Tech Update

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Presents Under the Tree

Connecting to iTunes is a great resource that organizes apps into for classroom use by content areas.
LiveBinder - iPods and iPads in Education. This is a great resource with with information grouped by content area and grade bands.
Web 2.0 Tools for Math Educators
Class Tools - Create free educational games, quizzes, activities and diagrams in seconds!
Photo Timelines from Life Magazine allows you to search for any photos in the Life archives and create an online timeline/slideshow that you can share with a unique url .
Google Search Stories - create video through a Google search. This is a really cool tool.
Experience a computational experiment! This is a computer simulation of a real experiment or a thought experiment Go to Molecular Workbench and The Concord Consortium.
Virtual Eternity - create an interactive avatar (intellitar) of yourself. Fun site!
Fantastic Tools for Schools
Checking in a Digital World - Formative Assessment Resources by Kyle Schutt of Discovery Education at the TETC 2011 .

Microsoft Spotlight for December

Montage is a flexible web-based service that makes it fun and easy to create and share a visual album of the web on the topics you care about.
ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. It unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image.
Ribbon Hero - Learn to use the ribbon in Office 2007 and 2010 through a game format.
Do not forget that you need to join the Partners in Learning Network. All of these are free. To join the Partners in Learning Network you will need a Windows Live Account. It will walk you through the process.

Planet Picks

December is a time of celebration and tradition. This is a great opportunity to introduce students to different cultural celebrations around the world at multicultural celebrations? A world of activities focused on traditions can be found at Christmas Around the World. Learn about Kwanzaa, the world's fastest growing holiday, at Habari Gani? -- What's the News? Hanukkah: The Festival of Lights explores the Hanukkah story. A variety of teaching ideas can be found at Holidays Around the World: A Festival of Lessons. An online presentation, Christmas Around the World explores the celebration of this special holiday through many countries or tale a Christmas Virtual Field Trip. Kiddy House offers songs, customs, themes and more. Just for fun take a look at Twas a Computer Christmas

Testing Information

December is also a time for End of Course Tests for schools on Block Schedule as well as time for semester exams.

NAEP Questions Tool is a great place to find examples of constructive response questions. There are sample questions, correct responses, student work samples, scoring guides, and data showing national performance of student in the U.S. At this site, select the content area, next select the grade, question type and difficulty. Select the "My Workspace" tab and highlight the question. Click on the "View Question Detail" icon beneath the question list and the correct answer, work samples and performance data will be revealed.!

Take time to review and prepare for exams.

Item Sampler and Practice Tests for Seconday Assessments - this includes links for the new End of Course tests algned to the Tennessee Curriculum Standards and links for the Gateway tests.
TCAP - CRT Reporting Categories and State Performance Indicator Charts
TCAP- Sample Items - Practice test
Algebra I new standards Internet4Classrooms
Resources for Algebra I EOC review organized by spi (worksheets created by Jefferson County High School math teachers).
TCAP and EOC in flipchart format
- Algebra I Practice Test
- Item Sampler Algebra I
- TCAP Practice Tests from Tennessee Tech Chick

Testing Tips

Tips for Better Test Taking
General Test Taking Strategies
Test Taking Tips are provided at this site, including ways to reduce test anxiety as well as tips for parents.
Twas the Night Before Final
Gateway test review and practice strategies from Internet4Classrooms

Along with the many holidays celebrated in the month of December, snow is another

anticipated winter event. What is SNOW? Where does it come from? Is it true that no two snowflakes are alike? Investigate snow through all the educational disciplines. Visit TeacherVision to find the answers. Other places to investigate snow include: Wilson A. Bentley The first man to photograph a snowflake; ReadWriteThink; Using Snowflake Bentley as a Framing Text for Malingerer Writing Lesson plans for ALL ; Electron Microscopy Snow Page; Search for Ice and Snow (online activity for grades 8-12) ; Snow Activities (K-6); Let It Snow (ESL)

For humorous look at snow visit Snowman Jokes!

Events in December:

December 7 - Pearl Harbor

December 16 - Boston Tea Party
December 21 - Shortest Day of the Year

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Welcome to Tech Update, our online collection of resources for educators and students.