Posts tagged ‘lesson pathways’

What does it mean, exactly, to use technology in teaching? The definition of what technology is changes almost daily. So what does it mean when you use technology in your classroom? Is it just the use of computers? The Internet? GPS? There’s always new software, a new gadget, or a new site to try.

It’s important to be flexible and engage your students. There are just as many ways to present technology to your students as there are ways to teach them to read. The way you use technology is going to vary with each class and each student’s interest and ability level.

As education evolves, technology increasingly becomes a channel for innovative teaching and learning practices.

In addition, technology can be used to motivate students. Each class has a wide set of children who vary in their learning style and have different interests. It is the teachers ability to figure out individual learning styles and interests of students; thus making learning more fun and meaningful at the same time. Being a teacher, I think its my responsibility to come up with creative ideas to make curriculum more interesting. It has been a proven fact that visual factor plays a very important role in learning and memorizing details. So, I have been encouraging my students to use the following digital tools :

1. A list of all the good Web resources for Education: NoodleTools

2. Online Library: Lii

3. Collaborative learning platform: FunnelBrain.
This platform is entirely user-driven. Anyone can contribute by submitting or editing or reviewing the electronic flashcards, as well as adding rich content such as photos, videos, audio voice recordings and math equations. In addition, students work in teams to create review materials, paired with video explanations, for their class and leverage a learning management application known as the “Funnel” that tracks and monitors learning progress with a spaced repetition algorithm.

source: http://teachers20.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=1uu7ck4oyjsbo

Lesson Pathways is another site I would recommend that uses technology to meet the needs of a variety of learning styles and student interests. The units there provide a multitude of resources, all available online. I can print off worksheets, assign educational games, or have my students take online quizzes. The creators of that site have taken great care to be sure their lessons will cover a range of student abilities.

Technology has no doubt changed the way we run our classrooms. It’s changed the way we operate in our daily lives. If we approach these changes in our classrooms and strive to adapt our technology use to our classrooms, we will undoubtedly have many more successful and engaged students.

This post was written by Crystal P., classroom educator and LessonPathways.com contributor. You can read more about her in the “Our People” section.

If you asked your students what these things are, I’m betting they’d either stare at you blankly or ask if it’s the name of an “oldies band.” We are not just moving in a new direction for obtaining information. The movers have already arrived and your forwarding address is at the post office (you know, that place where you get that paper stuff called mail).

To say that the way we (and our students) obtain information has changed drastically in the last 20 years would be a dramatic understatement. Where we used to search for information, we now have to kind of “weed out” information because there is just so much available to us, literally at our fingertips.

Do you know what we did if there was a question we couldn’t answer and we couldn’t find the answer in our encyclopedias? We called the “reference desk” at the library. The nice lady there would try to answer any question you had, even if it took her a while to look something up.

So if you were researching something, you’d have to pull out a rack in the card catalog according to the alphabetized subject and flip through the cards. If you got lucky, the title of a book or a brief description would point you in the right direction. Then you had to actually find the book, skim through it, and hope that you’d find some information.

Quote: http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2007/05/information.html

The Internet is changing the way our students learn, and it’s changing the way we teach. If we don’t adapt our teaching to meet these changes, we’re going to lose our students. Those of us who are already teaching are going to have to keep up. Education students in universities are learning to teach this way. It’s not new to them. It’s already second nature. Along those lines, the kids we teach are already a step or two ahead of us when it comes to technology anyway. Kids can now study their spelling words online using sites like SpellingCity.com. Teachers use the Internet to generate their own quizzes, worksheets, and web quests.

I love that the information is so “easy” to find these days. I put easy in quotation marks because as I mentioned earlier, there is just so much out there that sometimes it becomes overwhelming. That’s one of the things I love about Lesson Pathways. When I want to find an activity or an online game or even just some reference material for a subject, it’s already there. It’s been screened for content and appropriateness. All I have to do is enter a search term into the search box and everything I need has already been found for me. I don’t want to be left behind when it comes to technology, and a site like Lesson Pathways makes it easy for me to look like I know what I’m doing–even when I don’t (which never happens…really, honest).

I’m glad information has become so easy to obtain. It gives me more time to focus on my students’ needs, and it gives my students more time to focus on synthesizing the information they have in front of them instead of spending all that time searching for a needle in a haystack.

Editors, synthesizers, and creators. That’s the new generation. They’ll no longer have hunt and gather for precious bits of information. Instead, they’ll be able to build something new and–we can hope–better.

Quote: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2140631,00.asp

This post was written by Crystal P., classroom educator and Lesson Pathways contributor.

In case you missed any of the other giveaways, there are THREE more chanced to win a FREE YEAR of Lesson Pathways!

SecularHomeschool.com is hosting a giveaway for three free subscriptions to LessonPathways.com. You can find all the details and enter HERE! Good Luck!

Teachers are always looking for new ways to engage their students. I’ve found one of the easiest ways to do that is by using technology. Kids LOVE technology. Tell them it’s time for math and they groan. Tell them we’re going to the computer lab to work tessellations on the computer, and suddenly I’m a hero! Lesson Pathways is a wonderful tool that assists busy teachers in offering Internet-based activities to their students. The best part? All the work is already done for them. What teacher wouldn’t love that?

I have personally spent hours sitting at the computer looking for a cool webquest or an online game. Sometimes I’ve looked for my whole class; sometimes I’ve looked for reinforcement or enrichment for a single student. I wish I had been able to access a service like Lesson Pathways all along. It would have saved me valuable time–you know, to fill out paperwork, call parents, attend a staffing…

Among the 36 weeks of curriculum per core subject, per grade (currently through grade 5), you’ll find a wealth of lessons, mini-lessons, hands-on activities, online games, videos, e-books…the list goes on. It’s so easy to use too! The Planner feature is such a useful tool. You can add your entire class in just a few minutes. Once that is set up, you can select the Pathways you want to assign. The part I really like is having the option to assign Pathways to individual students or to the entire class. Again, anything that saves some time is a good thing in my book.

I really like that I can use this anywhere. I can browse Lesson Pathways from home, school, the coffee shop… I don’t have to lug around those big, heavy teacher-edition textbooks. I don’t even need to have a pen with me, for that matter. That’s generally a good thing. I never have a pen when I need it. (I think I was absent the day they taught organization at my university.) I just click on the Pathway I want to use and assign it to either the whole class or just the students I want to use it. I can also print out a worksheet from home and take it to school for copying the next day. I don’t know about you, but I do my best thinking with my bunny slippers on–and well, administration tends to frown on me wearing them to school.

Differentiated instruction is one of my favorite education buzzwords, and Lesson Pathways has a handle on it. The creators of Lesson Pathways are aware of the distinct needs of individual learners and of teacher’s requirements to differentiate instruction for their students. For this reason, the lessons offered address a wide variety of learning styles and methods. The search feature on the site will allow you to find just what you need. For example, type “Mesopotamia” into the search box and 49 pre-screened and carefully selected choices will pop up. You can then filter your search further if you’re looking for, say, a video. All of the Pathways are tagged to help you find resources for special needs or instructional methods.

We all know how overpaid teachers are, right? We just love to spend our own money in the classroom and buy supplies for which we’ll never even dream of being reimbursed. Hmmm…maybe not. The good news is Lesson Pathways isn’t going to break your classroom stipend (if you’re lucky enough to get one). Compared with a tutoring service, boxed curriculum, and other learning sites, you’ll find this service is incredibly cost-efficient.

If you’re still not sure, sign up for a FREE trial with Lesson Pathways. For more information, contact one of the team members at ContactUs@LessonPathways.com.

Be sure to stop by the The Work of Childhood between now and November 4th to find out how to win a FREE one year subscription to LessonPathways.com!!!

While you’re there, check out the archives to read about their family and adventures in homeschooling!

We have homeschooled for 10 years, but we are not unique. We are no different from any other family. We love each other and learn together every day.

What makes us a little different is the fact we all have special needs. That’s right–all of us. Each of us brings a different quality to our home. My eldest is high school age and my youngest is elementary school age. I want to share with you a few things about my youngest since he is still being homeschooled. Travis is 10 years old and has invisible special needs, which means he appears to be an average child because his special needs aren’t clearly visible. He has Tourette Syndrome, Central Auditory Processing Disorder, and Sensory Processing Disorder. He may be on the Autism Spectrum (presently being assessed) as well.

He enjoys learning things through visual aids, in 15-minute increments, through one-on-one instruction, and with concise printables. He does not do well with workbooks because he likes to complete what he started, and a whole workbook is too much. His grade levels span from grade 1 to 5, depending on the topic and subject. He is a true perfectionist and a lover of science. He is a puzzle!

I searched high and low for a curriculum that would fit his needs. I tried all types of styles of homeschooling, from relaxed learning, unschooling and child-led learning to classical education, unit studies and full box curriculum. Nothing fit his way of learning. When everything I tried with my eldest failed with my youngest, I was desperate. I had to come up with something! I decided the only choice was to make our own curriculum. We decided to “Tailorschool,” and I built his curriculum to fit his individual strengths and needs. This is how we used to homeschool: http://specialneedsinhomeschooling.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-we-do-this-homeschooling-thing.html. The Internet provided more than enough information.

I searched high and low for a curriculum that would fit his needs. I tried all types of styles of homeschooling, from relaxed learning, unschooling and child-led learning to classical education, unit studies and full box curriculum. Nothing fit his way of learning. When everything I tried with my eldest failed with my youngest, I was desperate. I had to come up with something!

If Travis was doing grade 1 English and grade 5 math, I could find resources that catered to his strengths, allowing him to learn at his level. It was work, and I do mean WORK! I spent hours scouring the Internet to find the safest links with the best opportunities for him to learn. I searched for links to printables so he could work in small increments, links to videos and audio resources to feed his learning style, links to explanations of the lesson so I could learn it in order to teach him, and links to fun activities he found engaging and I found educational. Then he would progress, and I would have to do it all over again! I spent close to 20 hours a week making his lessons and organizing everything.

Then, Lesson Pathways was presented to me, and the ideology behind it was to build entire grade levels and whole lessons based on exactly what I was doing! I was intrigued, but at the same time, I thought it was impossible. There was no way anyone could build an entire website, with that many resources on all the topics needed. A year later, it was built and is still growing!

I am not spending time building his curriculum or tons of money buying resources I may enjoying every minute of it! I am spending time learning with him. never use, and he is Travis absolutely LOVES LessonPathways.com, and so do I.

Lesson Pathways has done it! It has exceeded my expectations and provided the best resources found on the Web, with a multisensory approach to learning. For the first time in my 10 years of homeschooling, I have 20 hours a week to spend WITH my children, instead of planning for them!

Travis is using LessonPathways.com, and it’s set up to provide visual and hands-on learning components that are perfectly matched with his learning style, meeting his special needs in a way that can guarantee his success. I can mix and match Pathways of different grade levels to match his needs. All I do is add the units to his personalized planner and check off each unit when he has completed it! I am not spending time building his curriculum or tons of money buying resources I may never use, and he is enjoying every minute of it! I am spending time learning with him. Travis absolutely LOVES LessonPathways.com, and so do I.

*While “Travis” is a very real person, his name has been changed for this story.*

This post was written by Jennifer B., a homeschool mom and LessonPathways.com team member.  To learn more about Jennifer and the other great blog writers, visit the “Our People” tab.

Julie of the Clark Chronicles Blog recently announced the winner of the one year FREE subscription to LessonPathways.com. Is it you? Head over to Julie’s blog to find out!

Kids Dinos is part of the Kids Know It network, a free educational resource for kids. On this site, your child can learn all about the age of dinosaurs in a fun, interactive environment. Kids Dinos allows your child to experience science, history and geography in a fun way, using hands-on activities and games, rather than relying solely on books, which makes learning more interesting.

Description of Product: “65 million years ago monstrous reptiles roamed freely across the Earth, only to mysteriously disappear. Read articles about dinosaurs, search the dino database, vote for your favorite types of dinosaurs, and play dinosaur games, on KidsDinos.com, our dinosaur website.”

Kids Dinos is part of the Kids Know It network, a free educational resource for kids. On this site, your child can learn all about the age of dinosaurs in a fun, interactive environment.

Homeschool Uses: This would be a great supplemental tool for teaching history/geography topics relating to the dinosaur age, from the individual time periods and where they lived to the different types of dinosaurs and what they ate. The flashcards, located in the Dinorize It section, make excellent study material as well. Here, your child can create a list of dinosaurs that he or she wants or needs to study.

Kids Dinos allows your child to experience history and geography in a fun way, using hands-on activities and games, rather than relying solely on books, which makes learning more interesting. Science lessons could also find their way here by studying meteors or using scientific inquiry skills to hypothesize what your child thinks may have happened to the dinosaurs.

Content and Safety: All the information on the Kids Dinos site has been thoroughly researched for both accuracy and appropriateness. I found nothing that would be deemed unsafe or inappropriate for children. In addition, there is nothing to sign up for and no registration required for using the site. No one asks for or uses any private information.

Using the Product: While exploring the Kids Dinos site, I found a neat interactive dinosaur map (located in the purple bar of the homepage) where you can click on areas of the map to learn more about the dinosaurs that were found in different places around the world. You can also click on the View Dinosaur Types to learn more about a specific type of dinosaur.

The Dinosaur Timeline allows you to choose the time period you would like to learn more about. In addition to these interesting tools, users can visit the Dino Data section to find information on all sorts of dinosaurs and interesting facts about them, including what a specific dinosaur may have eaten and how big it might have been. The site also includes a featured dinosaur on each page, and you can also vote for your favorite dinosaur on the Vote for Dinosaurs page. Finally, your child can play Dino Games or take part in other fun activities like classifying the dinosaurs, matching games, dinosaur hangman and more!

Tutorial or Promotional Video of the Product: While researching and exploring the Kids Dinos site, I did not come across any tutorials on using it. However, the site is fairly straight forward and does not take a genius to get around on it. All the activities, games, and other information are easy to comprehend.

Summary: I found the site easy to maneuver around and easy to understand, with kid-friendly information for younger viewers. While it’s aimed toward the elementary school-aged learner (K-5), those in grades 6-8 may also find the site both useful and interesting. Overall, it would definitely be worth a look. Let us know what you think.

This post was written by Nikki P., a Lesson Pathways contributor. This post was originally posted on the ChoosyHomeschooler blog.

I have recently fallen in love with some new-to-me websites. Before I took up this homeschooling gig in full force, I used to love browsing sites about digital scrap booking, perusing all the wonderful layouts and new scrapbook kits, and reading blogs with anecdotal stories about moms and their toddlers. I have also been known to spend hours upon hours surfing blogs about large families. (I’d love to have a gazillion children one day but for now I happily manage my three while living vicariously through others). My latest on-line obsession, however, is MATH. I’m so thrilled to have found so many resources for teaching math to children. I am also encouraged to learn that there are resources available for all age groups so as my children grow, I know that I will be able to find methods to help them at any age.

Currently, I have a kindergartner, a 3 year old and an 18 month old. Although this is my first “official” year of homeschooling, I have been teaching my children since they arrived. (Haven’t you? I mean, how did they learn to walk? Talk? Dress themselves? Say their ABC’s? Say grace before their meals? Pour themselves a glass of juice and clear the dinner dishes? Oh yeah – YOU taught them those things!) I will say, I do feel very confident about our choice to homeschool but like many moms who have started down this path of educating their own, I also have moments of breath-taking fear seize upon me. “What if I MISS something? What if I neglect to teach them something they need? What if I don’t teach them “correctly” and I mess their little brains up?” In the moments when I do start to let those doubts creep in, the things that I worry about are the things that I feel I am not strong in, and Math is at the top of that list.

Now, and I hope I’m not sounding too cocky here, I must say that I do believe that I possess the skills necessary to impart basic Math facts to my kindergartner. Ask me in a few years how I feel about it and I may be singing a different tune, but for now I’m fairly certain that we can grasp the basics of kindergarten math without having to outsource the teaching. I do, however, do lots of thinking (and fretting) over HOW to transmit those facts in an effective way. I must pause here to say that one of the beauties of homeschooling is that as your child’s personal learning coach and private tutor, you can more effectively figure out what methods best speak to them and tailor their education program to fit those needs. Math resources are all over the internet and that has done much to help me overcome my fears of not being able to “get it right.”

In the event that you share in some of my irrational fear, I’d love to share a list of on-line math resources that have been helpful to me. Some are sites that give instruction as to how to teach math, some are sites that have on-line Math games that your child can play, and some are links to sites that allow you to make your own math worksheets. I’ll start out with the instructional sites:

• LET’S PLAY MATH – This site has resources for all ages. It is written by a homeschooling mom who has taught or tutored mathematics at every level from pre-K to undergraduate physics. She encourages teaching Math in a variety of ways and making it FUN. Thanks to her “Game that is worth 1,000 worksheets” post, we’re playing lots of WAR around here. (Even my 3 year old is learning from it. When we play the card game, he is the “judge” and decides who wins or loses each round by telling whose card was worth more.) I also love her “20 Things to do with a 100 chart” post and as a result, we have incorporated the number grid in lots of creative ways. There are also links on Let’s Play Math for middle and high school students. Finally, she has a humongous list of links for other on-line resources.

• MATHWIRE – Wow. You could spend a very long time here. (Be sure you don’t have anything boiling on the stove while you’re surfing this site. Not that I would know anything about that.) They have a huge A-Z list of topics, tons of ideas for Math Games and so much more.

• YOU TUBE – That’s right, You Tube. I have found great instructional videos about how to use 10 frames, making your own notebook worksheets, and there are even videos that boast that they can teach you calculus in 20 minutes! We also like to use You Tube for short clips for the kids to watch about telling time, trapezoids, and (being Native Nashvillians) we love Sesame Street’s Number Ten from Tennessee! My daughter’s favorite Math Video on You Tube is the Polygon Song. I dare you to listen to it and not sing it for the rest of the day!

• HOMESCHOOL MATH – This blog hosts a “Math Teachers At Play” Carnival that has some great ideas for teaching Math. Different contributors can submit their math teaching methods and ideas and they are compiled into great posts that lead you to marvelous posts like this one on Using Math Journals.

Next, here are some links to MATH WORKSHEET WEBSITES that have pre-made worksheets to drill certain skills. Many sites also have worksheet generators so that you can make your own worksheets for whatever your child is into or struggling with at the moment.

The Math Worksheet Site
Worksheets at DonnaYoung.com
LizardPoint
MathCafe
LessonCorner

Finally, there are tons of fabulous sites with games that your children can play on-line while actually learning something other than how to dress up Polly Pocket or steer a hot wheels car to the finish line. Here are our Top 10 Favorites:

10 Frame Game
Interactive 100 Chart
Subtraction Harvest
Clock Game
Concentration
Dot To Dot Constellations
Crazy Pattern Machine
Counting Coins
Number Line and last but not least…
TETRIS! (OK, I admit it, I play this one

So there you have it. You’ve no excuse to be fearful now! With all of these on-line Math Resources, you will be equipped and ready to teach those pesky fractions and integers to your children with ease… and you can make it fun!

This post was written by Julie C., homeschool mom, Lesson Pathways contributor and author of the Clark Chronicles Blog.

Don’t forget, today is the last day to take advantage of our current phenomenal sale price.  You can save over 50% off the regular subscription price if you act fast.  This offer expires at 11:59 pm EDT TONIGHT!

Today is also the last day to enter the LessonPathways.com giveaway at the Clark Chronicles blog.  She’ll be picking one lucky winner to receive a FREE one year subscription to LessonPathways soon!

If you are wondering what LessonPathways.com is all about, watch this great video tour and head over to the site to sign up for a FREE 30 day trial (NO credit card required!).