Spelling City

Spelling City is another site that is so very useful is so many ways, it's hard to believe it's free. Once again, it's American... (pause review)

If you're wondering what it is I have against American educational web sites, just allow me to explain. I'm an Australian teacher, teaching Australian kids. Listening to American accents is not very helpful when it comes to teaching phonics, it's detrimental in fact. Aussie kids are bombarded with American TV, films and music. It's hard raising a generation of Aussie kids when so many of them are obsessed with American icons. Just out of interest, ask your students what the emergency telephone number is in Australia and see just how of them think it's 911. It would be remiss of me not to include American web sites on this blog, as the Americans often have the best resources out there. The British also have some outstanding web sites and I'll be treating them with the same approach. So allow for my reviews to state the origin of the site and whether or not this becomes a hindrance to your objectives as a teacher and please, pretty please, take no offense.

...which can stand in the way at times.

The emphasis in Spelling City is YOUR word list. The teacher or student can enter in a set list of spelling words and the site will then give you three options:

Option 1) Test Me. This takes you to another screen where you are read your words back (in a sentence if you choose) and you need to type them correctly. Amazing. Of all the crazy words I put into this section, it recognised all of them. It had prepared sentences for all of them and read the sentences out in a pleasant, if not American accent. Having said that, I wouldn't use it in class, simply for that reason.

Option 2) Teach Me. Much the same as Option 1, but Spelling City goes through the word with you, letter by letter. Avoid it if you don't like the accent.

Option 3) Play a Game. Using your words, play one of ten different interactive games, from word finds, crosswords, to hangmouse and unscramble. The games are excellent. Some of them can go full screen and look stunning - these are the ones I'd be using on my IWB. Others are perfect for the students to use at home or for early finishers when they need to practice their weekly spelling.

I love this site, it's a definite keeper. Add it to your Bookmarks now. You'll use part of it, reject part of it, but there's something there for every teacher. In regards to it being a useful IWB resource - it has it's moments. Well worth checking out.

WWF Interactive Map

The World Wildlife Federation do a lot of great work around the world. This here is an interactive map showing the places they are currently working. It looks great up on the IWB and for our current environment topic, it came in very handy when discussing the Amazon.

MBGNet

MGBNet - Missouri Botanical Garden in case you were wondering. What we have here is a very good, fairly detailed look at Earth's biomes. As has been the trend in my class this term, everything Earth and nature related is on the agenda. This is one of the best sites I have come across that looks at the six biomes.

Each biome is covered in detail, with an explanation of where they can be found, the animals that live there, weather patterns etc. This is a great place to begin when discussing the topic.

As well as the biomes, the site also explore the freshwater and marine water ecosystems in detail.

As far as IWBs are concerned, it's not a perfect site. There is nothing special, nor interactive about it. But what we do have is a very good, informative web site. Excellent for research and teacher notes. Yes the site is American, distinguishable by it's name, but it essentially could have originated anywhere, the information is relevant and universal.

Writing Fun by Jenny Eather

Writing Fun by Jenny Eather is a brilliant creation, hence the reason it's the first site to appear on this blog. Basically, she has created a site to help teachers teach a variety of writing genres. 

The genres she looks at are: Information Report, Poetry, Narrative, Recount, Response, Description, Procedure, Explanation, Persuasion and Discussion. The target age range for most genres looks to be roughly year 2 - year 9. There are a set of sample pieces within each genre to demonstrate to your students what a suitable piece would look like - and what an advanced piece would look like. I also found it useful showing my grade six students what they would have written last year as grade fives, this helped motivate them to progress their writing a level.

Each of the examples has a writing organiser which can be switched off/on as desired. It allows you to point out the sections of the piece and what should be contained in each section. There is the option to write a draft online yourself. There is also the opportunity to print out templates of the writing organisers.

An unbelievable resource for absolutely no cost. Gotta love that!

First Post...

So here we go...

The plan for this blog is to create the biggest, baddest collection of resources for Interactive Whiteboards in education. I'm an Australian based teacher, so I'll be approaching the blog with that perspective, but that won't mean I exclude quality resources from overseas web sites. I'm looking for the best stuff out there. I'll review it and keep the collection of reviews here for all teachers to access.

IWBs are now commonplace in most schools and, being a new "industry", teachers, software developers and the like are just starting to discover what IWBs about and what they can do with them. This blog will attempt to gather as much information as possible (at least for one person to manage) in order to create a one-stop place for all teachers.

I hope you enjoy reading the posts, please feel free to leave feedback. Let's see how long I can last...