Betty’s Bytes

While reading during Spring Break, I found one of my favorite newsletters – the Classroom Connect “Connected Newsletter”; the June 2008 edition was the final issue. Online I have been able to find little from years of publications other than the final calendar with links; once opened, you can use the arrows at the top of the calendar to go backwards to visit previous calendars with links. The final issue did have a variety of information for educators with an especially good one for math teachers. Quia, which our school has made available to our teachers, hosts one of the top ten math sites; following are the recreated links that I could not find online for the article entitled “The Ten Math Sites You Absolutely Must Bookmark”:

In addition, the final issue of the Connected Newsletter had an informative article on differentiated instruction, connecting technology, pre-assessment, and student interest. I was unable to locate the actual article, but in my search, I came across a site on differentiated instruction that you will want to read by Internet4Classrooms.

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One criticism of Wikipedia has been that it contains many articles and submissions that have not been verified. Now there is Wikipedia for Schools, an authenticated version of Wikipedia ; as expected, the articles have been checked for accuracy, suitability for school use, and may be viewed online or downloaded as a complete volume.

First, a reminder to all teachers – each of your students is a pearl in an oyster. Watch and listen carefully to this video.

One luxury of spring break is time, time for leisure activities and time to read – paper and paperless books, Web sites, emails, twitters, Facebook postings, the news and so much more. As a result, there follows a list of sites for teachers that provides information and sometimes complete lessons:

• Plagiarism Workshop – a WebQuest that provides a complete lesson aimed at high school students
• FunnelBrain - a collaborative online question and answer flashcard site, where student teams create flashcards – that is questions and answers along with video explanations. Two aspects of this site that make it unique are the “third” side of the flashcard that offers explanations and the ability of the site to track or “funnel” information so that users are not asked questions for which they know the answers, but instead are asked the questions they need to learn.
• 33 Ways to Use Blogs in the Classroom – a must read for those interested in using Web 2.0 tools
• Life.com – the world in pictures, a joint endeavor by LIFE and Getty Images to create a collection of millions of high quality images, organized by categories (News, Celebrity, Travel, Animals, and Sports).
• Virginia Launches K-12 ITunes U Portal – part of a larger effort to “harness the power of digital media and mobile devices to expand and supplement classroom-based education”