Free online resources

According to "Curious George" Margolin, “an ‘inventor’ is almost any child under the age of about 9. He…lives partly in the ‘real’ world and ‘much’ in a world of possibilities and make-believe.” This is great news if you are teaching kids 9 and under, but how do we keep this curiosity alive in our older students? The following sites and resources can help maintain this intrinsic sense of curiosity that blossoms during the younger years. Please browse through these resources and search for more that will suit your needs on The Gateway. Good luck, and may you and your students be inspired and innovative this year!

When I was in second grade, our teacher assigned us a project on inventors. It was to be our first research project, where we had to use the school and public libraries to collect information about our chosen inventors.

“I already have my book,” I told Mrs. Flanagan on the day the project was assigned.

Mrs. Flanagan was duly impressed by my efficiency, until she found out that my book was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and that my chosen inventor was Willy Wonka.

“He’s not a real person, dear,” she said. “Your report has to be on an actual inventor.”

You know where they are going and where they have been any time, day or night. You know what they thought was funny and what really made them mad this week. You know which new band they like and you have even seen a picture of some of their favorite meals this week. Hardly a day passes when you don’t get to see a picture of the hilarious things their pets and kids have gotten into. It’s hard to believe you can know someone so well when you haven’t even seen this “friend” since college! Social networks like Facebook and Twitter make it easy to connect to people and make the world seem like a really small place. This new way of connecting comes with it’s own set of benefits and problems.

Drug and alcohol use among teens is a huge issue surrounding junior high and high school students, parents, and teachers. The statistics in Joann’s post confirm the need for an ongoing classroom conversation about the use and abuse of drugs and alcohol. Media portrays the glamour of using these substances, but in many schools there aren’t classroom activities or discussions on the topic. Joann highlighted three quality free resources on The Gateway that can help bring this important topic into your classroom. Whether you need a single activity or an entire unit, you will be able to find a good starting point in her column.

According to a recent CDC survey, one in five U.S. high school students say that they have taken prescription drugs without a doctor’s prescription. The survey also found that 72% of high schoolers had used alcohol in the past year, while 37% had used marijuana. Clearly, drugs and alcohol continue to be attractive to teens, despite various drug education programs and public service announcements to alert them to the dangers of such behavior.

So what is a podcast?

Podcast is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “a program (as of music or talk) made available in digital format for automatic download over the internet.” According to Wikipedia, podcast is a blend of 2 words: “pod” (meaning playable on demand), and “cast” from broadcast. You can access these “playable on demand broadcasts” in the classroom for playback on computers or personal media players. You can download them individually or subscribe to an RSS feed, which automatically downloads podcasts in a series as they are released. Instead of tuning into a television, radio, or internet radio broadcast at a certain time of day, you can subscribe to a podcast and enjoy it at your convenience.

Summer may be in full swing, but many educators are already planning for the start of classes in the fall. In addition to reviewing classroom layouts and revamping lessons, some teachers use the “downtime” of summer to investigate new technologies and more effective ways of delivering information to their students.

Much of the chatter among educators on Facebook and Twitter surrounds the idea of creating an authentic education for students in a world where technology is constantly changing. We discuss the importance of digital literacy and 21st century skills and we trade ideas about how to develop these skills while still covering the basic standards that are required each school year. Educators have the important job of creating students who know and understand the required content and who will succeed in society when they leave the classroom. It’s a tall order, but luckily we can connect online to a huge group of educators who share knowledge, tools, and tales of their successes and failures to guide us through the process.

Once upon a time, there was a fabulous storyteller – which, alas, is not me. My grandmother, however, was a superb storyteller; her ability to keep scores of cousins engrossed in her tales was legendary. Her gift of timing, as well as her ability to use different accents and intonations kept us all enthralled. The oral tradition of storytelling is ancient; Homer’s numerous repetitions of the “wine-dark sea” in The Iliad and The Odyssey, for example, illustrate how the stories were memorized and passed down over the years until they were finally transcribed into print. Storytelling in the oral tradition is both a craft and an art, and something that deserves a resurgence in popularity.