POST #3: Share a resource

In elementary music class we use many multi-cultural pieces of music.  A favorite it "Oma Rapeti" from New Zealand.  "Tititorea" is a stick game also from New Zealand.  
http://online.culturegrams.com/kids/kids_country_sub_categories.php?contid=8&wmn=Oceania&cid=34&KidsUniqueID=174&type=Kids
I found this information from the CultureGrams resource.  It does a good job talking about the Maori culture and their language.  
In looking for more information on New Zealand I also used the Britannica School resource.
https://school.eb.com/levels/elementary/article/New-Zealand/345755
These will be fantastic to allow students to choose from the dropdown menus and share out information about New Zealand.  
Students will gain a much better background knowledge of the people, their culture, and the significance the music has in relation to the Maori people.
I am very excited to make use of CultureGrams and Britannica School this next year when we learn songs from countries and cultures.

The following lesson (covering several class periods) about the Freedom Rides of the 1960’s is designed for use with my eighth grade American History students who study early American history culminating with Reconstruction. Although Reconstruction is the end of our course of study for the eighth-grade year, during Black History Month I introduce additional resources to my students to help them develop an understanding of what happened during the 100 years following the Civil War climaxing in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s while additionally relating it to current events.

Lesson Objectives:
1. Students will be introduced to and discuss the Freedom Rides, the specific events, and their impact in connection to the Civil Rights Movement.
2. Students will analyze and evaluate the meaning of political cartoons (primary sources) regarding the Freedom Rides.
3. Students will make a real-world connection between the Freedom Riders and a current event in another country.

Iowa AEA Online Resources linked to my Google Classroom:
(All the resources from Britannica, SIRS, and Gale have Speech Enabled technology so students can access this information regardless of their reading abilities.)

Britannica Freedom Rides
This is an article introducing the Freedom Rides and giving good background information. This information will be coupled with the following resource from Learn360:

Freedom Rides Segment from The Civil Rights Movement: America In The 20th Century
This resource will reinforce the information from Britannica and give students an additional way to access the information. The segment is specifically about the Freedom Rides and their impact on the Civil Rights Movement including the role played by President Kennedy and his brother, Robert Kennedy. There is a warning about previewing for objectional material. I have previewed this segment and found it to be acceptable for an eighth grade history classroom.

After reading, watching the video segment, and discussion, the students will be directed to the political cartoons about the Freedom Rides and the questions to answer. This resource came from ProQuest SIRS Issues Researcher using an advanced search for primary sources for the subject Freedom Rides. Students have previous exposure to persuasive techniques used in the media and other information necessary to evaluate the cartoons.
SIRS "The Trail of the 'Freedom Riders' and Two Comments by Cartoonists

Making the real-world connection between the equal-rights struggles in our country and other places can be done using resources from Gale:

Gale article: "Palestinian activists inspired by the freedom rides
Gale article: "Gaza in 2018 is what Selma was in 1965

This kind of discussion often generates lots of other questions students have about a subject.

In Cultural Grams, I am exploring both New Zealand and Australia. http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country.php?cid=112&cn=New_Zealand 

http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country.php?contid=8&wmn=Oceania&cid=13&cn=Australia 

My oldest daughter is doing a semester abroad to Australia this fall semester. She and I have created a shared google document where we are compiling information on where, how to travel, interesting tidbits, best places to eat, languages, etc.

The rest of the family is following her for a trip of a lifetime over Christmas where we will also explore New Zealand. As I'm the trip coordinator, this is an excellent resource for me on the countries we intend on visiting.

The audience will be not only my daughter, but also the other members of our family to build the anticipation of our trip. I love the recipe feature of this as my husband and youngest daughter love to cook.

I'm not sure if I'm going to create a blog or another google document to post family information. Leaning towards google site so that I can also record the details of our trip.

One resource that really intrigues me for use with my Theory of Knowledge students is CultureGrams. I did some exploration and realized that it will be very valuable in our unit on indigenous knowledge systems.

The specific country I explored was New Zealand, because I vacationed there last fall and fell in love with the country. in that section, I found this page:
http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country_sections.php?cid=112&cn=New_Zealand&sname=Population&snid=3

CultureGrams, as we now know, offers a wealth of information about geographical locations and their associated societies. The link I have provided above leads to the page about New Zealand's population. It delineates the cultural backgrounds of the people of New Zealand, including a breakdown of the numbers and cultures of indigenous people.

The type of information in CultureGrams is appropriate for a wide range of student abilities, but I will be using it with my eleventh graders as the target audience.

These students do a research project in which they choose an indigenous culture from outside the US to present to the class. They show where the culture lives geographically, so the maps will be very useful. They also need to examine the ethics, values, and attitudes of the indigenous tribe and then provide a legend from the culture which exhibits those values. CultureGrams will be an excellent starting point for this project. It offers a single place for my students to connect geography with culture. Once they use the CultureGrams information, they will also be more knowledgable about what to look for on the internet. They will be able to narrow their search to specific tribes or peoples.

The key objective for this project is for students to recognize the value of indigenous cultures.

http://sdm-sfx.digital.scholastic.com/?authCtx=U.600004611

I am very excited to start using Science Flix with my 5th grade students. This year we are trying a new integration of science and literacy and this resource will be very helpful with that. I plan to incorporate this during our literacy center time to support our life science and earth science units. In my classroom we have 1:1 Chromebooks, so students will be able to access, watch, and read on their own device. I will use Google Classroom as a way to link students to specific resources on the site. By doing this, I hope that students will gain a deeper understanding of our science concepts, and will gain an understanding of the relationship between science and literacy. Students will also practice informational literacy standards while reading. I believe that the videos will help students to better relate to the science concepts.  In addition to the topics available on this site, I am also excited about the tabs for science careers and news. I think students will be particularly excited to see current events that incorporate the concepts they have been learning. The information about the different careers may inspire some students and will also help them see the relevance of the concepts.

I plan on using Science Flix as it has multiple approaches to deliver information helping with learning.

http://sdm-sfx.digital.scholastic.com/un/01002265_10773064?authCtx=U.600054772

This link is connected to force and motion which is a topic I will be teaching to my students this year.  In fact it will help with the following core standard;MS–PS2–2 Plan an investigation to provide evidence that the change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of the forces on the object and the mass of the object.  This resource in my opinion does a great to job for scaffolding a lesson.   This resource includes a movie clip, text (which can be differentiated by reading levels), career info, and information to extend a lesson for my gifted students.  I am still perplexed as to using this as a main part of lesson delivery or use it as a resource to support a lesson.  I could possibly use it as a review at the end of lesson before student assessment.  I see keeping a student from wondering with all the information given as being a problem.  

https://teenhealthandwellness.com/article/399?search=work and skills

Teen Health and Wellness has some good articles for career exploration and job hunting.
I  have special education students who are 18-21 years of age and therefore are looking forward to going out into the community and working for the first time.  We do start to give them these experiences as soon as they enter transition age, but in reality they have been practicing for much longer.  After being given interest surveys we begin to discuss where they might want to work and what position they might want within that location.  However, many students lack the interpersonal skills which will help them become valuable employees, and that is where this series of videos would be very helpful.  Communication skills, teamwork, collaboration, and leadership are the main skills which employers are looking for but becoming reliable, honest, hard-working, independent problem solvers are some of our main goals within school classwork and community experience. Helping students realize the importance of having these skills when they go to work is reinforced when they watch others their own age in real-world jobs acting in appropriate ways and being successful at something they love to do.  
These videos may be watched several times with discussion, role playing and other activities related to these skills.

One of the resources I am going to have my 7th and 8th grade reading students use is CultureGrams.  To access it we will navigate to http://www.iowaaeaonline.org/, click on CultureGrams on the left side and log in, or we can access by way of the library page on our school website.  On the ECSD Library page, we will scroll to the bottom and click the CultureGrams button which will lead us to the log-in.  Once logged in we’ll be at http://online.culturegrams.com/.  
Beginning in October we will be reading Refugee by Alan Gratz as we participate in the Global Read Aloud.  This book is about young refugees from three different countries in three different time periods.  In order to better understand the material, the students will need to know more about the countries and cultures of the characters.  We will utilize CultureGrams for the research on the current realities of each country and for a start on the history of each country.  Because two of the refugees are set in the past we will need to do additional research elsewhere, but this will be a great source to help us understand culture.  
To introduce CultureGrams, I will use the United States as I model CultureGrams use and teach students how to use it independently.  It will be useful also to look at the US so we have a reference point for some of the statistics shared regarding the three countries we read about.  While I don’t have all the details worked out yet, I envision the end product will be a type of group presentation or project explaining the culture of one of the three countries.  These will be shared with all students so, while each group only becomes an “expert” on one country, all students will be exposed to the culture of each country in our novel.  Of course, the final project will require a bibliography, so we will be sure to practice using the citation maker provided in CultureGrams!    

Although the choices are numerous, I would probably choose to use the AEA Digital Library as the resource I would use most within my classroom.  Having spent time looking through several different resources (most of which were covered in this course), I felt that the AEA Digital Library was very simple and provides an unlimited amount of information, videos, and primary sources that I could use within any Social Studies classroom.  I love the fact that I can narrow my search down to exactly what the topic I am looking for, for any given lesson I might be instructing.  

https://www.aeadigitallibrary.org/

When thinking about the upcoming school year, I was considering how I can better teach how Mesoamerican cultures impacted the world we live in today, such as the Mayans and Aztecs.  I searched Aztecs and discovered several videos that could be shown within my classroom that would add depth and student engagement within the lessons I have planned.  Teaching World History to 9th grade students, student engagement is vital to my success.  Having a good variety of video, such as short clips or longer videos will allow me to fit in where they would apply.  An example of this would be using a short clip at the beginning of a lesson to hook my students into what we are about to learn.  A longer video might be used to add a different perspective to a lesson or build on previous learning.  I could also share these with student groups who might be doing collaborative group work on a project for class.

Kristopher

Every year my 8th grade science students are encouraged to work in teams to "debate" a topic.   This year I have decided to encourage the students to use the SIRS website,  even though it is listed as a 9-12 site.   On SIRS,  after the students login,  I will have them search for the subject "climate change" or "global warming".  Since the students are working in groups,  I plan on each group of students reading one pro,  and one con article.   After reading the articles I would assign each group a comparison,  contrast chart listing facts from each article.   Next,  the team of students will write a position statement based on the facts they have discovered. Following that the students can select a "side"to speak for in their debate. Using a modified debate format that allows students to speak for,  question against,  and give evidence from resources.   At the end, for a final assessment, the students will be allowed to retain or change their original position based on what they have learned from the other groups.

Ok after much searching, I've found a resource that I think could be really good for my class!  Here is the link: https://learn360.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=192248&xtid=93594.
This is a video that I found in learn360.  I tested the link and it worked.  I hope it still does, because it was a lengthy filtering procedure to get to.

I would use this in my Spanish IV class.  We read a novel called Vida y muerte en la mara salvatrucha.  It is written by a former member of one of the worst gangs in the world, the mara salvatrucha.  I would use only three sections of this video (Barrio de Paz (Peace Town), Gang Formation, and Gang Structure and Function), which students could click on once they go to the link above.  The hardest part will be getting around subtitles.  I would like to use this as authentic listening comprehension practice.  I don't think I would use it as an assessment, but more for practice because it would be difficult to know if students used the subtitles or not-if they did this outside of class.  What I would have the students do is listen to these sections and then answer these questions: 1. Are the reasons that Nelsa Curbelo gives for forming gangs in Ecuador similar or different to the original formation of the mara salvatrucha? 2. Why is gang structure important?  What is the structure and function of the narrator in Vida y muerte? 3. In your opinion, would implementing a program like this in El Salvador be effective? Why or why not?

I think this could bring some good discussions up.  At their level, this shouldn't be too hard of a task!

 

I was looking for AEA resources for the picture book, Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes.  My audience will be my new first grade class this fall. My search goal is to gather teaching ideas to go with this literacy book, and share with my other teachers on my team. I am looking for meaninful activites to enhance student's experience with this story.  First I started by Going to our school's homepage where we can click directly from a list of options and clicked on AEA Online Resources.  I put in my school's username and password, and clicked remember me.  On AEA's Online Homepage, I choose from the list on the left side of the page...BookFLIX.  I pushed start; then typed Wemberly Worried  on the ribbon under title search.  NO Results.  Then I went back to AEA Online Resources and scrolled down the list on the left hand side and clicked on TeachingBooks.Net.  I typed in Wemberly W...and it gave me two books with Wemberly in the title.  I clicked on Wemberly Worried and was given numerous options.  I chose under Narrowed Search, Bookguides and Lesson Plans. I scrolled through these to Meet the Author and found numerous author interviews. On Meet the Author, I listened to the various interviews.  Kevin Henkes shares how he gets his ideas, how he draws, chooses colors, characters, etc. on numerous books he has written.  I found the options to share:  email, text, or QR bookmark printed on one of these pages.  Reading through his personal website and listening to his videos, I found various ideas for activities, as well as adding a couple of videos to strum up curiosity about the author and other books he has written.  I like to offer my students various books from the authors we study like: Mercer Mayer or Jan Brett and have the AEA send an author's collection. They then have various books from that author to look at during IDR or free reading time.  Now I am excited to do this with Keven Henkes!  Nice way to begin our new school year.

For my high school student with anxiety and depression I would like to present this site which would provide support for her in development of her social skills and a healthy life style.  The website is Teen Health and Wellness.  It features articles on self help in the areas of body basics, diseases and infections, diversity, drugs and alcohol, eating disorders, family life, friendship and dating, nutrition, safety,  sexuality, skills for school and work, mind,  mood and emotions.  Also, the site has a psychologist that has worked in the field of mental health and answers questions that teens ask.  The teens can ask  questions of the psychologist
that will be treated confidentially.  To access the site the URL is http://www.teenhealthandwellness.com/  One would need to obtain the user name and password issued the school.  After logging in,  the links are displayed on the left side of the screen.  Given this students emotional and dysfunctional family relationships I will direct her to the sites that may be most beneficial to her.  She can also browse the links that are of most interest her .  There is a 24 hour hotline listed which I will point out to her for use as needed. I  intend to review with her any questions that she may have, and can offer information and refer if needed.  

I went to www.iowaaeaonline.org

I then clicked on culture grams (k-12).  It then prompted me to put in my username and password.  I did that and it brought me to the home page.  I had four areas I could explore; Word Edition, Kids Edition, States Edition, and Providence Edition.  I clicked on Kids Edition. http://online.culturegrams.com/kids/

Culture Grams for kids is an online database that makes it easy for kids to navigate through.  They can easily click on the location they would like to do further research upon.  

When the students first get into Culture Grams for kids.  They will see the world map.  When they click on a continent it will open it up and give you states or providence they can click on.  For example, I clicked on Africa.  After Africa opened up I clicked on Algeria.  The top of the page was Did you know facts, on the side of the page I could click on people and places, history, lifestyle, society and culture facts and contacts.  

I will implement this resource when my students and I do our annual Christmas Around the World Activity.

The resource I want to use is iClipart. First, access the heartland AEA library through the following link:
http://www.heartlandaea.org/library-and-digital-resources/online-resources/6-8th-grade/
Click on the iClipart button and log in.

I want to use iClipart consistently in my  beginner/early intermediate ELL classroom to build vocabulary usage and understanding through the Picture Word Inductive Model. I actually already use this model in my classroom, but finding a digital image will be easier and faster through AEA than filtering for copyright on Google or using magazine images, like I currently do.

In order to use the PWIM, I need to first click on the “photos” tab at the top of the iClipart page, because it will automatically be set to clipart. Clipart images are not rich enough for the PWIM. Once in photos, I can search for any subject, such as “job interview.” It is important to me to be culturally relevant in my classroom, particularly through the images I use. In this search, I would choose the 14th picture to represent an inclusive perspective on my subject. I click the image and see that it is entitled “Businesswoman Interviewing Male Job Applicant In Office.” I can download the resolution I want and put it in a PowerPoint slide, where students can label the picture on my interactive whiteboard.

https://learn360.infobase.com/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=67464&tScript=0

When searching Learn360 for keywords science and chemistry I was excited to see episodes of the A&E show Modern Marvels. I immediately clicked on the link for the list of available episodes form the series. One jumped right out to me. We’ve been including more nuclear chemistry in the general chemistry course to better align with Iowa Core standards. There is an episode titled Nuclear Tech!

While I’m easily able to address what happens in nuclear reactions on paper and through representative models/activities. For obvious reasons our high school students don’t get much direct exposure to how the topics within nuclear chemistry are used in our everyday world. Modern Marvels: Nuclear Tech addresses both nuclear reaction types, how they are utilized, as well as careers within the industry.

I could see this video as a great end of unit resource for our students to get a real-life perspective on topic we are limited in addressing in the classroom.

There are so many great resources that I plan to use, but one that I got really excited about is Learn 360.  I like that you can download videos, search for videos by standard or subject, it has built in citation tools, can be interactive, and can offer so much more.  Having been a financial literacy teacher, I found that some of the topics we discussed in class were somewhat advanced ideas and were definitely new to the students.  One of the areas that we studied was business ethics.  Because the concept of ethics may mean one thing to a student and something completely different to another, it was often difficult to stay neutral without bombarding them with a "mom" lecture of what is right and wrong.  So finding videos of people, places, companies, etc. that they are familiar with would definitely help to get the point across.  I found a video with the creators and owners of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  Here is the link:  https://learn360.infobase.com/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=67042&tScript=0.  
The video discusses many things about them and their company, such as how they met in 7th grade, but also about how they changed the idea and standards of business ethics in America.  This directly plays into the concept I am trying to teach to my 7th and 8th grade students.  This video could be used early on in the unit, so that I could get them interested and keep them interested and engaged throughout the rest of the unit.

One resource that I will probably ask my middle school social studies teacher to use in all of his middle school social studies class is CultureGrams. These can be found here: http://online.culturegrams.com/index.php. This video is also helpful: https://youtu.be/_Hz8Drmgc5U. He teaches 6th grade, 7th grade, and 8th grade social studies.

After logging in at http://online.culturegrams.com/index.php, my teacher will select the World Edition. One famous person that students in his 8th grade class are studying right now is Benjamin Franklin.  The teacher could then show his students how to navigate to Benjamin Franklin and then later assign students to research someone else of their choosing. Other people in CultureGrams for students to research include Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, Paul Revere, Charles Cornwallis, and many others.

Specific social studies objectives that students would demonstrate proficiency include:

SS.8.3 - Gather relevant information from multiple sources using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection.
SS.8.4 - Independently, evaluate the credibility of primary and secondary sources by determining their relevance and intended use.
Additional objectives from Writing Standards in History include:

WHST.6–8.7 - Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self–generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
WHST.6–8.8 - Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
WHST.6–8.9 - Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

The resource that I found to use is located in the ScienceFlix database on AEA's online website.  I went to AEA's Online Resources homepage.  I clicked on ScienceFLix and entered my username and password.  I came to a "browse all topics" page.  I clicked on the "systems of the body" icon. The page opened to a resource that does a broad, general overview of each of the body's systems.  There are several different options or ways that I can present the material to my students.  They are Watch It, Read It, Dive Deeper, Explore More, Related Web Sites, Science Lab, What Do You Think?, Show What You Know, Careers.  I had no idea these science resources existed, and it may very well revolutionize how I research for material when developing my science curriculums.  I will use this resource in my 7th Grade science class.  Of particular interest is the Science Lab:  System Schematic (create your own poster).  This is a great hands-on activity and give students an opportunity to develop creativity skills.  Here is the resource that I found (URL)  http://sdm-sfx.digital.scholastic.com/proj/01002273_10772835/1?authCtx=U.600116966

https://www.teachingbooks.net/tb.cgi?tid=2530#BookReadings

This is the TeachingBooks page on one of the novels we read during the school year, Frindle. On this page, there are links to a variety of things I can use. One that I think the students would be most interested in would be the "Meet the Author Book Reading" in which you get a bit of information about him and he reads the first chapter to the students. I think that would be a great way to begin the novel and generate interest in the book. Another link within the page on Frindle I found interesting was the Interview Transcript with the author. While the video/audio links for this have expired, the transcript has a lot of detailed information about the author that I think the students would really enjoy. These two options would be used within class to build background knowledge about the author and hook students into the content. This author information is an added bonus since we also read an excerpt of another novel by Andrew Clements, Lunch Money. A final piece of this page that I would use would be the Curriculum Guide and Discussion & Activities pages provided by Simon & Schuster. While I have a lot of activities planned with this novel already, I am always interested in exploring different ways to teach with the novel and ways to improve the rigor of the content. These sources can supplement the plans I already have for the novel.