Amazing Sites for Students

The technology coordindators group here in Indiana (HECC) share so many great ideas and programs that they find and use with students in schools, I want to share some of the latest suggestions for using other tools to create book reports or other types of reports.

Here's a video I created from Extra Normal. It uses Lego like figures that can be animated to move and speak your script. The director (you) selects the camera angles, movements, actors' voices and body movements based on your script. You can create online or download a version to your computer. Files can be saved for IPhone, YouTube, Twitter, or as I have here in AVI mode.

Other sites to check out include Alice. It is a free software program that teaches computer programming while creating movies and simple video games. It comes in Windows, Linux, and Mac flavors with different sites for middle and high school. It is from the folks at CarnegieMellon. Click on the site to view the promotional video.

"Scratch from MIT Media Lab is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web. " It is also free.

I will have more next week. Enjoy!

Back into the Saddle

I had left this blog for our teachers when we opened our new website through SchoolWires in January of 2008. However, I realize that this is still a great way just to write short articles that my teachers, staff, and families may want to read. So I am going to start it up again. I hope that you all will find the information valuable.

I want to reach out and remind all of you about a great article from the folks at Edutopia on what Google has to offer for teachers. Here's just some quick points and then at the end is the link to the entire article. If you don't subscribe to that newsletter for updates on technology in education and just education ideas in general, you need to add it to the list of must READS!

• Google for Educators -- the place to start looking at what Google has to offer.
• Google Docs -- an online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor that allows you to create, store and collaborate online.
• Google Maps, Google Earth -- use these in your mapping curriculum
• Google Images -- find the pictures you and your students need
• Google Book Search -- search for books online; if in public domain, even read them electronically; make and keep a list of all the books you have read or want to read; find them in the closest library; and check out the reviews or read tables of contents.
• Picasa -- try out photo editing online
• Google Sketchup -- create 3D designs
• Google Groups -- create online discussions
• Blogger -- one of my favorite tools
• Google Sites -- so very interesting; have students create research pages

I know that I am going to check out the Book search, Sites, and Groups. Here's the link to the article in Edutopia. Give it a read! Google for Educators: The Best Features for Busy Teachers

New Website Coming

Portage Township Schools is moving to a new website solution for the district. We hope to have it up and running when school begins after the winter holiday. It is a hosted solution meaning that we will no longer be running the site on our own servers. The reasons for this decision are many including the following: Microsoft is no longer supporting or updating Microsoft Frontpage (our website is created with this product); webmasters throughout the district can only do updates/changes/creations onsite; our current websites are outdated, not as professional looking as most school sites or supplying features that more school sites are providing.

We are moving to a Schoolwires hosted site. We still have full control of our content on all of the sites including individual teacher sites. In fact, because it is hosted, a webmaster can update their sites/pages from literally anyplace in the world where there is an Internet connection. A template is provided for each school site and within that school site, pages can be customized while retaining the basic overall look of the site. Each webmaster (that includes teachers who have a website or want to have a website) has a host of tools at their call: podcasting, databases, blogs (without the fear of students clicking to an inappropriate "next blog"), shared clipart galleries, abilitiy to have forms and surveys running on each site, reports, and broadcast e-mail alerts to parents/subscribers.

We will have training available for all current webmasters in January/February. In the meanwhile we will be moving all sites to the new site and running both until all are completed. Take a look at some of the other local districts' sites who have moved to Schoolwires -- Hobart and Tri-Creek (Lowell).

Discovery (unitedstreaming) Newsletter

Find out some new ideas, materials, etc. by clicking the Discovery Education's newsletter. You can find it here and it will also be in the links section. You can also subscribe to it so it comes in your email each month.

Reading A-Z

Subscription rights for all PTS teachers to Reading A-Z brought to you by the Curriculum Department. Yes, that is correct. As long as you are using one of the district's computers, you have free range to the Reading A-Z site. You may download and print materials, have access to all the books, guided reading, vocabulary items, etc.

Just go to the Portage homepage, click on Reading A-Z icon on the right-side of the page and you are logged in. Remember! The program is only available to you from district computers. It will not work from home due to licensing restrictions. Enjoy!

New Grant Section

Teachers have great ideas, but sometime need funds to put those ideas into place in the classroom or school. In my quest to bring tech information to you, I often run across various grants, but don't always know to whom to send it. So take a look in the Grant Link section on this site. Maybe you will find one that will fund your GREAAAAAT Idea. I hope so. Just remember where you found it.

PHS Library Media Center Open @ Night

The Portage High School Library Media Center has evening hours one night per week (usually Wednesday evenings from 3:30pm to 6:00pm). Community residents and Portage school families are invited to come and enjoy the surroundings while reading, researching, using computers and enjoying the "Read a Latte" cafe. Children below high school age must be accompanied by a parent(s) for the entire time.

Open dates for the fall semester are: October 30th, November 7th, 14th, 28th, and December 5th, 12th, and 19th. There are no scheduled dates the week of Thanksgiving or during Winter Holiday.

Technology Workshops

As Portage Township Schools is now a part of the Northwest Indiana Educational Service Center, you (our teachers) have access to a variety of technology workshops. Upcoming ones deal with Integrating Technology into the English Classroom, The Hows and Whys of Podcasting, Digital Video, Creating Vivid Content for Moodle with Dreamweaver, and the IHC Smart Desktop.

Some of the workshops are free, some are $15.oo. You can also receive college credit for attending some of them. Ask your principal if you can attend. Your school must arrange and pay for your sub as well as the cost of attending the workshop. There are no tech monies available for staff development at this time.

To find out more information about registering for any of these workshops, just click the title that interests you. Happy Workshopping and come back and share with the rest of us!

For Plato Users

A great new resource that gives ideas, lessons, help, and best practice on using Plato in your classroom is the Roadmap to Success newsletter. Teachers may subscribe to this free E-mail newsletter. Click the title and it will allow you to subscribe.

Technology -- How to Recover (Almost) Anything

Found a great article from PC World on getting those things back from your computer that you accidently deleted, erased, or reformatted. Most of us know that stuff goes into the Trash Can when you delete files, etc. from your hard drive, but.....what happens when you also have emptied that Trash Can?

Kirk Steers from PC World, gives easy to understand answers to these questions. Read his article for hints and answers!

Curriculum Maps have Moved!

Check out the new Curriculum News Blog. It has the full-year listing of the curriculum maps and wish list. Go to the PTS Home page. In the Table of Contents on the left, click Curriculum News and you are taken directly to the blog! Enjoy!

New Teacher Sites

There are many many great sites for helping teachers find lesson plans, peer-support, mentors, professional development courses for all levels that it is impossible to list them all. Give these a try! All are free to join.

• A New Teacher Guidebook


• TeachersFirst


• Teachers.Net


• Teachers Network


• TeacherVision


• Ideas for New Teachers and Education Students


• Inspiring Teachers

E-Training Available!

Through a new initiative, the U.S. Department of Education brought together some of the nation's most effective teachers and practitioners to share the research-based practices and data analysis to make a difference in student achievement. During this time, these educators have shared their expertise through the U. S. Department of Education's Teacher-to-Teacher Workshops offered in various locations throughout the United States. These workshops were taped and made available nationwide over this website through a special contract with the Panhandle Area Educational Consortium (PAEC).

In order to more broadly share the information, these workshops have been taped and converted to online courses delivered using the video-streaming format. They are designed so teachers can experience on-demand professional development in specific content areas to increase their knowledge and skills for improving student achievement. To ensure access, all programs are closed captioned.

Each course is designed to be valuable for single teachers or groups of teachers. Each course is delivered in segments-usually about 15 minutes long-of video interspersed with reflective questions and small tasks that foster understanding. An entire program, including activities, is about 2 hours long.

By enrolling in these professional development courses, educators also have access to the electronic Professional Development System, or ePDC. This password-protected system provides a personal portfolio so that participants can track and manage their professional development activities. The portfolio is updated after a participant completes a Teacher-to-Teacher course and is used to track additional professional development activities.

The site, Teacher2Teacher , is free and clicking the title will take you to it.

Looking for Curriculum related Websites?

T.H.E. Journal has once again updated their listing of great websites in the 2007 verison of "Educational RoadMap to the Web, 2007". Here you find sites listed by subject (Fine Arts, Guidance & Psychology, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Sciences, Special Education, PE & Health, Safety & Security, and Technology). Each subject is further broken down such as Science into Earth, Life, Phsyical, and Space Sciences. Enjoy!

Curriculum Maps by Grading Period

Curriculum maps for language arts and math are now up and running. Check the link bar to the right or log into the PTS Intranet and click on Curriculum page tab then Curriculum maps tab to access them.

Power Indicators!!

PTS teachers take note that the Phase 3 Wish Lists indicators can now be found both here on this blog (see sidebar on the right) and also on the PTS Intranet under the Curriculum tab. You will also find on the Curriculum page, last year's wishlists.

The 9-12 Math list is an Excel spreadsheet with comments. Just move your mouse over the corner of the various cells to read the comments.

Summer Technology Update

LCD monitors are on the way to Aylesworth, Central, Crisman, Jones, and Myers elementary schools as well as for Fegely, Willowcreek middle schools, and Portage High School. Bids came in and the lowest bidder, Tri-Electronics, was awarded the job at a special board meeting in early June.

Each classroom in these schools will receive a 42" Westinghouse LCD monitor mounted on the classroom wall with a remote access package for the teacher computer. This package will allow the teacher to display any item be it a website, a document, a video from unitedstreaming, or play a DVD in the DVD drive up on the monitor. In effect, a teacher can create worksheets for students and display them on the screen straight from their computer or flash key.

Television capability will be added to the elementary schools hopefully within the year. It will not be readily available at the beginning of the 2007-08 school year. The secondary schools should be able to continue receiving television broadcasts through the current cabling systems.

K-8 Technology Curriculum Available

A team of dedicated teachers, administrators, and computer coordinator spent the past 18 months developing a technology curriculum for K-8 students along with a lot of suggestions from teachers. The document may be found on the PTS Intranet on the Curriculum Tab or on the PTS Internet on the PTS Documents page. It is called Information and Communication Technology Curriculum, K-8. Additional resources are being added over the summer to the document.

Summer Workshop Schedule Now Available!

The 2007 edition of the PTS Summer Technology Workshops is now available through STI-PD. There are several new classes being offered this summer. Here's a quick look at them:

• Moodle 100, 101, and 200 classes take you through the beginnings of understanding and designing an online course management class. Join Jay Drew as he explains the ins and outs of Moodle while developing your own class. Learn the capabilities of Moodle, how to do online assignments, quizzing, and file sharing as well as wikis.
• Star Office--Make the move! This class will give you the tools to seamless transfer learning from the Microsoft products to Star Office/Open Office suites.
• Web Tools - Everything Google! Google is much more than a search engine, but we will explore that as well as looking at Google Earth, Book Search, Map search, Notebook (clip & collect articles as you surf), tech labs, gmail, calendar, docs & spreadsheets, sketchUp, translate, free software, and more.
• Videos -- TeacherTube, YouTube and how to get and Use Them. Educational videos are abundant out on the Internet (so are many other types too!), but we are only interested in how we can find appropriate ones to use, convert them for use, post to website or blog or other communication pathway.
• Video Editing with Pinnacle. Join Marcella Haupt as she explores this product in creating digital videos and includes editing from 1/2 VHS videos, video DV cameras, and more.
• United Streaming--Get the most from this neat resource. Did you know that it includes more than just videos? Want online grading capability or a source for writing prompts or rights to create your own video from editable united streaming videos? Check it out!
• If you missed Kidspiration, Inspiration, Blogging, there are classes on those as well.

How do you sign up for these classes? Go to the Portage homepage; scroll down until you see on the right-hand side STI-PD. Click it and then enter your username and password. If you do not remember your username, please call or email IMS secretary, Amy Leach, at extension 6350 and she will reset it to the default password.

Location, Location, Location! Classes are held at IMS (Instructional Materials Services bldg next to Aylesworth Elementary School) or at the Aylesworth Elementary School's computer lab. Please be sure to check where the class is when you signup. Most classes are scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday. Mondays are open lab days where you may pop-in at IMS to work on one of your project, get some help, check your e-mail, explore the web. There is no instruction generally available on Mondays, but you can get some help if needed.

All Portage Schools employees are welcomed to take these classes, however, Portage teachers get priority in taking these classes and are paid a stipend to attend. Other employees may be bumped from class if the class becomes full. Some classes are restricted to certain groups only.

If you have suggestions for other classes you would like to see offered, please email Lynn Duhamell with those suggestions.

Lewis and Clark Legacy Forward

Are you a history teacher or a history buff? If yes, you might want to check out the Lewis and Clark Legacy Forward which is a summer institute for teachers sponsored by the Indiana Lewis & Clark Commission, Clark-Floyd Counties Convention and Tourism Bureau, and others.

It is a 4-day interactive, fun-packed classroom and community experience that begins on the campus of IU Southeast in New Albany and includes study trips and other events spread throughout the Falls of the Ohio region in Indiana and Lousiville, KY. The main purpose of the institute is:

• maintain the expedition legacies of 200 years ago recently revived during the last three years


• retain the excitement and lessons in leadership, citzenships, survival skills, courage and ethnic sensitivity


• promote all with classroom applications for the future

Graduate credit is available as as CRU's. Most meals are provided. For additional information and to register online go to http://www.wesc.k12.in.us and visit online workshop registration. If you have questions about the program and credit-related questions contact: cgslone@ius.edu or CCrump700@cs.com or beckortm@lanesville.k12.in.us