Saturday, January 3, 2009

365 Days of Resources

When a new year begins you seem to always evaluate aspects of your life and see where you can make some improvements or changes. In 2009 my goal is to put more energy into my blogs. (I have taken this goal so seriously, I've started two NEW blogs!) I want to share resources with a number of different audiences, especially the staff of CSE, but I don't want to do this using email...emails get deleted, lost, or purged. I also want these resources to be in a location so people can always revist them. I currently post to the "Bison Bits Blog" on a weekly basis, as a classroom newsletter, to keep everyone informed of what's happening in the computer lab. (This blog is housed on my SchoolCenter site for CSE.)

So, on to my goal of sharing resources. Right now, I plan to post twice a month. My posts may be about just one specific resource or a number of resources. (Like I've done below.) I just want to be more consistent and share the wonderful resources I come across - other than just through my diigo bookmarks. I will also try to share a "To Do" in the post as well - just a quick reminder of those little things we often forget about. Finally, I will still email the staff a link to my blog post, but you can always subscribe to either of the blogs. Here's to a great 2009. Let the resources begin...

Year-Long Resources
The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to lay some new plans for the year to come. Here are a few resources that I hope will be helpful as you gear up for 2009.
Daily Writing Prompts
This is actually a section of The Teacher's Corner web site that I author and maintain. You will find writing prompts for everyday of the year. (Some days have multiple prompts to chose from.) On as many days as possible, we have selected an event from our monthly event calendars to be the focus of the writing prompt. Because they are digital, you can display through your projector or on a single computer...eliminating having to make copies!
Scholastic Teacher Planning Calendar
Great activities, lesson plans and resources that you can use in your classroom and are geared towards all grade levels. I also like the fact that you can look ahead to the upcoming months to help with your long-range planning.
Daily Buzzword
Help your students learn new vocabulary words every day of the week. The link at Merriam-Webster's Word Central gives you the word, part of speech, audio clip of pronunciation, definition, example sentence, and a quiz to apply your new vocabulary knowledge.

To Do! - Update your laptop's software!
Software updates are frequently released. These updates serve many different purposes: new features to current software, fixes to bugs/problems, or for the improvement of your computer's operation. It's important to periodically check for, download and install these updates. I decided to make a job aide for this first "To Do" item so you could easily refer back to it in the future. View the Update Your Software page on my wiki.






Turbo Tagger

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are an amazing technology support! Thank you for your hard work.

JRankin said...

I like the Daily Writing Prompts. These are going to be a great addition for my ILAs! Thanks.