Inside this issue:

Transform a Past Lesson for 21St Century 1

Just for Fun Websites 2

Shape Collage, Outline Tool, Beam It 2

GroupWise Tip 2

SMARTBoard Math Activities 3

Organize Your Home Library 4

Can You Recognize Fake E-Mails 4

Better PowerPoints 5

Shopping Apps 5

Mac Page 6

Holland Patent Central School’s Technology Newsletter

Well Connected! VOLUME 3 ISSUE 3

NOVEMBER 2011

Ten Steps to Transforming Past Lessons for

21st Century Learners From an article by Michael Gorman @techlearning.com

It is important to look at successful prior lessons and infuse

these past successes with technology and 21st century skills.

Technology can make a great lesson even better to bring about

a new 21st century lesson that will be even more engaging and

applicable to today’s digital learner.

1. Locate that special lesson – Find that successful lesson from the past

that you wish to transform. This can be one single lesson or may include

a project filled with several lessons.

2. Declare your standards – Why are you doing the lesson? What stan-

dards in the curriculum are you trying to reinforce? You may even wish to

use technology and collaborate with another teacher outside of your

school, district, state, or country. Remember, integrating technology

means just that… a powerful way to engage and facilitate student compe-

tence with curricular content.

3. Incorporate at least two 21st century skills – Research indicates that

the three easiest 21st century skills to measure include critical thinking/

problem solving, communication, and collaboration. Critical thinking and

problem solving can be measured using tests, quizzes, presentations,

reports, discussion, and observation. Communication and collaboration

can be measured by observation, journals, seminars, and self/peer as-

sessment. Third, one of those skills should be one that may be harder,

due to difficulty, to determine whether or not it is evident in the student

work.

4. Develop a fun and engaging title – This title should provide a hook for

students bringing out items of interest. It should provide relevance while

being molded to appeal to the 21st century learner. Have fun, and include

it on worksheets, wikis, parent newsletters, class web site, and everyday

references to the lesson.

5. Outline the technology you are going to incorporate – Keep it simple-

you don’t want the technology to steal the importance of the content stan-

dards and 21st century skills being emphasized. Technology can in-

clude Web 2.0 activities, software, various devices… phones…

cameras…GPS…. Flip Video Remember that any technology used may

require some instruction, which provides another opportunity for more

21st century skills! Try to incorporate more than one technology and re-

member that the technology could be used for differentiation.

6. Include an advance organizer in your lesson – An advance organ-

izer can be anything that assists students in applying their past knowl-

edge and connecting it to the new knowledge that you are trying to teach.

7. Incorporate formative assessment in the lesson - It is the formative

assessment in a video game that is powerful in engaging students. In a

game, players know where they stand and where they need to improve. In

the classroom, formative assessment can be regarded as check points

before the final lesson is completed.

8. The final product or outcome – The final

outcome must be able to be assessed using

a rubric, support the content standards, and

facilitate 21stcentury skills. Technology must

be integrated in a useful manner while com-

plementing the curriculum.

9. Make a timeline for lesson– Create a

timeline that includes major points including

introduction, pre-organizers, lesson, work

activities, formative assessment, tutorials to

scaffold learning, and submission of the

final work. It is important that students be

aware of the timeline and be held account-

able. Once again technology can be used to

support the timeline.

10. Assessment rubric – The assessment

rubric should include a measure of content

and 21st century skills. Decide on a per-

centage for each. Many teachers often use

a 70% content and 30% 21st century skills.

It may reflect individual and group work if

appropriate. When working in a group it is

effective to have individual component

grades in the rubric.

Read the entire article and download the

accompanying documents here:

http://www.techlearning.com/Default.aspx?

tabid=67&EntryId=3317

“What really matters is what you do with what

you have." H. G. Wells

WELL CONNECTED! Page 2

GroupWise Tip: Follow these simple steps to cre-

ate an email but delay it’s delivery.

1. To delay the delivery of one item, open the item

view, click the Send Options tab, then click Gen-

eral.

2. To delay delivery of all items you send, click Tools

> Options, then double-click Send. Click Delay

delivery.

3. In the text box, specify how many days later you

want the item delivered. Or select a date and time

under Until.

4. Click OK.

Just for fun… Complete a jigsaw puzzle online: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/

your-shot/jigsaw-puzzles

A wonderful selection of free audio books: http://librivox.org/

Winter events in NYS: http://www.iloveny.com/What-To-Do/Reasons-

To-Love-NY/Winter-Events.aspx

Shopping Black Friday? Find the ads here: http://bfads.net/

Shape Collage is a fun and easy to use program for creating photo collages and digital scrapbooks from your digital photos to

share with friends and family.

http://www.shapecollage.com/

Free Outline Tool:

Redhaven Outline is an organization tool

useful for keeping track of just about any-

thing. It is great for …

organizing notes

making lists

making lists of lists

keeping track of research information

preparing speeches and presentations

developing the structure of research

papers

organizing computer shortcuts and fa-

vorite websites

keeping records

http://www.rynelf.com

(So far Redhaven only runs on Windows. Mac version coming soon.)

http://justbeamit.com/

Simply drag and drop a file onto the page and you get a link to share with a friend. When a friend visits the link,

the transfer starts.

Math Activities For All Grade Levels

Arcademic Skillbuilders (games to build skills with pro option for tracking scores and customizing content)

http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/

Khan Academy (lots of video tutorials and activities)

http://www.khanacademy.org

Real World Math: Using Google Earth in the Math Curriculum

http://www.realworldmath.org/Real_World_Math/About.html

Article about 6th Graders creating their own math videos for MathTrain.TV

http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/08/move-over-sal-khan-sixth-graders-create-their-own-math-videos/

Math Learning Games for Kids

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/math_games.html#post-132

Math Apprentice (real world math applications including problem solving)

http://www.mathapprentice.com/

Thinking Blocks: Model Your Math Problems.

Thinking Blocks was developed to help students who were struggling with math word problems.

http://thinkingblocks.com/about.html

Problem solving resources for many grade levels from New Zealand--all use a constructivist approach to solving prob-lems and not just calculating solutions.

http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/problem-solving

Mr. Nussbaum's Math Lab

http://www.mrnussbaum.com/mathcode.htm

Math Problems for all grade levels:

http://www.mystfx.ca/special/mathproblems/welcome.html

Using Key Words to Unlock Math Word Problems: Lesson Plans-Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/lessons/2197/

Interactive math tools, math activities and math fun for kids and their teachers

http://jmathpage.com/

Interactive Mathematics activities for Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, Probability, Logic, Mathmagic, and more

http://www.cut-the-knot.org/Curriculum/index.shtml

Page 3 VOLUME 3 ISSUE 3

Page

The Tips for a SMARTer

classroom!

Page 4 VOLUME 3 ISSUE 3

Can You Recognize a Fake E-Mail?

Chances are that in the past week you've received an e-mail in your inbox that pretends to be from your bank,

e-commerce vendor, or other on-line site. Hopefully you've realized that many times this e-mail is fake - a

phishing e-mail. The sender (phisher) of these fake e-mails wants you to click on the link in the e-mail and go

to a phishing Web site - which will look just like the Web site of the company being phished. Once on the

phishers Web site they hope to obtain your account, financial, credit and even identity information. Of course

not every e-mail you receive is a phish. In fact you should expect your bank or e-commerce vendor to send

you legitimate e-mail. But how can you tell the difference? Well that's what the Phishing IQ test is all about -

give it a try.

http://www.sonicwall.com/furl/phishing/

Organize Your Home Library

Guru Library is a free online personal library database where you

can easily keep track of your games, movies, books, and music.

Guru Library is designed to automatically organize and categorize

your collection with the fewest data entry possible. At

GuruLib.com you can either keep your library private and pro-

tected, or you can make it public and allow your friends to browse

through your proud collection. You and your friends can also dis-

cuss about the latest games, movies, music, or books, as well as

make suggestions, on our message boards.

Page 5 VOLUME 3 ISSUE 3

“Multimedia presentations may be compelling and persuasive. Or they may be glib and disap-

pointing. In the worst case, students will devote

more attention to special effects than they will

spend on the issues being studied. Powerpointing can become a goal in itself - an unfortunate ex-

ample of technology being done for technology's

own sake. In the best case, the presentation en-hances and communicates a larger and deeper

body of work and thought.

PowerPointlessness...is a problem that reaches beyond schools into the business world.”

Read more about helping your students create

better PowerPoints from Jamie McKenzie at http://fno.org/sept00/powerpoints.html

Still doing PowerPoints? Here’s how to make them better!

Free Shopping Apps For Your Mobile Device (Just in time for the holidays!)

RedLaser (iOS, Android) - Need a quick price comparison while you're in the

store? Make sure you have this app on your smartphone. It can scan any product

barcode using your smartphone's camera, and will search for it online. You'll

instantly get prices from Google, eBay, Shopping.com and more!

PriceGrabber (iOS, Android) - This app gives you the same functionality as the PriceGrabber

website. Scan the barcode of a product with your phone's camera. PriceGrabber displays stores

selling the scanned item, as well as the price at each location.

NexTag (iOS, Android) - NexTag also allows you to make comparisons for products and

services. Just type in the product you're looking for. NexTag will give you a list of all retailers

selling it and the prices at each location. The NexTag app offers an additional feature. As with

other apps, you can look up items using your phone's camera to scan barcodes. But NexTag

also lets you manage wish lists. This way, you can keep track of which gifts have been re-

quested by the people on your list.

ShopKick (iOS, Android) – How would you like to earn money just for walking into a store?

That's what Shopkick is all about. You can get points, called kicks, just for entering Target, Best

Buy, Macy's and dozens of other major stores. You can also receive points for scanning certain

products or playing mini-games. You can exchange points for gift cards, movie tickets and

other rewards.

TheFind (iOS, Android) – Everyone loves getting a good deal while shopping.

TheFind lets you search item prices for thousands of retailers. TheFind also

integrates searches on its website with the app. So if you find a product on your

home computer, you can call it up later on your phone.

Page 6 VOLUME 3 ISSUE 3

http://itunes.apple.com/app/simplemind-mind-mapping/id305727658?mt=8

SimpleMind Touch is a Mind Mapping tool that turns your iPad, iPhone

or iPod touch into a brainstorming, idea collection and thought

structuring device.

There’s an

App For

That!

Apple Holiday Gift Guide:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/holiday?

cid=CDM-US-DM-P0010995-Consumer&cp=em-

P0010995-179460&sr=em

What is iCloud? Here are a few of the highlighted features:

iTunes in the Cloud Automatically download new music purchases to all your devices over Wi-Fi (or 3G).

No syncing necessary.

Download anything you’ve already purchased in the iTunes Store to all your devices.

Photo Stream iCloud pushes any photo from your iOS device or computer to the other-without syncing. Photos from your computer will automatically show up in the Photos app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Same for the Aperture or iPhoto Li-

brary on your Mac or Pictures Library on your PC. With Photo Stream, you’ll have access to the last ~1,000 photos on

your device stored on iCloud (not your computer or iOS device-unless you want it).

Documents in the Cloud It keeps your documents up-to-date automatically! You’ll have access to your docs

(and most recent updates) wherever you are on whatever device you’re using. By

signing into iCloud you’ll be able to view and edit your iWork files-and even download in

iWork, Word or PDF format.

Apps, Books and Backup Your apps will be everywhere you are-no need to download any multiple times on each device or computer you have.

Same with books. iCloud will push all apps and books (including any notes, highlighted text, etc.), again, it’s done auto-

matically. iCloud will back up your data daily over Wi-Fi so you can be sure all of your data is safe.

Calendar, Mail, and Contacts iCal, Mail and Contacts will all also be pushed automatically, plus any bookmarks, notes or reminders that you’ve writ-

ten to yourself will be included.