Sharon Elin has a great Educational Technology focused blog. I subsribe using my iGoogle reader, but will add it to my blogroll here…
My thanks to Christine Southard who shared this mid-year check-up via plurk. Christine is a fellow DEN Star in my Personal Learning Network (PLN). For those of you who don’t know, the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) is the largest international professional organization dedicated to improving the educational success of individuals with disabilities and/or gifts and talents. I maintained my membership in the CEC while I worked in educational diagnostics when I lived in New York.
The CEC maitains a blog for first year teachers, and while I would like to direct this post to the many new teachers that I am working with, the information is truly applicable to all. Their recent post “Your Mid-year Check-Up” includes some questions that you might want to consider. Now is certainly a great time to assess the physical, academic, and social environments in your classroom. It is also a good time to take stock of how you are coping with what life looks like right now. Sometimes we need to make changes mid-year to avoid burnout.
This is primarily for third and fourth grade teachers. While studying the food chain, you might dissect an owl pellet with your students virtually. Those with an MCPS system or a Promethean Board could do whole group instruction in the class. You also could decide to use the computer lab for this activity so that everyone could have some “hands on” experience.
http://www.kidwings.com/index.htm is the link you’ll want to go to. Thanks to Alice Mercer who shared this resource via Plurk.
