Fantastic Fridays: Oct. 8

Fantastic Fridays: October 8

1. Classroom Spotlight Project: 2nd and 3rd Grade

Peggy H wrote the following about her extra Friday Technology time: "Third Grade is enjoying computer time on Fridays. We have concentrated on Brain Pop subjects that enhance the content in our basal reading stories and on Math Facts."

2. Student Websites: Geography
Technology allows us to cross borders without passports, and to span the continents without plane tickets. The following websites are targeted at all ages of students learning about our planet:

• GeoSpy: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Games/GeographyGames/Geospy 
• Continents Game: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/World_Continents.htm 
• Mr. Nussbaum: Too many resources to list! http://www.mrnussbaum.com/circumcode.htm 
• States, Capitals, and Landforms: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm 
• KidsGeo: http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-games/

3. Teacher Productivity Tools: Student Response Systems and Internet4Classrooms

How many of us love to watch "Jeopardy"? Student response systems are a tool which allows students to instantly send a response to your central computer. These useful "tools" are manufactured by several different companies, but the link below goes to the "SMART Technologies" version. 

http://smarttech.com/us/Solutions/Education+Solutions/Products+for+education/Complementary+hardware+products/SMART+Response/SMART+Response+PE

I am often asked to find a specific website or game to accompany a skill. I am now going to give away my secret! I always go to http://www.internet4classrooms.com to look for standards-based resources. It's an awesome, well-designed site. Please take a minute to check it out.

Here's my video of the week, an "inspirational" student video about reading. I hope they had copyright licensing issues all worked out before using this song!