Change of address!  Due to the problems I have encountered with my account at edublogs, I am moving my blog to a new address: http://amyboehman.blogspot.com/

Boehman’s Blogging Bits will also have a new name, “Technology for Teachers K-12″.

You can find all the old posts at this new address, as well as the new posts that I will add in the future.  I will be deleting my edublogs blog and account within the next few months, so please make note of my new address!  Hope to see you there.  J

I guess I don’t appreciate the abrupt tone from the admin side of the site, and sometimes an apology can go along way.  Closing the thread on my forum topic seemed even more unnecessary.  I have had other edublog members contact me after this thread had been closed asking if I had solved this issue since they were having the same problem.  Nope.  The issue was not solved, and I didn’t have a chance to ask if they anticipated this to be an on-going problem.  Yet I see over 58 posts discussing the addition of ads on blogs with people complaining and rehashing the same annoyances over and over again.  They didn’t get closed down. 

But they are absolutely right.  I don’t find this satisfactory.  As a technology specialist for the public school system in my county, we have been avid supporters of edublogs.org for teacher and student blogging.  However, we cannot promote or support edublogs.org in our county if posts can disappear suddenly and can’t be found.  It doesn’t make sense to put time or effort into this site if it cannot be a reliable tool.

Lesson Learned: Back up your blog.

Next Project: Look for another provider.  I have heard positive feedback about Blogger.com, but they do not support the feature to import blog posts from another blogging tool. 

Any ideas out there?  I have made the decision not to continue with Edublogs.org.

Please stay tuned for the URL to my new blog address where I will continue posting on a regular basis.

http://amyboehman.blogspot.com

Turkey Day is almost here, which means it’s time to start looking at interactive Christmas sites for kids.   There aren’t as many good sites for Christmas as there are for Thanksgiving, but let’s take a look at what I have found so far:

CELEBRATE WINTER HOLIDAYS by SCHOLASTIC

Celebrate winter holidays by Scholastic features Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa all on page complete with a teacher’s guide and holiday clip art for teachers to use. There are holiday articles to download on each holiday, as well as a section on printable crafts, recipes, and thinking questions.  Clearly this is my favorite among all of the sites listed here.  Check it out! 

TRIM A TREE with JAN BRETT

Trim a tree with Jan Brett at her homepage!  Using the tree template, kids click and drag the ornaments onto the tree.  When they are finished, kids can print their creation and give it to a friend.  Jan Brett, a popular children’s book author, has written several holiday books for kids including The Christmas Trolls and The Gingerbread Baby.  Her illustrations are gorgeous, and she has newsletters available for teachers to incorporate her books into lesson plans.  Her website is also full of interactive activities to match each of her books.  In addition, there is a whole page full of Christmas related activities besides “trim the tree“.

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS AROUND THE WORLD

At Santa’s Net there is an extensive list of how Christmas is celebrated around the world.  There is also a list of multicultural Christmas recipes and a list of how to say “Merry Christmas” in different languages.  There are Christmas songs, too, but they only are comprised of the lyrics - you can’t hear the music.  Bummer. 

NORTH POLE.COM

North Pole has several different activities all in one place!  I have not had time to explore the site since it is so big. Here is just a small list of what you can do here:

• Send a letter to Santa
• Send a holiday postcard
• Stories to read and color
• Games to play
• Recipes to bake
• Puzzles and Activities
• Sing Christmas Karaoke
• Visit the toy shop (disclaimer, this takes kids to Amazon.com)

If you have a favorite holiday site, feel free to let me know about it in the comments section!

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Many special education teachers and reading teachers ask me about sites that have stories online where students can HEAR the book being read to them.  While there are several sites that do this, very few of them have the words or captions that go along with the passage.  These sites make good learning stations for students in your classroom.  Here are some of my favorites:

Storyline Online is a website sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild. There are several celebrities who offer their talents to read a best-loved children’s book on video.  Stream the video to watch the actor read the story complete with story book pictures and captions that you can turn on or off.  A few of my favorites on this site are: Stellaluna, Knots on a Counting Rope, and The Night I Followed the Dog.   This is a GREAT SITE!  This site is for elementary school students.

Loudlit.org is a site that boasts “literature for your eyes and ears”, and they’re right.  The website features novels, poetry, historical documents, children’s books, and short stories that you can read and follow along as someone reads it to you.  You can stream the audio or download it.  I especially like the poetry section since it helps students hear how poetry should be read with pauses and breaks.  Famous pieces that are featured (and here are just a FEW): The Highwayman, The Raven, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Tale of Two Cities.  This site primarily targets secondary students, but there are some selections for primary aged kids.

ByGosh.com is a good source for digital text online, although it doesn’t read the text to you.  However, many teachers have the use of text-to-speech software that allows them to copy and paste text into the program to read it to the student.  This site has items for elementary and secondary students.

At Childtopia, there are seven stories that you can hear read out loud to you.  This is definitely geared for elementary school students.

My favorite of these sites used to be Tumble Books - not featured here since they have recently turned their site into a paid site.  Previously their content had been completely free.  If your school is willing to pay for a subscription, this site would be worth your time and money.

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The first contest is a poetry contest found though Creative Communication.  The contest is open for K-12 sttudents and there are over $3,000 worth of prizes.  The students who win the contest in each grade level category win money as well as a free copy of the anthology that is created from the winning entries. Schools with 15 or more kids accepted into the anthology will receive a writing achievement award and they are eligible for a $250 grant.  There are three deadlines for this contest:

December 11, 2008 (for the fall 2008 contest)

April 14, 2009 (for the spring 2009 contest)

August 18, 2009 (for the summer 2009 contest)

The second contest is Global Schoolnet’s Cyber Fair 2009 contest.  As stated on their website, “students are encouraged to prepare for the future – by thinking about the possible future, the probable future, the preferable future and the preventable future. Projects that best illustrate “future thinking” are invited to the World Future Society international conference in Chicago, Illinois, July 2009.”  Click here for more information.

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If you read this blog at all, you know my fascination with astronomy websites. I love space. I wanted to be an astronaut until the Challenger disaster in 1985. Now I use the web to get my fix on astronomy. Here are some more good ones:

Human Space Flight by NASA

Human Space Flight is a website where you can enter your city to see which space objects will fly by your night sky for you to see.  It gives you the time of the object and how long it will take to pass over your location.  Look up satellites or space shuttles!

Astronomy Picture of the Day

I did not post an example picture of Astronomy Picture of the Day because the NASA photographer does not give rights to copy his pictures without written permission, but these photographs are amazing and would lend themselves to good teaching points in the classroom.

The Exploratorium’s Observatory

The Observatory has great resources for Venus, Saturn, Mars, Mercury, sunspots and auroras.  The interactive format allows you to click on different parts of the image to see more information.  In addition, there are many more interactive sections of the site such as: Your Weight on Other Worlds and Your Age on Other Worlds.

The Solar System Visualizer

At first the Solar System Visualizer looks to be a very primitive site.  There is an image of our solar system with the planets orbiting the sun.  Okay… now what?  The magic comes in by clicking on one of the planets – try Saturn or Uranus for example.  You will see the planet in the middle of the screen with its moons orbiting in animation.  BUT then you need to ZOOM OUT.  Did you know there were so many bodies orbiting our planets?  It was amazing.  Check it out. 

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There are several interactive Thanksgiving sites that you can use with your students to teach about life in the 1600s and how the holiday began.  All of the sites below have something different to offer, so check them all out! 

Journey on the Mayflower (from Scholastic)

Journey on the Mayflower is a wonderful site from Scholastic.  It begins with an interactive timeline.  With each stop on the timeline, there is a mini movie complete with sound effects and narration.  Also explore the tab at the top of the site about “Daily Life“.

The First Thanksgiving (from Scholastic)

The First Thanksgiving, also from Scholastic, has wonderful slide shows depicting what life could have been like during the 1600s as well as a webquest for your students to complete.

Colonial House (PBS)

Colonial House from PBS has many different pages worth exploring.  For example, there is a section on “375 Years Ago at 360 Degrees” with panoramas of the colony.  Very cool!  Also, you can play “Dress Me Up” to see if your students can match the correct clothing with the colonists for the time period.  At the bottom of the home page, there is a section for teachers called “Educational Interactivities” with lesson plans completely written out for you.  Thank you, PBS!

Welcome to Plimouth Plantation’s You are the Historian… Investigating the First Thanksgiving

This is one of my favorites!  Plimouth Plantation’s You are the Historian allows students to be the historian and investigate the first Thanksgiving from the point of view of the Native Americans and the Colonists.  As you click through your investigation, there are interactive activities with narration and sound effects to keep the youngest learner engaged.

Mayflower History

Mayflower History’s site, based on the book by Caleb Johnson, is geared for intermediate students, probably 4th grade students and older. Click on “Pilgrim History” to be taken to a page full of resources on the voyage, life in the new world, the Native Americans and more.

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Speaking of childhood favorites, remember Madlibs?  We used to buy them at book fairs and take them with us on road trips to keep us entertained.  Little did we know at the time, it was a fun way to practice parts of speech. 

Now Funbrain.com has Madlibs online for kids!  There are different themes to choose from: School, Once Upon a Time, Prehistoric, and Alphabet.  Once you choose your theme, the Madlibs generator appears asking you to fill in a part of speech.  For example, if it asks you for a “noun”, there are several floating nouns around for you to choose from.  Click your choice and click OK to continue.  When you are finished, a pop-up window appears with your printable story.  Fun!

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So you think you are an expert at the child’s game Tic Tac Toe?  Now try it in 3D at MathsNet Interactive!  This game was designed in 3D to prevent the first player from always winning.  Instead of connecting three in a row to win, you have to connect two rows that meet at a right angle to form an “L”.  You are the blue marbles, and the computer plays the part of the red.  By clicking and dragging the 3D shape, you can rotate and spin the cube so that you can see your game board from all angles.  Check it out!  This would be a great follow-up activity to teaching about 3D solids in Geometry, not to mention it would also work well with an Interactive Whiteboard.

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