Science - New Resources for Teachers K-8

We have new NSTA books for teachers:

Freedom FLIX Bringing History to Life

Check out the Freedom FLIX trial at the SCS Library homepage.
For grades 4-8!

 "FreedomFlix transforms content from the highly successful Cornerstones of Freedom series into enhanced eBooks. All the eBooks are supported with a deep and diverse reservoir of related content and primary sources featuring videos, audio, images, and text. FreedomFlix helps students hone literacy skills, build knowledge of important historical topics, and cultivate 21st Century Skills through the inquiry process. And FreedomFlix aligns to the Common Core Standards by featuring multiple text types and a cross-curricular, nonfiction focus."

PebbleGo & Multimodal Literacy

Check out PebbleGo - Find the link to the trial on the SCS Library homepage

Figurative Language Lessons and Activities

Figurative Language lessons from Vocabulary Spelling City

Reinforce your students' understanding of figurative language with VocabularySpellingCity's figurative language lessons, interactive games, printable worksheets, and powerpoint presentations. Learning figurative language gives students at the elementary school, middle school, and high school levels the ability to transform their pencils into paintbrushes, as they paint a picture with their words. VocabularySpellingCity can give your students this gift by providing figurative language lessons and exercises that will establish an understanding of the main types of figurative language.

Book Creator Now has handwriting and free-hand drawing feature + Easy Sharing

The new update to Book Creator is the addition of support for handwriting and free-hand drawing in your books!!!!!

And Sharing:

The latest updates to Book Creator allows you to export your books to ePub 3.0 format. The exported file can be opened and read in the Chrome web browser using the free Readium browser extension. This is a great option as it allows a parent who doesn’t have an iPad at home to view his or her child’s work at home.

Using Google Drive with Students

This is a good post from PLP

Several Ways to Share Content...

Shared Class Folders  ....

Naming Folders and Docs


Don’t Let Google Drive Leave Tire Marks on Your Lesson Plans

Standards-Based Grading

October 2013 issue ASCD Education Update available in the SCS Library -

100 Great Children's Books 100 Years

How Many Do you Know?

"These 100 fantastic tales have withstood the test of time at 

The New York Public Library or are on their way to becoming new classics. 

How many do you know? Check them out—and check them off!"

TRUEFLIX READ IT WATCH IT! Grades 3-8

Free Trial - USERNAME: trflix        PASSWORD: dance

Everything You've Been Told About How You Learn Is a LIE

Everything You've Been Told About How You Learn- NOT what you think - surprising new science.

... the way students learn, always couched in such a way as to indicate these were scientifically accepted facts. You know everyone learns differently. Do you think you learn better through words or pictures? Did you know you learn different subjects with different sides of the brain?"
Click here to read more via popsci.com

Skyping Authors in the Classroom

     A few years ago Joey Adams connected with a classroom outside Atlanta, GA via Skype. The classes shared book discussions over several months. Joey brought his students to the Cwing lab, attached a webcam to the top of the big screen, had his students arrange chairs in front, and then he popped up a YouTube video of a plane landing before switching to Skype and connecting with the other class. The kids loved it.
     You don't have to be that elaborate, but Skyping with another class or (even better) an author is motivational and rewarding for students. Here's a link to an article appearing in the Sept./Oct. issue  of ISTE's Learning & Leading magazine. This article tells how to find authors and how to connect with them. There are plenty of resources and how-to's to get started. For technical set-up at school, if you want some help, we can provide assistance. We have microphones to borrow that work better in larger groups, and we can help you set up a Skype account and use if, if you haven't done so. Let us know how we can help with the places you'll go.

SpellingCity for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch on the iTunes App Store

VocabularySpellingCity is a fun way to learn spelling and vocabulary words by playing engaging learning games using any word list. The most popular activities are Spelling TestMe, HangMouse, and our vocabulary games, available to Premium Members. The most popular word lists are Sound Alikes, Compound Words, Hunger Games and SAT Words. This is a free app!


SpellingCity for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch on the iTunes App Store

If great authors of the past posted to Instagram

If great authors of the past posted to Instagram (and other great authors commented) 

Click above to see more from 22 Words 

What if some of history’s famous writers had posted their pics online with captions and hashtags so that other famous writers from history could then occasionally come along and respond in the comments…

Ernest Hemingway (with F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Retronaut WOW! See the Past Like You Wouldn't Believe

Explore Eras, Categories and Clusters!

The past is a foreign country. This is your passport.

What others are saying about Retronaut:

“Riotous and marvellous delights”
- AnOther

“Forget Dr Who; Chris Wild is a real Time Lord”
- BBC

“Time-travel may be all in your head”
- CNN

“Best of the web”
- Daily Mail

“The very best of the internet”
- Good Web Guide

“Enlightenment and wonder”
- Guardian

“Amazing”
- In Style Magazine

“Web time-lords”
- Town Magazine

“The hidden power of your internet browser – time-travel”
- Times

Go See Retronaut NOW

Using Google Drive for Student Feedback

Google Drive: A Better Method for Giving Students Feedback

Posted by Jennifer Carey on Sep 9, 2013 in The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices, Web Tools That Deepen Learning | 4 comments

Last year Google Docs was upgraded to become Google Drive. Like its predecessor, Google Drive allows you to create and share documents with ease. The enhanced Google Drive format has given the program some wonderful additional features that I encourage you to explore. However, right now I want to highlight how useful Google Drive is in providing feedback for students. (If you are not familiar with Google Drive, here is a brief video highlighting the concept.)

Google Drive is entirely free and works within any browser, although to enjoy all of its features, you do need to use Google’s Chrome Browser. Chrome is also free and will allow you to integrate content and material across devices and platforms. It’s certainly worth adding to your software toolkit.

Using Google Drive with student writers

With Google Drive students can create a variety of content, but here we are going to focus on word processing documents.............READ MORE

Why we need a professional culture of collaboration & 3 fallacies of teacher effectiveness

Why we need a professional culture of collaboration & 3 fallacies of teacher effectivenessow.ly/l709T#vted #edreform #Finland

— Kari Ahern (@kariahern) May 16, 2013

Informational text is the new nonfiction

The educational spotlight is shining on nonfiction. The CCSS for reading INFORMATIONAL TEXTS (RI) tell us that we must integrate more nonfiction than ever into the curriculum. The library will seize this opportunity to purchase and promote outstanding nonfiction.  Scroll down for some ideas  for incorporating some of our outstanding nonfiction books into the CCSS ELA lessons for next year from School  Library Journal Kathleen Odean. K-8

CC Standard RI.4.9 Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.

Use these books...

Barretta, Gene.Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin.. Gr 2–5

Byrd, Robert. Electric Ben: The Amazing Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. iGr 4–7

Fritz, Jean. What’s the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? Gr 3–5

Schroeder, Alan. Ben Franklin: His Wit and Wisdom from A to Z. Gr 2–5

Ben Franklin wore so many hats that he merits many biographies. These illustrated books at different reading levels take a variety of approaches to his life and work. Barretta uses a “Now/Then” structure, focusing on Franklin’s inventions in his day and how they’re used now. Schroeder uses an alphabetical arrangement that mixes miscellaneous facts; the letter “B,” for example, covers Boston, bifocals, andballoon. The Fritz and Byrd biographies are chronological structures, but have different tones and levels of detail. Students can compare emphases and structures, perhaps using a graphic organizer, and also compare the varied illustration styles and what they add to each text.

Gibbons, Gail. Monarch Butterfly.  PreS–Gr 2
Marsh, Laura F. Caterpillar to Butterfly. PreS–Gr 2
CC Standard RI K.9 With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures).

The amazing transformation from caterpillar to butterfly is conveyed in different ways by these two colorful books. Kindergarteners will be able to identify similarities in the information and differences in presentation such as photographs versus paintings. Both books use labels in the visuals to highlight body parts. The Marsh book has a table of contents, numbered chapters, a glossary, and tips for a butterfly garden. Gibbons’s book features a map of migration routes and explains how to raise a monarch butterfly.

Kudlinski, Kathleen V. Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs! Gr 2–4
CC Standard RI.4.8 Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text.

It was once believed that dinosaurs dragged their tails; now fossil finds indicate that they held their tails out straight. This upbeat book with humorous illustrations provides a valuable lesson in how science uses new findings and ideas to reevaluate accepted beliefs, comparing what scientists used to think about dinosaurs with what they think now. Students can make a chart listing each past belief, each new belief, and the evidence that prompted the change, and judge whether the evidence seems sufficient. The book explains that scientists still don’t have all the answers, often due to insufficient evidence, and they don’t always agree with one another in interpreting evidence. Students can look for language that indicates uncertainty, such as “there is no way to be sure.” Some students might like to compare this book to Kudlinski’s Boy, Were We Wrong about the Solar System! (Dutton, 2008) which has a similar structure.

Leedy, Loreen. Seeing Symmetry.  Gr 2–4
CC Standard RI.3.7 Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).

Bright computer-generated pictures use familiar objects like food, animals, and people to show examples of vertical, horizontal, and rotational symmetry. The simple text explains the concepts and introduces new vocabulary like line symmetry, mirror image,horizontal, vertical, and rotate, terms which will require going over more than once. Students can then seek out examples in school and at home to demonstrate their understanding of the types of symmetry. Teachers may also want to use the two craft activities given at the back of the book to reinforce the concepts.

Macaulay, David, and Sheila Keenan. Castle: How It Works.Gr 1–3
CC Standard RI.2.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 2 topic or subject area.

The master of architectural books turns his talents to a younger crowd with this easy reader that meets the CC need for texts on technical subjects. With a slight fictional story line, the appealing text and pictures introduce castle residents, parts of the building, and different weapons, using technical terms in context like siege and portcullis, which are also defined in the glossary. At certain points the voice is second person, such as, “You are deep within the castle.” Students can note where that’s used and what it adds. Another book in the series by the same authors is Jet Plane: How It Works, which has similar features and approach.

Mann, Elizabeth. Empire State Building. Gr 4–8
CC Standard RI.5.3 Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in it.

The Empire State Building dazzled New York City when it was built in 1931. This engaging Orbis Pictus Honor Book employs cutaways and numbered diagrams to demonstrate how it was constructed. Students can analyze how the text and visuals, including paintings and historical photographs, convey the process, noting that building skyscrapers depended on technological advances such as the inventions of steel and the automatic elevator brake. Another central idea is that during the Great Depression the Empire State Building was an important symbol of hope to New Yorkers, who were proud of the height made possible only by those technological advances. Check out other books in the “Wonders of the World” series, too, which satisfy the CC call for technical content.

Rappaport, Doreen. Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  K–Gr 3
CC Standard RI.1.2 Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

The lyrical words and expansive pictures in this stunning award winner make it an excellent read-aloud. After listening to the book more than once or reading it independently, students can discuss its title and subtitle, which point to the main topic about the power of words in Dr. King’s life. As a class or in small groups, they can find details in the text, including the quotes in a colored typeface, that relate to the theme. Enrich the experience by listening to a clip from one of Dr. King’s speeches at Stanford’s MLK website.

Burgan, Michael. Breaker Boys: How a Photograph Helped End Child Labor. Gr 6–9
CC Standard RI.6.5 Analyze how a particular sentence, paragraph, chapter, or section fits into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the development of the ideas.

Photographs can change history. So contends this and other entries in the valuable “Captured History” series. Breaker Boys’ straightforward text focuses on a 1911 photograph by Lewis Hine of a group of boys who sorted coal at a Pennsylvania mine for 10 hours a day. The four chapters discuss coal mining, children in the mines, Hine and his work, and the slow changes in child labor laws. Students will be able to identify the structure as cause and effect, and analyze the role of the four chapters. They can also look for sentences and paragraphs that develop the idea of the political influence of photographs. To extend the topic, have students find more Hine photographs about child labor at the Library of Congress website or Flickr.com that can be used in presentations.

Burns, Loree Griffin. Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion.  Gr 6–9
CC Standard RI.7.3 Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events).

This fascinating photo-essay presents the work of an oceanographer who studies ocean currents by following the movement of debris like rubber ducks and hockey gloves spilled by container ships into the Pacific. Students can identify the central ideas about principles of ocean movement and issues around pollution, and trace their interaction through the text, noting how information about the scientist’s work and scientific methods are integrated with those ideas. Students can also consider how photographs, diagrams, and maps are crucial in developing the concepts. Other entries in the excellent “Scientists in the Field” series also lend themselves to use with Common Core.

Schlosser, Eric and Charles Wilson. Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food.Gr 7–10
CC Standard RI.8.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; recognize when irrelevant evidence is introduced.

Fast food—good or bad? In adapting Schlosser’s best seller Fast Food Nation, the authors thoughtfully added material relevant to teens about how fast food is marketed to young people and about teenagers who work in fast food restaurants. They point to problems with working conditions at the restaurants and with inhumane treatment of animals at companies that supply meat. They also argue that fast food harms the environment and consumers’ health. Students can consider whether the authors provide credible evidence for their arguments and if they acknowledge competing arguments about benefits of fast food such as convenience and low prices.

Stone, Tanya Lee. Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream.Gr 6 Up
CC Standard RI.8.6 Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author acknowledges and responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints.

In the early 1960s, 13 women highly qualified to become astronauts were excluded by NASA from the Mercury space program. This appealing Sibert Award winner, notable for the author’s strong point of view, explores the reasons and biases behind the decision. Students can examine the text for language and other evidence that show Stone’s position on the topic and the people involved. For example, what words does she use to describe the women, some of whom she interviewed? How does she present opposing viewpoints that argued that women shouldn’t be included? One of the book’s main themes is that society minimized women’s abilities and restricted their opportunities. Students can consider how photographs and artifacts like advertisements are used to make that case, and if it’s presented fairly.

-Kathleen Odean

eBooks at the SCS Library

CHECK OUT SOME OF OUR NEW EBOOKS AND INTERACTIVE EBOOKS

FIND THEM ALL FROM DESTINY QUEST AND FOLLET SHELF

Visible Thinking!

21 Reasons to Stop Saying "21st Century Teacher"

Just saying... Why are we still talking about it... just get on with it all ready.

Very funny post from Richard Byrne 

21 Reasons to Stop Saying "21st Century Teacher"

This afternoon I saw a blog post titled 27 Ways To Be A 21st Century Teacher. 22 of the 27 items in that list could have been 50 years ago. And 24 of the 27 items are things that I did as a sixth grade student in 1990 (yes, I coded thanks to Logo Writer). Because of this I Tweeted the following in response to seeing the list;

A couple of people asked me about this Tweet so please allow me to elaborate on why I'm tired of people saying "21st Century Teacher" as if it means something.

1. We live in the 21st Century. If you're teaching today, you're a 21st Century teacher.
2. We live in the 21st Century. Even if you're using older methods (some of which have a lot of validity) you're still a 21st Century teacher unless you're going 88.8 miles per hour in a DeLorean to get to work every morning.
3. Unless you plan on teaching for another 87 years, you're not going to be a 22nd Century teacher so don't try to be all curve-jumping. Again, exceptions made for people commuting in a DeLorean at 88.8mph.....READ MOR
E

Tools for Teaching: Ditching The Deficit Model

...

Building on Strengths and Interests

As teachers, we must evaluate where students are academically, and this includes their literacy and behavioral development as well as content knowledge. And the best way to serve and support those identified areas of need is to use research-based best practices to help students grow and catch up when they are missing information and/or skills.

But what if from there, we used their talents, their abundance of abilities and skills -- those jewels -- to meet those needs?

Read more

Teachers' Guide to Videos

WOW - Jensa shared this great resource from one of our FAVORITE places - MindShift
In collaboration with educator Catlin Tucker,MindShift presents Teachers’ Guide to Videos[PDF], to answer these questions and more. You’ll find a slew of valuable resources, including video links for all kinds of subjects — history, math, science, language arts, and more — and ideas on how to inspire students to use videos as a conduit to dig in, ask questions, and learn.

Wonderstruck- Virtual Field Trip and More

Wonderstruck-Virtual Field Trip and More

The worlds of Brian Selznick's Wonderstruck and The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Teaching guide
Virtual trip to the setting of Wonderstruck, activities and more.

Passwords--Are Yours Doing the Job?

I just ran across this article yesterday when I was looking for something else. Considering that our students often have several passwords to manage, I think we tend to help them create easy, memorable passwords. But maybe we need to start challenging them a bit as they get older. Coming up with good passwords isn't easy, but this article by Nicole Perlroth in the New York Times may give you some ideas.

The World IsYour Class

We need to think about this.....Massive Open Online Courses are being compared to the early days of television or movies. We need to think about how they could affect us and our students. More importantly, we need to start thinking about the fact that learning shouldn't be considered just a K-12+higher ed event, but a lifelong journey. Here's a  brief post about MOOCs.

Individual Student Voicethread with Comments

Example of Treehouse Sea Creatures Voicethread

Technology-Rich Learning

The March issue of Educational Leadership (ASCD) is all about Technology-Rich Learning. I actually read it cover to cover. Great articles by Marzono, Tomlinson, and Tom Hoerr (Ellen's former principal)

Click the image above to see the infographic and find the current issue - 

Students First, Not Stuff

Will Richardson

Technologies reframe learning, but educators reimagine schooling.

New Literacies and the Common Core

William Kist

Strategies for learning the fundamentals of reading, writing, and comprehending in the information age.

Flip Your Students' Learning

Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann

Flipped learning is not about how to use video but about how to use students' time.

From "Perspectives"

This issue of Educational Leadership marks the eighth issue that EL has dedicated to technology. (The first with the word "technology" in the title was published in 1968.) As the editors read through submissions, we found the articles fell into several categories: essays from futurists who believe schools are neglecting the revolutionary potential of technology on learning (pp. 10, 22); articles from groundbreaking educators who are experimenting with new student-centered approaches like flipped learning and video screencasts (pp. 16, 28, 84); reports on research and the lack thereof when it comes to knowing what works best for students (pp. 32, 44, 78); and, finally, many articles from educators who are trying to weave tradition and technology into what Catlin R. Tucker (p. 57) calls "a durable education fabric."

Highlighting Is a Waste of Time

Highlighting Is a Waste of Time: The Best and Worst Learning Techniques

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/09/highlighting-is-a-waste-of-time-the-best-and-worst-learning-techniques/#ixzz2HxKXgSeu