Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tech Lesson in Kindergarten Class.. Animals
Last term, in the process of providing STEM support for a Title IIB Grant in the Bronx, I had the pleasure of conducting a laptop lesson with some kindergarten students. The class had been reading Eric Carle's books and learning about different animals.
Children in the class used laptops to visit a site to hear animal sounds at kiddyhouse.com - http://www.kiddyhouse.com/Farm/ . This site was simple to access. Another site with an animal farm is www.kbears.com/farm/ . The Kbears website has numerous other interactive worlds for primary grades and a library of 100 animals. The kindergarten class had fun clicking and listening to the sounds of farm animals. Then we all went to another site to label the parts of a horse at the BBC schools web site. Flash interactives for Ourselves includes labelling parts of a horse, a fish and a human. The students were thrilled to drag and drop the labels on the right parts. Check it out here . Click on the "Ourselves" icon to continue to the label activity.
BTW... the BBC Schools website is a fabulous resource for students of all ages. Many kindergarten students read Eric Carle books. For ideas to use in the classroom, check out the website - many teachers have submitted great ideas at http://www.eric-carle.com/catexchange.html.
Children in the class used laptops to visit a site to hear animal sounds at kiddyhouse.com - http://www.kiddyhouse.com/Farm/ . This site was simple to access. Another site with an animal farm is www.kbears.com/farm/ . The Kbears website has numerous other interactive worlds for primary grades and a library of 100 animals. The kindergarten class had fun clicking and listening to the sounds of farm animals. Then we all went to another site to label the parts of a horse at the BBC schools web site. Flash interactives for Ourselves includes labelling parts of a horse, a fish and a human. The students were thrilled to drag and drop the labels on the right parts. Check it out here . Click on the "Ourselves" icon to continue to the label activity.
BTW... the BBC Schools website is a fabulous resource for students of all ages. Many kindergarten students read Eric Carle books. For ideas to use in the classroom, check out the website - many teachers have submitted great ideas at http://www.eric-carle.com/catexchange.html.
Labels: animals, eric carle, instructional technology, interactive activity, kindergarten, primary grades, stem grant
Friday, June 20, 2008
STEM Grant Experiences
It is with a certain sense of nostalgia that I read the introduction I wrote for my teaching website almost two years ago. I have since completed 33 credits of graduate school, learned much, and have two more years' life experience including working for NYIT to coach teachers directly in a Title IIB STEM Grant, Phase II of the Digital Immigration Project.
This has been an exciting time and I have had such great experiences and successes doing this teacher training. I've met dozens of new people, been in numerous schools in the Bronx, created and delivered science and technology workshops, taught kindergarten and 4th grade classes, and had class discussions with students in grades K - 5 as I worked with their teachers on integrating science and technology throughout the curriculum.
This time has been very rewarding and satisfying. I was warmly received and appreciated by many - both teachers and students - and shared some of the joys of teaching and learning that are so dear to education professionals.
In some kindergarten classes, I worked with teachers to deliver a wheel-and-axle experience by building wooden models of cars, covered wagons, bulldozers and bi-planes with the students. In another kindergarten class, we got out the laptops and went online to hear the sounds of animals and label the parts of animals. The kids dragged and dropped boxes and jumped with delight when they got them all in place. 4th grade students "oohed" and "aahed" watching a video of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon in a lesson about life cycles, or as they found the iron in their ground-up cereal.
Teachers of all grades and subjects participated in science workshops, and brought some of those resources into their classrooms. It was wonderful to hear of their successes. And to think I hadn’t taken a science class in over 20 years - I presented earthquakes and plate tectonics, hurricanes, simple machines, Newton's laws, the scientific method, and our planetary neighborhood, with videos, podcasts, online interactives, hands-on experiments and added some computer software training. My ratings were excellent and I am very pleased with these accomplishments.
I now live in Rutherford, New Jersey in a house I purchased with two of my friends. I still do the budgeting, coordinating and business work of the FunMasters entertainment company, and occasionally get to perform myself, face painting or doing temporary air brush tattoos. As I near completion of my degree, and have been immersed in elementary school environments and a couple of middle schools as well, I am a better-rounded educator, more seasoned and even more prepared to tackle new challenges.
To teach again would be great, as a cluster teacher in elementary school, even a science cluster teacher, seems a reasonable aspiration, or to get back into a high school and facilitate learning about, and how to use technology to bring new life to students projects. But beyond that, I strive to have a greater influence on bringing technology to a learning community, to collaborate with other educators on making their classrooms more in-tune to the 21st century.
Who knows what challenges await our students? This increasingly complex world needs well-educated students who can think critically, use technology without a second thought as part of their toolbox, collaborate well with others, and navigate a world whose resources are being stretched and whose boundaries are being constantly challenged.
With world population approaching 7 billion people, it is, as Aldous Huxley penned, A Brave New World. Educating our children is an urgent endeavor, and I am anxious to continue my part in it.
I'll be cross-posting to http://bronxdip.edublogs.org/
to all you other educators out there.. keep faith ...
all the best,
Lynne
This has been an exciting time and I have had such great experiences and successes doing this teacher training. I've met dozens of new people, been in numerous schools in the Bronx, created and delivered science and technology workshops, taught kindergarten and 4th grade classes, and had class discussions with students in grades K - 5 as I worked with their teachers on integrating science and technology throughout the curriculum.
This time has been very rewarding and satisfying. I was warmly received and appreciated by many - both teachers and students - and shared some of the joys of teaching and learning that are so dear to education professionals.
In some kindergarten classes, I worked with teachers to deliver a wheel-and-axle experience by building wooden models of cars, covered wagons, bulldozers and bi-planes with the students. In another kindergarten class, we got out the laptops and went online to hear the sounds of animals and label the parts of animals. The kids dragged and dropped boxes and jumped with delight when they got them all in place. 4th grade students "oohed" and "aahed" watching a video of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon in a lesson about life cycles, or as they found the iron in their ground-up cereal.
Teachers of all grades and subjects participated in science workshops, and brought some of those resources into their classrooms. It was wonderful to hear of their successes. And to think I hadn’t taken a science class in over 20 years - I presented earthquakes and plate tectonics, hurricanes, simple machines, Newton's laws, the scientific method, and our planetary neighborhood, with videos, podcasts, online interactives, hands-on experiments and added some computer software training. My ratings were excellent and I am very pleased with these accomplishments.
I now live in Rutherford, New Jersey in a house I purchased with two of my friends. I still do the budgeting, coordinating and business work of the FunMasters entertainment company, and occasionally get to perform myself, face painting or doing temporary air brush tattoos. As I near completion of my degree, and have been immersed in elementary school environments and a couple of middle schools as well, I am a better-rounded educator, more seasoned and even more prepared to tackle new challenges.
To teach again would be great, as a cluster teacher in elementary school, even a science cluster teacher, seems a reasonable aspiration, or to get back into a high school and facilitate learning about, and how to use technology to bring new life to students projects. But beyond that, I strive to have a greater influence on bringing technology to a learning community, to collaborate with other educators on making their classrooms more in-tune to the 21st century.
Who knows what challenges await our students? This increasingly complex world needs well-educated students who can think critically, use technology without a second thought as part of their toolbox, collaborate well with others, and navigate a world whose resources are being stretched and whose boundaries are being constantly challenged.
With world population approaching 7 billion people, it is, as Aldous Huxley penned, A Brave New World. Educating our children is an urgent endeavor, and I am anxious to continue my part in it.
I'll be cross-posting to http://bronxdip.edublogs.org/
to all you other educators out there.. keep faith ...
all the best,
Lynne
Labels: aspirations, education, educational technology, instructional technology, stem grant, teacher pd, teacher training, teaching
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Jing Project - Easy Share - Capture & Narrating Application
Free application to capture and record stuff on your desktop - absolutely fabulous for quick how-to's and sharing .. Jing at http://www.jingproject.com/ . There an intro and video on how to use Jing at http://blog.jingproject.com/2007/07/how_do_i_use_this_thing_called.html. There are MAC and PC versions. TechSmith makes Camtasia, and Snagit. Jing is akin to Camtasia "light" and may be a great solution in lieu of the more pricey Camtasia or Captivate.
I made this quick tutorial using Jing to show how to edit the slide master in my Jeopardy game.
It very simply captures screenshots and sends them to your flickr account .. or gives you a link to share it or embed it .. but much more than that, you can record a voice narrated tutorial as well and annotate the screenshot. Check it out.
I made this quick tutorial using Jing to show how to edit the slide master in my Jeopardy game.
It very simply captures screenshots and sends them to your flickr account .. or gives you a link to share it or embed it .. but much more than that, you can record a voice narrated tutorial as well and annotate the screenshot. Check it out.
Labels: create tutorial, free software, instructional technology, jing, jing project, screen capture, web2.0
Monday, September 24, 2007
Dining Out Math Lesson Plan
Last week I had the pleasure and honor to conduct a guest math lesson at the Arturo Schomberg Bronx facility of Satellite Academy High School. [You can also read more about the Satellite Academies here. Shawn Welcome is the Principal.] The lesson I created is called "Dining Out" and this idea can work well particularly well with older students in a consumer math, personal finance, and/or basic algebra review class. The primary activity involves ordering dinner from a menu and getting as close to $50, without going over, including sales tax & gratuities.
Some envision a curriculum around the topic of EveryDay Math. With my personal experience and background in finance (I worked on Wall Street for a number of years, as a Mortgage Office after that and for a financial planning firm), I really know a lot about this and it is one of those things I really like teaching. Too often our students graduate high school knowing nothing about credit cards, bank accounts or budgeting. There are all kinds of financial decisions we make - from picking a cell phone plan to furnishing an apartment - and a class like this can give students a real jump on dealing successfully with these situations.
At The Young Women's Leadership School in East Harlem, NY I taught a similar class, and I really enjoyed the students and their engagement with the subject matter. There were equations, too, of course, but it all fit into Math in Every Day life. The school has a computer lab & mobile laptop carts that can be used, too. Students can learn to use a spreadsheet program, research investments, and tap into an online Mathematical Skills plan to practice and create their portfolios. Dan Stein, college professor and consultant, has developed a spreadsheet that students can use to track their progress and link directly to AAAMath.com for topic reviews and practice.
I published the lesson on the web using google pages and used a calculator widget from Lab Pixies. Widgets are great... and this one cames in handy! Lab Pixies has something new call "moodgets".... I'm sure you'll be seeing this one on myspace ... and it could be great to use with little kids when learning about expressions and feelings..
For more teaching ideas, lesson plans and articles, see my Portfolio page at LynneMBailey.com.
Some envision a curriculum around the topic of EveryDay Math. With my personal experience and background in finance (I worked on Wall Street for a number of years, as a Mortgage Office after that and for a financial planning firm), I really know a lot about this and it is one of those things I really like teaching. Too often our students graduate high school knowing nothing about credit cards, bank accounts or budgeting. There are all kinds of financial decisions we make - from picking a cell phone plan to furnishing an apartment - and a class like this can give students a real jump on dealing successfully with these situations.
At The Young Women's Leadership School in East Harlem, NY I taught a similar class, and I really enjoyed the students and their engagement with the subject matter. There were equations, too, of course, but it all fit into Math in Every Day life. The school has a computer lab & mobile laptop carts that can be used, too. Students can learn to use a spreadsheet program, research investments, and tap into an online Mathematical Skills plan to practice and create their portfolios. Dan Stein, college professor and consultant, has developed a spreadsheet that students can use to track their progress and link directly to AAAMath.com for topic reviews and practice.
I published the lesson on the web using google pages and used a calculator widget from Lab Pixies. Widgets are great... and this one cames in handy! Lab Pixies has something new call "moodgets".... I'm sure you'll be seeing this one on myspace ... and it could be great to use with little kids when learning about expressions and feelings..
For more teaching ideas, lesson plans and articles, see my Portfolio page at LynneMBailey.com.
Labels: consumer math, instructional technology, lab pixies, lynne bailey, math lesson plan, numeracy, Prof. Dan Stein, sany hs, satellite hs, teaching, widgets
Blogging Basics
Last week I attended a Blogging Basics workshop given by Nelly Yusupova, the President of the NYC Chapter of Webgrrrls. Nelly did a fabulous job presenting the information and there was a lively, diverse and interesting group of participants.
On Thursday, October 25, 2007 there will be another blog workshop on designing and implementing a blog. You can register for the workshop here. Consider joining Webgrrls while you're at it. Webgrrls is a great resource for anyone interested in tech-related issues and meeting interesting people with very diverse backgrounds in many fields. There are monthly meetings and lots of opportunities for networking.
Blogging can be a bit confusing for the uninitiated. I wrote a paper, A Look at Blogging in December, 2006 about blogging with ideas for using it in the classroom. You can download it here (it's a PDF file for Adobe Acrobat) and check it out. Using blogs for students to post and comment can be very beneficial for learning, and teachers and administrators find them to be a great communications tool.
For more teaching ideas, lesson plans and articles, see my Portfolio page at LynneMBailey.com.
Labels: blog workshop, blogs, education blog, instructional technology, lynne bailey, lynne m. bailey, nelly yusupova, teaching with blogs, webgrrls
Friday, December 22, 2006
PowerPoint for Teachers
Jeopardy Game Template !I just redid my web pages at www.lynnembailey.com with a new page, PowerPoint for Teachers. You can download my Jeopardy Game Template to use with your classes. You will have to customize the template for your school, subject and grade. There are tutorials to assist you. Perhaps your students can help write the answers & questions.
Send me your Q&A's and I'll post them on my website. Hope you have fun using it.
Labels: education, instructional technology, powerpoint, powerpoint game, teaching
