I had a wonderful experience at the Tennessee Educational Technology Conference last week! They really know how to host a conference - great sessions, good hotel, easy to get from point A to point B, time to digest everything, delicious meals, time to check out, etc. I thought the entire experience was one of the best and I have so much to share with all of you!
I'm going to start by sharing the titles of the sessions that I attended:
Transforming Your Classroom with Web 2.0
21st Century Skills in Action
Using Google Forms and Inspire Data Surveys
Using Skype to Extend and Expand Your Classroom
Open Source Mania
Exploring World Book Web
Think Possibilities - Think Thinkfinity
E-Rate Update
Once Upon a PodCast
Television 101
Best Practices for Online Instruction
Come Fly Away with Google Earth and Google Lit Trips
The Future of Curriculum Content (Education City)
I brought back an entire tote bag full of information, demo CDs/DVDs, and lots of freebies (like a mug, some ink pens, a stress reliever, mints, a stuffed World Book dog, and lots more). Many of the sessions had handouts to go along with their session and lots of them had specific Websites to share. In the next few weeks, I will try to share several sites in each posting that might be of interest. I don't want to overwhelm you! Of course, some of the sessions I attended had costs associated with them, but for the most part, I tried to select sessions that were FREE!
The first site that I am sharing this week is the one that caught my attention from the very beginning - it was a site that a presenter had learned about in another session and felt like it was something to share at all her sessions, too! Check this out - The Week in Rap - each Friday they update the site to include a rap about the week's news. It's terrific! This would be very appropriate for middle school or high school social studies classes or even as a starter to any class at those grade levels.
Another neat site is Flocabulary or Hip-Hop in the Classroom. There is a link for "How to Rap" that gives you step-by-step instructions on how to construct a rap. There is also a link for "Free Teacher Resources" that include a free song from each of the titles in their library. Some are just available for you to listen to, but others include a video. To give you an idea, watch the video for Edgar Allen Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum". The nicest feature is that they give you the lyrics to the rap as well, so you don't have to try to keep up! Another good sample to review is under the Social Studies, Hip-Hop U. S. History section. Just click the play button under the picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. You can also check out the sample teacher resources and student resources. Of course, they want you to purchase the student books, teacher resource books, etc., but there might be enough free samples for you to use in your classroom. Don't think it's only for middle and high schoolers, though - the Vocabulary/Reading section starts with samples as low as the 2nd grade! You can sign up for a free newsletter - just click the "Get Free Updates" link.
If you are interested in exploring some resources on your own, the conference set up a Wikispaces site for presenters to download information and links that is available to anyone. Click here - TETC 2010 Wikispaces Site - and look for the session links for each day on the left. If you are not familiar with Wikis, there is a short video you can watch. The link is one of the first things you'll see on the TETC10 site.
I hope you enjoy looking at the links I've given you for this week. In subsequent weeks, I will be continuing to give you a few links at a time to different sites that I learned about while attending the sessions.
