April is....

...the end of the semester!

...the month for showers that bring May flowers!

Yes, but it's also School Library Media Month!

None of you have said you'd like to be a school librarian, but all of you will soon wotk with a school librarian.  What do you know about what they can do for you as a teacher?  Maybe this video will give you some ideas:





One of this year's events was a video contest for students. The wilnners will be announced on April 17  but until then, take a look at all of the submissions on the School Library Media Month 2012 SchoolTube channel.

Yes!  Your school library media specialist (librarian, media specialist, teacher-librarian) can be your best friend.  Next time you're in a school, go visit them and see what services they offer for teachers!

April is also National Poetry Month.  Check out all the resources and activities in which you and your students can participate.  ReadWriteThink has some good ideas and lesson plans, too. And poetry doesn't have to be limited to English or language arts class!  Check out these poems about computers and this collection including:

Yesterday 

(if the Beatles were computer geeks)

Yesterday,

All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And there's a milestone hanging over me.
The system crashed so suddenly.
I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.

Now all my data's gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

Oh, and then there's The Computer Ate My Homework!  Any poets in the class?

So putting these two celebrations together, library media specialist Diane Cordell offers "Picturing Poetry" with her photographs illustrating selected poems.  Enjoy!

Picturing poetry

View more presentations from Diane Cordell

File Student Work Virtually with Your Phone!

From MakeUseOf

Keeping examples of student work is important in documenting student achievement.  You want to be able to show progress--to the student and his or her parents.

Often teachers find it problematic to manage the huge number of student assignments and quizzes they get. At times like parent-teacher meetings, pulling out a student's quiz from a big stack can be time-consuming. Here to help is a tool called Three Ring.

Three Ring is a free to use smartphone application that offers versions for Android as well as iOS devices. The app helps teachers organize the quizzes and assignments of their students by taking pictures of the papers and then uploading those pictures online. When teachers upload the images, they can tag them and sort them class-wise. When you want to find the image, simply log in to the service and use the tag information to pull the images.

Features:

• A user-friendly phone app.
• Compatible with Android and iOS devices.
• Lets you store student's work online.
• Lets you tag photos you upload for easy browsing later.

Check out Three Ring @ www.threering.com (by MOin from Thumb Press)

Teaching with the Times

Did you know that many newspapers offer free teaching materials?  One of my favorites is the New York Times.  Check out their teacher resources and ideas for helping students learn more about the Titanic.



The Time's Learning Network provides teaching and learning materials and ideas based on New York Times content. Teachers can use or adapt lessons across subject areas and levels. Students can respond to Opinion questions, take News Quizzes, learn the Word of the Day, try Test Yourself questions, complete a Fill-In or read Poetry Pairings.  Check out the resources in the right hand column of the Titanic page.

Check with local papers as well as national news outlets to see what they can provide for your classroom--and maybe for your final project!

Blooming All Around

You haven't seen the last of Bloom's Taxonomy!  Several people have looked at online tools and mobile apps in light of Bloom's taxonomy.

Digital Blooms by Mike Fisher, 2009

See the full sized illustration and links to tools at every level at the Digital Blooms wiki.

new version of this taxomony was added 11/09 based on the top 25 tools for learning professionals (2009).

The Visual Blooms wiki looks at some of the tools and the levels of the revised taxonomy at which they might be most appropriate.

The University of Southern Indiana has created this tool for using technology with Bloom's Taxonomy. Each image is hyperlinked to the tool to which it refers.

Kathy Schrock looked at Google tools and Google Apps specifically and assigned each to the appropriate level of Bloom's Taxonomy.

Sylvia Rosenthal Tolisano looked specifically at iOS apps and Bloom's Taxonomy in her blog.  Links to the tools at each level are included in her post.

Geeks Just Want to Have Fun!

Is everything on the web true? Not today, for sure!

Over the years, Google has pulled some pretty good pranks!  Check them out!

Enjoy these techno-pranks!  And check out this video of people's response to a computer prank!

And remember:  23 days before the course is over.  No joke!

photo credit: Great Beyond via photopin cc