Annotated Bibliography

Allimonos, R., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, & University of Melbourne. (2003, June 3). ABC Arts Online: Winged Sandals. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Winged Sandals website: http://www.wingedsandals.com/

Winged Sandals is a website about Greek Mythology that seeks to inform, educate, and entertain. The site has animated stories and interactive games and an online version of the Delphic Oracle all presented with a focus on entertaining and engaging a young audience.

This site would be an excellent resource for any teacher exploring the topic of Greek Mythology. Accurate, in-depth research is provided by the University of Melbourne in collaboration with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Bostock, M., & Carter, S. (2012, November 2). 512 Paths to the White House - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from NYTimes.com website: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/paths-to-the-whitehouse.html?ref=politics&_r=1&

This interactive web page from NYTimes.com allows the viewer to examine the different paths that President Obama or Governor Romney would need to take in order to win the 2012 Presidential Election and be elected President of the United States.

This source is an example of the work I do for teachers as part of my current role. In this instance, a fifth grade social studies teacher wanted to examine the election with her class. I researched and found this interactive web page for her.

BrainPOP - Animated Educational Site for Kids - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts. (1999, February 22). Retrieved September 13, 2013, from Brainpop website: http://www.brainpop.com/

Founded in 1999, BrainPOP creates animated, curricular content that engages students, supports educators, and bolsters achievement. The animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies, Arts & Music and English movies, quizzes, activity pages and school homework help strengthen learning for K-12 students.

This is a wonderful website that can be used school-wide, and covers many areas of the curriculum. It is an excellent resource that I have used on numerous occasions. It is a paid service, but it is well worth the price because of the unique way that difficult topics are explained in the animated movies.

Bright, S. (Ed.). (2002, November 15). Museum Box Homepage. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Museum Box website: http://museumbox.e2bn.org/index.php

Museum Box provides the tools for a user to build up an argument, or to describe an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. For example, what items would you use to build a case against slavery in the United Stated in the mid-19th Century? What items would you find in a household in Ancient Rome? If you were an immigrant to America in the early 20th Century, what items might you carry with you?

These are just a few examples of how a teacher could use Museum Box in his classroom. Unfortunately, the web site switched to a paid subscription model in early 2013. It now costs $99.00 for a school-wide subscription.

The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education. (1998, September 3). CIESE Curriculum: K-12 CIESE Online Tele-Collaborative Classroom Projects. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education website: http://ciese.org/collabprojs.html

This is an excellent site by The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education. It features collaborate projects that teachers can register for and use as part of their curriculum.

During a designated time frame, students will gather and record information relating to the project. The data is then shared and examined by all the registered classrooms. The projects focus on STEM related questions and would be used in science and math courses.

Classroom resources. (1997, September 15). Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Google Earth for Educators website: http://sitescontent.google.com/google-earth-foreducators/classroom-resources

This web page details the various ways that Google Earth can be used in the classroom. It is an outstanding resource for educators that want to introduce mapping technologies into the curriculum. English teachers can explore the geography of a novel. Science teachers can explore astronomy, oceanography, or geology. Social Studies teachers can track the visits of presidential candidates to cities during elections to determine which states are the most important to the campaigns. These are just a few of the ways Google Earth can be used in the classroom.

Google Earth is a tremendous tool for teachers. This site provides a wonderful starting point for developing lesson plans that incorporate Google Earth.

Cortes, M. C. (2004, March 12). COLOR IN MOTION. Retrieved September 13, 2013, from Color in Motion website: http://www.mariaclaudiacortes.com/colors/Colors.html

An animated and interactive experience of color communication and color symbolism. This website provides an interactive experience for the students as they examine color.

This site could be used in an art class or a language arts class as a discussion of the meaning of color in our lives. When reading a piece of literature, main characters could be related to colors and how they interact. This is just one of many ways this site could be used in the curriculum.

Dunn, J., & Lepi, K. (Eds.). (2010, April 18). Edudemic - Education Technology Tips For Students And Teachers. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Edudemic: Connecting Education & Technology website: http://www.edudemic.com/

Edudemic is one of the leading education technology sites on the web. It is a great source to keep up to date on educational technology trends and find tips on using technology in the classroom.

Evernote for schools. (2000, January 19). Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Evernote for Schools website: http://evernote.com/schools/

Evernote is a great tool for teachers to capture notes, organize lesson plans, collaborate on projects, snap photos of whiteboards, and more. Everything you add to your account is automatically synced and made available on all the computers, phones and tablets you use, at home or at school.

This is a fantastic tool to help teachers stay organized and to share information. Teachers can create notebooks for the different roles they are assigned. As they plan and gather information, information can be easily be saved to a designated notebook. This greatly increases the efficient of the lesson development process. Furthermore, notebooks can be shared with colleagues to exchange information and collaborate on projects.

Taking Evernote a step further, using Evernote for Business, teachers can use this tool with their classes. However, it must be noted that schools must follow the guidelines set forth by Evernote (https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/24425883).

Florida Center for Instructional Technology. (2011, January 10). Technology Integration Matrix. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Technology Integration Matrix website: http://mytechmatrix.org

The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) on this web site illustrates how teachers can effectively use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The matrix examines the development of a teacher's level of technology integration (Entry, Adoption, Adaption, Infusion, and Transformation) compared to the learning environment (Active, Collaborative, Constructive, Authentic, and Goal Directed).

This is a tool that I frequently refer to as a guide for professional development and best practices for technology integration in the classroom. This site also provides excellent examples of the different levels of technology integration that I can share with colleagues.

The Internet Archive (Ed.). (1995, December 14). Wayback machine. Retrieved September 16, 2013, from Internet Archive website: http://archive.org/web/web.php

The Internet Archive is a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a physical library, it provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public. The site contains many excellent free resources that teachers can use, including music, movies, and images. The feature that I use most often is the "Wayback Machine." This feature of the site allows a user to enter a URL and the history of the web site can be viewed. In trainings dealing with online privacy, I use this tool to show the permanence of items uploaded to the Internet. Most often, I use the school's web site (www.wyomingseminary.org) as an example and show how it looked on December 12, 1998, which is the very first archived date. The audience can see how the pictures and other information, even though it is no longer on the school's current web site, can be found elsewhere online.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (2013, August 28). Spacecraft 3D [App]. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Spacecraft 3D website: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spacecraft3d/id541089908?mt=8

NASA's Spacecraft 3D is an augmented reality (AR) application that lets you learn about and interact with a variety of spacecraft that NASA has developed to explore Earth, space, and the universe.

This refers to an application that can be found in iTunes. Using a mobile device's camera, the user can examine the intricate details of different robotic explorers. This was an app that I shared with our fifth grade science teacher that was incorporated into a unit dealing with the missions of the Mars rovers.

Lessons worth sharing. (1994, November 8). Retrieved September 13, 2013, from Lessons Worth Sharing | TED-Ed website: http://ed.ted.com/

TED-Eds commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TEDs mission of spreading great ideas. Within the growing TED-Ed video library, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform. This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED's, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student.

This web site is an excellent source of amazing ideas for educators. This is especially true for teachers who are looking to "flip" their classrooms.

Lifelong Kindergarten Group - MIT Media Lab. (1985, May 23). Scratch. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Scratch website: http://scratch.mit.edu/

With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations and share your creations with others in the online community. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively essential skills for life in the 21st century. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab.

The ScratchED community (http://scratched.media.mit.edu/stories) has numerous stories of how Scratch can be used throughout the curriculum. One story tells how a student was designing a game related to the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a result, the student researched the uniforms of the East German Army to make the game more authentic. This research then led to further study by the student about the weapons they carried and the treatment of people trying to escape East Germany. This is exemplary example of authentic learning.

PBS LearningMedia. (2011, May 10). Retrieved September 15, 2013, from PBS LearningMedia website: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/

PBS LearningMedia is the go-to destination for instant access to tens of thousands of classroom-ready, digital resources including videos, games, audio clips, photos, lesson plans, and more! You can search, save, and share with ease. Best of all, PBS LearningMedia is free for educators.

After Discovery Education streaming (http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/) became too expensive to subscribe to a few years ago, I started recommending this resource to teachers to meet their needs for multimedia resources in their classrooms. Being able to search by grade-level, subject area, standards, or collections, allows teachers to quickly and easily find resource materials for their classes.

Schrock, K. (2011, July 10). Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything! Retrieved September 13, 2013, from Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything website: http://www.schrockguide.net/

Kathy Schrock has written hundreds of articles dealing with technology and education and has authored several books about edtech topics. In addition, she has received numerous awards for her work, including a People's Choice Webby, the ISTE and MassCUE Making IT Happen Award, the NCTIES Service Learning Award, has served on the ISTE Board of Directors twice, and has worked with the US Department of Education on several educational technology initiatives.

Having worked in education and technology since the 1990's, Kathy Schrock has used her accumulated knowledge to develop this excellent resource for teachers. The web site covers topics ranging from intellectual property guidelines, to using iPads in the classroom, to applying Bloom's Taxonomy to technology, and many more. This is the first place an educator should go to look for educational technology resources.

Skype. (2003, April 23). Skype in the classroom - Skype in the classroom. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Skype in the Classroom website: https://education.skype.com/

Skype is a free and easy way for teachers to open up their classroom. Using Skype in the classroom, you can meet new people, talk to experts, share ideas and create amazing learning experiences with teachers from around the world.

Some examples I have done are having a penguin expert speak to a class from Antarctica, or working on a collaborative project with a class from South Africa examining water quality. Skype allows the teacher make global connections that create authentic learning experiences.

Smart Technologies. (1994, August 29). Lesson plans and resources for your SMART Board SMART Exchange. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from SMART Exchange website: http://exchange.smarttech.com/#tab=0

SMART Exchange is a web site where teachers using SMART Boards can go to find lessons, images, and interactive material for their classes. Teachers are able to search by subject, grade-level, or file type. All areas of the curriculum are covered on this web site.

This is a rich resource of tools for teachers. Teachers can also exchange resources through this web site.

Socrative | Student Response System | Audience Response Systems | Clicker | Clickers | Student Clickers | ARS | Mobile Clicker | Software Clicker. (2010, October 27). Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Socrative website: http://www.socrative.com/

Socrative is a student response system (SRS) that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games. Socrative can be used on smartphones, tablets, and computers. As long as a device is web-enable with a supported browser, it can be used in the classroom.

Socrative is a free tool that can be used in any classroom. A SRS engages every student. For example, a teacher could run a short assessment at the beginning of class to check for the level of understanding on the previous evening's homework assignment. This allows the teacher to better tailor instruction to meet the students' needs. This is a powerful tool that every teacher should be using.

Twitter. (2000, January 21). Retrieved September 13, 2013, from Twitter website: https://twitter.com/

Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets."

For creating your own personal learning network (PLN), I find Twitter to be one of the best tools. I can follow leaders in my field and develop professional relationships. It is 24/7, anytime professional development.

Viegas, F., & Wattenberg, M. (1999, December 31). Wind Map. Retrieved September 13, 2013, from Wind Map website: http://hint.fm/wind/

This site displays a visualization of the winds over the Continental United States.

This site can be used as an excellent resource for students studying meteorology. It allows students to relate the direction and speed of the winds to weather patterns and changes in air pressure.

Voicethread LLC. (2006, July 17). VoiceThread - Conversations in the cloud. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Voicethread website: https://ed.voicethread.com/

VoiceThread is a great web-based digital storytelling program that enables users to upload pictures or documents, record accompanying audio (or video) commentary, and invite others to record commentary as well. Its simple combination of visual and recorded media is perfect for creating multimedia presentations in a relatively short period of time using simple tools. With VoiceThread teachers and students can create virtual tours, report on books they have read, comment on historically significant photographs, debate a topic, and more. Its uniqueness lies in the ease in which audio commentary can added to images and documents and the ability to add multiple commentaries to a single artifact.

Teachers across every curriculum can use this tool to enhance collaboration and participation in their classes. For example, a math teacher could produce a Voicethread detailing how to do a particular type of problem. Students would be able to ask questions or comment on the Voicethread demonstrating their level of understanding of the concept being introduced. Another example would be to ask students in a French class to create a virtual tour of five Paris landmarks. The teacher could then check for pronunciation and grammar usage using a rubric provided to the students before the assignment. These are just some of the many ways Voicethread could be used in the curriculum.

Weather History for Weather Station KMSRICHL2 | Weather Underground. (1998, August 26). Retrieved September 13, 2013, from Weather Underground website: http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMSRICHL2

Weather Underground is committed to delivering the most reliable, accurate weather information possible. Our state-of-the-art technology monitors conditions and forecasts for locations across the world, so you'll always find the weather information that you need.

The Weather Underground is an excellent web site to use for gathering weather data. For students studying meteorology, it provides access to local weather stations where they can track changes in temperature, air pressure, wind speed, and rainfall. Teachers could have students collect data over a set period of time to examine weather trends.