Point A to Point B

Category: Content Area Focus

  • Middle Ages Project Rocks!

    Hi everyone! So my blog is an example of a website where the web address is not the same as the title of the site. It can sometimes be difficult to determine all the details from a website, but with a little detective work you can do it! From a website, you want to try to find:

    Author (of the article or site)
    Name of Web site (not normally the web address)
    Specific page or article title
    Date Web page was last revised
    Sponsoring organization
    Web address (URL)
    Date you viewed it (required-if you do not remember the exact date dont worry – approximate is OK)

    As always, ask if you have any questions!

  • If I had this in college…

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    This year we have started using an awesome new online citation assistant called NoodleTools. With it, you can plug in the information about each source for a project, and get a properly formatted works cited list to print or download. All 7th and 8th graders have created their personal folders at NoodleTools, and are already much more in-tune with how to do proper citations.

    If I only had this tool in college, many of those papers would have been done so much sooner…

  • Online Classroom “Comes of Age”

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    For quite a few years now WITS (Williamsville Information Tracking System) has been growing in the amount of information it stores and provides. In the last year it has become the starting point for most teacher and student work. It acheived a milestone recently, I believe, in its ability to be the online virtual classroom to connect teachers and students.

    Document posting is now availalbe in WITS – teachers can post files (homework, class notes, just about anything) for students to download. This feature, along with notes, links, forums, grades, etc. are breaking down the walls of the classroom and extending it into the web where it should be. Security reasons prevent students from being able to post documents to teachers. Hopefully at some point this can be worked out so 2-way communication can happen.

    Enjoy the safe, secure, stable virtual classroom that WITS is!

  • Music Notation Software

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    Mr. Marinaccio’s classes just started coming into the lab to notate their rhythmic speech compositions. We are using the free version of the notation program Finale, called Finale NotePad. You can download and use this program at home as well. To get the download, click here

    Happy composing!

  • Keyboarding

    There is a lot of talk right now about when keyboarding should be taught in school. Historically it has been done at the high school, but since computers and keyboards are ssuch an integral part of our daily lives, it appears that keyboarding instruction should come earlier. Research shows that early keyboarding classes will help the most.

    What are your thoughts on keyboarding instruction (time spent learning how to keyboard correctly)? Do you think it would help you? Do you think you type well enough already? How did you learn to type the way you do now?

    Post your comments here – thanks!

  • makeworksheets.com

    Looking for a quick way to create worksheets? The Williamsville Teaher Center has purchased a district subscription to makeworksheets.com. With the site, you can create printable teacher worksheet makers, rubric makers, math worksheets, graphic organizers, language arts worksheets, puzzle makers, and teacher time savers.

    See me for the login info.

    The web address is www.makeworksheets.com

  • SMART Part 2

    I attended a SMART Master’s Training day here in Buffalo with a bunch of Williamsville people, inlcuding 4 Heim teachers who have SMARTBoards full-time in their classrooms. The day was AWESOME! I picked up lots of tips & tricks on using the boards.

    The mix of people was cool – there were 4 from Oregon who came to the training in here in Buffalo (not something you would expect…) We had a great time learning and sharing together.

    Looking forward to moving forward with our 5 year plan to install projectors/SMARTBoards in every classroom!

  • Get SMART

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    We had an AWESOME inservice today after school on SMARTBoards. Myself and the comptuer teacher from Mill, Judy Labiak, taught a very enthusiastic crowd of teachers. Many creative ideas were shared during the session – we are looking forward to next week’s class!

  • eThemes

    Looking for quality web resources for your classroom? I was introduced to another free online resource called eThemes. It is teacher-reviewed, kid-appropriate web content based around over 900 different themes, or topics. The site, and themes, are maintained by an outstanding program called eMINTS, based in Missouri.

    This is a site for teachers to go to and find resources for their students.

    Check it out at www.emints.org/ethemes/index.shtml

  • Face to Face Finally

    I got to meet face to face for the first time last night with lots of people from MarcoPolo whom I have known virtually for the last few years. The MarcoPolo partners did an overview of upcoming developments for the site, and wow, there are some neat things coming online soon. Xpeditions alone covered 7 or 8 projects they have rolling out, not to mention what the other partners showed off.

    I’m excited to get going with more training on MarcoPolo – the resources keep getting better!

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    BTW, if you want to check out your ancestral genetic roots, go to www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic It will cost money to do, but has some awesome implications.