Moving to Squarespace

I'm moving my blog to Squarespace. For all my subscribers, I'm working hard so you shouldn't experience any hiccups in your subscription. I was happy with blogger, but I needed more flexibility to add multiple pages, a discussion board, and overall expandability. Those who have subscribed on your Kindle, I'll be curious to know if the migration is smooth for you.

My domain is still http://www.thisweekinedtech.com

Let's continue the conversation at Squarespace!

Happy Holidays!

This year, with the help of some great on-screen talent (my principal, Beth Feaster), I produced this fun holiday e-card for our school to send around the district. Enjoy!

Happy Holidays from Coronita, 2009 from Buzz Garwood on Vimeo.

Great Interactive Math Tools: Just a Click Away

Looking for a great math site with tons of engaging activities? You owe it to your students to visit Johnnie's Math Page. Many websites offer math activities for children, but most lack math content. The links Johnnie has chosen are interesting and engaging. The layout makes it easy to find fun and interactive math games, and even a little homework help. Johnnie has conveniently organized math activities from across the web by topic. For parents and teachers, there are worksheets, as well as links to other math teaching resources.

I first became aware of the site while teaching intersession about six months ago, and sharing my SMART interactive whiteboard with a first grade teacher. Being a sixth grade teacher myself, I wondered whether or not the games would seem too juvenile for my more "sophisticated" students. I was pleasantly surprised to find many math activities perfectly suitable and extremely fun for even my most discerning brainiac. Now, my SMART board serves up great math activities to enrich my high-performing students, and remediate my struggling learners.

It's one thing to play a math game on a computer - it's just you and a mouse. But toss in the big screen of an interactive whiteboard, the audience watching, and the fact that you're standing there in front of it - it takes math gaming to a whole new level, both for the player, and the rest of the class watching. Choose from games ranging from numbers, geometry, fractions, multiplications, measurement, statistics, and probability.

Originally created in 2005, Johnnie Wilson created the site to support his math coaching work for teachers in Pajaro Valley Unified School District in California. He is presently working as a Math Curriculum Coordinator at an international school in Europe. Contact Johnnie (johnnie@jmathpage.com) if you have any suggestions for new sites, as he is always trying to make it more user friendly and comprehensive.

Thanks, Johnnie, for bringing the best of the online math games together in one, well organized website. Great fun! Keep it up!

Edublog Awards Now Open!

Nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards are open. To learn more, visit The Edublog Awards Homepage. This year, I would like to nominate:

Best individual blog:-Kelly Tenkely, http://ilearntechnology.com/

Best individual tweeter:-Kelly Walsh, http://twitter.com/EmergingEdTech

Best resource sharing blog:-Kelly Walsh, http://www.emergingedtech.com/

Best teacher blog:-Kelly Tenkely, http://ilearntechnology.com/

Best educational tech support blog:-Chris Dawson, http://education.zdnet.com/

Best elearning / corporate education blog:-Ed Tech Magazine, http://www.edtechmag.com/k12/index.php

Best educational use of audio:-Dan Schmidt, http://www.intelligenic.com/blog/

Best educational use of video / visual:-Tony Vincent, http://blip.tv/file/2720638

Thank you to my fellow educator/bloggers! I appreciate all the hard work and dedication you put into sharing your ideas through your edublogs. You are all a valuable part of my learning community and continue to be instrumental in shaping the way I approach instruction. I'm grateful to you all.

Maps Go Techy

With over 2,000 interactive maps, games, and activities, Geography takes a giant leap beyond crayons and colored pencils. Rand McNally and mimio have partnered to give teachers more interavtive teaching tools for their classrooms and to help make learning Geography fun!

Rand McNally Classroom
More than 2,000 online maps - including reference, thematic, history, earth science and outline maps - with a search tool allowing users to find content; Interactive history maps, Reference articles and statistics for every continent, country and U.S. state; dozens of lesson plans that can be edited and printed, along with interactive games and activities that make learning fun; Weekly current-events articles, "Traveling Teddies" online postcards and geography Q&A; User's guide and tutorial with information on how to integrate the site into social studies, reading, math and science; and State-by-state correlations.

Pricing
Price is based on an individual school purchase of a 12-month subscription service of $0.99 per student, with a $299.00 minimum and $749.00 maximum price. Individual teacher plans, called "Basic Plans" start at $49.99/year and increase based on additional features, such as access to lesson plans and state correlations. They also offer a reduced price for two or three year paid plans.

Follow this link for a 14-day free trial.

Is "They Might Be Giants" The Next "School House Rock?"

When I was a kid, songs from the School House Rock collection: "Conjunction Junction" and "I'm Just a Bill" reenforced good sentence structure and taught me how a bill becomes a law. Those songs also taught me that music can make learning a lot more fun. It's been several decades since School House Rock produced hits like, "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here!" but recently, the music group "They Might Be Giants" released a song aimed at teaching kids a little science.

Their new song, "Meet the Elements" is a great way to kick off a science unit on the Periodic Table of the Elements. Thanks to the creative minds of this talented, albeit quirky, music group, even the most intimidated and apprehensive learners can learn a little something new in this upbeat, fun, and unique introduction to the elements. Music can be such a great tool for student engagement. Show this video to your students. Challenge your students to make their own song about an academic topic and maybe they'll be the next School House Rock, or They Might Be Giants.

iPod touch in the Classroom

I came across this informative video of how a school in the U.K. is using the iPod touch in the classroom. It's exciting to see students' faces light up when they are engaged and this video is testimony to the notion that technology is clearly the hook, and kids are definitely nibbling!
The above video by Leon Cych is titled "What Happens When You Give 32 Children in a Class an iPod touch Each?" The 7 minute movie was filmed at Burnt Oak Junior School in the U.K. Eight-year olds there have been using a class set of iPod touches for a couple weeks. The video interviews the class teacher, headteacher, and students about the experience.

The students have used about a dozen apps, including Dictionary.com, WorldView webcam viewer, and the Safari browser. Peter Barrett, the class teacher, mentions that the Internet students see in Safari is filtered by the school's system.

Watch for a student to demonstrate how to copy and paste. When asked how he knew about copying and pasting, he said that he just discovered how to do it by tapping on the screen. This goes to show that youngsters learn to use iPod touch quickly, allowing them to focus on learning tasks, not the technology. The teacher says, "The speed at which they are learning is amazing."

Carol Richardson, the headteacher, observes, "It's quite clear that children are highly motivated when using the iPod touches."