Compass for high school/middle school

The site I found isn't one that will provide you with a plethora of lesson plans or arbitrary tips on teaching. It is one that will be of concrete use every single day, though. When I first got to classjump.com, I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking at. But, I found it to be very similar to something we have access to here at U of I which is Compass. A lot of high schools and middle schools (mine included) do not offer an online website for teachers. A website to post grades, yes, but what about assignments, readings, useful information, group discussions, and all that jazz? Classjump.com is useful for all of these things and more. It allows you, as a teacher, to create your own site (free of charge), which helps students to always have access to information, not claim that they "lost" an assignment, and also save trees at the same time. Collaborative discussions can occur right on the website either for homework or simply for fun. Interesting documents can be added. Photos can be viewed. Anything any other website can do, this one can to, and since it's made for teaching, you'll be that much better off. Here's a screenshot of my computer to give you an even better picture of what it's like (although I think you should check it out for yourself):

I actually think I might use this is my classroom. Maybe someday paper assignments will become a thing of the past and Classjump.com can be the new biggest thing. Maybe it will increase learning and interest while saving our environment at the same time. Who knows? One can hope.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is we can't assume all of the students have regular access to a computer. So, they should either be given time to explore the site in class (if computers are available), or be offered access to everything on the site in paper form. More and more students have access to computers everyday, but it cannot be something that we can rely on entirely.

Thirteen Ed Online

As I was searching for websites to add to our list, I came across Thirteen Ed Online, and found myself slowly becoming drawn further and further into the website. This website offers both teachers and students suggestions for lessons, as well as materials for further learning. Immediately on the main page of the website do you see videos, lesson archives, and other resources beneficial for the classroom.

Under the section directed specifically for teachers are links to bring you to Classroom Project ideas, Lesson Plans, Videos, and Professional Developments. After searching through each of these folders, I find the one labeled "Lesson Plans" containing the greatest amount of sources for us as future teachers. When looking at each individual lesson, they are planned according to the time it should take to execute them (days, class periods, etc.), which standards they address, and the materials needed. They also section off the lesson into areas such as "Prep", "Steps", "Execution", and "Community Connections". In reading each of these sections, it caused me to re-evaluate just how much time and effort is needed to put together solid lesson plans. This website allows for future teachers, such as ourselves, to look into the organization and planning skills needed to formulate a solidly structured lesson.

In addition, each lesson addresses which subjects it could fall under. For example, one lesson entitled "Passionate About Shakespeare" has enough material within it to fall under an English, History, or Performing Arts classroom for grades 9-12. The fact that this is provided to the teachers, too, may offer suggestions for collaborations between teachers of different subjects. We have spoken about teachers of different subjects collaborating with each other on their lessons, such as a History and English teacher planning a lesson on the Holocaust. By using these lessons as a template, the process of executing the lesson will prove to be much more organized than just done on a whim. There are also lessons for teachers of Math, Science, etc. All you have to do is pick what subject you are looking towards and the list of them comes up on the site.

The only downside I may address is that some parts of the website specifically mention New York and their community. However, the material that it coincides with proves to still be useful for us. There is a conference coming up in a few days pertaining to thinkers, activists, and socialists: the annual "The Celebration of Teaching and Learning" conference. This website will provide video documentation of what was said and done here. Resources such as these will continue to help us as future teachers. We have to be aware of exactly what it takes to plan lessons, execute them, and outside activity going on which will benefit our understanding of education. I would definitely recommend this website for all of us to at least take a look at, even if we do not use the lesson plan ideas provided. They exhibit 'blueprints' for our future classrooms and additional resources for our lessons as a whole.

AWESOME STORIES

One site that I came across is AWESOME STORIES, which has a great deal of stories from many different genres that both teachers and students alike can enjoy.

The site is set up in a very manageable manner, and while you can sign up for a subscription to access all parts of the site, there are still some stories and lesson plans you can get to without having to pay. I think this is a great tool for teachers today, because it really would take a great deal of time to flip through an anthology book looking for a story to share with your class or form your lesson plan around, but with Awesome Stories you can browse through all different kinds of literature material in a manner of minutes. They have many different categories of stories to choose from, such as biographies, disasters, sports, inspirations, famous people, religions, flicks, and history, so if you already have a unit formulated you can come here and browse for a story that can easily fit into what you have already planned, and might better enhance the learning of the students.

Awesome Stories also features slide shows, videos, images, and audio clips that accompany some of the stories, so this site offers a way to bring media into the classroom as well. For example, you could choose a short story collection and then use the accompanying slide show of vocabulary words. This way there is much less stress on you when you are on a strict deadline trying to come up with a lesson plan.

Browsing through some of the stories myself, I would say this site is appropriate for a middle school teacher or someone teaching the lower grades of high school.

Raúl A. Mora recommends this website!

In CI 473, we have been learning about how to integrate different strategies to improve the quality of teaching different elements of content area literacy. We have discussed how important it is to work on vocabulary development. We have also tried to incorporate some of the technology available out there for teachers into our everyday work.

I learned about Wordles through some colleagues, including some amazing scholars and teachers I've met through Twitter. Wordles are word clouds that one can create online. I showed my students how to use Wordles, and I even created a Wordle for our class:

But, even with this demonstration, I knew there was something missing, the process itself. I mean, how did I create the Wordle? How did I make the picture file? As much as I wish I were able to give a more intense, hands-on demonstration, time is of the essence in this course. However, I ran into a website that fit my instructional needs as a glove! Click on the link below to go there: 

 PRE-TEACHING VOCABULARY  

Why this page, you wonder? Well, the author takes you on a very clear step-by-step guide on how to create a Wordle, how to create an image out of it and some of the possible uses of the Wordle. I recommend it to my students and any other teachers out there for the following reasons:

1. It's very illustrative. The author goes to great lengths to explain every step. I think that any teacher, regardless of how tech-savvy they may be, so long as they're creative, can create a Wordle after following this video tutorial.

2. It fit within my lesson plan about strategies to pre-teach vocabulary. In fact, it expands on my initial suggestions for the use of Wordles in class. I realized, after watching the tutorial, that Wordles can recognize high-frequency words, which can be used as a good way to pre-teach vocabulary. If students realize that they have a grasp of such words, that will help them gain confidence in their reading skills.

3. I particularly enjoyed that the author was a school teacher. He was very forthcoming about how he had used it in class and how it had worked. Sometimes I know that we tell our preservice teachers that some things we share with them are useful. Hearing it from a teacher actually reinforces that idea. It also shows them that teacher educators do not always work at a vacuum and that we actually pay attention to what is going on in schools.

That's why I endorse this page. I hope other teachers will find it useful... and if you do, let us know in the comments section!

Raúl A. Mora

CI 473 Instructor