Teacher Resources

In this portion of my website I hope to gather useful tools and resources to supplement student learning as an incoming teacher!  I know there are infinite resources involving technology and I cannot wait to start discovering and using them.

Resources/Websites

These websites are some fun ones that I found just browsing around, the two professional ones that are actual organizations are listed below these.

1. http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/classroom-solutions/2012/02/four-tools-create-digital-substitute Scholastic has a lot of really good links that I was browsing through.  This one dealt with how to make Substitute teacher lesson plans if you were going to be gone, and more importantly, used technology such as video and voice recording to do it!
2. http://biology.about.com/od/biologylessonplans/a/aa081304a.htm This link gives a lot of great teacher resources to Biology labs and possible lesson plans.  While it is not an ‘official’ Biology site, I found it useful and read through a few of the labs for students.  The labs were geared towards younger kids 5^th-8^th grade, but they were well thought out and seemed like they would be fun for the kids.  Most importantly, they seemed to really convey the meaning and purpose of the lab throughout in an easy to follow fashion.
3. http://biologyinmotion.com/ This link offers more good ideas for classroom activities.  However, it also allows for students to get on the site and partake in these interactive things.  It is neat and very useful because it could be used for a class in a computer lab after the teacher has lectured and wants to reinforce an idea.  There are many little cartoons and diagrams to explain the biological processes.  This would touch on helping the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.  The teacher could either have them do this in the lab at school or assign homework to participate in a certain online activity.
4.   http://www.biologycorner.com/ This link offers tools for teachers to create and make different activities for students.  Word searches, graphs, and crossword puzzles all involving science are ready to be made on this site!  It also offers an Education News section as well as more awesome Biology sites where I actually found my 5^th site.  http://www.biologycorner.com/2011/11/08/common-core-tips-literacy-in-science/ This was another link off of this site that outlined how to teach and get across reading points.  It gives some good ideas for teachers on how to make main points in science stand out.  I will definitely be looking at this one more and hopefully utilizing it in the future.
5. http://www.hotchalk.com/index_new.html This site looked like it would be really interesting to explore.  It offers teachers a way of using technology to manage their classroom and homework and display expectations for students on the Web.  I haven’t created an account (yet!), but I plan on doing so soon because it’s free to sign up and looks like it could be really helpful.
6. http://www.teach-nology.com/ This was another site that looked like it could add some good technology into the classroom!

I also just signed up on HotChalk.com and will keep current postings about whether or not it is helpful!

These next two sites are professional organizations and offer lots of great info.!

1. NSTA:  www.nsta.org
2. NABT:  http://www.nabt.org

TechTorials

Below are some TechTorials that I found particularly interesting, enjoy!

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/techtorial/techtorial100.pdf

This techtorial on how to create a blog allows students and teachers to interact and play with technology and a specific content area.  I would plan on using this tool in the classroom myself for creating a blog with interesting science facts and sites on it that my students could access.  I would also require my students to build their own blog on which they would have to research a project, post pictures, links, and other cool things (all science related of course)!  It would be a great way to communicate in a creative way that is different from a lot of the over-used regular projects required of most high school students.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/techtorial/techtorial062.pdf

While this techtorial isn’t too complicated, I think it would be a neat tool to use a teacher.  As a student, I always liked it when my teachers gave me a single handout with important upcoming events; it was also nice for my parents to hang on to.  Hopefully, by using this tool every month or every-other month, I will be able to convey important information in an organized fashion that is easy to follow for my students.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/techtorial/techtorial058.pdf

This techtorial seemed like it would be a great tool for my science students.  By teaching them and helping through the steps on how to create an eye-catching poster, they could neatly display their science findings and have fun while doing it.  This tool would be great for science fairs or for other projects given in the classroom where some type of visual aide is needed.

Excel Spreadsheet

Word Processing Programs for Student Use

Word Processing programs open a lot of doors for students and teachers allowing different projects and activities to be created.  For instance, this program could be used by a student to create a poster.  As a future science teacher, perhaps I will assign a topic to everyone (basic cells, evolution, and the respiratory system as three examples), the students would then be asked to create a poster using Word Processor.  On this poster they would be encouraged to use color and eye-catching headings along with bullet points of the important and main concepts of each.  They would then present this to the class using the bullet points as reminder to go into-depth about the topic more (much like a Power Point is used). This would be one way to utilize a Word Processing program.  Using this tool instead of having the students write another typical academic paper, will allow them to get in touch with their creative side along with have fun with the project.  Often students get caught up in 'writing a good and long enough' paper, that they forget what they are actually trying to research.  Using this project would help to eliminate that problem in the way that they would still be learning, but that it would be more fun and enjoyable as well.

Assitive Technology

In today's world where the school place is extremely diverse, assitive technologies are helping to bridge the gap for many students who may need extra help.  One example of this is Optical Character Recognition software.  This software will scan and convert print and then it can be read aloud with a speech synthesizer to assist the visually impaired.  A second example are visual output cues versus auditory cues, that can assist deaf or hearing impaired students.  These two examples of assistive technologies are just a couple of many.  The fact is that technology has become extremely advanced and is now being offered to everyone, even those with disabilities.  These programs help make the technology access and use fair among students and will help to better all students when it comes to utilizing technology.  The site below is full of information pertaining to new ideas and technologies being designed to be inclusive of every individual.

 http://idrc.ocad.ca/

This site outlines how to make websites accessible to everyone, creating a fair learning environment.

http://courses.idrc.ocad.ca/go.php/1/index.php/p_course/1