“I care not what subject is taught, if only it be taught well.” – T.H.Huxley Whatever subject you teach Discovery and the DEN can help you teach it well. Here are a few back-to-school reminders for using this great resource this year! Make use of My Content, across the campus or district to share content [...]
ScreenChomp gives you the ability to record on-the-go tutorials, and share them instantly. It’s as easy as uploading your videos to ScreenChomp.com, and sharing them on your blog or webpage. ScreenChomp.com lets you… Serve up a short URL that’s easy to share anywhere. Download your video as an MPEG-4 file. Share on Twitter. Just post [...]
Posted for Kass Bates: I am holding a workshop for K-2 McKinney teachers next Monday titled “Reading Rumble.” It will help to get teachers thinking about projects they can do with their students using some of latest children’s books. My plan is to create a mash-up from one of the books. So that’s definitely something [...]
Comments from the Texas team something learned at DENSI: I learned how to make a green screen (search for ”green screen”) video. I also learned about mapalist (http://mapalist.com/) www.rockourworld.org is a site dedicated to creating global connections in education. Music is the common thread that can connect us all Google + was a hot topic at DENSI as [...]
Wednesday brought the Unconference as speakers and listeners proposed and chose sessions of interest. Topics included Google+, use of blogs and Twitter in the classroom, more on Imovie and mashups, and many more great ideas. Thursday morning’s closing session speaker was the always good Hall Davidson, who showed us media clips providing inspiration and ideas [...]
Busy days, tired (but happy) nights Monday’s sessions showed us “WHERE TO” as we learned how to use Discovery Education Resources to interest, engage, and assess our students . Tuesday’s sessions gave us such session options as learning to: create mashups differentiate learning with digital resources use google earth and google lit trips use of [...]
Saturday at the DEN Summer Institute got off to a great start with special speaker Danny Forster, host of Build It Bigger, on the Discovery Science Channel (http://science.discovery.com/tv/build-bigger/meet-danny/meet-danny.html). Having covered buildings in 50 countries in his five years as host, he had plenty of examples as he spoke about design and its relationship to culture, [...]
SUMMERTIME! WHOO HOO! Summertime can be a great time to think, evaluate, plan your technology use for next year. My motto for the students is “Thinking is good!” and that goes for educators also. A few suggestions for Discovery and summertime: 1. Evaluate what worked and what didn’t. Make adjustments where needed. 2. Look for [...]
the last month of the school year. The state testing is done for most; the students — and teachers too actually — are brain-tired; what do we do? Turn to Discovery, of course! Some suggestions: have HS students explore the world of work and careers with an eye toward future — summer work or college; [...]
A couple of notes for Texas Folks: First, three of our own Texas DEN STARS (and LC members) are among the DEN Guru finalists this year. They are Kim Caise Global Collaboration Projects using Web Tools and Web Conferences Lea Anne Daughrity Touching 21st Century Science Elaine Plybon Using Media for Student-Centered Assessment They will present [...]
Gifted and Talented Students So, I’ve recently taken an online course on differentiating instruction for GT students. Differentiating instruction can certainly be a challenge in today’s heterogeneously grouped classrooms., but with a bit of help from Discovery it can be done. Here are a few ideas to start with: Tiered Assignments — covering the same [...]
… integrating with other online resources! Discovery is wonderful as a standalone product for use in classrooms, but it also “plays well with others”. Here are some ideas for using Discovery Streaming and online databases together: Thinkfinity — a free for educators site — has graphic organizers available. Choose a graphic organizer for students to [...]
test reading as a reading genre Now there is a odd title idea. It is not my own however; I got this from a book I’ve been reading called Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. It’s subtitle, Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child, is a clue to the content. Ms. Miller, a 6th grade language [...]
DEN members are still SOCIALIZING on social networking tools of web 2.0. Updating a Texas blog post from last year, here are the latest on places to find the DEN: http://twitter.com/DEN http://twitter.com/TXDENLC http://www.flickr.com/groups/den http://www.facebook.com/discoveryed Texas DEN’s Facebook: Texas DEN http://www.shelfari.com/groups/24939/about http://groups.diigo.com/group/discovery-educator-network http://twibbon.com/join/discovery-educator-network-2 Where else in the World Wide Web are you finding the DEN? A side [...]
The Holidays! As the winter break draws nearer, have you found that the students are less attentive than usual? Discovery Streaming has items to help! First, some holiday title suggestions from the catalog: The Magic School Bus: Holiday Special — grades 2 – 4 Christmas Tales from Foreign Lands (various titles in series) – grades [...]
Special Education Having taught special education for some years, this is still an area close to my teacher heart. Some ways to use Discovery to help this special set of students: > Closed captioning videos can provide a visual – auditory link to help with reading, whether for general reading or for specific content areas. [...]
Award Winning Books! Discovery can be a great cross-curricular tool. Use subject area videos to coordinate with award winning literature for across the curriculum learning. First, some sites for finding award winning titles: Texas Library Association – http://www.txla.org/reading-lists– for Bluebonnet Award Nominees and more American Library Association — http://www.ala.org/ala/awardsgrants/index.cfm – for Caldecott, Newbery, and many more Other [...]
Reading! Discovery had elements that can help meet many reading needs, such as: for English Language Learners, special education students, or simply reluctant readers, use close captioned videos to encourage learning by hitting both audio and visual modalities; use the advanced search option to specify the closed caption option for a search Teaching literature genres? [...]
Beginning a series on use of Discovery with subjects, populations, special areas and more First up, one of my favorite areas — DISCOVERY AND THE LIBRARY! Does Discovery Streaming have items that can be used in library instruction too? Sure! Here are a few DISCOVERIES for library use: Start with the obvious and find resources [...]
The new Discovery Educator Network site is now live with a sleek clean updated look. Check it out at http://community.discoveryeducation.com/. Summer is a great time to engage in some professional develop and Discovery has some good choices. Check the Professional Development section for interactive and courses for credit options. To receive the monthly e-newsletters from [...]
May 3 – 7 is National Teacher Appreciation Week and the DEN folks do appreciate their STAR members! Each day this week the DEN National team will post about something special for DEN Stars. Monday’s event was a free one-year account with Prezi, a slideless presentation tool. Check the National Blog (http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/) for more details — daily!
Two Texas DEN Stars are featured in broadcasts: On Earth Day, Elaine Plybon was featured in a podcast with Steve Katz and LiveBinders. The podcast archive can be found HERE. Elaine was also featured in March on a Discovery Educator Network Shining STARs webinar, where she talked about the transition to a paperless classroom. On April [...]
Continue celebrating Earth Day with the series Planet Earth now available from the iTunes store. Climb mountains, trek through jungles, get up close with animals and more in this wonderful series. Each episode is $2.99 with the whole series available for $19.90, $29.90 for HD. Just open the iTunes store and search in TV seasons [...]
Yes, the fantastic 2010 convention is just over, but it is already time to think about next year’s version. We would LOVE to see lots of Texas DEN Stars presenting their Discovery – Technology expertise! For more information and to send in a proposal, go to: http://www.tcea.org/convention/2011/Pages/default.aspx
With Discovery Student Adventures, travelers do more than sightsee! They learn, grow, imagine, experience, and get involved. For teachers in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area who want to learn more about this exciting opportunity, there are two special meetings. For more information, go to: http://discoverystudentadventures.com
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