group work with ease

Often when group work is assigned, teachers and students alike have to deal with problems completely unrelated to the content of the assignment, such as group members not pulling their weight, lost documents, etc. When reading through www.freetech4teachers.blogspot.com, I found a great site: GroupTable. This site allows you to create and share documents and resources, send emails, and set up meetings and plans. This could help a lot with eliminating all those extra problems that do nothing to help the students' learning!

Teaching Speaking

One aspect of teaching Language Arts is teaching speech writing and rhetoric skills. When you're doing that, why not have your students learn from the best? This site has the audio to 100 of the most famous and popular speeches in American history, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, and JFK's Cuban Missle Crisis Address. Most speeches include the audio for the full speech- you can play these in your classroom to teach writing to elicit emotion, pace, inflection, and overall how to deliver a powerful speech. This can be a great way to merge history and language arts curriculum as well.

YouTube inspiration and instruction

Here are a couple of quick and fun links I wanted to share with you about the joys and benefits of YouTube in education...

This link sends you to a collection of some of the best YouTube videos for teachers. There are instructional videos to show your class, videos to instruct YOU on how to do various things with and for your class, as well as some videos that are just mean to inspire you or make you laugh :)

This article has a very easy to understand description of various Web 2.0 tools, including YouTube, and the benefits of using them in the classroom.

YouTube isn't as controlled as other sites such as TeacherTube so you obviously need to screen all videos before sharing with your students, and take into consideration if the video is violating any copyright laws. However, if you can get past both of those roadblocks, it can be a great way to engage your students!

MORE ways to show videos in class!

It's no secret that students look forward to "movie day" in class- they find it entertaining, and who are we to say learning can't be entertaining?

TeacherTube is an amazing resource for educators. It's set up in the same way as YouTube, but the goal of TeacherTube is to host instructional videos. There are TONS of great videos that you can share with your students to create background information maybe about the setting of a book, discuss a famous author, or even show examples if you are introducing your students to a new assignment.

There's also lots of videos that you as a teacher can watch for a little stress release, motivation, or inspiration. Speaking of inspiration... here's an amazing video from TeacherTube that I came across on another blog about using technology in schools.

Enjoy and be prepared to be inspired!

WebQuests

WebQuests are great ways to teach background information and to give your students opportunities to deep deeper into the content you are teaching in your class. They are primarily based on the web, but you select and organize the websites you want your students to read through before they begin their work. This is helpful for several reasons- it can avoid the "information overload" that exists on the web, keep students on track, and ensure that they are not getting distracted with other sites that are irrelevant. They also are great ways to have your students collaborate with one another and construct their own learning and meaning!

Now, to begin looking into information about WebQuests, here's the place to start. The website has tips and for creating a WebQuest and links to sites that can assist you in your efforts. Even better, you can search on the website for pre-made WebQuests about various topics!

They do take a while to create, but they are incredible resources that you can use and adapt for each class. Enjoy and good luck!