Making Teachers Nerdy

One of my favorite units to teach is poetry.  The playing with words, the cleverness of students, and the discovering of new ways to describe a simple object always gives me a thrill.  I mean really.  How often does one get to use words like hanker after to replace want or quick on the uptake for clever?  I love it, but yes, that’s the English teacher in me along with a dozen word games on my iPod Touch.

Today’s post is another freebie to help you with your own poetry units.  I’ve pulled a list of poetry generators online along with a few ideas that might help spark a little creativity in you. 

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Yes, Mother’s Day is right around the corner, so it’s time to decide what project or craft idea your students will create this year to commemorate this annual event.  First, let’s think of the criteria.  It should be cute, sentimental, and perhaps even a little touching.  In any case, it should include student writing and creativity.  Actually, my favorite gifts are those that bring just a sweet tear to a Mommy’s eye when she opens it.  Can you tell I’m a mommy, too?

Today’s post will feature some technology infused Mother’s Day projects and links to help you come up with the best gift idea possible.  Most of these can be done in Photo Shop if you are familiar with the program, but I’m sharing how to many of these with Picasa, Picnik, and Microsoft Office.

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Now that you and/or your students are using wikis and blogs, are you curious what could be added to them?  From animated slideshows to collaborative documents to interactive review games, many great (and free) tools are available.  As a follow up to my previous post “What Teachers Should and Should Not Be Posting on their Classroom Webpages”, I’ve pulled a master list of embedding options that will hopefully spark your imagination. 

As you browse the list consider how you will use these embeds.  While some of these work perfectly for classroom blog posts, others tend to be more effective wiki tools.  Do you want students to view a video clip and then leave comments below?  That’s a perfect blog scenario.  Or do you want students to collect data in a form?  Yep, that’s a wiki tool.  I know your wheels will be turning to come up with great new ways to use the tools. 

One note of warning, however.  If any of these sites are blocked at your school, the embeds will also be blocked.

Good luck and again if you have any other suggestions please post them in the comments section.  The more tools available, the nerdier we all can be.

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Do you have students who take family vacations or have special opportunities to travel during the school year?  What sort of assignments do you require them to do while away?  Do they journal their adventures and gather brochures to report back to the class?  If so, you’ll be very interested to read how today’s guest writer, Mary Rizzo, a Technology Assistant and Webmaster at Parsley Elementary in Wilmington, North Carolina shares with you her travel buddy project ideas.  I was thrilled she contacted me and I hope you’re inspired about this twist to the travel buddy project.  Thanks Mary for sharing your story at Making Teachers Nerdy.  Hopefully, many schools will be inspired to duplicate the idea and start their own traveling mascot program.

Parsley Elementary (www.nhcs.net/parsley), a K-5 school in Wilmington, NC, is home to the Patriot Kids travel buddy mascots named Liberty, Justice, and Freedom.  These school mascots have been active members of the school family for 6 years and had some amazing adventures.  Among other 21st Century integration skills, the Patriot Kids have recently added blogging to their bag of tricks. 

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We all know that Word does a whole heap for the business world, but there are some features that work great for educators.  Whether you are creating a test or worksheet, or helping your students format a formal paper, these tricks should make things easier.  Plus, I just love easy, don't you? 

Yes, there are more tricks up my nerdy little sleeve, but today I'm going to start with my top ten.  Master this list and your nerd points will increase enough to handle my future posts.  Good luck everyone.