Marilyn Weston's Technology Tips for Classroom Teachers

(click the pic)

I'm working on a PowerPoint version of Maria Anderson's Trinomial Traverse game. She and a partner have created this to get students to both practice multiplication of simple trinomials and also do some higher order game strategy thinking. It's a nice combination that can easily be adapted to other math skills when you want to avoid 'drill and kill'. I'm also working on a Notebook version for the SMARTBoard which uses spinners instead of dice because it's easy to change the information in the slices of the spinner.

While searching for interactive powerpoint dice, I came across Marilyn Weston's "Technology Tips for Classroom Teachers." She's been building it since at least 2003 (when the visitor counter was installed) and seems to be keeping it up to date. Although the website has a decidedly homespun look, this is a highly professional effort. On the "Stuff Ya Gotta Try" page alone there are hundreds of entries in a variety of content areas -- Language Arts, Math, Science and so forth -- and she's added material on topics such as Internet Safety, Keyboarding, and even "Anti-Frustration with Technology."

No tools compendium can ever be complete, and it's likely that when you scan her lists, one or two of your favourites may be missing, but this is a great place to look when you want to come up with a new tool for the Differentiation course or even to use with your kids.

My favourites:

• PicassoHead --if you have a few minutes to waste in creative fun. The gallery is fabulous.
• TerraClues for Schools -- "the ultimate Google Maps scavenger hunt game" -- you can use the hunts on the website or create your own or have the kids do their own for review
• Mailinator -- create an alternate email address to avoid using your own when you register at websites. This may be a workaround for younger students. You could create a class set and then let the students use them to login.
  

Enjoy!
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P.S. -- if you have a link to a PPT with dice or spinners that I can adapt for this math game, please post the link as a response here on in Facebook. THX!!!!!!!!!!