Susan Fitzell - Educational Consultant and Speaker » Technology Education

More Motivational Teaching Ideas!

Susan Fitzell — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:36:55 +0000

In our November newsletter, we offered some examples of ways to motivate students by including them actively in the learning process. Some of my seminar participants have offered additional strategies for motivating students.

One thing teachers can do to keep students enthusiastic is to offer rewards. Ricki Miller uses a bubblegum machine filled with plastic containers. Each container has a slip of paper with a reward such as “sit with a friend for a day,” “homework pass,” etc. The students earn “coins” for chances at the gum machine.

Even the driest topic can be made fun by “acting out” the concepts being taught. For example, when Karen McKibbin of Niles High School in Michigan is teaching States of Matter, she arranges the desks in the shape of a beaker. Then all the students stand inside and behave as particles of a solid, liquid, or gas. The teacher provides the energy to change the particles to a different state.

The possibilities for turning real world situations and current events into a lesson are endless. A journalism teacher that didn’t give us their name teaches about interviewing by “acting out” a press conference. They play the part of the person being interviewed and the students practice being reporters. Then they write an article or press release based on the content of the press conference.

Partnering Students with the Computer

Susan Fitzell — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:16:11 +0000

While presenting to a great group of dedicated co-teachers from the Lake Hamilton School District in Pearcy Arkansas, we were discussing different ways to set up flexible grouping, During that discussion, Tonya Ross shared her experience with a program she learned about from fellow teacher Debbie Ault.

The program, Lab Partners v2.0, offers teachers a way to pair students, either randomly or by grades, for lab or center activities. Lab Partners is designed by Multimedia Science, a company that writes science software “By teachers, for teachers.”

I often hear teachers say that they have trouble with the process of grouping and pairing students in ways that benefit all learners in their classrooms. This program offers a great solution for this process and makes pairing students both easy, and efficient!

For those of you who find yourself in situations where you can’t install software on your computer, the folks at Multimedia Science built a portable version exclusively for us. This is just one of the great free programs that you can find on our Tech4Teachers USB drive! Check it out or download the install-able version today!

Readability and Autosummarize For Macs

Susan Fitzell — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:47:13 +0000

I’ve had several teachers tell me, when I talk about how to determine readability statistics, that they are using Macs in their schools. To help those teachers, we found the process to setting up these options in Word for Mac.

If this is an issue you face, just download the Readability Statistics for Mac directions and set it up for yourself!

Others have had issues with autosummarize on the Mac. These web resources address those issues.

Summarize Text Using Mac OSX Summarize Or Microsoft Word AutoSummarize
This video from NJSD shows you how to do it step-by-step.

Visual Search Engines and Visual Learners

Susan Fitzell — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:32:45 +0000

When I consider how often we have students search the web for information, I wonder how many times struggling readers look at a page of search results and feel like they are reading a foreign language. Would students work better with visual searches or might they be distracting? Here are some that I’ve experimented with recently. I hope that you not only find them useful, I hope that you find them fun!

FREE Teacher (and Student) Websites!

Susan Fitzell — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:11:02 +0000

Teachers and Students Connect Online

An easy way for teachers, students, and parents to stay connected is through the teacher’s website. Teachers can post classroom information, homework assignments, school news; whatever the teacher wants parents and students to know. If a student is absent, that student can check the website and get their assignments and be prepared when they return to class. Most teacher websites also include a link to the teacher’s email address which makes communication easier.

Many school districts already offer web pages to their teachers, but I learned this summer that this isn’t always the case. Some districts limit the information and formatting options available to teachers and not all districts provide ways for students to interact in their classroom experience via the internet.

A Web Presence for your Classroom

If you need a place to set up a web presence for your classroom, or you’re looking for more versatility than your district provides, check out the options listed below.

Timing Tools for the Classroom

Susan Fitzell — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:27:35 +0000

On-Screen Timer to Keep Kids on Track!

During a recent seminar, Brenda expressed a need for an on-screen timer; something that she could put on the desktop to “signal students that their time is up.” We did a little research and found a solution that help you too!

TimeLeft is a free desktop utility that can be used for a variety of clock and timer applications. The main feature of TimeLeft includes a powerful customizable reminder, which can show a message, play a sound file (many formats, including mp3), open a link or program, or even turn off your monitor or shutdown your pc.

Vocabulary and Spelling Made Fun

Susan Fitzell — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:44:20 +0000

Wordle.net

I’m always looking for ways to make learning motivating and fun. Vocabulary development and even spelling are a passion of mine that has been building for the past year. I constantly hear teachers lament that students don’t remember vocabulary. Reading deficiencies, many times exacerbated by poor vocabulary development are impacting test scores – both state and SAT and ACT. In addition to that, students are developing their own vocabulary and re-spellings because of text messaging. Those new spellings are making their way into student class work.

So, how about a homework assignment (students may need access to a school computer) that requires students to create a word collage of sorts with a website like http://www.wordle.net/? Would that encourage practice? It doesn’t necessarily assist with the definitions; however, it is possible to include both the word and the definition in the Wordple design. Not only would this be fun, it would be interactive, verbal linguistic AND non-linguistic representation. We have the best of a few worlds of practice with this activity. I’d love to hear others thoughts on this idea.

A Dozen Ways to Web Surf Efficiently!

Susan Fitzell — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 05:16:28 +0000

1-800-HELP-ME-WEBSURF-DOT-COM
or
A Dozen Ways to Web Surf Efficiently!

1) Use Google Alerts to save time with searches you do on a regular basis.

Step 1: Go to Google – www.google.com

Step 2: Click on “News” above the search box
Step 3: Click on “News Alerts” in the left hand column
Step 4: Click on “You can also sign in to manage your alerts”
Step 5: Either sign in with your ‘Google account” or click on “Create an account now.”
Step 6: If you created an account, accept the terms.
Step 7: Enter your search term, choose how often you want an alert and then click on “Create Alert.”

For example, create an alert for ‘math lesson plans’, or ‘response to intervention’, or ‘autism’, or ‘(your name).’ Now, every time someone posts something on the internet with that topic, Google will send an alert to your email box.

You can view a video tutorial for creating a Google Alert on www.TeacherTube.com . After you click on the link, ENLARGE the video screen so that you can see what I’m doing. To enlarge the video, click on that little box on the bottom right of the video screen. It’s right by the volume control button.

2) Put quotes around key words. For example, rather than search for math lesson plans, search for “math lesson plans” or math “lesson plan.”

3) Add extra phrases to your search in quotes that will help you to zero in on what you are looking for: “best practice,” “teaching math,” or “classroom behavior” autism.

4) Looking for people? Whether you are trying to reconnect with a former colleague or you’re looking for contact information for a specific “expert,” go to www.anywho.com to do your search.

5) Did you find a something on a website last year (a worksheet, an article, etc.) that is no longer there? Maybe it was a link, or a resource, etc? Try searching for that old webpage at http://www.archive.org/index.php

6) You’ve created a PowerPoint lesson with beautiful graphics and you want to share it with a colleague, but when you try to send the file, it won’t go because it’s too big. You can send up to five large files a month, for free, at www.dropsend.com.

7) When you click on a link from a Google Search and get the “Page Not Found” error, try clicking on the “cache” link instead of the title. You’ll often get the page you were looking for, with the search terms highlighted. Customize your Google Search Engine (You need to be signed in to Google for this to work.)! Just click on “Preferences” on the Google search page and follow the prompts.

9) When you open an article online and want to find a specific word on that page, don’t waste precious time scrolling down to try to find it. In your browser, click on “Edit”. Then select “Find on this page” and click on that. Enter your “word” and search the article, etc. for what you are looking for. This step saves TONS of time.

10) Did you get an error message? Need to find a solution?

Step 1: Pull up Notepad or Wordpad
Step 2: Type the error message into the text editor.
Step 3: Copy what you typed into the text editor in to your search engine.
Step 4: Click “go”, “search” etc
Step 5: You should find links to blog entries or tech help websites that will offer help with solving your error message.
Step 6: OPTIONAL – SnagIt (www.snagit.com) can ‘copy’ those messages for you, verbatim, in text format!

11) Want news? Check out www.refdesk.com

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12) This is my absolute favorite trick: Many websites don’t have a search box. How do you find the school calendar, for example, on a district website?

Step 1: In the google search box, type ‘calendar’ then leave a space and then type:

site:www.whatever__the_school_website_is.com

For example: calendar site:www.sau99.k12.nh.us

Step 2: Try searching “autism site:edu” without the quote marks. You’ll only get search returns from college and university sources using .edu domains. Other examples to try:

lesson plans site:www.ldonline.org
differentiated instruction site:www.aimhieducational.com co-teaching site:www.edublogs.org

Have fun with this. It saves a LOT of time looking for specific things on a website. And for a Baker’s Dozen, let’s go one step further…

13) If you want to search for a specific file type, for example, PowerPoint presentations on the topic of “exit cards”. In the Google Search Box, type:

“exit cards” filetype:ppt

Your search will only pull up PowerPoint presentations on the topic!

Wish You Could Adapt, Adjust, or Modify that PDF file for a Student?

Susan Fitzell — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 04:02:31 +0000

PDF Editor

Useful Program

Nitro PDF Professional allows you to edit text and images in PDF files. Textbook company worksheets will be malleable to your specifications. If you want to add or subtract questions, the basic structure is already there for you play with. With Nitro PDF you aren’t forced to choose between creating your own worksheets from scratch or submitting to exactly what the companies think your students should be focusing on.

It costs $99 to purchase the program. There is, however, a free 14 day trial available as a download here.

For a simple PDF viewer/creator/converter/printer, you can also download Primo PDF for free.

Create Posters for your Classroom!

Susan Fitzell — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:31:06 +0000

Create Your Own Posters

Wonderful Displays

Designing your own posters is a great way to fill your classroom space with a personalized feel. Everywhere your students look, there could be hanging reminders of past lessons, or posters foreshadowing what’s to come, or simply to spark curiosity.

Design them on your computer and any Office Maxx type store can enlarge them and turn them into glossy masterpieces. It can be a bit pricey for larger posters, ($30) but many stores give discounts for teachers. Also these can be re-used throughout the years, and be viewed as long term investments.