Stretch to Music

Brain research shows that the brain needs a balanced of focused attention and nonfocused down time. One strategy that we used today was to get up and move to music. It's fun and refreshing. Learning occurs in chunks. Jennifer shared that for adults the appropripate length of time for a chunk is 20 minutes. For children it's their age minus 2 or 3. At fourth grade that would be about 7 minutes max! She had a great song for this. I think it's called "Brainbreak". I'm going to search itunes for that.

We were able to go to different sessions that other Cadre members presented on a cool web tool that they were working with. I went to the following so far!

Terra Clues
  Is a site that has scavenger hunts that are integrated with google maps. Interactive and fun! You can also create your own scavenger hunt!


Cool Tools for Schools
 Awesome list for web 2.0 tools. It has it in a format that is easy to navigate and has it broken down into skills and applications. Check it out!

Simply Box

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2008/10/simply-box-helps-you-organize-web.html

This looks like a great web-site for young and old alike. It' s a visual version of delicious. let me know what you think.

More brain strenghtening

Today's activity involved throwing a balloon to another person in your group while calling their name. As you know, throwing a balloon is not an easy activity. The follow-up was to tap the balloon to another person while calling thier name and telling them what they had to tap it with (hand, nose etc.). A good way to work both sides of the brain, get the body moving and provide some laughter.

I Need My Teachers To Learn...video

Check out this video....

Venn Diagram activity

We were given three websites to pick a Venn Diagram tool to create a comparison of Student Learning vs. Adult learning. We did used Class Tools to create our Venn Diagram. Here is ours below! Other tools included ReadWriteThink and GraphJam.

Venn Diagram comparing Learning

Social Networking in the Classroom Using a Ning

I am in a group that is exploring how to use a social networking tool (Ning) in the classroom. We spent most of our time together exploring how to use/manage the Ning. Then we shared ideas with each other about how we are using a Ning for professional development and/or in the classroom with our students. Several members of our group are concerned with the safety of a social network being used in a school setting...myself included. However, I think that so many of my students (junior high age) are already using a social network that it may be a good idea to incorporate one into the classroom setting so that I can teach appropriate use of this tool that is so widely used today. There is even concern with age and using a social network, is it o.k. to use a social network with student younger than 13? Any thoughts? Here is a link that someone in our group discovered to a Ning that talks about the guidelines of using a Ning with students ....http://education.ning.com/profiles/blogs/guidelines-for-using-ning-in-a