September Newsletter

Happy New Year ~

Well - for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, HAPPY start of a NEW school YEAR!  (For many teachers and students, the start of the school year is more of a new beginning than the New Year we celebrate on January 1.)

Who am I?  And why am I writing this?  I'm Dr. Donna, an Educational Technology Specialist for Department of Defense Dependent Schools.  My job is to help teachers use technology to enhance their curriculum, and I've started a monthly newsletter so I can help YOU enhance your curriculum, too.  To subscribe, click http://dyna-ed.net/- it's free!  Subscribers will receive a bonus hands-on activity to help their students understand why leaves change color in the Fall.  Feel free to share this with everyone you know who could use a few great technology activities each month.

School is off to a roaring start.  The students are excited to be back in school with their friends, and curious to see what this school year has in store for them.  This time of year you feel too busy to take on one more thing, but I have four great technology sites and projects that are well worth your time and will get your class off to a rollicking start.

Everyone loves a good Mystery!
Are you looking for an exciting, engaging, and innovative classroom activity that will help your students

• develop effective questioning skills in a real-world communication context?
• use deductive and inductive reasoning skills to problem-solve?
• gather, analyze and synthesize data?
• build geography concepts and skills, including global awareness and map-reading?
• expand awareness of cultural similarities and differences?
• Would you like a project that will provide you with dynamic educational ideas, complete, detailed lesson plans and continuous support?

This is it!

Mystery Penpals provides an innovative way for classes in different geographical locations to use educational technology to play "20 Questions" to locate each other. Your students will learn and use a wide variety of concepts and skills to find their partner class. Best of all, you have the option to tailor your partner class' geographic area so that you can seamlessly integrate Mystery Penpals to meet your social studies standards! Find all the details at http://dyna-ed.net/id2.html. The first round begins October 12.

Do your students - and you - dread the weekly spelling list? Painstakingly dictating or inscribing on the chalkboard, students diligently copying them down, and then struggling to find meaningful activities for students to use the words during the week so they practice enough to solidify the spelling. You know the drill.

     Now picture the students logging into a webpage that has this week’s list of words - will even read the words out loud - and there are a dozen games where students engage with the week's words, games that reinforce context and meaning, and others that focus on phonemic awareness. Introduced to this activity, students plead, "Can we p-u-l-e-e-z-e play this when we get home?" Watch your spelling scores soar - just because you added this one activity. You log in and type the words once. Your students go to the website and locate their class spelling lists. They will not only study this week’s words, they'll revisit previous lists!

     It’s FREE! Go to http://Spellingcity.com and see what a difference technology can make. SpellingCity has added a new gradebook feature that will let you track your students’ activities and scores on the site - a perfect tool for grading or portfolios.

Did you know that Monarch Butterflies migrate from all over North America to spend the winter in Mexico?  This migration is happening right now, and Journey North has a wonderful website that invites children in North America to participate in an actual scientific study to chart and map the butterflies’ progress in their Fall Journey South. The website also has tons of materials and lesson plans to give students more information about the migration, plus pictures and video of every stage of the butterflies’ life cycle. You wouldn’t normally think that Fall would be a good time to study the life cycle of a butterfly, but this website and the opportunity to observe the migration via maps and charts make this a perfect time! If you are in North America, sign up and post your observations. If you live somewhere else, you can still take part in the observations and lessons. http://www.learner.org/jnorth/monarch

This super activity invites students to decorate a paper butterfly, write a message on the back, and send it to Mexico in parallel to the actual Monarch migration. Classes post a “sighting” and a message on the map when they mail the class packet of butterflies. All the packets are gathered in Minnesota, then when they begin their Journey South, students can track their progress via the UPS website. In the Spring, when the Monarchs return to their Northern homes, classes receive packets of new butterflies, and each student goes to the map to post the location of the newly arrived butterfly, and a message to the sender. The teacher receives email notification each time one of the sent butterflies is posted to the map. This activity takes a week or so, and all butterflies must be postmarked by October 13. Get lesson plans and register at http://www.learner.org/jnorth/sm/.

That's a wrap for this month.  I'm already starting to gather exciting units for October!  Everyone who subscribes to the FREE newsletter will receive a bonus investigation that will help your students understand why leaves change color in the Fall.  If you'd like to share ideas, or ask me a question - please do!  Ask Dr. Donna.    I'll see you next month!

Subscribe to receive this FREE monthly newsletter that features technology tips, dynamic educational websites, and at least one Unit Activity of the Month.  Go to this page to subscribe - http://dyna-ed.net