Write On!!!

I have to share a fabulous resource for writing!  It was featured on the ilearntechnology blog a few weeks ago, but was first tweeted by @johntspencer.  This website http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/ is a tumblr webpage where students can go daily for new, quick picture writing prompts.  The pictures and topics are geared for middle school grades, however, some could be adapted for upper elementary grades as well.

                                           (example writing prompt)


I love the fact that students can quickly go to the website, (either using 1-1 computing or by having the teacher display the site on a projector or IWB) find their creative writing inspiration, and write away!  If students have 1-1 computers, why not have the students blog their responses instead?!?  If students do not have a blog account a simple writing notebook would suffice.  The pictures and topics are really wonderful and can inspire the most reluctant of writers in your classrooms.  I hope you find this website as inspiring as I did!!

~TTT

Geek Speak: Let the kids teach!

Is it really already October?!?  I was amazed to see this on my calendar this morning.  The first few months of school always seem to fly by.

Recently, I had to create a student achievement goal for this school year that is linked to my performance pay for the year.  Because so many of the ed tech state standards are performance based and hard to measure with quick assessments, my asst. principal and I thought it would be best to stick with something easier to assess (at least for my first year as a tech teacher).  So it ends up that my student achievement goal is linked to my 6th graders knowing various content technology vocabulary.  After choosing various words, I knew that there would be certain words on my list that would not be covered teaching my project-based units.  I had to come up with an idea to cover them all.  Then after doing a little searching and some help from Ask A Tech Teacher, my "Geek Speak" project/vocab. wall was born!

What is "Geek Speak?"  Geek Speak is just a funny coined phrase you can use instead of "technology vocabulary."  Something that middle schoolers might buy into more as well.  I chose a bunch of technology vocabulary that would act as my "geek speak" words and posted them on one of my walls in my tech lab (see image above).  (I currently just finished hanging this up.)  Next, I am going to have each student in all of my classes choose a word from the wall.  They will then have to come up with a 2-3 minute presentation on their chosen word.  You can set different parameters for their presentation, like have them try a new Web 2.0 tool to present, have them create a visual representation of the word, use powerpoint/prezi, etc.  How you want them to present is really up to you!  After each student presents (I plan on having 2-3 students present at the beginning of class each day) have the class record the word and definition in a log (either online or paper/pencil) to keep track of vocab. meanings.  All words will be covered by the end of presentations and students will have more ownership of their learning!  I am really excited to try this out...AND of course let you know how it goes.:-)

Until next time....

~TTT