POST #3: Share a resource

I spent some time exploring Culture Grams for use by our middle school Social Studies students as they study world cultures. To this end, I went to Culture Grams (1), logged in with my school’s AEA username and password, selected World Edition (2) and then selected Africa (3) from the world map. Once at the Africa map, I clicked on Sudan (4) to start exploring that country. I love that the format of each country is the same, so no matter what country the students pick, they will be able to find out the same types of information. Being able to listen to different national anthems from the country homepage (remind students to have earbuds), learning about each country's lifestyles, and even exploring cooking through the recipes (5) are all things that will help our students gain a deeper understanding of another culture. I was excited to see the Interview (6) portion of the page but wish the interviews included a video as well so kids could hear what they sound like. Since we have students with a variety of learning needs, I like how easy it is to click over to see the Kid’s Version as well as use the LISTEN tool to hear the page read out loud. Another strength for Culture Grams is the excellent photos galleries (7) for each country. Each photo contains a description of the photo as well as the citation generator for the photo.

Since there is so much information here, I think we will break up the research into categories of information spanning several days in the library. One day might be to demo the Lifestyle resources allowing enough time for students to then explore and starting gathering research. Another day might be spent looking more closely at the statistics and graphs. This seems like a good opportunity to work with the math teachers and see what connections can be made into their classes as well. Since each student will be documenting their research for a cultural fair at the end of the unit, I love how each page/section has the citation button generator right on it. Each student will be required to complete a bibliography of their resources.

Example of MLA8 citation:
   "Sudan." CultureGrams Online Edition, ProQuest, 2017, https://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country.php?contid=1&wmn=Sudan&cid=152.

My first step will be to work with the teachers to introduce them to Culture Grams and the power this resource can have in their classrooms. I am excited to begin!

Links/Path I used:
(1) Culture Grams: http://online.culturegrams.com/
(2) World Edition: http://online.culturegrams.com/world/
(3) Africa: http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_region.php?contid=1&wmn=Africa
(4) Sudan: http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country.php?cid=152&cn=Sudan
(5) Sudan Recipes: http://online.culturegrams.com/recipes/list.php?type=World&cid=152&type=World
(6) Sudan Interview:http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_interviews.php?cid=152&type=World
(7) Sudan Photo Gallery: http://online.culturegrams.com/gallery/?id=471&cid=152&type=World
 

I did a search on Mahatma Gandhi:
• On AP Images I found pictures of Gandhi
• In Britannica School Elementary I located an article titled: Mahatma Gandhi – Indian Leader.
• In the Digital Library I watch the 8.24 min. film titled: Gandhi – The March.
•      In Culture Grams I looked up Indian recipes I found a traditional dish from southern India call Bobbatlu      
        Poli as well as other recipes.  
• On Kids InfoBites in Gale, I listened as I read an article on Gandhi that told why he went to Africa and
        defined what a hunger strike was.
• Using Learn 360, I located the following films: Mahatma Gandhi- The Greats and The Gandhi Story –
        Newsreels.
• I looked under Trueflix, but there was not a biography on Gandhi.

GALE is really the resource I am most interested in learning more about.  In my English 11-12 classroom, we spend a lot of time looking at fiction and historical documents and while some students love it, others want something more relevant to “now.”  I want to incorporate more news and current events in my classroom and the Newsstand (Infotrac) seems like a great place to start.  I would like to use these in my classroom as a bellringer activity, so I went to infotrac and selected “brief article” to ensure that the reading of the article does not take up my entire class period.  I typed in today’s date for current stories and the search came up with articles from around the globe.  I will probably have the students look at the first 10 articles that come up and have them choose from the top 10 to ensure they are not being too particular about what they are choosing.  Then, I would like to have my students summarize what the article is about.  I will then have a few students share their summary each day.  The class will get the benefit of news from around the globe while practicing their reading comprehension and summarizing skills.  Using the Newsstand will help to ensure that the articles are relevant and school appropriate.

I decided to use Learn360.com as my initial database to search.  Religion is a difficult unit that I teach in 6th grade, and I am always searching for credible unbiased information to share with students.  Islam is a particularly tough religion to find multimedia to share.

In Learn360 I searched "Islam" as my initial search item.  I scrolled through and found "Inside Mecca".

https://learn360.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=199174&xtid=68303

It is a video showing the journey of 3 different pilgrims on their journey to Mecca and the rituals that they preform as they preform their hajj.  I see this as a very useful resource because it shows different viewpoints.  One from the US, one from South Africa, and one from Indonesia.  It shows the size and diversity of the Muslim faith and how much it takes to prepare for the hajj.

It is a bit long for a video I would use in class it is 56 minutes.  I may need to take advantage of the different video segments to best use this resource.  Overall objective after view this resource would be to be able to name rituals and ceremonies with in Islam.  With a greater objective of being able to "Construct arguments with a  clear claim supported by evidence".

I was faced with a unique challenge when I took on a teaching position at a small private K-8 school.  I job shared a 1st/2nd grade classroom.  It was a great experience, but I learned a lot about the challenges of managing a multi-age, multi-level classroom. I had teach one grade level while keeping the other grade level occupied, learning, and self-motivated.  One way to do these three things is to use technology to your advantage.   Kids love to learn via an iPad, kindle, computer, etc…  When our school brought in an AEA worker to show us some resources to use in the classroom, I immediately drew interest to BookFlix. (http://auth.grolier.com/login/bookflix/login.php?bffs=N) It is geared towards the lower level elementary students, and many times, I could find stories they could read that were integrated into other parts of our curriculum and things were were already learning in the classroom.  BookFlix is very user friendly, and the students loved using it.  I created an icon on the computers, iPads, etc.. so that the kids could easily access the website.  I loved how it improved reading comprehension, encouraged them to stay engaged in the book because of the pictures, hearing it out loud, and highlighting the words as it spoke. There are endless books to choose from, sometimes I would suggest books for them to read, so I could integrate other subjects they were currently learning about, and other times I would just let them explore what looked interesting to them.  BookFlix definitley helps make reading fun for those who don't gravitate towards it or those who need an extra boost.  

I really like the idea of using CultureGrams. The target audience could be 3rd grade through high school. As our schools in our communities become more and more diverse this is an excellent resource to use to gain a better understanding of our changing school populations. We do a culture project that includes comparing and contrasting cultures within our grade level. CultureGrams is a safe resource that allows you to compare a variety of different topics in several cultures. A lesson on the topic of schools in different cultures can be eye opening. I learned that some countries only require kids to attend through the age of nine. Many discussions can happen in a classroom around this. I need to create some rubrics to assess student research while utilizing this resource. If any of you have any kid friendly rubrics or organizers for CultureGrams please share. A lot of guided research can be done with this resource.

I clicked the GALE tab on the Iowa AEA Online homepage. Then I clicked on the kids InfoBits icon. This was a new resource for me so I searched a bit for topics we will cover in 1st grade. I found the Social Studies category very helpful. Social Studies can be a tough subject to teach with younger kids without several different ways to explain the main learning objective. One of the Social Studies standards we cover in 1st grade is Economics in your daily life S.S.K-2.E.2. I have noticed this has been the hardest standard for our students to understand. After I clicked the Social Studies category, more specific pictures came up and I clicked the Money and Economics icon. Under this icon I found several topics that lend themselves to what our learning target is for this unit. I clicked the word Economics and it gave me several ways to show students what economics really means. I found a graph under the bold print Pictures of a family’s income and expenses to be the most student friendly to explain the importance of a budget.  Also under the Money and Economics icon there were other helpful topics like Supply and Demand, Goods and Services, Money, and Coins. I think this will be a great resource to add to the teacher edition we currently use.
http://galesites.com/state/iowa/index.php?tab=elementary
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=ITKE&u=6039sxnoel

I want to try to get into the social studies and science department meetings schedule this month.  This will be a great time to introduce ScienceFLIX  http://auth.digital.scholastic.com/login/scienceflix/login.php?bffs=N
 and
FreedomFLIX http://auth.digital.scholastic.com/login/fflix/login.php?bffs=N
Since these are “new”, I hope the teachers will be more receptive to me taking 5-10 minutes to give a brief presentation on what these resources have to offer them and their students.
The presentation would be started by showing the teachers two ways to get to the ScienceFLIX or FreedomFLIX. This would be from the Emmetsburg Library webpage or iowaaeaonline.org. Cards would be handed out with the username and password. A quick overview of the units and the breakdown within the units would be shown from the main page. Then I would choose a topic such as Environmental Protection from Today’s World in FreedomFLIX. We would look at the following areas going from the Environmental Protection main page
1. Quick look at the video
2. Book with its resources of audio at 2 speeds, more resources, glossary
3. Explore More with articles and primary sources
4. Related Web Sites that are vetted
5. Project Ideas
6. What Do You Think
7. Show What You Know
Then show the teachers the Resources and Tools.  Explaining about the
1. Lesson Plans and the Curriculum Correlations
2. Quiz
3. Writing Prompts
4. Whiteboard Activates
By the time I get to this point I hope that the teachers are off looking at topics that they teach and figuring out how they can use these resources in their classes.

One of the resources through AEA that I chose to navigate through was http://online.culturegrams.com/kids/comparisongraphs.php. I chose CultureGrams because my students do a lot of research on countries in social studies. This site is going to make finding the information so much easier for the students. In years past, my students have struggled (spent hours) trying to read through material that was for advanced readers. It was confusing for a grade school child. With just a few clicks, they will be able to find information about countries and videos about people from those countries. They will also be able to add graphs and pictures using this resource.
First, I am going to allow my students time to navigate CultureGrams and search different countries. Next, my 4th grade students will research a country of their choice, put the information in a slide presentation, and present it to the class. I think this will be a great way to get them excited about using the AEA materials, the new social studies unit, and they will learn about a new country. The site is simple to use and offers an amazing array of videos, recipes, and information about many countries.

I went to the AEA online resources and chose BookFLix http://bkflix.grolier.com/.  I went to the Resources tab and looked through using paired texts, library programs, class activities, parent/child resources and the title browse tab.  I also went to the search button where you can search by theme...I want to set up a list of of books to correspond with our science, reading, and math.  I started with science, so I hit the theme button and began searching within science and nature.  I also chose my grade level and then began to list.  Very helpful and user friendly!

I often tie books into my music lessons.  I like to have a literacy tie to what we are doing and the students also enjoy hearing the stories.  I knew that I was interested in some of the stories that I might find on BookFLIX so that is where I started my search.  One book that I found in BookFLIX was a book about the seven days of Kwanzaa.  This is the link to that book.

http://bkflix.grolier.com/p/node-33982/bk0042pr

The target age level for this book would be for K-3 graders.  It can be kind of long so I might not play the whole story at one time for my younger students.  I do a lesson in winter about different celebrations and we study Kwanzaa.  I have many songs and activities that revolve around Kwanzaa.  I have used this same story in class but I know the students would love to hear the narrator read the story and see the pictures.  It really gives a clear presentation of what Kwanzaa is and why it is celebrated.

I feel that this would round out a lesson that students enjoy and give them an added method to learn more about the subject.

One of the courses I teach is science research.  Students choose a topic they are interested in and then develop a research project in that area.  I think a good place to start is to explain what plagiarism and copyright laws are. I find the information at http://www.iowaaeaonline.org/pages/uploaded_files/CopyrightBN_StudentsScreen.pdf  Copyright Brief Notes for Students is a good place to start.  Students don’t really understand what plagiarism is.  They are used to copying and pasting information at will.  Next they need to get a general understanding of their research topic.  I think that  Britannica http://school.eb.com/levels/high/help#sf-level-icons  gives them a solid but broad understanding of a topic.  Since this course includes students of different levels, I like that they can choose different reading levels.  Included in this source are what I call traditional encyclopedia entries as well as articles, video, and ebooks.  Once they start to narrow the topic, Gale http://galesites.com/state/iowa/index.php?tab=high is a great resource for getting more specific information.  There is a range of different types of sources that fit the range of students in my class.  For the advanced student, the Academic One  tab http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=AONE&u in Gale is really useful.  It contains full peer reviewed journal articles - not just the abstract.  This level of information is particularly important for students who intend to take their project and be competitive at the regional and state science fairs.  

The resource I would like to share was found through the link "Teaching Beginning Reading and Writing with the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM)" by Emily Calhoun.  After clicking on this link, I was led to the following website:  http://ascd.org/publications/books/199025.aspx.  This method is aimed at language arts classrooms but has found use in a variety of contexts.  

Since I retired 10 years ago, there are so many new acronyms and strategies that I am unfamiliar with.  As I was reading in preparation for 1st grade reading and writing workshops, I ran across this PWIM but had no clue what it was or how to even access information about it.  How wonderful and surprising that I would find what I needed through this course!!

I hope to incorporate this into my classroom as soon as our workshops are set up.  There are so many wonderful tools for doing Word Work and this one makes me particularly excited because you can find pictures that connect with students hobbies, likes, etc. and students can fell like real readers when they begin to recognize "harder" words than the beginning high frequency words that they learned in kindergarten.  It is so important to instill confidence and growth as soon as possible in 1st grade so the children get "hooked" on the desire to read and write!!  I am firmly convinced that this is one thing this resource can help accomplish in my classroom!

I was able to go to our school website on our media specialist's page and access Learn 360 at https://learn360.infobase.com/p_Home.aspx using our school access username and password. I also was able to go to iowaaeaonline.org and click on their "Quick Links" and chose Learn 360 to login. I used the search box at the top to search for video clips related to two of our first grade science topics. I typed in "rocks and minerals" then I clicked on the age filter for pre-k-2 and found age appropriate video clips to share with my students during our science unit.  I then searched "light and sound" using the same age filter and found some great video clips to use.  I also searched by Iowa Core standard to find videos directly aligned with our science standards. I clicked on "search by standards" under the search box.  I chose Iowa state standards and grade 1 topic science. The results gave me specific standards to choose from.  When I clicked on one for   sound and light it took me right to a video directly related to that standard.  I love this feature that helps me to document the standards I am covering during my lessons!

There are times that I substitute in the same classroom many times throughout the year.  You get to know the routine of the teacher and maybe I can somehow use my knowledge of the AEA resources to add to their plans.  For ex. there is a social studies teacher that I sub for that for "bellwork" has the kids look up a different country each day and find interesting facts on that country.  The students then share what they found, and look for the country on the map that is up in the classroom.  To help the students out, I can have them go to AEA online and click on Culture Grams or have them type in http://online.culturegrams.com/. There they can find lots of interesting facts, the pronunciation of the country, and so much more. That resource is such an awesome tool.

Sometimes I sub in the elementary and there are days in which you may get through the lesson plans quicker than the teacher may have thought, or you need a little filler.  The BookFLIX for lower elementary or TrueFLIX in upper elementary is something I am definitely going to spend time navigating. I would go to Iowa AEA Online and click on the appropriate tab or go to http://auth.grolier.com/login/bookflix/login.php?bffs=N or http://auth.grolier.com/login/tfx/login.php?bffs=N.  I can see the subjects that are being discussed that day or week, or maybe an upcoming holiday or event, and if needed, find books for the kids to watch the interactive videos of.  The teacher may have a book to read, but by the end of the day, the kids are antsy and maybe an interactive video will gain their attention more than just sitting and listening.  

The main thing I need to make sure I know is a username and password for this to work.

I decided to return to my roots of using SIRS. I used it a lot as a classroom teacher, but it's been a few years and I've learned that they've done some remodeling/updating!

Here's the topic I looked at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw3AQ-55h-FGenNodlZXT2t0MFk/view?usp=sharing It wasn't too difficult to go to this resource. Once logged into SIRS, it was one of the top ten topics trending on SIRS. I decided to go with Cybercrime because of its prevalence and my personal interest.

The article is broken down in pro/con format and could be used at the secondary level. I would incorporate this topic by sharing the overview of the topic with my students, then ask the critical thinking questions and use their responses to separate them into pro/con groups. Then, I would have them follow the PDF guide to build their arguments for pro or con and we'd eventually have a classroom discussion/debate on this topic. To conclude this learning opportunity, there would be a reflection component. Students would be working on their writing, speaking, and researching skills. Additionally, they would be working on their 4Cs/universal constructs as I provide opportunities for critical thinking, collaborative, creativity, and complex communication within this lesson.

For my resource I am using a tutorial from the website www.atomiclearning.com that relates to entering lists of data into a TI-Nspire graphing calculator.

The tutorial can be found at https://www.atomiclearning.com/k12/ti_nspire.

This video could be used in any high school mathematics or statistics course. I believe the best application of the video would be to assign it as homework for a student to view prior to the classroom activity where they would need to input data into the calculator. I have had lessons get off track in my mathematics classroom because students were unable to follow written directions on how to perform new tasks on graphing calculators. For those students who are more visual learners, I believe a video would be better suited to their learning style and allow them to more quickly grasp how to use the different functions of the handheld calculator.

Many times the objective of the mathematics lesson was not to understand how to use the calculator, but using the calculator was a necessary step in the process to achieve certain objectives. I have had to devote complete class periods to instruct students how to use calculators to prepare them for an activity. With this video, they could learn how to use certain functions of the calculator prior to class, and then we could use the entire class period to focus on the actual activity and not waste time refreshing students on how to operate their calculator.

I decided to explore BookFlix as a resource for my classroom.  I went to the AEA website and then clicked on the Educator's tab.  Once there I clicked on "online resources" and scrolled down until I found BookFlix.  After I completed the login process, I started checking out the different topics  or themes for the books.  Since I teach second grade, this website was very appropriate as the reading levels were focused on grades K-3rd.  I would use this resource for our computer center during our literacy time.  The great thing about this website is not only do the students get a chance to listen/watch a story but they can also work on their comprehension.  When I have had them do audio books or other online stories, I am sometimes concerned they are not always held accountable to focus on the story.  I am hopeful that having these follow-up activities will motivate them to be more attentive.  Another nice feature is the ability to have them either read the nonfiction on their own or have it read to them.  This can help when I have a range of student readers, especially those who are not as independent yet.  I noticed they also list the grade level, Lexile, and GRL for each book which could help make it quicker when looking for appropriate books.  Finally, I also like how they connect a fictional story with a non-fictional story.  This would allow me to do lots of integration with other subject areas like when we do communities, farms, habitats, and rocks.

As part of the course, I navigated through all of the sites that were listed. I thought that was a requirement of the class. As a sub I will not be using any of these unless they are assigned by the teacher. All of the sites are interesting and I can see how different ones would be helpful for a variety of classes.
One that I particularly liked though, was iClipart. I love to do crafts and use clipart in a variety of crafts, newsletters, brochures, etc. To get there, you would go to www.iowaaeaonline.org, then select iClipart from the menu on the left side. From there, I clicked on New Clip Art This Month and clicked on a drawing of a beach scene, just because it looked inviting on this cool, fall day. I clicked on download and then was given options of where to download the art.
There are so many different things to choose from, that these can be used for any age, and any class. There are pictures that elementary schools children would love to decorate an assignment, as well as photos and animations that are suited for older students, including high school and maybe even college. This resource would be helpful when students are making brochures, posters, anything that requires some artwork to make it pop. With the wide variety of images, the sky is the limit as to it's uses. The only class where I probably wouldn't recommend this site would be math.

Go to Iowa AEA Online and click on the orange line on the left that says BookFlix (PreK-3).  Enter your username and password.  Once you have entered the site, click on “People and Places”.  Click on “Benjamin Franklin” in the bottom right-hand corner.  Click “Go” and then “Open”.  At this point you can choose whether to read the story yourself or watch the video and have it read to you and your class.

I would use BookFlix with third graders.  When they entered the room I would have five questions about the Declaration of Independence and Benjamin Franklin on a piece of paper on their desks.  After a few minutes, I would have the class watch the video.  After the video we would go over the five questions, vocabulary, timeline and use it to segway into our social studies text.  BookFlix helps students examine the historical significance of major events, people and their contributions to the United States.  BookFlix also helps students read grade-level texts with purpose and understanding.