Making Teachers Nerdy: Top 20 Websites for the School Year

"Top 20 Websites No Teacher Should Start the Year Without"

This is a MUST visit blog from "Making Teachers Nerdy." I love it. Click to see the top technology tools for the school year! Scroll through the list and choose ONE to try this semester!

From "Making Teachers Nerdy" Blog at http://mrssmoke.onsugar.com/Top-20-Websites-Teacher-Should-Start-2010-2011-Year-Without-9213932

ALA Top 25 websites

ALA.org
"Best Websites for Teaching and Learning

Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning   "

I browsed the "Top 25" websites for 2010 and could not select just one to recommend. This is an amazing, innovative collection of cutting-edge sites that help bring technology immediately into the classroom in easy-to use ways that both teacher and student will love. According to the ALA website, "The 'Top 25' Websites foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. They are free, Web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover."

• Media Sharing
• Digital Storytelling
• Manage and Organize
• Social Networking and Communication
• Curriculum Sharing
• Content Resources: Lesson Plans and More

Click on any of the above topics to access the top websites in these areas. 


I really enjoyed the "media sharing" tools and "manage and organize" sites such as MuseumBox which is fabulous at allowing students to use technology to organize, present, and share their knowledge in various formats. No more boring powerpoint projects. "So what does museumbox do? Museumbox provides the tools (that) allow you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. You can display anything from a text file to a movie. You can also view the museum boxes submitted by other people and comment on the contents" (from museumbox.com). Trust me. This is really worth seeing and using. (Easy to assess with a good rubric, too.) And this is just ONE site of the 25. 

All information, images, and links taken from ALA Website http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/bestlist/bestwebsitestop25.cfm 

A Vision of 21st Century Teachers

Today's Digital Age students speak the language of technology. To help our students achieve information literacy and be competitive in the 21st century, we must intentionally connect multi-media use and technology with classroom learning.

This short video featuring eighteen  21st Century teachers was created to compliment the short video "A Vision of K-12 Students Today"  which offered a look at the technology needs of our 21st Century learners. This video is an encouraging look at what some teachers are doing practically with technology in the classroom.

A Vision of 21st Century Teachers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4g5M06YyVw

Social Media Revolution 2

Social Media Revolution 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng&feature=related

For those of us who are tempted to think that social networking is just a fad, here's a look at the concept of "Socialnomics," what some are calling the greatest shift since the industrial revolution. If this is how our students and the world now communicate, what must we do as teachers to help connect our content with this form of communication? Check out the statistics.

For serious researchers: Four ways to search databases!

http://support.ebsco.com/training/flash_videos/KidsSearchInterface.html

Click here Kids Search tutorial on EBSCOhost to take a look at KidsSearch database on EBSCOhost.

Learning to use databases is an invaluable and critical research tool for students and teachers. Students need to be turning in research obtained from databases frequently. Databases are designed for the youngest age users (Ex: KidsSearch and Searchasaurus on EBSCOhost) up through the highest levels of academia. They are growing increasingly user-friendly and usually have excellent tutorials. The school librarian can collaborate with teachers on units to teach and reinforce database searching skills. Students adapt to these quickly when asked to use them!

In order to try out a few academic databases and different search strategies, I decided to conduct 4 different type searches on 4 different databases. Some of these databases are available through your school district or local public library. 

MY TOPIC: As a school librarian, I desire to find useful Web 2.0 technology for teachers to utilize to enhance student achievement in meeting content area standards.

SEARCH #1: ERIC/EBSCOhost            STRATEGY: Building Block

Search Terms: I narrowed my query down to the following search terms and entered each term or string:

s1=School librarian or school librar* or school media specialist             Results: 8477 hits

s2=teacher or educator                                                                                      Results: 405, 032 hits

s3=Web 2.0                                                                                                         Results: 348 hits

Search: When I combined each of these search terms or strings together with the Boolean connecter AND, the end result was 8 hits. s1 AND s2 AND s3 =8 hits

The second article looked particularly useful for my topic: Student Inquiry and Web 2.0 By: Berger, Pam. School Library Monthly, v26 n5 p14-17 Jan 2010. (EJ874143)

Feeling I may need to broaden my search topic a bit, I decided that Web 2.0 may be too specific. I broadened the search by adding “social network*” which expanded the results to 20 hits. Several of these looked like very useful sources.