Video/Media Resources

PBS Learning Media contains educational videos to present on various subject areas also a great resource to get videos for anticipatory sets in your lesson - for all subjects..

http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/

Math/Science Videos and Math Cross Curricular Integration

The Kahn Academy is always a great tool to use in the classroom.  These videos provide step by step procedures for students. I like to utilize these during direct instruction and guided practice. They are very thorough and a great way for students to follow procedural steps/formulas.

https://www.khanacademy.org/

GeoMath is a wonderful lesson planning tool that provides you plans and ideas for integrating other subject areas into math!

http://alliance.la.asu.edu/geomath/general.html

Grammar - Wacky Web Tales

You choose from a long list of possible funny stories. You choose story, then fill in grammar boxes with various parts of speeches.  When it is completed, you will get a Wacky Tale.  Great for a guided practice activity and also a great end of the day fun activity.  I usually do this at the end of a long language arts lesson, as a quick way to give them a brain break and review grammar skills.

http://www.eduplace.com/tales/

Kids Blogging

This is a great tool to use, when checking for student's understanding.  It is also a great qualitative data method in learning more about your students.  I like to use this during a project, instead of journaling in a notebook.  Students like to log in and blog their thoughts, ideas and responses to questions.

http://kidblog.org/home/

Lesson Planning - Common Core!

Lesson planning can be fun, haha, right!?  I have found these two sites to be easy, helpful, organized and contain a wealth of lessons to choose from.  Most importantly, they align to Common Core Standards.

ReadWorks, is solely for Language Arts.  What I like about this site is that it provides you the lessons in sections, in addition to providing you with needed materials and resources. All the skills and strategies to choose from are very well organized.   http://www.readworks.org/

LearnZillion is a new site that contains lessons for all subject areas. They have already been positively mentioned in articles from CNN, ed Surge,  the gatesnotes, and npr.  I will be new to lesson planning with this but so far I am highly impressed.  It contains video lessons, assessments and progress monitoring resources!  http://learnzillion.com/about

Online Stories

These sites are a great alternative to traditional read-a-loud's.  They contain a wide-variety of literature, poems and informational text.

http://www.storylineonline.net/ 

http://www.speakaboos.com/stories

http://www.wegivebooks.org/

http://www.poetry4kids.com/

Community Builder - Inspiring Articles and Videos

This website has an eclectic variety of inspiring videos and articles from kids all around the world. These kids starting from the age of 5 and up, have all accomplished very inspiring things.

It is great way to elicit conversations about the community, helping others and positively encouraging one another.  I usually use this in the classroom at the end of the day, for a reflection and reminder of different life lessons (Being kind to one another, never giving up, you can accomplish anything, etc..)

http://inspiremykids.com/

Interactive Thinking Map/Brainstorming

This online tool allows you to create a "cluster of bubbles" to form an online thinking/map graphic organzier.  This is a great way to engage students for pre-writing brainstorming.

https://bubbl.us/

Word Clouds

This is a fun new way to use words!  These two sites allow you to build beautiful word clouds.  Tagzedo allows you to build word clouds out of fun shapes, objects, animals and people.  Wordle is a more basic word cloud tool.  You can change colors, customize looks, etc..  This tool can be used in all subject areas.

http://www.tagxedo.com/

http://www.wordle.net/

Classroom Management

This is a great interactive "monster avatar" classroom management tool.  It really reinforces positive behavior and keeps track of behavior trends through graphs. It also allows parents to monitor their child's behaviors and stay involved!  More importantly, parents can have a login and also stay up to date on their student's behavior in the classroom.

http://www.classdojo.com/

Create Objectives with Blooms Taxonomy Language

This is a simple and easy objectives creator.

 http://byrdseed.com/differentiator/

Alternatives to PowerPoint!

This is a more interactive approach to creating slides.  There all have very easy and nice tutorials to walk you through creating one,  as well as already created projects/templates you can mashup.

http://prezi.com/

This is visual and interactive board were the user can add multiple items, text and sound. 

http://www.glogster.com/

This allows you to create animated presentations, similar to cartoon animations. 

http://www.powtoon.com/

Creating Rubrics and Graphs

This is a great resource when you need any type of rubric.  There are many rubrics to choose from you can also customize it to your subject and liking. 

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=NewRubric&module=Rubistar

I utilize this when I want to measure students pre-test data compared to post-test data.  It is very user friendly for the teacher and for the students. 

http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx

Tiny URL!

This will take a long URL address and condense it into a tiny one!  Great for when providing links to the students or parents.  

http://tinyurl.com/

iMovie Resources

These are great resources when working in iMovie.  When you want to use music and videos that are not purchased in iTunes, there is a way around it (yes it's legal!)  You can add in, YouTube videos and music from other sources.  

http://keepvid.com, http://www.listentoyoutube.com/, http://vixy.net/download.php?dl=ZA

Why I started this Blog...

If you are reading this Blog it is probably because you are searching for technology resources, in order to incorporate into your classroom.  Well, that is how I stumbled upon blogging!  Right after Grad School, I was searching for technology resources that were current, free, new, and student/teacher user-friendly.

What I found was an overwhelming amount of websites, ideas and resources.  Anyone who knows me, will attest to my organized and orderly fashion.  So, I decided to create this blog in order to provide others with purposeful and useful information, in an easy to understand manner.

Not every teacher has the luxury of having 1:1 iPads, laptops, computers and other technology equipment for their students.  When this occurs teachers need to be creative and resourceful when incorporating technology in the classroom.  Utilizing technology in the classroom (either for teaching or student use) is a service that is, in my opinion, an important element towards the student's educational growth.  The sky is the limit, you just need to jump in and try....you will be pleasantly surprised by how well your students respond.

I hope that you enjoy these resources!


Best,
Christina Ramirez, M.Ed.

http://mrsramirez3rdgradeclassroom.weebly.com/