100 FREE Tools to Make Your Teaching More Entertaining

Click here to see a list of 100 tools teachers can use in their classrooms for free. The tools cover topic such as:

• Wikis
• Blogs
• Open Courseware
• Twitter
• Comics
• Professional Networks

Puppet Pals App

I've seen a few kids make stories with this app. It's so cute and so fun because they use kids can use their own voices for the characters.

Winning! Google Science Fair

Google’s top three science fair winners by age category are:
• Lauren Hodge (left in photo) in the 13-14 age group.
• Naomi Shah (right in photo) in the 15-16 age group.
• Shree Bose (middle in photo) in the 17-18 age group.

For the science fair, Lauren studied “the effect of various marinades on the level of potentially harmful carcinogens in grilled chicken.” Naomi proved “that making changes to indoor environments that improve indoor air quality can reduce people’s reliance on asthma medications.” AND THE GRAND PRIZE WINNER, Shree Bose, “discovered a way to improve ovarian cancer treatment for patients when they have built up a resistance to certain chemotherapy drugs.”

These incredibly talented and motivated young women competed against 7,500 entries from greater than 10,000 applicants from more than 90 countries around the world.

Know someone interested in competing? Check out the Google Science Fair website.

Photo via the Official Google Blog

Not the Job of an Educator

I found myself outraged as I read the news that Alabama's new racist immigration law would effectively require educators to act as immigration officials and verify the legality of students as well as their parents and report to state authorities. Besides the impracticality of the law itself and the racial profiling that will inevitably occur, this is not the job of an educator. We talk a lot as teachers about equity in education and the fear is that this law will encourage parents to keep children home from school this fall rather than risk getting "caught." Our duty is to educate all children. What happened to "leaving no child behind?" Where is the justice?

Read this editorial and tell me what you think...

Preventing Teacher Burnout

A blog article by 5th-and 6th-grade teacher, Katy Farber, caught my attention, and I think many of you will relate. I LOVED teaching, but I didn’t always love working in a school. We all know teachers deserve more, and Katy explains how small improvements can lead to big changes.

Here’s a blurb from her article:
You know the feeling. It happens when you see other people out for walks during their lunch hour (and you just spent 10 minutes "eating" while emailing a passive aggressive parent). Or when you hear how you need to try this new teaching technique, even though you have been doing it for years. Or when you are up all night, sick, and have to crawl to the computer to write your sub plans. You think, "How much longer can I do this?"

Click here to read her list of 8 ideas that can help teachers stay positive, empowered, and connected to their school communities.

Baby We Were Born to Learn

It's growing closer and closer to that last day of school....I can feel it, see it and almost taste it...I struggle for continuity and normalcy so that we as a class don't slip right into chaos during our final days. I realize how important it is to keep up with our regular schedule so as not to tip off my very young and impressionable minds to just how close we are to freedom! Today I "stumbled upon" a website that I found very interesting and relevant. It's called Born to Learn and it really references what we as educators already know about child development, the importance of play and inquiry-based learning. I think that as teachers with text books, standardized tests and curriculum standards, we find it easy to forget about these important details. I highly recommend that everyone involved in education takes a good look at this and thinks about how it is that we are educating our children and building a love of learning....all the way up to the last day of school.

Compassion in Education

I post TED videos fairly often. TED is an international, digital conference community of individuals and organizations who believe in the power of spreading ideas through videotaped presentations shared freely online. I am a believer.


TEDx is a locally organized event that features individuals and innovation that present in a style similar to the TED videos you can find online. Think of the “x” as meaning “independently organized. Each of these TEDx events has a theme. Prospect Sierra andU.C. Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center have partnered to host a TEDx conference in Richmond, California. The theme of their event will be Compassion in Education.

If you live in California or have been meaning to make a trip out there, the conference is scheduled for June 11, 2011. Tickets are available online at: tedxgoldengateed.org.

(After the conference, I hope to find online videos that I can post for the rest of us to see.)


Click here to read more.