clrn (california learning resource network)

There is no budget crisis. Each teacher at School X will receive an extra $4,000 to purchase technology educational software. However, many of the teachers at School X need help in finding and researching worthwhile software. Help is here!

Step 1. Go to clrn.org

Step 2. In the top menu bar go to Learning Resources

Step 3. There are two different ways to search

A. Scroll down the drop down menu and search by content

B. Or choose the tab that says “find by standard”

Step 4. When the screen opens up with a list of categories, check the standards you are interested in.

Step 5. From there a large table will appear listing several different software options.

Step 6. Explore the different options and enjoy your purchase!

PowerPoint

The components of a PowerPoint slide show  vary depending on the type of presentation. Regardless of the content, all presentations should have a title slide with the “title” and author. You can always include pictures to highlight the subject matter. Remember to use at least 30 font size and to add bullets or some other summarizing visual aid.

Blogs, tags, categories, and sub-categories

I am just now beginning to learn the difference between blogs, tags, categories, and sub-categories. Although it seems complicated, once you are able to figure out the difference between all of these, it will start to become second nature. This is a graphic organizer of how I see it. bloggraphic

Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are a great way to have students “publish” or create final drafts of graphs. This is especially true for fifth grade where some of the math standards cover graphing. Teaching both skills (creating graphs by hand and through a graph in a spreadsheet) is very valuable.

WordPress post 10.12.09

There are many different ways to use a wordpress blog in the classroom.

• One way would be to use it as a journalism/newspaper medium. This could keep the parents and community informed on what is happening in the classroom and/or the school as a whole. Students could take pictures of these various events that they’ve covered and include the picture with their news write up.
• Pictures could also be taken of art projects and the blog could include a description of that project. This could then be shared with the school and the internet community to compare/contrast art projects on the same topic.

• Another idea would be to post student work. It could be by category (writing, social studies, etc). Pictures could be included that showcase students working on the classroom on those assignments.
• This kind of blog could be used for post-field trip sharing. The teacher (or student) could write a reflection after each field trip and include pictures from that trip.

All of these uses for blogs could be linked to a class website for students and/or parents to view.