POST #3: Share a resource

The source I have chosen is the Teen Health and Wellness database.  http://www.teenhealthandwellness.com/  In the past the students from the 10th-grade biology class have come to the library to use reference books to research a genetic disease of their choice.  This year I will introduce them to the Teen Health and wellness database.  Here they will be able to find most if not all the information they will need to make their presentation to the class.  I could also see using this in our health classes.  In this class, they make a brochure with information about any health related topic.  This site might help them make for informative brochures and expand the topics covered. Health is open to any 9-12 grade student.

We will often use this site as a resource with our students,
http://bkflix.grolier.com/
Most of our students are non verbal and have a communication device that they will use.  During our reading time our students will get to select their own topic.  We will ask them what they want to read about and by selecting certain words we will go with that topic. Once into Bookflix we will go to the help section and type in a topic. Once a book is selected they get to choose if they want us to read to them or be read to by the site.  Once they are done with the book selection we will ask them questions such as "what did you like about the book or what was your favorite part?"

I work with Language and Phonics in a class of three 2nd graders.  Two of them read fluently on a 4th grade level, the third one struggles to maintain 2nd grade levels.  Bookflix would be great for him.  When I went to bookflix (http://bkflix.grolier.com/) I clicked on the animal and nature tab.  This boy loves animals.  I went through the activities for the book Antarctic Antics about penguins.  The vocabulary words in the lesson plan are words I am sure he could not decode alone.  Writing them on cards, then a game of hid-and-seek (which he loves to play)where he has to find them, listen to them, say them, then mix up the cards and say them again, would be a good way to present the words.  This student would definitely benefit from the read along with each word highlighted.  To hear and see at the same time is perfect for him.  The pictures and colors in the book would be good to help keep his attention.  I would tell him before hand that he had to do the puzzlers section at the end of the story.  Hopefully that would help him stay focused during the video and reading.  The type of activities with the word match and fact or fiction would be excellent reinforcement for his attention span.  

This would be something a teacher's aide or older student with free time could help him with, or once he learned how to navigate the cite, he could do in his free time with other books.  I can see this building an excitement about reading in this student that might encourage him to read more.  That would surely develop his skills before long.  And what a fun way to do it!

I used BookFLIX to start learning about the AEA online resources. I thought this was a good place to start since the focuses of this resource is based in the pre-3 group and that is what I teach.
I went to the Iowa AEA online site and went to the BookFLIX tab and clicked on the tab. Then I navigated through the first page and it had the books in groups with large idea titles. Since I have really wanted to tie more literacy and math together I clicked on the ABC’s and 1, 2,3’s tab.  That took me to a page that had books in pairs on it. I choose “Garden Full of Sizes” and “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”.  The stories were a great match for each other they shared some of the same math vocabulary. The readers did a great job using different voices in the three bear story. During the reading of the fact book I love how new vocabulary words are in yellow to click and hear more about.  I also loved that there was a lesson plan help and meet the author tabs.
The main target audience would be pre-k to 3rd students. In my classroom I could use this in three different ways. The first way would be to use in large group to read the book to the students and intro sizes to the whole group or farther their understanding of the subject. The second way would be in small group, you could use some of the extras in the puzzle tab to work with the group.  The last way would be to have students one at a time enjoy working with the books and listening to them.  
The overall student outcome would be to hear stories from a second resource other than the teacher. The teacher could provide some fact books that they many not otherwise have excess to, providing the students with exposure to a different kinds of books.  The students would also be supported in their learning how to read with the words being highlighted as it is being read.  Students also will be provided with more vocabulary exposure.

For this post, I will describe how to use PebbleGo to learn about main ideas and details of a nonfiction text.  To locate this resource, go to www.ankenyschools.org, click on the schools tab, scroll down to Prairie Trail Elementary, Media Center tab, then click on Read! From there you can select the PebbleGo resource.

Every year my school reads a novel together--all kindergarten through fifth graders. It's actually a lot of fun. This year the book is, Mr. Popper's Penguin's, so my team has chosen to tie the fictional text to non-fiction learning about penguins.  I noticed on PebbleGo there are four different types of penguins, so I will divide my students into four groups to become experts on each type of penguin. I will print out the notes page under the activities icon for students to organize their learning.  Students will learn how to navigate through a nonfiction text using headers (main ideas) and details. We will then compare and contrast our learning about penguins to meet another common core standard. The beauty about using PebbleGo is that it reads the text to students, highlighting each word along the way so that students can easily follow along and take notes.

My 5th grade Science class recently completed a Google Slides project, where each group had to teach the class about a natural disaster. One requirement for the project was to include a short video of the natural disaster. A few groups chose videos from The National Geographic webpage (which were great videos), but many other groups turned to old faithful...YouTube. YouTube is a great site for certain types of videos, but the videos aren't previewed for content necessarily for children.

In revamping my approach to this project, I would introduce them all to the Learn360 website. Upon logging in, I clicked on Earth Science videos. I narrowed my search by 3-5th grades and 6-8th grades. I also filtered my results to video segments. https://learn360.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=198107&xtid=68132 
The link above is to a Tsunami video that a group could add to their presentation.

The quality of these videos is undoubtedly better (and more trustworthy) than YouTube. I also like how the website is free of advertisements. The YouTube website is hard to fully monitor, even if a filter is active. There frequently seems to be an inappropriate ad that sneaks by. With Learn360 I can allow the students time to "look around" and not worry about monitoring each & every screen at the same time.

I chose the following website ( http://www.teenhealthandwellness.com/subject/2 ).
In our 10th grade biology class we are studying genetic disorders.  Each pair of students had to simulate a karyotype lab where one student was the male and the other student was the female.  They match their chromosomes up based on chromosome length and banding pattern.  After all of the chromosomes have been placed on the karyotype, the students will analyze the traits of their baby and then the disorder is revealed.  Each pair of students will be assigned different genetic disorders.  Students will need to draw a pedigree showing how the disorder is passed from generation to generation and also provide an informational presentation about the genetic disorder.  Students are encouraged to move away from the common powerpoint presentation and move to a more creative way to present the information.  Presentation Examples are; Newspaper article, Talk show interview, Skit, Medical symposium presentation Radio broadcast, etc.  
   
I will encourage my students to use this website to find credible information about their assigned genetic disorder.  Students will be able to research the cause of their disorder, genetic pathway, possible treatments, therapies, myths and facts about disease, what to ask your doctor if you have this disorder, etc.
Some of our students have reading difficulties so the fact that this website has an option for them to read along with audio is very helpful.  Students with reading disabilities might not want to start researching because they know they will encounter problems with comprehension.  The read along option will make students with reading disabilities hear the text as they read it.  This will help the students with comprehension and thus increase their confidence.  Once they gather all of their information they can begin constructing their pedigree and creative presentation.

After much thought, I decided to use  a resource that was not related to the main subject I teach which is Math.  I have a skills class which is designed to have students work on homework, but it seems like my students never have homework!  To remedy this problem, I found a resource I know they are interested in based on our daily discussions.  We had a visitor earlier in the year from Germany.  My students had a million questions about Germany and Europe for her while she was here.  I chose to use the website that I felt would give them the best overall understanding of Europe which washttp://auth.grolier.com/login/tfx/login.php?bffs=N.

I feel this website will allow my students to do a variety of activities to get a true understanding of the differences in cultures.  They enjoy videos, so I think they will benefit from watching the videos as well.  I like the activities that go with this, but I want to extend it a little.  Since I teach Math, I plan to incorporate some math skills.  I was in Europe last summer and traveled to six countries.  I am going to have them map out the trip I took and figure the total miles traveled.  I'm traveling to Italy this summer, so I plan to have them do the same but with a little bit more research.  I will have them try to locate the most popular landmarks, interesting facts, culture, food, costs, etc...  I feel this website will be perfect for my students during a time in which they don't seem to learn or challenge themselves much.  I think since they know their teacher has been to many of the places and is planning on going to another will motivate them even more to take an interest in the activity.

I'm really interested in using TeachingBooks.net.  This is a resource I've never used before and I have a couple different ideas for incorporating it into my class.  First of all, I'm really excited about the Reader's Theater scripts available:  https://www.teachingbooks.net/search.cgi?adv=1&format=any&curriculum=any&genre=any&culturalArea=any&grade_level=any&LIST_OK=13&list_id=13&resource=Activityguides&active=&match_any=&exclude=&searchtype=keyword&more=Activityguides#Activityguides
Reader's Theater is a great way for kids to work on fluency and they love performing for their classmates. As I looked through some of the titles, I can differentiate scripts based on my student's reading needs.  

Something else I want to incorporate into my classroom next year are book reviews.  I would love for students to be able to go to TeachingBooks.net and find extra resources to show the class to give us an in-depth understanding of the book.  They can create Google slides with the videos, etc that they find.  I will obviously need to incorporate the help of our media specialist to help with this project!  

I'd also like to begin novel studies with my higher reading groups next year.  I love the fact that this site has vocabulary lists, as well as lesson plans I can use to guide the groups.

The resource that I chose for the students to use was http://schools.iclipart.com/iowa/  I had the students create a small pamphlet on one of the sports that we covered in the 1st Trimester.  It had to include the things we covered in class such as, rules, history, etiquette, and game play.  They were also required to include four different images that they found from the website.  I explained to them how to get to the site, and navigate through the process.
1. Go to: http://www.ghaea.org/
2. On the left hand side click on:  http://schools.iclipart.com/iowa
3. Start your search by either entering a keyword in the search bar or looking in the popular categories for your subject.
4. Click on the picture you would like to save.
5. Click on the download button.
6. Save the file where they know how to find it.  
7. Insert the image into the document.
8. Edit the image for size and placement.
The works that the students produced showed a wide range of understanding.  Most of the students had no problem finding and saving the images that they wanted to use.  In fact sometimes the students had a hard time deciding which of the images that they wanted to use in their assignment.

I have a class of intermediate English Learners. They are all 5th graders but they range in reading level from 2nd grade to 6th grade. We always do research projects where they need to read nonfiction text and paraphrase the information in their own words. My students have used Britannica in the past to research nonfiction topics. For this last unit we are also going to use Gale.
 I think this will be beneficial because it gives them access to actual news articles. Kids today don’t read newspapers and magazines as much as we did as kids. Therefore, this will expose them to a different type of text.
 However, the main objective of this unit is for students to gain information from a variety of sources and synthesize them into a presentation about a topic. Paraphrasing is a major challenge for many of my students. Gale is particularly useful because it offers articles at multiple levels. This is very important for my EL classroom which includes many students reading below grade level. GALE enables all of my students to have access to text and will make it possible for them to accomplish the objective of reading to gather information and paraphrase it. They will also learn how to cite their sources. The articles on GALE offer great examples of what citations can look like.
The central location of all these resources makes it easy to access. My students are familiar with using the http://www.iowaaeaonline.org/  site to access Britannica. Therefore, they will be able to click on GALE the same way. They will use the building username and password (aea267) to get into the information.

The resource I investigated was AP Images, another resource that my students will be able to use in their Power Points or Google Slides for music, world cultures, or other classes that require images.  I first went to Iowa AEA Online website https://www.iowaaeaonline.org/ where I chose AP Images from the list of resources. When I clicked on it there was a sign in page where I used my schools username and password; there was also a place to choose parent, student, or educator. I chose educator and that brought me to a page where there were five choices: Featured Events, U.S. Domestic News, International News, Financial News, and Sports.  I chose Animals under Featured Events with the Panda Bears on it.  This brought me to a page that asked whether I wanted Pets or Zoo; I chose Pets with 1-60 of 10,864. I refined my search using the keyword "horse" which brought 1-60 of 56,488; I refined again with the keywords "Clydesdale Horses" which brought 1-60 of 26,015. Next, I refined using "Clydesdale Horses Farms" which brought 1-60 of 2175; this is where I found the Anheuser Busch Clydesdale Farms photo from 3-10-1979.  I checked the box to download and it sent me to a page where I could read the terms and conditions. This page was similar to any terms and conditions page when you are going to use, download, or purchase something online. Under use information it gave the title of the photo, the ID number, the rights type, the file size, and the rendition or resolution. I found AP Images to be very easy to navigate and should be very easy for my EL students to use. Since the school year is almost finished I will plan for next year where I will implement the use of AP Images.

Wow!!  It is so overwhelming.  I am going to look for some resources for my third graders.  So, I decided just to pick something that I am teaching right now, "Rocks".  So, I went through to find resources on this subject.  I found an interactive for the students to use that is very in depth.  We probably don't have time during class, but could suggest that students try this at home.  As we are talking about the different rocks that I have in my collection, they want to know more about each rock.  I can tell them to go to the Kids:InfoBits and do a search for them.  For example, "slate".  
As I was looking through the resources, I also found that Kids:infoBits gives students access to magazines, and information about presidents.  I have a unit on researching a president and gathering information.  I just found out that each president is on Kids:infoBits!!  

http://learn360.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=193144&xtid=71888
http://learn360.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=193144&xtid=123003

This summer, my brother, sister and I are going to try to get together for a long weekend to hang out with our kids.  My sister and I are both math teachers and my brother also has a degree in mathematics, so we thought we would add a challenge to our vacation.  All three of us will be coming from different cities.  The three cities are Denver, CO, Philadelphia, PA, and Sudbury, Ontario (Canada).  Our challenge is to find a city or town that is equidistant to those three cities.  
From the Iowa Online resources, students in my geometry classes can use CultureGrams to locate and find the distance between the three cities.  When given a their own copy of a map that encompasses the cities, they can construct a triangle connecting them.  From there they can use construction tools to find the point that is equidistant (the circumcenter) to all three cities and lay their triangle on the map and see what town or city is closest to that point.  
Students may then use CultureGrams to check if the circumcenter is indeed equidistant to all three cities.  That is the distant that we all must travel (as the crow flies).

My students spend an entire course working on understanding the concept of "what we value as individuals and what we value as Americans." We also discuss what makes us who we are by what we value and what others seem to value by the way they present themselves trough their words, presentation, and actions. Students often understand what the "think" they value, but they are not necessarily sure what others value and/or why those values matter and if/why those other values matter and are "valid." So I want students to do more than just reflect on their values and the values of friends and family; I hope they will be able to think more deeply about where others get their values and why they seem to value what they do.

So I went to AEA Online and went to the GALE sight. I searched for "Values and Beliefs" and then narrowed my search on the next page to "Social Values" with full text publication date limited to material published since 2010. I am sure I could limit it more (and this may be a great activity to do with the whole class while I have my computer plugged into my projector and they can see what comes up. And then students can be given some directions as to how they can dig into other areas of "Values and Beliefs" as we begin our work with studying values in America in our course. All our literature and most of our writing as a "values" focus--or at least can be interpreted that way.

Here is the link to my focused search: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/subjectguide.do?inputFieldValues%5B0%5D=%22Social+values%22&inputFieldNames%5B0%5D=SG&limiterFieldValues%5BAC%5D=y&_limiterFieldValues%5BAC%5D=on&_limiterFieldValues%5BRE%5D=on&dateIndices=DA&dateLimiterValues%5BDA%5D.dateMode=3&dateLimiterValues%5BDA%5D.fromDay=01&dateLimiterValues%5BDA%5D.fromMonth=01&dateLimiterValues%5BDA%5D.fromYear=2010&dateLimiterValues%5BDA%5D.toDay=00&dateLimiterValues%5BDA%5D.toMonth=00&dateLimiterValues%5BDA%5D.toYear=&limiterFieldValues%5BPU%5D=&method=doSearch&searchType=SubjectGuideForm&prodId=STOM&userGroupName=6822waukh&inputFieldValues%5B1%5D=SG&inputFieldNames%5B1%5D=AGTY&nwf=y.

Wow. Long link. Anyway, it came up with 75 possible items. I could find a few articles and ask the student to read them. Or, I could ask students to work in groups and each would read about five of the pieces and maybe report out.

I find this to be a fascinating possibility, and this is just with one assignment/activity. Ultimately, I want students to think, learn, and be better communicators. I believe students being exposed to a variety of ideas will help them attain that goal. Students will search, read, share, and draw conclusions. The outcome will be that students with this simple activity will want (along with being "required"!)to use GALE with other research pieces that we do during the course.

I would recommend to the younger students is Book Flix and TrueFlix. To make it easier for student to navigate to the website teacher could create a QR code to take them directly to the Keystone Website to listen to books. Students can easily pick out a book of their choice, click on it and the narrator will read the book to them. It's great the way the book comes alive with video and sound.  As the students get older they will be able to read along, word by word. Another resource to look at is CutlureGrams (https://www.aea1.k12.ia.us/en/online_resources/culture_grams/). When using this resource students are able to find research material on country and state, make mapes, find information, population, history and etc.

tfx.grolier.com/p/node-33055/01001908

The resource I picked was Trueflix.  With Trueflix there is not a search it is a button you can click once you pick a topic, mine was Outer Space.  It opens several subtopic options, mine was The Solar System.  My choice was made because I have a student who is studying the solar system.  He is a beginning reader but the idea the resource will read to him.  When he is being read to his comprehension level is higher than when he tries to read himself.  I would like for him to be able to make a connection to the information he knows now.  Trying to find information at a level my student could understand and make connections to is not easy.  I can incorporate this resource in because we are a one to one computer school.   This resource will allow my student to work "independent" by him only needing to click to go to the next page.  I can guide him but let him find the answers to vocabulary words since they are high lighted in the book.  My student is not much of a video watcher and I am not "forced" to show him it in order to move to the next thing.  With the links within the resource I am able to expand his learning just from one location.

As the end of the school year approaches, I must not only prepare for the end of year including assessments, but also prepare for the beginning of next year.  One of those responsibilities for me at this point is making sure the correct resources are located for a variety of levels of struggling readers.  The teachingbooks.net online resource is one which I have not used in the past.  I am currently working on preparing literary responses to the book, Fever 1793.  I plan on using the link below to assist with writing of literary responses; specifically, the discussion guide questions from scholastic and the questions on the Simon & Schuster questions on their lesson plans.  This resource may prove very helpful when I am working on questions for various books.  I cannot depend solely on the questions from this resource, but it does provide a good basis to start from when working on literary responses.  Depending on the book, there may also be resources such as book trailers and author interviews which will help in certain circumstances.


https://www.teachingbooks.net/tb.cgi?tid=2301

When I was working at Heartland, one of my favorite online databases was TeachingBooks.net. It had an abundance of resources, many of them primary sources, to use when teaching a novel unit. As an example, the book, The Fault in Our Stars, is a popular adolescent novel that was made into a movie. I would have my 9th Grade English students go to https://www.teachingbooks.net/signin.cgi?iowa=1 and enter the school's username and password. In the Search box, they would type the book title, The Fault in Our Stars, and then click on the title to get to the book and author resource page. First, I would have them scroll down to the TeachingBooks.net Original Content and have them click on and listen to the Meet-the-Author Book Reading With John Greene and then scroll down to the About the Author section and click on Personal Website for John Greene for an introduction to the author. Next, I would have the students scroll down to the Author Interviews section and watch the Interview With John Greene created by Puffin Books Virtually Live. This interview will introduce the students to the book itself. After a discussion of what they learned from these resources, they would start reading the novel. From the Book Guides and Lesson Plans section, I would use the Educator's Guide from Penguin Group (USA), starting at page 13 to facilitate the students as they read the book. I would also use the Word Lists, Definitions, and Example Sentences for The Fault in Our Stars from Vocabulary.com  in the Vocabulary Lists section. These resources from TeachingBooks.net will help the students achieve the following Iowa Core Literacy Standards for Literature:
RL.9–10.1
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
RL.9–10.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
RL.9–10.3
Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

My preschool class did a unit on dinosaurs.  I have always been looking for useful clips to help share with my students about the study of the Paleontologists and what they do.  While looking up dinosaurs on Britannica Sight I came a crossed this video.

http://school.eb.com/levels/elementary/search/videos?query=dinosaurs&includeLevelOne=1&page=1

I found a lot of pictures also that my kids really enjoyed.  Britannica for Elementary was way user friendly for us to talk about how we got information and what information was worth looking at.  Sometimes using google we got inappropriate information.  I found that it was nice to use Britannica because I knew looking up information with the kids I wasn't worried about what might pop up.  This will allow for preschooler to watch the steps taken to find more information.  They will then be able to ask more questions in which we can find answers for through the use of this website.  Using this Britannica site it gave me a variety of pictures that would be useful when learning about dinosaurs.  It was also helpful to look up a variety of dinosaurs and shows great images for kids.  I just really enjoyed exploring on Britannica, it really gave me a variety of tools that will be useful when learning about a variety of topics.  Preschoolers are always asking questions and teaching them how to get answers can help them and also keep them asking questions.