Speaking of Dinosaurs . . .

Here's another great site for teachers and children engaging in the study of dinosaurs:

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/dinosaurs/

Check out the "Research Starters" link to find a list of other web pages with lots of good information for teachers and kids.

My Favorite Dinosaur

Third grade students at Dunbar Elementary are having their first adventure using laptop computers. They are using the laptops to do Internet research on the dinosaur of their choice. After they find the required information, they are creating a presentation using SMART Notebook which they will present to the class using a SMART Board.

While planning for this activity, I found some great web sites for the students to use for their research:

• http://www.livescience.com/dinosaurs/
• http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/
• http://kids.yahoo.com/dinosaurs
• http://dsc.discovery.com/guides/dinosaur/dinosaur.html
• http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dinosaurs/
• http://www.kidsdinos.com/

The children will work on the project for about 90 minutes one day a week through the end of February. At first, the set-up each day is a little slow. As the students get better starting up the computers and logging in, they have more and more time to do the "fun stuff"--Internet research and creating their presentation.

I like this project because it gives us the opportunity to teach some important (and really boring) technology skills as we work to teach science and language objectives.

10 Days and Counting

There are just 10 school days until the winter break and lots of activities with a holiday theme are taking place--some by plan and some by accident. Last week I went to a 2nd grade class to work with students using Easy Tech (an on-line technology skills program). The Internet at the school went down, so we had to do "Plan B" instead.

I learned early in my career that it's wise to always have a "Plan B". Instead of going on-line, I introduced the children to SMART Notebook (a software program that we use with our SMART Boards). Below, you'll see the students and some of the great holiday drawings they created. It took about 10 minutes to teach them enough about the program that they could create these masterpieces.

ABC 15 Anchor Visits Dunbar

Andrea Shores 6th grade class enjoyed a visit from ABC 15 Morning Anchor Jen Burgess. The students were treated to a news cast created just for them and viewed on the SMART Board in their classroom. The news producer, Tricia Captain, is a regular visitor to the class. She helps the students with their school newsletter. To see more about the visit, check out the video below.

It's Great to be a Sixth Grade Student at Dunbar

Andrea Shore's sixth grade class is working on several really cool projects.

Ms. Tricia Captain, a producer at ABC 15 News works with the students to create the school/community newsletter.






John Kain works with the students to finish a video project.




Andrea Shores works with groups of students on an integrated social studies project.










What makes this unique is that all of these activities are happening at the same time.

Web Resources for PESD Teachers Using SMART Boards

Important links:

http://phoenixelem.az.schoolwebpages.com/education/district/district.php?sectionid=1
From the district web site, click on “Technology and Learning” > “Online Learning” > blue tab on the top of the page “Instructional Technology.”

On this page you will find links to a variety of resources including:

• Information from the Instructional team (Tom, Linda, John, Noreen, and Irene)
• Acceptable use information and documents
• Documents associated with the Social Studies Committee (Social Studies Backward Design Documents)
• Linda’s blog: http://pesdinstructionaltech.blogspot.com/
• John’s blog: http://pesdtechnology.blogspot.com/
• Noreen’s blog: http://pesdtechnostuff.blogspot.com/
• John’s wiki: http://pesdtech.wikispaces.com/Smartboard+FAQs (Here you will find a variety of resources including a troubleshooting guide for your classroom technology. Check out the links on the yellow menu bar. Here you will find additional material from the Social Studies Committee.)

Here are other helpful Internet resources

SMART Notebook Lessons:
http://education.smarttech.com/ste/en-US/Ed+Resource/Lesson+activities/Notebook+activities/
http://technology.usd259.org/resources/whiteboards/smartlessons.htm
http://teach.fcps.net/trt27/smart_board_lessons.htm
http://www.wsd1.org/southd/SMART_Board/
http://www.waukesha.k12.wi.us/WIT/SmartBoard/specificapps.htm
http://www.laramie1.k12.wy.us/smartboard/lessons.htm
http://www.elko.k12.nv.us/ecsdtc/SMART%20Boards.htm
http://owensville.k12.mo.us/~SMART_Lessons/Index.htm
http://www.albany.k12.or.us/departments/instruction/smartboardresourcepage.php

Social Studies:
http://www.socialstudiesclassroom.com/?gclid=CJvO_7e9uY8CFRFSagod2hagcw

Making Videos:
http://kidsvid.altec.org/

Project Based Learning:
http://pblchecklist.4teachers.org/

Fun Online Academic Skill Builders:
http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/
http://www.4kids.org/

Creating a Blog:
www.google.com (You must create a gmail account first. I don't recommend using your district e-mail account. Then you will be able to use all of the Google resources including blogspot and the video upload site.)

Academic Skill Builders
http://www.4teachers.org/

Social Studies Curriculum Writing Project

PESD teachers are working during intersession to:

• Develop big ideas for 5 Social Studies strands
• Develop essential questions for each strand
• Develop conceptual focus for each of three units for K-6 and 6 units for 7-8.

Along with the Social Studies work, teachers are exploring ways to integrate technology into instruction. One of the on-line tools they are exploring is Learning.com's Easy Tech program.

They will spend the next three days working on this project. The district has chosen to use the research-based framework "Understanding by Design" in partnership with http://www.afre.org/.