essentially showing the entire Earth as it looks "right now". illustreets.co.uk - an interactive map of the UK by standard of living and crime rate. Includes detailed information about each point on the map; just click and read. OK. That’s it for Part 1 of this Extended Play Geography Edition of Web 2.0 Weekly. Check back soon for Part 2 The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Geography Resources Edition Part 1 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings! Welcome to Part 2 of this extended play edition of Web 2.0 Weekly all about free Geography Resources out there on the Web. Whilst fairly comprehensive, this list is by no means exhaustive and is meant as a sampling of the over 5000 educational resources available in my archive. Hope you enjoy… ArcGIS Explorer Online - rich client for using, creating and sharing ArcGIS maps online. ArcGIS Explorer Online requires Microsoft Silverlight Measuring and Mapping Space: Geographic Knowledge in Greco-Roman Antiquity. How ancient societies understood and visualized the world — from their immediate surroundings to the edges of their empires and beyond — provides a unique perspective on their political and cultural values and philosophy, as well as demonstrating their mathematical and scientific expertise. Oceans - Views - Google Maps - interactive oceanic explorer from Google, features coastlines, wrecks, and much more. Rising Seas - Interactive: If All The Ice Melted - The maps here show the world as it is now, with only one difference: All the ice on land has melted and drained into the sea, raising it 216 feet and creating new shorelines for our continents and inland seas. Flood Inundation Mapper - for the continental United States from the US Geological Survey Map Stack - Assemble a selection of different map layers like backgrounds, satellite imagery, terrain, roads or labels! Photoshop-like controls like colors, masks, opacity and brightness to make a map your own! Share your map with a link or Pinterest or Tumblr! Where is…? A geolocation game backpacker-adventure-club.de Find given cities on the Google Map and be as accurately as possible since precision will result in points in the end Map Adventures - Index - online lesson plans from the US Geological Survey Introduction to Topographic Maps - how topographic maps are created, what information they contain, how you can use them with a compass to get where you want to go, and how to measure the relative positions of points of interest. Topographic Maps - 27 Ideas for teaching about topopgraphic maps from the US Geological Survey. Map your Recipe - enter a recipe and find out where the ingredients came from. Excellent use of googlemaps The map as history :a multimedia atlas of world history with animated historical maps - on-line collection of animated historical maps The British Library: Geo-referencing - locate and view over 30,000 items from the British Library using this nifty georeferencing tool. Do a Map - easy to use map creation, markup, and sharing platform Flood Map Water Level Elevation Map - just what the title says! mapBattle - you’re asked a question. Find the answer using GoogleMaps. GeoGuessr - Let’s explore the world! - a very clever geography game wherein the user hops globally from place to place via Google Streetview. GeoSettr  - Create your own GeoGuessr challenge by choosing five locations on Google Street View EarthPulse, Maps, Global Trends, Human Impact - National Geographic - EarthPulse explores global connections with vivid and informative imagery, maps, diagrams, and interactives that illuminate where we are today, how we got here, and how our actions may affect the future of life on Earth. World Map, Map of the World - interactive geography, and statistical data There we go for part 2. Tune in again a couple of days for Part 3 of this Geography resources edition. The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Geography Resources Edition Part 2 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Here is a webmix of some of the Maths resources from my presentation at OAME 2014 in Toronto. The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Maths Resources for OAME 2014 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings all! Here’s part three of my Geography Resource Edition. I hope you find it useful. Map Treasure Hunt - Provide as many questions (clues) and answers (locations) as you like to create a virtual ‘treasure hunt’. When finished you can save the game and share it with others. Players use each clue to collect the ‘coins’ that appear in each of your secret location Maps: Tools for Adventure - GIS in Action - National Geographic Education Use maps to solve problems, help animals, and get introduced to GIS. Map Tales -  Journalists, teachers, bloggers and storytellers (to name a few) use Map Tales to chronicle news events, scrapbook holidays, describe walks, plan campaigns, illustrate literature, recount journeys, and bring historical events to life. RouteXL - fastest route with multiple stops - Optimize multiple destinations on Google Maps Ilike2learn.com  - Geography Quizzes: these interactive Quizzes will help you rapidly learn the locations of the countries and capitals of the world. placeSpotting.com | The online map game - here’s a detailed view from a map of the world… find it. Tough. Clever! OverlapMaps - Instantly compare any two places on Earth! Globe Genie - takes you on a journey to different parts of the world using Google Streetview MapFab  - create and share custom googlemaps ikiMap | Create and share your maps - a web service to create and share maps in a fast and easy way. ikiMap helps you to organize, classify and publish your maps and georeference information in the web. Plane Finder - Flight Radar | Aircraft Tracker | Live Flight Tracking - just what you’d think it is. GmapGIS - A web based GIS application to draw on Google maps: polygons, lines, markers and labels MapMaker Interactive - National Geographic Education - Explore your world with map themes, data, and tools for customizing your map Global Conservation Maps - the Atlas of Global Conservation: A global perspective on what’s where, what’s at stake, and what opportunities exist for protecting the natural world MapSkip - Places Have Stories! - explore the world through shared stories and pictures about all the places in our lives using this literacy/map mashup. Explore Countries of the World — National Geographic Kids - great interactive exploration tool for the K-8 crowd. TimeMaps - World History TimeMap - combination of timelines, maps, and encyclopedia entries working together to create both authoritative content and an enjoyable user experience Historical Maps - Perry-Castañeda Map Collection - UT Library Online - Great collection of historical maps from the University of Texas Old Maps Online - easy-to-use gateway to historical maps in libraries around the world. It allows the user to search for online digital historical maps across numerous different collections via a geographical search. Search by typing a place-name or by clicking in the map window, and narrow by date. The search results provide a direct link to the map image on the website of the host institution. Welcome! - WorldMap - Build your own mapping portal and publish it to the world or to just a few collaborators. WorldMap is open source software. That should suffice for now. Check back in a couple of days for part four of this five part series of Geography Resources. ’til next time… peace and love Paul The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Geography Resource Edition Part 3 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings all! Welcome to Part 4 of the Geography Resources Edition. I hope you find them interesting and useful. Spotzi, spot, zoom in and explore - World Atlas packed with more than 1000 overlaying thematic maps. PlanetInAction.com - The planet is your playground - PlanetInAction brings you top quality ideas, applications and concepts that will let you experience your GoogleEarth in a whole new way. PLACE: Population, Landscape, and Climate Estimates - The aim of PLACE is to provide country-level measures of spatial characteristics for a series of statistical areas (countries and other UN recognized territories) including multiple physical, biological and climate variable themes, for statistical areas around the world. These themes include: biomes, climate zones, coastal proximity zones, elevation zones, and population density zones.. Google Maps Mania - An unofficial Google Maps blog tracking the websites, mashups and tools being influenced by Google Maps. Historic Map Works, Residential Genealogy ™ - Browsable collection of hundreds of historical maps David Rumsey Historical Map Collection - over 48,000 historical maps on online ranging in age from the 1500s to the 1950s GeoSense Test your knowledge of world geography alone or against another online player. UNESCOplaces.org - interactive mapping and information on UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites. MAPme.com - Map your World! - Create a Map of your favourite places, travels or destinations. Start a Community map where everyone can add locations, pics & videos Share your map with your friends or the whole world Scribble Maps - Create custom google maps with scribblings … - Scribble Maps is the quick and easy way to rapidly make and share maps! With Scribble Maps you can: - Draw shapes and Scribble! - Pace Markers and text - Create a Custom Widget - Save as KML/GPX - Send maps to friends Test your Geography Skills - Online geography quizzes Hypercities Beta 2 - A HyperCity is a real city overlaid with a large array of geo-temporal information, ranging from urban cartographies and media representations to family genealogies and the stories of the people and diverse communities who live there. The service now exists for the cities of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Rome, Lima, London, and many more. You do need Google Earth to run the site though. WeatherSpark | Interactive Weather Charts - WeatherSpark provides highly-detailed interactive weather graphs of the entire history of any weather station on earth. BunchaMaps - Compare locations using four maps: GoogleMaps, BingMaps, ESRI, and OpenStreetMap. This is a very clever mashup. Tsunami-Maps.com - This mapplet shows how your local beach could be affected by a tsunami. Simply type in your location and click ‘Find’ to center the map. Then enter the wave height, the direction for the wave to travel, and double click on the tsunami starting point GeoGames: The New Way to Teach GeoGraphy - A variety of interactives, games, and lesson plans on world geography. QuizGeo - Know Your Geo - Create interactive map based quizzes RealTime Emergency Map of the World - Interactive realtime map of emergency events around the globe. Ship Finder - A rather neat google mashup, this site track ship location on the around the worlds oceans. WhatWasThere - Put history in its place! - provide a platform where anyone can easily upload a photograph with two straightforward tags to provide context: Location and Year. If enough people upload enough photographs in enough places, together we will weave together a photographic history of the world (or at least any place covered by Google Maps). So wherever you are in the world, take a moment to upload a photograph and contribute to history! That’s it for this edition. Check back in a couple of days for Part 5 of this 5 parter on Geography Resources. The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Geography Resource Edition Part 4 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.

Greetings! Here’s the fifth and final installment of the Geography Resources edition of Web 2.0 Weekly. At some point in the future, as new sites are added to my archive and defunct sites are deleted I’ll repost the modified collection but for now here are the last entries in my geography archive. kmlfactbook.org - a mashup of GoogleEarth with the CIA Factbook. Very clever. Map Jigsaw Puzzles - National Geographic - National Geographic has many special features in their maps section, one of which is puzzles. I would have loved this when I was… wait a minute… I love this now. IfItWereMyHome.com - Great geographical and social statistics interactive overview comparing your country to just about any other.  Measure of America: American Human Development Project - A very informative page devoted to statistics on education, health, and income for the United States. While exclusively American in focus this site has a variety of uses for geography, maths, and social sciences regardless of your country of origin.  Soundcities by Stanza. The Global soundmaps project. Sounds … - SoundCities is a site where you can download sounds recorded on the streets of various cities. It is also a mashup with GoogleMaps such that you not only get the sound, you get the map of the location of the sound as well. TargetMap - Create & share customized data maps on Googlemaps. Free … - Choose a country and a way to create your map by color, type values or by uploading your excel files. All maps are published & shared in the TargetMap community. Once you’ve shared your map, you can also improve and compare it with other people’s related maps & data. You can embed the maps in your blog, or insert customized maps in your PowerPoint presentations. SHOW®/WORLD - A New Way To Look At The World - Show World is a really cool map generator that reframes maps of the world according to various demographics and statistics. SHOW®/WORLD really gets users to view the world via different perspectives. This is a great site! Worldmapper: The world as you’ve never seen it before - This site houses nearly 700 informative maps and posters. The maps are based on economic, scientific, and demographic data sets such that the apparent size of the country is based on the data set rather than the strict geographic size. An excellent example of vaizualizing data. Polymaps - Polymaps is a free JavaScript library for making dynamic, interactive maps in modern web browsers. USGS Education - This is the education gateway for the US Geological Survey. Climates of the world - Climate Zone - An interactive climate map of the world. While not completely granular, it does let the user drill down to the major city/region level. Smithsonian Institution - Global Volcanism Program: Worldwide Holocene … - "The Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program seeks better understanding of all volcanoes through documenting their eruptions — small and large — during the past 10,000 years." ArcGIS - From ESRI, the people who brought you ArcView, comes ArcGIS an online map creation and viewing portal. MapAList - Create and Manage Maps of Address Lists - Similar to BatchGeo, MapAList allows users to import their GoogleDocs spreadsheets and, using a mashup with GoogleMaps, generate a map You can then print, save, or embed in your own website. BatchGeo - Make google maps using many addresses / coordinates - Have locations in a spreadsheet? Well try this free and unique tool to… Map them using Google Maps. Post it on your Web site. Create a store locator. Get coordinates, print maps, and more! Full Screen Weather : Weather Underground  - Use the search form to find the weather for any City, State/Province, Zip Code, Country, or Lat/Lon in the world. geognos.com Home - World countries atlas with facts statistics, photos, maps, flags, visual information about geography, history, people, demographics, government, economy, communications and transportation. Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site geocaching.com - Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.  IRIS - Seismic Monitor - IRIS is a consortium of over 100 US universities dedicated to the operation of science facilities for the acquisition, management, and distribution of seismological data. IRIS programs contribute to scholarly research, education, earthquake hazard mitigation, and the verification of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. And so endeth this special edition devoted to things geographical. Check back in a day or so for something completely different. (OK, not really… same sort of thing just a new subject!) til next time… peace and love Paul The post Web 2.0 Weekly: Geography Resource Edition Part 5 appeared first on Many Pebbles, One Pond.