Digital Doors was created as a place for me to blog and share resources that I think would be helpful for teachers integrating technology in meaningful ways in their classroom. My goal would be to write a blog post a week, but with my busy schedule, that doesn't happen. I write when I can and rely on nifty tools to help me share what I am finding when I don't have time to write.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

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Digital Literacy News 10-22-10

Mount Vernon Digital Literacy News


October 22, 2010
Digital Literacy Workshop


Monday, October 25:  More With Discovery Streaming: There is a lot of added interest in using DE Streaming this year with our new equipment in place.  Come and find out about the resources available, such as student accounts, online quiz and assignment builder and editable clips.

Upcoming Digital Literacy Workshop: Monday, Nov 1. Creating Presentations with Multimedia Tools:  We will look at several tools that both you and your students can use to put wow into your presentations. Using these tools helps students build media literacy skills which will help them to navigate the digital world and become better communicators.


See a schedule for the year.

Open Lab: 2:30 - 5:00

Resource Instruction: 3:15 - 4:00               
Monday Afternoons, District Office Tech Lab.

Clock  Hours are available.

Links to Explore


Thinkquest.org  A great site for student collaboration projects.  Lots of ways for kids to safely connect and learn with other students.

ePals:  Another great site for student collaboration.

Wonderopolis:  New in the Thinkfinity suite.  A site with a new wonder every day.

Infographic About Technology in the Classroom
District Subscriptions: A Treasure Trove of Resources


There were a lot of “Wow!  I didn’t know we had access to this!”  exclamations at the last Digital Literacy Workshop where I shared some of the resources our district has through the ESD and other sources.  I have a rule about not sharing anything with our district teachers that is not free and accessible on our district computers.  These services are not free, but are provided through subscriptions we currently have.  Most of us only scratch the surface at what we can do with these products.  Here are a few of the products available.

Discovery Education Streaming:  Most are aware of this product and more and more are using it as we get set up with projectors in all classrooms.  But many don’t know that there is a lot offered beyond streaming video on this sight.  There are quiz, assignment and writing prompt builders, an interactive atlas and calendar, encyclopedia articles, images, songs, sound effects and much more.  This coming Monday, I will be spending the whole Digital Literacy Workshop sharing about some of the ways you can use DE Streaming in your classroom.

TeachingBooks.Net:  This is a neat service that gathers from many resources to provide you with supplemental tools to use with books you are reading in class.  Depending on the book, you may find, author interviews and websites, audio books, websites related to the book or author, discussion questions, activities and more.  

ProQuest, ELibrary and Elementary ELibrary: These data bases are a great way for students to search for and organize information from reliable and age/ reading level appropriate sources.  You can find images, magazine articles, websites, videos and more.  There are tools to help students walk through the research process and even tools to create a bibliography from their chosen resources.

Culture Grams:  Many of us have used CultureGrams in the past in print form.  Now they are available online with a Kid’s Edition, World Edition, State and Province Edition.  Resources include facts, graphs, photos, maps, videos and sound files.

WorldConflictsToday!:  This is associated with Culture Grams and is a collection of power points and teaching materials for teaching about current world conflicts.  

AtomicLearning:  AtomicLearning is a series of tutorials, lessons, and workshops great for just in time learning on a myriad of   technology applications.  This tool is great for finding answers to questions about how to use a certain tool, but can also be set up to take you through a new tool and learn the tool from beginning to end. Staff, Students and parents can access this very handy tool.

Information about log ins and passwords for all of these tools can be found on our district Intranet site.


Video of the Week


This weekend is the Discovery Education Network Fall Virtual Conference.  In the past, I have held a face to face conference in conjunction with the Virtual conference.  We have been able to participate in the webinars with educators from all over the world plus connect locally with teachers in our area.  Unfortunately, I will be out of town this weekend and will not be able to host a face to face conference, but you can join in virtually from home by registering here.  Since the conference is happening on the East Coast, it starts really early, but you can jump in any time and the presentations you miss will be archived.  For my video of the week, I thought I’d share a video from two of the presenters with you about Web 2.0 tools.




Tech Triumphs


Our Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century Grant teachers at Little Mountain are using their new SmartBoards to engage students in hands on learning in math. Teachers Ashley Young, Susan Husband and Jodi Boon are using a variety of virtual manipulatives with their students including interactive daily calendar activities.  While most of us do not have interactive whiteboards, many of these tools and activities can also be used with a mouse, computer and projector.  You can download activities here, and actually open them up without having to install the program here.

Digital Citizenship

Nine themes of Digital Citizenship.
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