Author Archives: melissaseideman

“Steal, Modify, and Share” Lessons with Better Lesson

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I just discovered a collaborative website called Better Lesson that allows teachers to share lessons plans and activities. My first year I spent countless hours designing lessons and grading often in  isolation from other teachers. My second year, I  co-planed with another teacher in my department and my job became a lot more fun and interactive. I had someone to bounce ideas off of and collaborate with. It was a wonderful year teaching. If only I discovered Better Lesson earlier in my career, my life would of been a whole lot easier. As soon as I got on to the website,  I found myself downloading a number of lessons that I could use  next year and sent links to teachers I work with. Better lesson offers 25,000 lesson plans  to teachers for FREE. It’s time to Steal, Modify, and Share a lesson with Better Lesson Today

According to New Schools Venture Fund, ” Creative teachers across the country develop outstanding lesson plans—often in isolation. Teachers lack ways to share ideas and create more effective, inspiring lessons based on their collective knowledge and experience, rather than start from scratch each time.”

New School goes on to discuss the benefits of Better Lesson. They say teachers are “frustrated by constantly “reinventing the wheel”, former teacher Alex Grodd founded BetterLesson to provide all teachers access to the best instructional content available. Through its file sharing and social networking application, BetterLesson helps teachers connect and share lessons, best practices, and ideas within communities of practice. BetterLesson differentiates itself through a unique content management system that allows educators to organize and share lessons, units, and courses in an intuitive, sequenced structure. It also provides teachers with recognition for their creative achievements and facilitates collaboration both within and across real-world learning.”

It was founded by Alex Grodd (Founder & CEO)  who is a “Teach For America alum who taught 6th grade English at Roxbury Preparatory Charter School. He founded Better Lesson to address the challenges he faced in the classroom.”

Google Form is a WONDERFUL resource that is under utilized in education

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I have been using Google Forms  for a little over a year now. I originally used it in some basic ways like making a websearch assignments, but this semester I “fell in love” and slightly became obsessed with Google Form.

I have used Google forms in multiple ways this year: from creating rubrics for projects, to student information logs, to contact with parents, and even grading homework assignments. Google Form is a WONDERFUL  resource that is under utilized in education.

Next year I plan on creating a getting to know you form with all my students information on the  first day of school  including parents names, phone numbers, emails. textbook numbers. Having all this information on one Google form spreadsheet can save me time and frustration. Another advantage to using forms is that it will be available electronically from any computer.

Here are some links to some useful forms I created. Feel free to share and modify.

Interesting ways to use Google Docs from my previous post.

Great post from the Pursuit of Technology Integration written by Michael Zimmer on how administrators could use Google Forms in classroom informal walkthroughs. Here is his sample form: ” Here is one already created that you could use as an example to start with.”  Nice idea and I bet it makes walkthroughs a lot easier for administrators

Technology find :)

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Great post from Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero written by David Kapular. I love finding posts like this and thinking of new and exciting ideas to use in my classroom. I plan on trying out a few of these programs this summer and modifying my plans for next year.

50sites ver2

He said, “After the success of the first presentation, 50 Sites in 60 Seconds, I’ve decided to turn this into a bi-annual project. Today I’m releasing version 2 which includes 20 different sites from the last.  I use it as a professional development tool and help organize all of the sites I review.”

Jing it

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I can’t not even begin to count the countless hours I have spent over the phone teaching my parents to use technology. I taught my parents to use Facebook, send an attachment, upload photos, and even create a Google doc spreadsheet for my father’s business. I have spent numerous hours explaining how to do each step over the phone walking them through each step. If only I knew Jing could solve all my problems and explained it in a matter of minutes 🙂 rather than hours 🙁

Jing is a fast and easy way to capture images and create videos of what you see on your screen. Jing is free software you can use to make a narrated video (if you have a microphone) showing how to do something on a computer. It records your mouse, and everything you click on and show on your screen. Karen had been teaching lessons using a computer and LCD projector.

I am making tutorials explaining and demonstrating the different steps to make a documentary video in class. I will post the screen captured tutorials on a website for my students. After I have saved each video tutorial, I can add arrows or captions to the windows to highlight important features. This feature can allow you to personalize instructions for each student. The best part about Jing is that you can download this neat program off the internet for FREE.

For more information: What is Jing?

Vietnam Guest Speakers

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Guest Speaker Richard Lorenz, said a “ a hero is someone who does something extraordinary.”  On Wednesday April 27th my classes at South Western High School had the privilege to have to local Heroes speak about the experiences in the Vietnam War.  William Fissel and Richard Lorenz presented to my 11th grade American History Classes.

One of the guest speakers was William Fissel, a South Western graduate, class of 1964.  He is a long time resident of Hanover whose children and grandchildren are proud Mustangs. He along with other SW classmates were drafted to fight in Vietnam in 1967. Mr. Fissel was part of the “Mekong Delta River Rats.” This was a joint venture with the Navy and the Army.  He provided critical aid and supplies to soldiers in the form of defense, c-rations, and military supplies.

The second guest speaker was Richard Lorenz, a grandfather of a current South Western junior.  Mr. Lorenz was on active duty in the USAF in October 1965 at the height of the build up in Vietnam.  He was selected to serve as an aircraft maintenance officer.  He was actively involved in two activities critical to the mission in Vietnam – the air rescue of downed pilots using a specially equipped C-130 and aerial delivery systems to deliver supplies to field army units.  His unit was apart of the “Blind Bat” mission.  This unit conducted night flare missions over the Ho Chi Minh trail over Laos and Cambodia in an effort to detect and stop North Vietnamese troops that were entering South Vietnam.

Both Mr. Fissel and Mr. Lorenz spoke about their phenomenal experiences of the trials and tribulations in the Vietnam. War.  Students learned about advanced Air Force technology, fighting during the war, and personal stories about local graduates killed in action, as well as the residual effects of the war that are still experienced today. Mrs. Seideman said “although we strive to provide the best instructional experiences we can for our students, we cannot replicate the experiences Mr. Fissel and Mr. Lorenz presented.”

There were many positive comments about the quality of their presentations. Junior Breanna Ruppert said, “I really appreciated the fact that you came and allowed us to learn from your first hand experiences instead of just learning from text books and etc.”  Junior Haley Brigs said, “It made the whole thing much more real and personal, seeing people who actually went through it and saw all we talked about. I think it’s terrible the ways some were treated when they came home, regardless of if us as Americans agree with war or not you did an incredible thing fighting over seas for us and for those you were told to help and protect.” Mr. Fissel and Mr. Lorenz are a true inspiration to all and their contributions are greatly appreciated! Thank you for serving our country and we are proud to call you a hero.

Is there Value in Direct Instruction?

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I just received a PLC email from my old school about the value of direct instruction. “In our pursuit of research based teaching methods (aka “best practices”) , see this interesting article on the value of direct instruction. A brief Picture 2summary of the results of one study: We find that students score higher on standardized tests in the subject in which their teachers spent more time on lecture-style presentations than in the subject in which the teacher devoted more time to problem-solving activities… Another way to state the same finding is that students learn less in the classes in which their teachers spend more time on in-class problem solving.”

Ever since John Dewey explored hands-on learning at the University of Chicago Laboratory School more than a century ago, lecture-style presentations have been criticized as traditonal and outdated methods. The Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University found that students did better on asesssments if their teacher’s used lecture-style instruction. If you carefully read the results, the study explains progressive teaching methods might also be Picture 1beneficial if properly combined with lectures.

If you look at the graphics to the left, they show that teachers use a combination of different teaching methods. The results indicate that there might be an adverse impact on student learning. Today’s classrooms require a combination of mini lectures, collaboration, digital literacy, and problem based learning. See a previous post about project based learning called Doing History.

Check out the articles I referenced:

http://educationnext.org/eighth-grade-students-learn-more-through-direct-instruction/
http://educationnext.org/sage-on-the-stage/

Mrs. S you said last lesson was your “favorite”

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Yesterday, I taught one of my favorite lessons (soon to be a future post) connecting the legacy of the Civil Rights movement to today. When I told my students this lesson was  one of my favorite lessons. One student raised his hand in the back of the room and said “Mrs. Seideman you said the lesson last week was your favorite on Vietnam” and then another student said “no the impact of WWII on the homefront was.” After a few minutes of discussion, most of my class agreed  that I claim a lot of lessons are my favorite.

Most people would say choosing a favorite would be easy. For me it’s easy to choose my favorite, Ben and Jerry’s Fish Food ice cream, my border collie, watching the Notebook, and snuggling with my husband have to be on my top ten list of favorite things to do.

Do you enjoy history more this year than previous?In terms of teaching, I have so many favorite lessons and I will admit I claim them all the be my favorite. My response to my class when they said I always say a lesson is my favorite was good then I am doing my job. Teaching is unlike any other profession in the world-You have the unique power to change a students life in so many different ways. It requires passion, compassion, strength, creativity, and an unbelievable ability to “run” on limited amounts of sleep. All of these characteristics make a good teacher GREAT.

To many teachers get burnt out and forget the real reason they entered the classroom: to make a difference in a child’s life. A history teacher in my department who was nominated for teacher of the year said it best “we are there for the kids.” When meaningful connections are made with students and the content, schools truly are a special place to be. I am happy I choose my profession and I am proud to say (even in this economic climate) that I am a Teacher.

Education Evolution

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Watch this short video made by a middle school class from Texas, taught by a friend of mine. We need evolution reform! Our current system, which may have worked 100 years ago, is outdated, and today’s children need a more interactive, more interesting, more collaborative learning environment. Help him spread the word.


Complete restructuring of a classroom, student class placement based on ability/interest, collaborative technology use and evaluation rather than multiple choice and worksheet? As blasphemous as the idea is to people, if kids find education more fun, they are more motivated, and thus they are more apt to learn.

Teaching Post 9/11

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September 11, 2001 was a defining moment in American history. It is so interesting that many of the children who were 8, 9, or 10 years old when the World Trade Center towers fell and the Pentagon burned are now in college.  According to CNN news article, The 9/11 Generation’s Bogeyman is Gone, the 9/11 generation is made up of two subgroups, one who were in high school and college and the other who were in elementary school.

t1larg.huot.irptThis generation has grown up in a world very different from our parents generation. We are familiar with increased security, terrorist threats, and an increased awareness of the world. We have  grown up accustomed to long lines at the airport and terror alerts. Since 9/11 this younger generation has feared names like Sadam and Bin Laden.

I as well as my students were forever effected by 9/11/01. I remember exactly where I was when the WTC was attacked.  I was sitting in my US government class in high school. I remember the silence of  the halls. I remember my friends getting called out of class to go home because their family members were unaccounted.This new generation of students are used to filtered news; many watched live television reports of the attacks in their living rooms and classrooms. I remember the  overwhelming sense of pride and love for our nation. I wore red, white, and blue and felt an urgency to plant a tree in honor of the victims of 9/11. These feelings will never leave me.

As a teacher, I think it is so important to educate our students about 9/11 and the residual effects. I used the capture and death of Bin Laden to talk about 9/11 and the War on Terror. I use letters, personal stories, interviews, and newspapers from the day to honor and pay tribute to the men and women who defend our freedom.

For more information on teaching resources visit:

http://www.learnabout9-11.org/

http://www.911memorial.org/teaching-guides-0

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/05/01/the-best-resources-for-learning-about-osama-bin-laden/

http://historytech.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/10-best-sites-for-learning-about-osama-bin-laden/


Dipity Timeline Increases Enagement

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I heard about Dipity Timelines from Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers and thought you might like to hear about it. I had my students create online timelines today on the Civil Rights Movement. They turned out so much nicer than paper timelines from last semester. My students even embed videos and images into them.

Why use Dipity? My students were so engaged that I could have left the room while I was “teaching” and they would have been on task (I didn’t leave the room). It’s true like the induction presenter said last night- student choice and technology improves the classroom climate and student engagement.

How do students “turn in” their timelines? I read Lisa Nielsen‘s blog the Innovative Educator and she said that teacher’s of the 21st century Don’t Say, ‘Hand It In.’ They say, “Publish It!” That is exactly what my students did. They published, copied their link,  and pasted into an assignment on Edmodo. I not only saved paper but grading was a lot easier with my Google Docs Form rubric (see below).

Here are some sample student projects:
http://www.dipity.com/KelseySW13/Civil-Rights/
http://www.dipity.com/AlexandraMZ20/The-Fight-For-Freedom/
http://www.dipity.com/BreannaRR18/Civil-Rights/
http://www.dipity.com/HaleyAB07/Civil-Rights-Timeline/

How did I grade them? Here is the rubric

Are we preparing our students for the 21st century?

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Our school’s need to adapt the most effective educational methodologies to produce literate, technologically superior, and democratic citizens for the 21st century.

“Kids spend much of the day as their great-grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers traditional classrooms lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading from textbooks that are out of date by the time they are printed” written by Claudia Wallus from Time Magazine author of How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th century.

The new 21st century school should be a true student-centered approach within the classroom. Students need to learn to think and apply information from a plethora of disciplines and new technology. Students need to be taught what’s reliable and what is not in this digital age of endless technology and information.

Technology graphic

Check out this great article from the Huffington Post  written by Lisa Nielsen from her blog called The Innovative Educator or find her @InnovativeEdu

According to Lisa Nielsen from Innovative Educator: our school’s must catch up to the 21st century by encouraging teaches and students to create:

1. Personal Learning Networks
Perhaps the core of passion driven, self-directed learning is the development of personal learning networks which can be developed through blogs, social networks like Facebook, Ning, or Group.ly, Twitter, and discussion boards. Read “5 Things You Can Do to Begin Developing Your Personal Learning Network,” “The PLN Matures. The Progression of the 21st Century Personal Learning Network” and “5 Ways to Build Your 1.0 and 2.0 Personal Learning Network to learn how to get started.”

2. Skype an Expert
You can make your classroom a global communication center for free with Skype by connecting with anyone around the world about topics of interests. These experts may be people you have conversations with or perhaps they are people you learn from. Author, blogevangelist, teacher, thought leader and father, Will Richarson uses Skype to supplement his children’s learning. Paul Bogush, an 8th grade social studies teacher not only supports his students in doing this, they take it up a notch with a program they produce called Lunchtime Leaders. Students interview leaders from around the world on their opinions about what they should do to be prepared for the future. Paul and his students do most of their interviews using Skype and they turn the interviews into Podcast. You can listen to their podcasts at http://lunchtimeleaders.podbean.com where students choose to interview experts in topics they are interested in and then turn their interview into a podcast.

3. Authentic Publishing
In the 21st century, irrelevant hand-it-in teaching should be a thing of the past. If a student’s work has no authentic audience beyond the teacher, it shouldn’t be assigned. A student who is self-motivated to do something, counts, btw. A teacher directing him/her to do it does not. Most 21st century kids love to share with real audiences and are doing it outside school already. Inside school, work should not sit lifeless on a computer, or even just the school website. Support students in finding real audiences for their work in their Global Community. If you’re not sure how find out by reading, “21st Century Educators Don’t Say, ‘Hand It In.’ They say, “Publish It!”

4. Use YouTube and iTunes to Learn Anything
It’s rather outrageous that many schools still block one of the most powerful tools for learning available for students today: YouTube. While iTunes is a powerful option for learners on the go, YouTube adds the visual element, making learning even more powerful and FREE! With YouTube Education and iTunes University, more and more colleges, universities, and their professors are sharing content for free. While some schools are paying for pre-packaged online learning options, they’re really all already out there for free. Empower teachers and/or students to design their own learning and learn about whatever they want with these free resources. Not only are these good resources to go to learn from others, they’re also a smart place to ask for help like this student did who needed help with his bowdrill set.

5. Develop Authentic Learning Portfolios
When done right ePortfolios can be a powerful tool that not only helps remind students of all their accomplishments, but it also enables them to share these with the world. In the 21st century, creating an ePortfolio is free and easy. Student simply select a container (blog, wiki, website, Google site), decide how they’d like to organize it, and then post their work. I strongly advise against using any paid for portfolio site. It is important that students have ownership of their own work and that it can travel with them wherever they are. When it comes to ePortfolios, Helen Barrett is the go-to person. To learn more, visit her blog where she shares fantastic ideas.

In our globally connected world, it is no longer acceptable for teachers to teach the way they were taught nor is it okay for administrators to allow it. It is also no longer acceptable for administrators to take the easy way out and require connected kids to learn in a disconnected environment where they are banned from accessing sites or bringing to school the tools and technologies they love and need to succeed in the world. In the 21st century, if we truly care about student success we will lift the bans, unblock the filters and connect our students to the world so they can learn effectively.

For more information visit:

Lisa Nielsen’s blog:  The Innovative Educator or find her @InnovativeEdu

Huffington Post article: Is your child’s school leaving him/her behind? by Lisa Nielsen

Time Magazine: How to bring our nation’s schools out of the 20th century? by Claudia Wallis

Top 35 of the Best Web 2.0 Technology

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The Best of the Best- from Edudemic You can view the live stream of @edchat here and see what people are saying at the @chickenweb2tools here.

Wordle: 21st century teacher

They scoured hundreds of responses and have come up with the following list for the best web 2.0 technology.  I thought I would share them.

The List

  • Glogster
    Great way to share posters and images you’ve made with friends
  • Edmodo
    Social learning environment and one of the best ways to teach with tech
  • Bubbl.us
    Free application to brainstorm online
  • Twitter
    The micro blogging service that many love or hate.
  • WordPress
    Content publishing system. It’s gone way beyond just blogging.
  • Prezi
    Innovative way to share presentations without PowerPoint
  • Wallwisher
    An online notice board maker (or bulletin board if you choose)
  • Animoto
    Make beautiful videos from images in a snap
  • Blabberize
    Make your images talk…that’s right.
  • Weebly
    Create your own website or blog, very easy to use
  • Flickr
    Popular photo-sharing site now lets you print
  • Slideshare
    Don’t waste your presentation after it’s over, share it with millions!
  • Audioboo
    Easily record and share audio
  • VoiceThread
  • GoogleDocs
    The top real-time document creating and editing cloud-based system
  • GoogleSites
    Make your own website while knowing nothing about websites!
  • Diigo
    Popular social bookmarking site
  • GoogleEarth
    View anywhere in the world anytime
  • Wordle
    Create a beautiful aggregation of any amount of text
  • Wikis
    Crowdsourcing at its finest. Like Wikipedia, Wikispaces is very helpful
  • Wix
    Easily make your own flash-based website
  • Ning
    Despite a new cost-based membership program, Ning allows you to have your own social network
  • Primarypad
    Web-based word processor
  • Spicy Nodes
    Innovative way to organize your web visits
  • Delicious
    One of the top social bookmarking sites on the web
  • Myebook
    Virtually publish your book and sell it
  • Voki
    Get your own avatar and even have it talk with your voice
  • DoInk
    Create animations using this simple website
  • Warning Sign Generator
    Make your own caution and warning signs in a flash!
  • Scratch
    Create and share stories, games, art, etc.
  • Kerpoof
    Cool way to make a movie, card, picture, and share it all
  • Tagxedo
    Like Wordle but a step farther as text can be used to build bigger images
  • SmartKiddies
    Creative math and other educational problems to help everyone learn
  • Bitstrips
    Make and share your own comic strips with thousands of others

Added in the comments and via Twitter:

  • Popplet
    An easy way to share visual ideas
  • Storyjumper
    Easy way to create your own stories for kids and bring them to life
  • Aviary Myna
    Make your own music or remix just about anything else
  • TimeToast
    Fantastic timeline visualization tool to understand history
  • GoAnimate for schools
    State of the art animation tools for schools
  • PBWorks
    Thousands of educational wikis and workspaces (build your own!)
  • Schoology
    Learning management, online education tools, and much more
  • Google Timeline
    A unique way to view the news
  • Online-Convert
    Convert anything to anything (audio, video, text, etc.)
  • ReadWriteThink
    Tons of classroom resources and PD goodies
  • Storybird
    Build your own stories (with images) and share them with others
  • Word Magnets
    Phonics reinforcement and sentence building exercise
  • Museum Box
    Innovative way to understand history
  • Atmosphir
    A build-your-own video game
  • Empressr
    Rich media presentation tool
  • Zoho
    A great alternative to Google Apps
  • EasyBib
    The free automatic bibliography and citation maker
  • ToonDooSpaces
    Easily publish custom comic strips
  • Crocodoc
    Annotate and edit PDFs

Wunderlist- No more paper to do lists

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Wunderlist is probably my new favorite tech tool. I was looking for a way to eliminate endless to do “paper” lists as well as post it’s on my desk. Wunderlist is a wonderful and FREE tool that allows you to create a plethora of to do lists from food shopping to school work. The application can be downloaded to any computer or smart phone.

The wonderful benefit of this tool is that it syncs between all your computers and hand held devices. You can even share tasks or lists with friends, colleagues, or family members.

How I use it? I created a different tab for each day of the week. I write my tasks for each day whether it’s a staff meeting or a paper to grade. I delete my tasks as I complete them and if I don’t complete them on a particular day I simply drag them to a different day.

Benefits:

  • No more post it notes
  • Syncs between all your tech devices
  • Collaboration of projects and lists
  • You’ll never misplace a list again
  • ORGANIZATION

Check out wunderlist: www.6wunderkinder.com

LiveBinders

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I just discovered Livebinders through Tina and Barbara @LiveBinders on Twitter. It seems like an interesting idea to build a binder to organize all your information.

LiveBinder is easy to use and it allows you to collect your resources, organize them, and present them in a useful manner. I could see this being a useful resource for parents looking for homework help or resources to help their kids. It also seems like a nice way to create a research project about a particular topic and encourage students to explore and learn the material in an interesting manner.

For more information: What is livebinder?

Do More with Google Docs- 70+ ideas

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Google Docs is a great tool that has been around for a few years. I have been using Google Docs with friends, colleagues, and students for a little over two years now.

The benefits of Google Docs and apps are endless. Google Docs enables multiple people in different locations to collaborate simultaneously on the same document from any computer with Internet access. For example with my graduate class, I had a project on the 1930’s with a partner who lives in Colorado. Rather than wasting hours on the phone with my partner, we used Google Docs and communicated through the chat feature and we simultaneously created our project together in “real time.”

In the classroom, it is also beneficial. This is the first semester where a huge majority of my students are familiar with Google docs and it’s benefits from other classes. I have had students who were sick  at home collaborating with their group. Today, I had a student placed in the in school suspension room. He worked on his project with his partner using Google Documents.  Google Documents increases learning because it encourages collaboration, project based learning, and it is efficient.

I have used Google documents for PowerPoint, word, excel, and forms.I learned about some interesting ideas and ways to use Google Docs in the classroom from a blog called EdTe-CH written by Thomas Barrett. This blog has 70 + ways to creatively use Google Forms in the classroom.

I read through the following 70 + ideas in the slide-show and found myself going right to my Google Doc and creating forms. This is one form I made based after reading the edte.ch blog. I designed the form to have students “rate” other student’s documentary projects and give them positive as well as constructive feedback. Another form I created is for recording specific behaviors within my classroom.

Thanks Edte.ch for the great ideas!

For more information:  Google Docs