Sunday, October 30, 2011

10 FREE Downloads; Where Teacher Creativity Arises

Be sure to look over this week's TPT Newsletter for teacher tips on creativity in the classroom, and this weeks 10 FREE downloads. My favorite downloads for the week for secondary education are below. The Spanish Subject Pronoun PPT is something that any beginner Spanish teacher can use for teaching and practicing subject pronouns and SER. The 15 Minute PPT is a great tool to use for keeping students on task.












Spanish Subject Pronouns and Ser PowerPoint
by The Enlightened Elephant
Grades 7 - 10

 

15 Minute PowerPoint Timer
by Stacy Pearson
Grades K-12

Friday, October 28, 2011

Follow me on Pinterest!

I think that I finally have all of my teaching products up on Pinterest, as well as a few other boards. Stop by and follow me at http://pinterest.com/lizbucrek/ . "Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests. To get started, request an invite." To find out more about how to use Pinterest check out the YouTube Tutorial below.


Monday, October 24, 2011

10 FREE Downloads; Empowered Teachers & Students; Halloween Materials


Check out this week's 10 FREE Downloads on TEACHERS pay TEACHERS! There are some great Halloween Freebies. My two favorite downloads of the week are:

Free Frames & Borders Clip Art For Commercial Use
by Tracee Orman
For K-12 Staff

 

 
   

Halloween Deal or No Deal Science Quiz
by Simon Perkin
Grades 4 - 7
 

Friday, October 21, 2011

Friday Formative FREEBIE!


Frequently assess your students in order to get feedback on their learning with this formative assessment template! The teacher poses a question, and each student writes down their answer. Then each student finds a partner to compare answers with. Great peer teaching opportunity! Download "Turn to your Partner" FREE on my TEACHERS pay TEACHERS page. 

Ideas for using "Turn to Your Partner" in the classroom:

  • This could be used as a “warm-up” activity to review from the day before, or in order to activate prior knowledge.
  • You could use it to review for a quiz, or a test. To ask multiple questions, you could copy the page below front to back, and that would give students space to answer four questions.
  • Another option is to use it as an end of class exit ticket type of activity.

Teacher Tip:

  • Use a timer with this activity to encourage students to stay on task. For example give them three minutes to work on their own, and five minutes to work with partner. You can choose the time based on the difficulty level of the task.

Why use formative assessments?

  • To check for student understanding each day.
  • To improve student learning.
  • In order to know when each student has learned.
  • To assess essential learning outcomes or standards frequently.
  • In order to better balance assessment, and have multiple measures of student achievement.
  • To inform and motivate students.  


Thursday, October 20, 2011

October Instructional Resource Update

Each month I send out an instructional resource update to the teachers at my high school. I have listed below some of my favorite instructional resources that I have come across in the last month or so. I have already blogged about some of the ones I sent them, so I did not include those.  New website links that I have come across in the last month are also posted on http://www.diigo.com/user/Ebucrek.  I hope you will scroll through the resources and to pick out one or two new things to try in the next month or so!

Great Websites:
Wordia This is a free resource that utilizes games, videos, and lesson plans across all subjects on the curriculum. It is an online visual dictionary which has the published aim of 'redefining the dictionary'. It asks members of the public and celebrity 'orators' to upload videos explaining what words mean to them. Watch the video on the home page for more information.

For the vocabulary of a unit you are doing your students could each be assigned a word and make a video of the definition of it. Then you could post the videos to the site and students could watch them as a way to introduce the new vocabulary.

Classroom Freebies-Top Educators bringing you the best resources for your classroom every day and always free! (You can follow this blog, or follow on Facebook, or Twitter)

New Comment-Only Option in Google Docs There are a couple of great ways to use this in education including peer-editing. Using the comment-only setting students can share their documents and get feedback without any risk of their peers accidentally making drastic changes to their documents.
 
Teacher Evaluation Artifact Porfolio-This is an NC teacher's binderless 21st century evidence of her teaching competencies in the five standards of the new NC Teacher Evaluation Instrument. Digital artifacts can be found at each of the standard tabs. This site might give you some ideas for artifacts you want to collect this year.
 
Skype in the Classroom is a free community to help teachers everywhere use Skype to help their students learn. It’s a place for teachers to connect with each other, find partner classes and share inspiration.

The Organized Classroom Blog YouTube Channel Feeling unorganized? Check out this teacher's short videos on classroom organization and technology.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Websites for eBooks or ePortfolios

Recently one of the EC Teachers at my school asked if I could help her out with some resources for her classroom. She wanted to take students' work study portfolios that they had done in binders, or as Power Point Presentations in the past, and use a website in order to make them eBooks or ePortfolios instead. I created a Sqworl of website links for her with six different options. In the end for what she is trying to do, I am going to recommend that she use Bookemon. At first it appeared that you had to pay to use the site, but once I looked more into it I found that you only have to pay if you order the book when you are finished. You can share it online, and print it yourself for free. I have also included a short YouTube video on the site below.  I think that all of these websites would be great for teachers to use in order to create eBooks or ePorfolios in classes across the curriculum.

In addition, the teacher was looking for a way for students to digitally enter their hours worked for their 900 hour requirement on some type of time sheet.  When I did a search for this, I ended up finding five different free online resources that I included in the Sqworl.  I did not sign up for an account myself, but based on what I saw looking at all of the different sites I believe that abctimeclock, or Clockout might be the best options. I think that these digital time clocks might also be useful for students that are tracking their volunteer hours for a service learning requirement at school. 


Sunday, October 16, 2011

TPT Ten FREE Downloads Vol. 73

 

Stop by TPT this week to look over this weeks 10 FREE DOWNLOADS! Also, click on the link to see this week's teacher tip about taking risks in the classroom. My favorite freebies from this week for secondary education are:   

by Arik Durfee
                           Grades 7 - 9

                        Class Money: The Checkbook Project class economy financial literacy
                       by Mack Lewis
                
Grades 3 - 8

Monday, October 10, 2011

TEACHERS pay Teachers 10 FREE Downloads!

Come check out this week's 10 FREE DOWNLOADS on TPT! My two favorite downloads this week for the secondary level were Show Don't Tell Activity by Secondary Solutions Grades 5 - 12 and  Sports Drinks and Homeostasis Inquiry Lesson by Gail B. Wortmann (2001 Iowa Teacher of the Year)Grades 10 -12.  I will be forwarding the links onto our Science and English teachers. 





Friday, October 7, 2011

Il était une fois... les technologies du passé.

Trop mignon! Very cute French video about technologies of the past and how much they have changed in the last thirty years. It might be a fun intro video to a lesson with technology vocabulary, or for a discussion about technology in a conversation class.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Create a Speaking Avatar with Voki!


I posted a new technology template for Voki on TPT today, and it is only $1! Voki is a free service that allows you to create personalized speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile, and in email messages. This website is great for using in the classroom! The product includes a list of tips for using Voki in class, and a student/teacher direction sheet with screenshots that shows you how to use the site. Click on my speaking Avatar below to get a preview of what students and teachers can do with Voki.



Sunday, October 2, 2011

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...