There’s Blogging and There’s Blogging…

Blogging is becoming increasingly common in schools, but are all blogging programs helping to improve student learning outcomes? This is an issue I was discussing with a member of my professional learning network recently. There seems to be two main schools of thought on educational blogging programs: The unrestricted program: this may involve all students […]

Quality Blogging and Commenting Meme

If you are interested in educational blogging, Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano has written an outstanding series of posts on her Langwitches Blog. It is called Learning About Blogs FOR Your Students and covers seven areas: Part I: Reading Part II A: Writing Part II B: Student Writing Part III: Commenting Part IV: Connecting Part V: Reciprocating […]

2011 School Year Begins

Today was the first day back at school for teachers in Victorian Government Schools. All schools are spending the first three days on professional development and planning. This year my school is focussing on in-house professional development. Each Monday night teachers will be presenting on Literacy, Numeracy and ICT. I am in charge of ICT […]

Tech Tools for Teachers #22 PrimaryPad

Each week Simon Collier and I collaborate on an email newsletter for teachers called Tech Tools for Teachers. Click here to find an archive of past newsletters and to subscribe. This week we review the site PrimaryPad http://primarypad.com/ PrimaryPad  is a tool that allows students and teachers to collaborate on a word-processor style document. Despite […]

Sites for Integration Aides

Monday 9th August is a statewide curriculum day for Ultranet implementation in Victoria. For readers who are outside of Victoria, Australia, the Ultranet is a  $60.5 million online portal for teachers, students and parents in Victorian government schools. Read my post on my initial thoughts on the Ultranet here. I am a Lead User at […]

Super Teacher Worksheets

Super Teacher Worksheets is a useful site for primary school teachers if you’re looking for simple printable worksheets. Some of these worksheets are free. Membership to the whole site costs $20/year. The worksheets are divided into categories such as math, reading, writing, social studies, science etc. These are then broken down to sub categories.  Super Teacher Worksheets […]

Tech Tools for Teachers #11 VoiceThread

Each week, Simon Collier and I collaborate on a weekly email newsletter called Tech Tools for Teachers to inform teachers of useful online tools. Find out more here. This week we review the website VoiceThread http://voicethread.com VoiceThread is a popular tool that allows you to narrate images, documents and videos. Others can join in the […]

Clasroom Resources: Teachers Pet

I have been using the website SparkleBox for quite a while to find a wide range of printable resources for my primary classroom. I was therefore surprised to discover that the SparkleBox website has been been undergoing a troubled time recently with it’s creator and editor, Samuel King being imprisioned in January 2010 for child […]