Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Bubbl.us


Bubbl.us advertises itself as a "free web application for brainstorming online" and is another site that could be relevant to the world of education. My classmates used it for their music lesson plan, however, I believe it could be useful to many subject areas, particularly history. This would be a great website to show context of historical facts as well as cause and effect and chains of events.

Reflection on Discovery Education

Discoveryeducation.com is available for parents, teachers, and students use through most school systems. It is a fantastic resource for all things concerning education. Resources for teachers include puzzlemakers, videos, lesson builders and tip and tricks for a better classroom. There are resources for parents that help with motivating students and assisting them in homework. For students, there are links to videos that are designed to assist in all different subjects. There is even a store that sells DVDs covering in-depth lesson topics.

Discovery education is a must-use source for anybody involved in the world of education - especially teachers. That amount of resources available are unmatched by any other site. As mentioned, most schools have the Discovery Education subscription built into their budget, therefore this should be a no-brainer for educators.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Reflection on Blogging


Blogging has been a good experience so far. Although I don't have any followers and have no idea if anybody has even looked at my posts, it is neat to think I have the ability to make this compilation of thoughts and reflections to share and for others to be able to comment on them. A personal blog like this would be great for teachers to use in their classroom to convey homework assignments and reminders to their class, and also to display projects, reveal thoughts and reflections to parents and their students.

Before I was in Technology in the Classroom, I read several different blogs everyday. My favorite one is Talkingchop.com, a blog dedicated to Atlanta Braves baseball. If you do enough research there are thousands of blogs out there dedicated to different areas of interest. From my own experiences, blogs reveal a lot of insider information, that is otherwise not available through official websites. Posts, therefore, are fun to read and write and can be particularly useful, especially in the classroom.

Kidsastronomy.com


Kidsastronomy.com is another useful educational website that can be used in the classroom. The website deals with all things concerning space including interesting facts, videos, and interactive games. The free astronomy games for kids include "Make A Solar System" where you make your own solar system, and a "Virtual Star Explorer". You can also find puzzels, space word games and coloring pages.
The limit, of course, is this site is useful only to a science teacher or science lesson, and not relevant to many subjects like other sites highlighted on this blog. If you are a science teacher, however, this is one of the most thorough websites dealing with astronomy available.