Posted on July 7th, 2008 by monibuns
Students, if you finish your assignments early, instead of playing a driving game or Pacman, try a mind game. There are tons of online games that can stimulate the mind. Below are some of my favorites found at www.boxerjam.com. Check them out.
Strike A Match
This game requires you to find related terms in a group of 6 terms or a group of 9 terms. You have to be quick though.
Out Of Order
In this word scramble game, you only have to type the first three letters of the answer. The scrambled words are found in sentences.
Know It All
This is a simple random knowledge game. Either you know the answer or you don’t.
Take 5
This is a fun timed word matching game.
Enjoy these games. I’ll share some other cool games with you at a later day. ENJOY!!!
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Filed under: Educate Yourself, Entertain Yourself
Posted on June 20th, 2008 by monibuns
I think wikis can be a useful tool in some classrooms. At our school it would probably have to be done in the building because all of our students do NOT have access to a computer outside of school. Students can be given a time during their computer lab class period to have editorial access to the wiki, since everyone cannot edit and save at the same time. I was able to come up with a couple of ideas on how it can be used in a computer lab class environment.
1. During each semester, the students have to use the Internet to plan a trip. They gather information about Greyhound, airline sites, hotel reservation sites, and places to visit in their city. I believe we can use the wiki to add the names and pictures of places to visit for different cities.
2. The students can also help create a story together. They could simply add to what was on the story before it reached them. They could also give title suggestions.
Both of these activities could probably also be done on a blog, but I think I will try to use them in a wiki. The challenging part will be sending invitations to all of my students.
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Filed under: Educate Yourself tagged wiki
Posted on June 20th, 2008 by monibuns
I love bitstrips.com. I can see this website being used in every subject. The students can use comic strips to create discussions on everything from causes of the Civil War to photosynthesis. In social studies, the students can try to create characters that look like the actual founding fathers (e.g. Washington, Jefferson, etc.). They can create conversations that represent the opposing views of W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington. It takes a while to get used to, but I think it’s great. Check out just one of the characters I have created which I will use to develop my own comic strip.
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Filed under: Educate Yourself, Entertain Yourself tagged bitstrips
Posted on June 19th, 2008 by monibuns
Day 2 at Memphis City School’s Tech Camp 2008 was terrific. We began the day learning about how to use a Smart Board in the classroom. My Smart Board was delivered to my classroom at the beginning of April. I didn’t really get to use it that much. Actually I only knew a few ways to use it. With today’s information I look forward to getting back to school, so I can use it more effectively and share with my co-workers how to use theirs more effectively.
Today’s second lesson gave us more information on creating our blog pages and posts. We learned how to link to websites outside of our blog.
Next, we had an introductory lesson on digital photography. I learned that the camera I currently use at the school is a pretty good camera. I also learned that my pictures suck because I haven’t been using the correct modes and proper lighting. I look forward to taking the Photo Safari Class in July, so I can become a better photographer.
After lunch we learned about some amazing websites. I look forward to using Animoto, Bitstrips, Vcasmo, Logoease, and Widgetbox. I am also going to check out the free tunes at FreePlayMusic. My family and friends will definitely be interested in using Hulu to watch TV shows and movies.
Animoto
Bitstrips
Vcasmo
Logoease
Widgetbox
Hulu
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Filed under: Educate Yourself tagged animoto, bitstrips, freeplaymusic, hulu, logoease, mcs, memphis city schools, smart board, tech camp, vcasmo, widgetbox
Posted on June 18th, 2008 by monibuns
June 18, 2008
Wow!!! Day 1 of Tech Camp was great. The instructors are excellent, and the participants have learned about many websites that can be useful tools in and out of the classroom. We started the day by learning about blogging. I must admit I didn’t know very much about blogging before today. I have gone to a few sports blogs in the past, but I didn’t know how easy it was to create my own blog.
We also learned about how to set up an online storage account. It’s called Xdrive. I am very excited about sharing this with my students because if I see a floppy disk come into the lab this school year I think I will pass out.
We also found out about two online tools that can be used for word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, etc. (Basically everything you can do with Microsoft Office, except it’s FREE.) One is called Google Docs; the other one is called Zoho. Both of these will be very beneficial to my students who have to go to the public library in order to complete word processing projects and presentations.
After lunch, we dove right back in to more great information. We learned about Social Bookmarking, Social Networking, Multimedia applications available online. With Social Bookmarking we learned about del.icio.us which allows you to bookmark sites and share them with others. You can also tag the sites so it will be easier to search for your bookmarked sites later. Facebook, LinkedIn, and The Apple were three Social Networking sites that we discussed. We also discussed several multimedia applications available online. They included Jing (I am very excited about trying this program.), Voice Thread, and Zoho Present which is just like PowerPoint. One program that we learned about that’s not online is Snag It. Snag It allows you to capture and image from your computer screen and use it in another application. You have to purchase Snag It. I think I might have to go on and buy it. It would make my job so much easier when it comes to explaining different programs to my students. I can just make a worksheet or packet to show students how to do certain things. Today was great. We even received this very nice flashdrive.
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Filed under: Educate Yourself tagged mcs, memphis city schools, tech camp
