I just finished watching Boni Hamilton’s ISTE presentation, Best Resources for Elementary Integration and Transformation, online and decided she will be the inspiration of my first ever KSBE Blog post. Hamilton’s “3 Things” advise in invaluable. She believes, and I happen to agree with her, that a teacher should have a goal of implementing three new things a school year. She says, “every little change is HUGE” and if you make many changes you’ll go under. Ivisited her wiki and chose 3 resources to share here.
Make Belief Comix
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/
When students create comic strips, or comiX, they practice reading, writing, and story telling. At this site students can create comix using different backgrounds, characters, props, and text bubbles. Hamilton has this resource listed as a middle school resource, but I feel it can be used in grades K-12. A list of 21 WAYS TO USE MAKEBELIEFSCOMIX.COM IN THE CLASSROOM can be found at the website and additionally, Read Write Think has a variety of lesson plans that use comic strips in education. Google and UNESCO selected this site as among the world’s most innovative sites to encourage reading and literacy. If you use this resource or have in the past, please let me know if you have any hints you are willing to share for success.
Boolify
http://boolify.org
This site is like a math manipulative for conducting effective and efficient online research. It’s excellent for teaching Boolean logic and uses Google’s Strict Safe Search. The website includes a variety of lessons and a discussion board where teachers share their successes using boolify. Watch this video to see how it works!
Learning Science
http://learningscience.org/
Learning Science claims to “find the best science interactives and resources in the world”, and I think they do. Hamilton describes it as “the only one (Science site) you’ll need and it’s definitely the BEST one. Click here to see it in action!