With increased budget cuts on a National level, State funds getting harder to attain, E Rate criteria getting tougher to qualify for, and even Title 1 funds being reduced have all led to a decrease in moneys available for the betterment of technology. Whether you are a teacher in Florida, Georgia, or pretty much anywhere else in this great Nation then you know its only going to get harder from here. Yet here we are in today's society where everyone, and I mean everyone, expects us to adapt to the ever-changing learning canvas. With core curriculum pushing teachers to use technology in their lesson plans, we HAVE to answer these questions in a sound, concise, and fiscal manner. By 2014 it wont be a matter of if we will answer these questions but HOW.
This is where I believe that innovation in the classroom plays an integral part in becoming a solution to this very problem. By answering these questions in a unique way we bring antidotes to the table that we never would have thought of before. As I stated before, two months ago I never would have thought I would be where I am now. Looking down off this cliff of uncertainty. Seeing the precipice stretched out before me in a deluge of misfires and collisions. If we don't get this right then its not just we who suffer, but our kids, our students, our very futures.
I don't mean to paint a bleak picture. There are answers out there people. That's the point. The idea is to find the right answers for our own unique situations. So my dilemma isn't just Jasper, Georgia, but for surrounding areas as well. I have a genuine concern for the success of not just our schools, but our administrators, our teachers, and our students.
I am fortunate to be where I am. In a system where test scores have been on a consecutive rise for well over 6 years now. Our number of graduates increases, and AYP (While no longer a factor in measuring a school's performance) being met by all schools for the past several years. We have continued to bring about new programs, evening schools, housed our Special Education and High Risk students within our own county saving us virtually hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. All the while we have increased our infrastructure and bandwidth to deal with this added stress on our system. We truly have come a long way since I started working for Pickens County Schools over six years ago.
Yet, just like every good action movie sequel, It never matters what you did in the previous episode, because the world, yet again, is about to end and its up to all of you to save it. So with this in mind I write again, spilling the proverbial beans, splashing paint on a digital wall trying desperately to scribe some semblance of meaning out of such abstract words as Wiimote, Interactive Whiteboard, and Epic websites. Like I said, two months ago all of this would have been foreign to me, and now I navigate the ocean of little-known creativity, finding other ships on course. I am finding other people with similar goals and ideas, hoping to illuminate the dark halls of schools that have never had a chance to adopt innovation. The wind takes us in directions we don't yet know, but realize that it can only get better from here.
In my two months of searching for an Interactive Whiteboard solution I found the Wiimote whiteboard answer I revealed in my last blog. And along that same journey I found other techs out there, even other teachers who were eager and willing to do whatever they had to so they could bring a whole new dimension to their learning environments.
One teacher in particular gave me direction to begin searching for interactive websites for the Wiimote smoothboard system. It was brought to my attention early on that the Smoothboard software had nothing in the realm of interactive resources as the other big named companies out there such as SMART Board, Mimio teach, or Promethean Planet. Again, after looking at this teacher's blog and reading several of his posts on what he had come up with (He has been successfully using the Wiimote Whiteboard in his classroom for more than a few years now.) His name is John R. Sowash and his blog can be found here...
http://electriceducator.blogspot.com/search/label/wiiboard
What he revealed, along with a few of his cohorts in the education field, was that there was an unlimited amount of interactive websites already out there. Once I saw this I realized very quickly it was just a matter of figuring out how to properly LOOK for these resources, separate the cracker jack box simpleton versions from the Disney world folio masterpieces. If you did a standard Google search for interactive education websites you would imagine that you would have a list of millions of sites that claimed to be that. After clicking on probably forty to 50 of these websites I could see a pattern where junk was being shoveled in with the good stuff. The key to a lot of my searching was finding ONE good resource and then moving from it to ANOTHER using it's "Other links" page, or "Recommended sites". Once I was able to master this, the true art began and that abstract splash-top wall I mentioned a few paragraphs back began to take shape into something amazing.
The websites I list below are just a FEW of the ones I have. I am currently compiling a master list of interactive websites for k-12 education. The idea is to have something for every subject and every grade level. It is my hope that these sites, when seen by teachers, will help instill a sense of innovation and unleash a creativity that the classroom has never seen before.
My biggest goal for any sites that I look for is that they are interactive, they fall into the common core, they meet the curriculum of that particular subject, and that they are cost effective. (In all cases I try to find websites that are totally Free.) I understand that some sites provide crucial learning skills but may not fall under ALL the guidelines I use when looking, and the idea with these websites is to understand that they are a supplement. They can be used in conjunction with what a teacher is already doing and teaching to enhance to learning environment overall. So with this in mind, even those websites that adhere to only one or two of the guidelines I use are still included in this list. Below is a list of a few websites as an example for the High School level. Again, in the coming weeks I will share the master list I have been working on but at least this will give anyone reading an idea of what I am trying to accomplish here...
Math websites 9th-12th. (Later blogs will have more subjects and more websites per grade level so stay tuned. Same bat time, same bat channel.)
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/ - The learners top link is to the activities they can try in the lab after you go over stuff with them in class. There are like 250 plus activities. They just choose what subject (Algebra) then whatever part of that subject (If it is available.) Again I am not a math major but maybe once you take a look you can see the resource as being full of good information or not enough. The instructors top link is the Lessons, and on that link you can choose your lessons based on subject just like the Learners link. Just remember at the TOP of the page is where you can click on subject like Algebra, Geometry, etc. You can even search for items.
https://www.desmos.com/calculator - It is a pretty simple graphing calculator website that has the visual grid as well so would be perfect for front of classroom on projector or having students all expirement on different problems in a lab environment.
http://www.mathdisk.com/pub/gallery?page=1#.UJU7LcXA-So - This website has definitions and examples of rules such as area by integration, pythagoras theorem, etc.
http://www.memrise.com/topic/maths/wordlists/ - I added memrise.com to this list because I think it could be a great homework website. Massive list of topics, not just math but any subject. You can search for specific methods and lesson plans that allow the students (Or anyone for that matter, I love art so I was looking up lessons on how to guess who made what art pieces, foolish I am sure but a very entertaining way to learn!) to view them and learn in a different way.
http://illuminations.nctm.org/ - This website is full of resources on math for teachers. It has some pretty cool lessons and activities for students to do in the classroom with the teacher (Print outs along with interactive activities as well). You can either go straight to the activities link or use the lesson links, filter by grade 9-12, then subject , algebra, then check the box that says Show only lessons with associated online activity.
http://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra - Finally, I am sure you have heard of Khan Academy, the free online web resource for teachers and students from Bill Gates of Microsoft. It has a massive amount of videos that explain lessons in a variety of subjects (Primarily in the Math and Science fields) that help anyone understand certain conepts in different ways
Of all the websites listed above www.desmos.com is the only one that will not work with Internet Explorer in Windows XP. You either have to have Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox installed to run it on a Windows XP machine. Windows 7 it works fine as long as you have IE 9 or better.
There are many parts to this story of course, and this is just about where the interactive websites came from. Ultimately my entire direction was shifted once I stumbled upon the infinite possibilities with the Google Chrome web browser and its host of countless features. (My next blog will address this)
Happy Veterans day to all those who have served, are serving, and will serve our great Country.
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