Time for the Magic Wands!

Time sure does fly when you're having fun, huh?

It's time to find those magic wands and get those classrooms ready for the upcoming year!

Now is the perfect time to begin a teacher website!  A teacher website is a great way to stay in touch with your parents and community, and it is a helpful way to keep yourself organized!  There are several great ideas you can incorporate into a teacher website:

• A calendar to summarize classroom events
• A "student spotlight" area to give recognition to students
• An extra resources area for those students who like to go deeper
• An area for website links that you use often in your classroom or that students can access at home

Teacher websites have never been easier to set up, and there are plenty of FREE ones out there!  Sometimes school districts provide teachers with a webpage as part of their school's website.  But, these may be hard to work with.  You can always just post a link on that page to your new teacher website that you create!

These are just a few of the many sites where you can create a free teacher website:

Scholastic Teacher Home Page Builder
EducatorPages
ClassNotes Online
Classtown

Please let me help if you have questions! And, I'd love to see your pages you create or have already had set up!  Send me the link!

And, check out this really cute back to school bulletin board idea!

Jennifer Smith
Chattahoochee-Flint RESA ETC
jsmith@chattflint.org
(800) 541-9442

Need something to do on the last day of school?

Stretching to keep your students occupied for the last day or two of school?  Let them make a to-do list for the summer!  Maybe a list of books to read while they're out?

My to-do list for the summer:

Character Counts!

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend a podcasting workshop with Tony Vincent.  It is always fun to hear Tony speak. He is an excellent presenter.  Tony has been at the forefront of podcasting since it started becoming popular in schools a few years ago.  He has worked with a school that creates "Character Counts" podcasts.  Click here, and listen to a few.  Then, have your students create their own "Character Counts" podcasts!  Tony's website gives you lots of information on podcasting!  Or, contact us, and we'll come and teach a podcasting workshop at your school!

Smithsonian's History Explorer

The Smithsonian History Explorer has awesome interactives for your social studies and history classrooms!  Great for use on interactive whiteboards or on your computers!

The What??

Have you checked the Porta Portal lately?  I know.....the WHAT?  Yes, the Porta Portal!

I've added several links recently, ranging from ipod touch's in the classroom to project based learning through web design.

Check it out and bookmark it!

http://guest.portaportal.com/jsmith0404

The shrimping boats are late today...

The shrimping boats are late today;
The dusk has caught them cold.
Swift darkness gathers up the sun,
And all the beckoning gold
That guides them safely into port
Is lost beneath the tide.
Now the lean moon swings overhead,
And Venus, salty-eyed.


They will be late an hour or more,
The fishermen, blaming dark's
Swift mischief or the stubborn sea,
But as their lanterns' sparks
Ride shoreward at the foam's white rim,
Until they reach the pier
I cannot say if their catch is shrimp,
Or fireflies burning clear.

Nocturne: Georgia Coast
By Daniel Whitehead Hicky

April is National Poetry Month!  Visit this site to read more poems about Georgia, explore poets from our State and find other interesting facts about poetic history in Georgia!

Capitol Tech 2010

It was our pleasure at the ETC to accompany a group of students and their teacher to Capitol Tech 2010, held at the Georgia State Capitol, March 8.  The students showed off their technology expertise and used the same equipment that they have in their classroom to do demonstrations for legislators and others that attended.  They were outstanding!

We had the opportunity to meet several legislators, including Representative Mike Cheokas, from Americus.

Play Storybook Adventure

Play Read.gov's Storybook Adventure and explore stories like the Wizard of Oz and collect treasures.  Cute site that would be fun to use on the big screen in the classroom or in the computer lab.

"Digg" the Olympics

From the Digg site:

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users.

Check out what the world "Diggs" about the Olympics!

Love Poems

Celebrate Valentine's Day with your students and read a few of these love poems from giggle poetry!!

Dollar Days

Not necessarily technology related, but head over to Scholastic to visit their Dollar Days and find 125 books for $1.  Stock up for your classroom OR for home.

While you're there, check out their Interactive Whiteboard links for some cute classroom activities.

Podcasting

We've been teaching podcasting workshops the last couple of weeks to our T3 Grant schools. We've been talking about what "consumers of media" our students are these days. So, when I saw this cartoon flipping through Good Housekeeping this week, it gave me a good laugh!

We've collected several podcasting resources while preparing for our workshops. Visit the portaportal site to find those links and many others on other various topics:

http://guest.portaportal.com/jsmith0404