Techie Tuesday...Best Social Studies YouTube Channels

YouTube is an excellent resource for all educators with this week's focus on Social Studies channels.

Please click on the thumbnail picture to go to the website.

1. 

2.  

3. 

4.    

5.  

Happy Exploring,

Techie Tuesday...iPad Apps for Elementary-aged Kids

iPads and their counterparts are so much fun!!  We find our kids thinking of "playing" on them before all other activities.  This can be a bit obsessive and annoying for us parents!!  To counteract this, here are some educational apps available to at least make the online time valuable.

Please click on the thumbnail picture to go to the website for more information.



Common Sense Media Review:

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/mobile-app-reviews/wurdle





Common Sense Media Review:

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/mobile-app-reviews/stack-the-countries



Common Sense Review:

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/mobile-app-reviews/highlights-hidden-pictures



Common Sense Media Review:

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/mobile-app-reviews/garageband



Happy "Reading" and Exploring,

Techie Tuesday...Resources to explore Women's History Month

Please click on thumbnails below to go to website.



Women's History Month.gov is dedicated to providing history, upcoming events, teacher resources and all things important to the celebration of women.



National Women's History Project has a few videos, quizzes about important women, information about the women's rights movements, and much more.  Treasure trove of information!



The biography channel's homage to women and their history showcases videos on women famous for their talents and gifts to the world.  There are many wonderful resources for teachers on this website.



The National Women's History Museum is an interactive website to explore history specific to the United States.  Now I have another museum to add to my ever growing list of museums to visit in Washington D.C.  I love their weekly "This week in women's history..." and their detailed lesson plans.



Time for Kids's webpage devoted to women is a great spot to bring elementary students who want and need to more about the history of their grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, and every other woman in their life.

Happy "reading" and exploring,

Friday Five Book Fix...Spring Break with Oregon Guidebooks

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Spring Break is coming to Oregon!  This Friday's theme honors the state's incredibly diverse and jaw-dropping beautiful scenery as well as cultural, historical and culinary delights!  The following five books are my favorite go-to resources for traveling the city and back roads of the "platypus" state.

1. 

Amazon description:

A complete and updated guide to traveling and hiking in Eastern Oregon, this book includes everything you'll need to plan a trip to the Wallowa Mountains, Steens Mountain, the high desert country near Bend, the Ochocos, or Hells Canyon. Travel guide information includes where to stay and what to see, including museums and bed & breakfasts, with up-to-date prices. Trail information covers virtually every route in the area, with special symbols identifying the best paths for hikers, equestrians, mountain bikers, and backpackers. GPS readings are given where useful. Sixteen pages of color photos include a guide to the wildflowers of Eastern Oregon. An appendix of 100 More Hikes in Eastern Oregon covers remote paths where you can get away from it all.

2. 

Public Library Summary:

The Pacific Northwest teems with colorful history and unique legends—and this tour of the Beaver State is no exception! Check out the gas station restroom that looks like cowboy boots as you search the skies for a man flying across the state in a lawn chair tethered to helium balloons. And how about visiting that �city” in eastern Oregon with a year-round population of zero to two, depending on whether anyone gets trapped in the snow? Can it get any weirder than this!

3. 

Goodreads Summary:

Recounted in a fresh style that's fun for armchair travelers and hikers alike, this guidebook tells the stories behind 56 of Oregon's most scenic historic sites. Come follow Lewis and Clark's trail across Tillamook Head. Ride with Chief Joseph on his tragic retrat through Hells Canyon. Discover paths to fire lookouts, lighthouses, and abandoned gold mines. Relive legends, discoveries, scandals, and triumphs that rocked the West. Come hike Oregon's history!

4. 

Goodreads Summary:

A guide to Oregon's wilderness areas, including newly designated areas as well as old favorites from Mt. Hood and the Three Sisters to the Wallowas and Steens Mountain. Includes 70 pages of maps, 40 pages of color photos, and more than 200 b/w photos.

5. 

Goodreads Summary:

In this economy it's all about local, and Portland has developed a beautifully creative and bountiful food and drink ecosystem. This book is the indispensable access guide to it all. Portland, the little foodie town that could, is quickly becoming the national capital for all things edible and artisan. For cooks, tourists, people who love to eat, localtarians, wine lovers, cheese freaks, Parisian ex-pats in search of a decent baguette, cocktail hounds on a 100-mile diet -- this is the guide to the goods.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/Ei_jA-RQ9GE]

Happy reading and exploring,

Techie Tueday...Top Five Crash Course Videos

John Green...when you hear that name, many of you will think of his fantastic YA novels that have become a sensation.  This year's Schneider Family Book Award and Odyssey Audiobook winner, Fault in our Stars, introduced us to Augustus and Hazel who are dealing with cancer. Their thought-provoking life experiences and relationship brought a new understanding to me of life with cancer especially as a young person.

Click on image below to Goodreads Summary.



But John Green isn't only an author.  He is also upending the world of education through his and his brother, Hank's, videos on YouTube.  John focuses on History and Literature while Hank is the science guy with videos on Biology, Chemistry and Ecology.  Crash Course! is worth watching and sharing.  Below you will find the 5 most viewed and popular of the videos with the countdown starting at number 5.

Click on image below to go to website for all of the videos.



Top 5 Most Popular/Viewed Videos

5.  [youtube=http://youtu.be/3PszVWZNWVA]

4.  [youtube=http://youtu.be/TpcbfxtdoI8]

3.  [youtube=http://youtu.be/QnQe0xW_JY4]

2.  [youtube=http://youtu.be/_XPZQ0LAlR4]

1. [youtube=http://youtu.be/Yocja_N5s1I]

Happy "reading" and watching,

Techie Tuesday..5 Online Tools to Teach Geography

This past week and a half, I was guest teaching in a 4th grade classroom.  They had recently completed a unit on United States geography.  I decided to use transition time to give them clues to a world geography question.  After reviewing city, state, country, and continents a few times, I started giving them clues.

1. Located south of the equator


2. Predominately Spanish-speaking


3. Has famous islands


4. Starts with an e


5. Means equator in Spanish

The guesses varied from New Mexico, Mexico, Spain...at least they, except for New Mexico, were getting the Spanish-speaking clue correct.  They guessed all the way around the globe, but did not get the correct one...Ecuador.  After this experience, I realized that geography is definitely a subject area that isn't getting as much time in the classroom.  So here are some fun websites that you might want to try either at home or in the classroom for a Social Studies center.

Here are five interactive geography games to help reinforce mapping and geographical skills.  Click on the thumbnail picture to go to the website.

1. 

Students get to choose their character as they move across the United States answering geographical questions.

2. 

Simple game that you could have students play individually or as a class where they match the name of the continent to the actual continent.

3. 

This higher level game gives students the choice of "Running for President", "Going on a Road Trip" or "Going on a Rock Music Tour" while making the best choice for the next city in the United States.

4. 

Free Rice contributes rice to developing countries and teaches kids geography skills at the same time.  Win, Win!!

5. 

Through the National Park Service's website, this webgame first teaches kids about all kinds of different types of maps and then quizzes them on the information.

Happy "reading",

Techie Tuesday...A View of the Universe

Click on Thumbnail above to go to website.

My son introduced me to this mind-blowing website where you can travel to see the scale of items larger than a human and reverse it to items smaller than a human.  Extremely visual and interactive!!  Using a slider (or the mouse wheel, or arrow keys) and mouse, you can explore the world like never before.  If you see something that catches your eye–like Uluru–click it and read a short synopsis on it.

Spots to get some lesson plan ideas...

Excellent Lesson Plan for Middle to High School Science Classes

SmartBoard Activity using the Interactive website

Technology Specialist's Suggestions for Website

Happy Playing and "reading",

Techy Tuesday...Collaboration is the Key to Success!!

This week's Techy Treasure is a web tool called Mighty bell, and according to their site, it can be used to "start a group, organize a class, create a project and plan an event."    Oh how I wish I had had this tool a few years ago when I was part of a Library Media Teacher Professional Learning Community (PLC).  Click on the webpage below to go to the site.



You can add collaborators and upload documents, videos, photos, weblinks, etc.  You could collaborate with Aunt Rose in Tennessee for the upcoming family reunion or create a space for a book club to share thoughts about book characters.   Open a space to plan Dad's 70th birthday party or invite all the PTA members to chat about the cookie sale with all their top secret cookie recipes.  Administrators could discuss training ideas with other administrators and share docs and weblinks as well as a video of themselves doing the training.  The options for this web treasure are endless.  Now for me to get started using it...

Happy "Reading",

Techie Tuesday...Online tools to use during Black History Month

Thanks to my dear friend Libby for this wonderful tool from the BBC.  The website features an interactive timeline of the African American people's struggle for freedom.



The next tool shares some of the rich music history from Harlem.  Students will learn how to identify different elements of jazz music while learning about some of the cultural history of African Americans.



On this National Geographic website activity page, students can follow Harriet Tubman and make decisions as they travel the Underground Railroad.



Happy "Reading",

Technie Tuesday...The Odyssey Lesson Plan and Online Tools

During the first semester of this school year, I have substitute taught The Odyssey a dozen different times at four different high schools.  I just spotted the following web tool on a blog titled Free Technology for Teachers that I thought might jazz up the unit.

The Hero's Journey is an online writing activity produced by Read Write Think. It is an interactive resource that teaches students about the key elements required in developing a myth about a heroic character. The lessons are based on stories like The Odyssey. Completed stories must be printed in order to be saved.

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Below is a lesson plan to teach before doing The Hero's Journey.

Lesson Plan for Hero's Journey

These are the Picture Books to use for the lesson plan.



Happy Teaching with Technology,