As I prepare myself for March is Reading Month, I found this gem of a site tucked away in one of my numerous lists of bookmarks that I thought might come in handy. That and it’s been quite some time since I just posted a fun site for playing. Spell with Flickr is one of those fun sites. A with a little work, it could be quite educational as well. The site is pretty simple. Just one page with a text field to...

Each Friday I highlight a post from the forum that provides either a useful resource, or a thoughtful discussion (I feel like an NPR announcer introducing a special series when I type that). Today’s discussion was generated by one of our newest members on the forum, AndyAK, an educator from the great white north of Anchorage, Alaska. Andy starts the conversation by explaining how he manages over 800 student e-mails accounts, and asks...

Part of any life-cycle of a typical classroom computer includes several bangs, forced restarts, pencil marks, dents, and eventually death. Usually I’ll spend a week each year talking about pollution and how much waste is created by tossing out old computers, keyboards, and mice that no longer function. This year I’m excited as I found a heap of old keyboard keys in the back of one of my cupboards (leftover from the previous...

Since there were a couple of requests that I post the progress of the Google Earth project I’m doing with the fifth graders, I was happy to get such a decent reaction from my fifth graders today so that I could write about a small triumph. I haven’t used Google Earth for much more than just getting a better idea of where places are on the globe with students, so I wanted to push myself and try something more abitious. So far...

Living near a large body of water, like Lake Michigan, can give you a huge appreciation for lake-effect snow. Between Saturday evening and Sunday morning we had nearly 2 feet of snow in much of Berrien County, Michigan, but if you drive just 20 miles away from the lake, most places only received 3 or 4 inches of the white stuff. Needless to say, my wife and I spent a good portion of our day (about 4 hours) shovelling out a path down our...

This week’s Forum Friday post is an oldie, but a goodie. Todd (otherwise known as tsguitar) posted this quite useful database of information on the 50 states. I used to use this site with 2nd graders during their state reports, and it’s come in quite handy as a quick guide to elementary age students, but has many robust features that makes it useful for secondary students as well. tsguitar: http://www.50states.com/ I stumbled...