Pebbles

Circles
Teacher Notes -- Action Plan

Self-Reflections

Ice Breakers and Discussion Starters

• The Write Moods
• The Pinnacle
• Teachley’s Amazing Talking Brain
• Pop Quiz the Teacher (Best Practices)
• The Memory Booster

Welcome to TechKnow Park!

Visit the Pinnacle while you are waiting for the workshop to begin. If time allows, continue browsing the other four sites.

What is Kaleidoscope’s TechKnow Park?

• Read a description.
• Print a TechKnow Park Information Packet with a Map included. (PDF)
• Bookmark TechKnow Park, then stop by the Welcome Center.
• View this graphic.
• Browse the Bird’s Eye View.
• IMPORTANT: Understand the 3 Steps and note the features under the Teacher’s Desk.

Important: Printing Instructions for Explorer

Reminder: There is an interactive TechKnow Tutorial available on the site. Please recommend the tutorial to teachers who are unable to attend a hands-on session.

Achievement and a Student-Centered, Technology-Rich Curriculum

• Test scores: What do your school’s scores tell you? What do the students need? How is technology used to address achievement gaps in your school?

Read and Reflect:

The study ("How Teaching Matters," ETS) found that students of teachers who conduct hands-on learning activities outperform their peers by more than 70 percent of a grade level in math and 40 percent of a grade level in science. Similarly, students whose teachers emphasize higher-order thinking skills outperform their peers by about 40 percent of a grade level. In addition, the study showed that students whose teachers have received training in working with special populations outperform their peers by more than a full grade level.
(NCATE Web site)

•Let’s equip our computers and classrooms with science probes, microscopes, and math manipulatives for hands-on instruction. Let’s use the Internet for online interactive math manipulatives like the Fraction Pie or The Factor Game, by Illuminations, and link to Web sites like The Wave Machine in our science classes.
(Or are the computers tied up all day with students taking rote, multiple
choice reading management tests?)

Let's train students to apply critical thinking strategies like this (the TK Thought Chamber) to everything they read.

A Child’s Profile

Tools for Quick and Easy Assessments of Interests, Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligences, Modalities, and Personality

Child Profile

• Multimedia via the Multiple Intelligences (Pick Your Alien!)
• Crack Your Learning Code
• Meet Your Mode
• The Write Moods (emotional intelligence)

Read and Reflect

"Too many kids struggle and fail needlessly simply because the way in which they learn is incompatible with the way they’re being taught."

"Success is a vitamin that every kid must take..."

"In order to "learn how to learn" children must be taught about his or her strengths and weaknesses using understandable language."
(Dr. Mel Levine, www.allkindsofminds.org)

Why approach multimedia via the multiple intelligences?

How do personality preferences impact the learning process?

Achievement and Self-Esteem

Why do we have a DreamBuilder and a Trouble Terminator at the bottom of every weekly page?

What do children need?

• Feel loved
• Feel accepted
• Feel adequate

Ron Clark, 2000 Outstanding Teacher of the Year, moved from North Carolina to New York to work with at-risk youth. His first class was, according to the principal, "The worst group of 5^th graders the school had seen in 30 years. Only one was able to pass a state test." This same group of children, after spending one year with Mr. Clark, scored higher than the gifted 6^th graders at the school. How did he do it? This is his answer.

Read the WHY first, then visit DreamBuilder and Trouble Terminator.

Download and print "Fires in the Bathroom" at www.whatkidscando.org.

Formula for Achievement: (Slavin)

25%: __________________ (Answer)
25%: __________________ (Answer)
50%: __________________ (Answer)

Four Known Ways to Employ Technology to Strengthen Reading, Writing, and Thinking with Activities that Pay off in Higher Scores and Better Performance.
(Beyond Technology: Questioning, Research, and the Information Literate School, by Jamie McKenzie)

Explore the links for all four points.

Print the 5 Reading Comprehension Sheets for students to use as a scaffold for note-taking while reading text (electronic or print).

1. Model and teach specific reading strategies to strengthen reading comprehension.
2. Make research a daily event.
3. Have students encounter and practice "questioning" in all subject areas. Encourage a more visual approach to thinking.
4. Boost performance by timely teacher intervention." Teacher intervention is like a flat tire. You need to change it so you can keep moving forward."

Computer/Technology Skills: A Sampler of Activities
(Start in the Teacher’s Hut Go to the Kiosk.)

Use a Few Eye-Poppin’ Jaw-Droppin’ Databases!

Embark on the Great Titanic Passenger Search. (What happened to Miss Kate Louise Phillips?)

Rock and roll on over to the Roller Coaster Database to generate a Record Holders Report and practice searching and sorting information in a database. Study every option on the Report Options page before moving on to your Coaster Quest. (Week 20)

Go undercover with the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives database.

Click here for MORE Eye-Poppin, Jaw-Droppin’ Databases!

Notes:
The database for the Titanic passenger and crew lists provides rich background material for creative writing exercises. The facts in the database come alive for the children when they start digging around in the data and discussing records with one another. Remind students to click on the underlined surname to view the details for each passenger.

Go on a Shopping Spree with Spreadsheets.

Click here for tons of spreadsheet activities, resources, and interactive online graphing tools.

Take the "fear factor" out of online telecollaborative projects with this handy step-by-step unit. The work has been done for you! Check it out.

Try this.

Here are three great resources you need to see.

Place your order at the TK Multimedia Diner. It’s open and online!

The Diner is designed to introduce students to a wide range of copyright-friendly multimedia sources before jumping into the planning phase of their projects. Students can waste valuable instructional time floundering around on the Web if they don’t know what resources are available and where to find them quickly. The TK Multimedia Diner puts high-quality, safe sites right at their fingertips, along with all the copyright information they need.

Travel back in time with the TechKnow Time Warp Machine to show students how to use primary source materials.

Complete all 7 missions and print your official Time Travel Passport.

Step into the Yellow Teacher’s Hut

Professional Section

• Survival Kit for Beginning Teachers
• Content Coliseum: Outstanding Web sites for every content area!
• Amazing Talking Brain: How Brain Research Impacts Achievement

Personal Section

• Spa.Calm: Stress Relief, Time Savers, Recipes, Health, Dieting, Home, Travel, Books, Movies, and more!

Click on the Magazine Cover.

Make time to open the Survival Kit and check out You Can Handle Them All--Solutions for 117 Misbehaviors. You will agree that it is an exemplary resource on discipline! There are step-by-step instructions for dealing with every discipline problem you will ever see!

View the TechKnow Disaster Preparedness Pages

Every week, under the Teacher's Desk, you will find Computer Skills mini-posters & activity sheets (called TechKnow Disaster Preparedness Pages) that you can print ahead of time just in case the network crashes or equipment is unavailable. There is a different page to print each week. You will find a small skeleton key at the bottom of most mini-posters. Clicking on the skeleton key will open the answer key for that particular page.

Note: Click on a "shelf" of skills to view the mini-posters for that category.

Here is an example of a mini-poster for introducing spreadsheets.