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Issue 13, Volume
10
November
12, 2009
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Thought for the
Week
Even if
you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over
if you just sit there.
-- Will Rogers |
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Microsoft Education:
Success Profiles Overview
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 The
Education Competencies define many of the
attributes, behaviors, areas of knowledge, skills,
and abilities that will lead to superior job
performance and professional growth in the education
field. When interviewing prospective 21st Century
Superintendents, principals and teachers use the
education competencies that lead to superior job
performance and professional growth in the education
field. This site identifies the key competencies of
four types of educational employees. Not all
competencies are relevant for every job and each job
requires emphasis on specific competencies. For the
four positions, a profile has been developed that
identifies the critical competencies required for
success in these positions. You may want to use
these profiles when considering potential candidates
and when conducting interviews. Find out more at
http://www.microsoft.com/education/competencies/successprofilesoverview.mspx.
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Google Features Videos
From The National Archives
|
 This
Google feature has free online access to more than
100 historic films, including old World War II
newsreels and NASA documentaries, thanks to an
agreement between Google and the US National
Archives. Google has digitized the films. Highlights
of the project include a representative selection of
U.S. government newsreels from 1941-1945,
documenting World War II; a sampling of
documentaries produced by NASA on the history of the
spaceflight program, including the story of Apollo
11--the historic first landing on the moon; and
motion picture films, primarily from the 1930s, that
document the history and establishment of a
nationwide system of national and state
parks--including early footage of modern Native
American activities, Boulder Dam, documentation of
water and wind erosion and the Civilian Conservation
Corps workers. The URL:
http://video.google.com/nara.html |
Thanksgiving Ideas and
Activities
|
 The
ABCs Of Thanksgiving
http://www.brentwood.k12.ca.us/brentwood/Links/gallery/gursky/Class_proj/abc_thanks/abc2.html
Find an online exhibit, letter by letter, of the
whos, whys, hows, whats, wheres, and whens of
Thanksgiving, compiled by a first grade class in
Brentwood, CA -- then try creating your own version!
Strawberry Thanksgiving
http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/Byrnes-celebrations/straw.html
Thirteen moons and thirteen Thanksgivings... Learn
all about the early summer moon, or the Strawberry
Moon, and the Strawberry Thanksgiving that went
along with it, as celebrated by the Narragansett and
Niantic natives of the northeastern region of
America. In response to learning about legends and
harvest festivities, students will create and write
their own legends, as well as letters in this lesson
plan.
A Thanksgiving Feast
http://www.theteacherscorner.net/seasonal/thanksgiving/feast.htm
Try this lesson plan with your elementary students,
or enhance the activities by adding extra colonial
projects (candle making, sewing, soap making, etc.)
for your middle school students as well. Find a way
to make butter and cornbread in the classroom, while
dressing up and enjoying your own Thanksgiving
feast.
A Thanksgiving Meal
http://www.theteacherscorner.net/seasonal/thanksgiving/dinner.htm
Math becomes real when students have to apply it to
real world situations. Save some current flyers from
food stores, and distribute them to small groups.
Have them work with a Thanksgiving dinner menu for a
set amount of people, to come up with a final cost
for the entire meal. Offer different flyers to
different groups, so they can compare prices at the
various stores.
Feeding The Soul
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/feeding-the-soul/
Thanksgiving in America is a time of family
get-togethers, good company, and great food -- and
plenty of it. We all have memories of making meals
with someone special, or at least enjoying a special
dish. Students will examine their memories of
special meals in this lesson plan for Thanksgiving.
Survivor -- Cranberry Bog
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/survivor-cranberry-bog/
Pass the cranberry sauce... A familiar refrain at
Thanksgiving time, right? Students will go beyond
the traditional Thanksgiving meal to examine the
issues surrounding the sauce, from farmer's field to
table, with a focus on the current challenges facing
the cranberry industry.
Turkey Soup For The Soul
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2003/11/26/turkey-soup-for-the-soul/
It's that time of year when we reflect upon our
charitable practices, and this lesson plan takes an
intimate look at a specific case, bringing the human
into the charity equation.
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner/
This unique lesson plan considers the sensitive
issue of incorporating a meal and Thanksgiving
blessing to meet the needs of a diverse group of
guests. Students will examine rituals and
traditions, and come up with their own menus and
rituals for a fictional celebration.
Painted Pilgrims
http://www.pilgrimhall.org/EdnPaintedPilgims.htm
Seventeenth century portraits of Pilgrims become the
subject of close investigation with this timely
lesson plan, where students will compare portraits
from another time period and consider social
conventions suggested from the works.
The First Thanksgiving -- Myth And Truth
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=65
A student handout on common myths involved in the
1621 Thanksgiving feast celebrated by the Wampanoag
and the Pilgrims is part of this lesson plan, where
students will investigate not only the myths
permeating our ideas of an historic "first" American
Thanksgiving, but also the origins and influences of
myth itself.
Thanksgiving Primary Resource Set
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets/thanksgiving/
Students can learn much through researching primary
documents, not relying upon others' interpretations
for their knowledge, but examining and analyzing the
historic documents for themselves. Included in this
set: the Mayflower Compact, proclamations
recommending Thanksgiving celebrations, and numerous
pieces of art regarding Thanksgiving over the years. |
PBS Teachers: Free
Resources for Teaching & Learning
|
 Not
only featuring a new interface, the newly redesigned
PBS Teachers site offers educators more searchable
content, from across PBS' educational services, and
easier, quicker ways to find the materials they need
for their classroom or home learning environment. At
PBS Teachers, you'll find classroom materials
suitable for a wide range of subjects and grade
levels. They provide thousands of lesson plans,
teaching activities, on-demand video assets, and
interactive games and simulations. These resources
are correlated to state and national educational
standards and are tied to PBS' award-winning on-air
and online programming like NOVA, Nature, Cyberchase,
Between the Lions and more. Check it out at
http://www.pbsteachers.org. |
Sports Forms & Templates
|
 Coaches! Have you ever
needed a template to keep statistics or for sports
player rankings? Microsoft has tons of templates for
football, baseball, TBall, and more. Rather than
creating your own, use these templates or modify
them to fit your needs. Enjoy these free sports
forms and templates from Microsoft. The URL:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT102530541033.aspx |
Lovely Charts
|
 Sure,
it's a pretty presumptuous name, but Lovely
Charts succeeds at what it promises. The
Flash-based web app produces very clean-looking
charts for all kinds of purposes, whether it is a
flowchart to describe a process, a diagram
describing a network setup, conference seating, or
whatever you might want to sketch out on the back of
a napkin. You only get to save one chart at a time
to edit later with a free account, but you can
export any number of charts to JPG or PNG as often
as you'd like. Check it out at
http://www.lovelycharts.com/. |
Adding The Address Toolbar
In The Taskbar
|
 It's not used that often,
but you can still have an address toolbar in the
Windows Vista taskbar. The Address toolbar in the
Vista taskbar is disabled by default, but is can be
useful when enabled. The Internet Explorer-like
Address bar is good for Web addresses, and you can
even use it like a Run command to launch programs
and documents. Here is how you can activate the
Address Bar in the taskbar: Right Click on a blank
space of the Vista taskbar. Click on "Toolbars." Check
"Address." The address taskbar will now appear. If
you want to adjust the size of the address bar, you
will need to unlock the taskbar. |
Flash Card Machine
|
 Flash Card Machine is a web
application that enables users to create interactive
web-based study flash cards and share them with
others. Free email registration gives you the
opportunity to create cards that could be used by
teachers or students. As you create sets of cards,
you can elect to keep your cards private or make
them public. You can build customized pages for each
class to better organize the flashcards, or add
sound and graphics to your flashcards. In addition,
there is an option that allows you to direct users
to a given webpage. That means that you can create a
direct link to your cards from a teacher webpage or
a link in a PowerPoint, flipchart, etc. and your
students will not have to search for your cards or
sign in to use the cards! The URL:
http://www.flashcardmachine.com/ |
| Best
on the Net!! -- Visit this site for
hundreds of websites for teachers! We would love to
hear from you about the best educational sites you
have found on the web. Please submit, via email, the
sites you feel merit inclusion. Send to tech.connect@cpsb.org.
Please include the URL and a short sentence about the
site.
Featured
Sites: (These sites were submitted by teachers in
Calcasieu Parish)
Laser Jello
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/laser_jello/index.html
How cool does that sound -- laser jello?! Students
will actually be using a laser beam to shine through
the different colors of jello to see the visible
beams of light, measure the angles of refraction,
measure critical angles, and make gelatin lenses.
Observations are explained in "What's Going On?"
Cemetery Demographics
http://www.accessexcellence.org/AE/ATG/data/released/0314-Jeffreyweld/index.php
This lesson plan supplies an interesting study in
data analysis, particularly of human populations; students will be using data from
cemeteries to complete their reports and tables.
Research your own town's history of mortality
curves, and then try to extrapolate the data into a
global trend.
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