Monday, August 31, 2009

Current Events: Channel One & CNN Student News



Two great online resources for current events are Channel One News and CNN Student News. Both sites are targeted for students and do a great job of relaying the news in a "hip" fashion.

Channel One: It has more commercials, but does a great job of incorporating student input with a comment section. Young broadcasters you might remember this is where Anderson Cooper and Lisa Ling got their start.

CNN Student News: Less "hip," but covers the news short and concise with no video commercials.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Authentic Audience: YouTube Gives Your Students a Global Voice

One of Phillip Schlechty's design qualities in his book Working on the Work is giving students an Authentic Audience. An example of this is a Chorus teacher in New York City started broadcasting his students singing popular songs on YouTube. The videos showed students passionately engaged in their work and the videos went viral. So viral that one of the songs Landslide caught the attention of the author Stevie Nicks. Stevie was so touched by their work that she invited them to Madison Square Garden to preform for her. After they were done Ms. Nicks hugged every student.

Reach out and take a chance give students to opportunity outside the school walls and see that an imagination can take you places you never dreamed you could go.

They were also nominated for a MTV music award, not bad for a bunch of 5th graders.

Link to PS Chorus blog to see more of there great performances.
http://ps22chorus.blogspot.com/


Video # 1: Landslide by PS22


Video # 2: Students preforming at Madison Square Garden for Stevie Nicks

Monday, August 24, 2009

Great Games from Sheppard Software all Subjects (FREE)

Most games have 3 levels... Easy, Medium and Hard. Plus these games would work great with Interactive White Boards.

Social Studies:
US Geography: States, Capitals, regions, and Landforms
World Geography: Capitals, Countries, Landforms

Math:
All Games: Basic Operations, Mixed Operations, Fractions, Place Value, Telling Time, Dollars and Cents, Early Math, Pre-Algebra.

Science:
Animals: Trivia facts on all kinds of animals
Animal Games: Producer and Consumers, Food Chain, Animal Diet, Endangered Animals, Carnivores, Omnivores, Herbivores, Mammals, Birds and Identifying Animals to Regions
Chemistry: Elements and the Periodic Table

Good links at Sheppard Software:

How to embed YouTube Videos in PowerPoint 2007

In the last year YouTube has made it more and more difficult to download content from their website. So if you would like to "legally" embed videos into your presentation here are step by step instructions to embed YouTube content directly into your PowerPoint 2007 Presentations.

Instructions for PP 2007:
1. Copy the YouTube URL that you would like to view
2. In PowerPoint turn the Developer Tab on by clicking the MS logo on the top left of the screen. At the bottom of the window that pops up click the PowerPoint Options button. Check the box that says "Show Developer Tab in Ribbon."
3. Now that you have the Developer Tab in PP click on the More Controls button it looks like a hammer and a wrench.
4. Select Shockwave Flash Object
5. Now "draw" the box on your PP where you would like the Youtube video
6. Right Click on the box and select Properties
7. In the box to the right of Movie Paste your YouTube URL
8. Now change the URL as follows delete "watch?" and change the = sign to /

How-to-Video for 2007:


How-to-Video for 2003: