District Wide Information

Graphite™
Graphite™ is a free service from the nonprofit organization, Common Sense Media.  It is designed to help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital resources for students.  It provides unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from our active community of teachers.  Graphite™ is built by teachers for teachers, and is organized so educators can search by digital resource type (app, game or website), grade level or subject area as well as free or paid resources.  

Both Minecraft and Gamestar Mechanic are reviewed in Graphite™.  I introduced both of these games at the gaming session I presented in August.  

Shmoop
What is Shmoop?  Watch this video: What is Shmoop video
Shmoop gives students (grades 5-12) help and explanations, as well as a dose of humor. Check out the various resources for literature, civics, economics, digital literacy, math, poetry, or more including information about drivers education (DMV) from each state.  Much of the site is free, but there are some materials that are fee-based. 

District Wide Information

Banned Websites Awareness Day - Wednesday, September 25, 2013

In conjunction with Banned Books Week, Banned Websites Awareness Day is celebrated on Wednesday of this week.  This is to raise awareness of blocking legitimate, educational websites that are academically useful in schools and school libraries.  AASL (American Association of School Libraries is asking school librarians and other educators to promote an awareness of how filtering affects student learning. The following link provides resources for more information about this day.   http://www.ala.org/aasl/advocacy/bwad/resources 

This article found in the Huffington Post today titled,  Freedom to Read Under Fire as Attempts to Ban Books Continue, reinforces why we must continue to raise awareness about censorship in our schools and community.  

District Wide Information

Banned Book Week - Sept. 22 - 28, 2013

Banned Book Week is one of my favorite times of the year!  This year celebrates 30 years of our freedom to read.  I encourage you to share with your class through books that have been challenged why it is important to raise our awareness about books that have been challenged (where a person or group of people attempt to restrict the access of the book to other people) and perhaps removed from school or academic libraries in our nation. Encourage students to read some of these books to help them decide for themselves or generate a class discussion as to whether the students agree or disagree and why with the challenge.  This can be done at the elementary level to raise awareness at their level of understanding too.  Check out the following resource to learn more information about why the following titles were challenged.  http://www.ila.org/BannedBooks/BBW_2012-2013_Shortlist.pdf

Books for grades 8-12: 
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie 
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman

Books for grades 4-8
Totally Joe by James Howe
Intensely Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Books for elementary aged students: 
The Family Book by Todd Parr
In Our Mothers' House by Patricia Polacco
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
The Dirty Cowboy by Amy Timberlake







  

District Wide Information

This article titled "Picture Perfect Behavior" offers an easy, free way to reinforce and model behavior you are looking for in your students.  Check it out by clicking on the title above.

It isn't  often that I find resources for preschool teachers but I have one I feel is worth sharing.  It is 5 Time-Saving Websites for Preschool Teachers  The websites in this article seem like fantastic resources.  Check it out!

Parenting expert, Carolyn Knorr from Common Sense Media wrote the article Parents' top 12 back-to-school tech questions.  This article may offer some great ideas/questions to share with parents at conferences or in weekly newsletters.  Many of these questions may be ones asked by parents at conferences.  Hopefully this article is helpful to you as a classroom teacher, but also also may be answers to questions parents ask at conferences.  

District Wide Information

The Use of Social Media in School
Check out the attached article and infographic (click on the title) to learn more how social media is influencing students, parents and teachers in the education setting.  I found the areas of Social Media in the classroom section and the Social Media Pilot Program in Portland, OR to have very fascinating information.

I am planning to include social media as one of my professional goals.  I challenge teachers across the district to consider using social media professionally.  If you are considering taking the MarshallTech4Teachers course this year, you will be delving deeper into social media for educational purposes.