Thursday, October 25, 2007

Chicago

It was a quick drive from Oaklawn in South Chicago to Elk Grove in North Chicago, so I am already settled for the evening and ready to catch Gray's Anatomy as soon as I do a little last minute "tweaking" for tomorrow's workshop.
I wanted to tell you that if you are just checking the blogs occasionally, that you can scroll down to the very bottom of this page and subscribe right here to the blog. You do not have to use bloglines. When you subscribe here, it will save it to your Favorites on Internet Explorer. You can then go to your Favorites and see if there is an update to the blog.
Being in Illinois, I realized that although this website is mentioned in the book and on my website, I could not leave Illinois without putting this website front and center. The University of Illinois Extension Website has a terrific section that is Just For Kids. Much of it entails educational information about the outdoors from A Walk In The Woods, The Great Plant Escape, The Great Corn Adventure, Let's Talk About Insects, Secret Life of Trees, My First Garden, The Adventures of Herman the Worm, and The All Star River Explorers. Each of these provide animated, multimedia presentations and activities that all elementary students will enjoy. The site is wonderful and I cannot believe I was in Illinois and didn't mention it. You can find it at http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/kids/index.html. I guess that is what this blog is for!

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Circling Illinois

I am spending the entire week in Illinois, enjoying meeting some really nice participants in both Champaigne and Springfield. In Champaigne I commiserated with the Illinois fans of the University of Illinois football team's loss and they comforted me on the "beating" that the Cleveland Indians received at the hands of the Boston Red Sox! My hubby is in mourning and maybe it is not a bad week for me to be "on the road".
We drove around some of the historic sights of Springfield and then drove on to Peoria where I am right now in the quaint Stoney Creek Inn. At least it is not so quaint that it has wireless internet service.
As promised, I have entered the web addresses for Flickr, Voice Thread, and a a site to Create Your own Stationary on my website http://www.techteachconcepts.com under Workshops 2007/2008 and then to BER K-2.
The last site mentioned just came in my email at lunchtime today. I mentioned that I always regret when I find a new website after I complete a workshop. So, in keeping with the purpose of this blog, let me tell all of you about Create Your OwnStationary, a site that I really think the primary students will love. The student can choose a border and the looks of the person pictured on the stationary, then print it out for their use.
Thanks for checking on this blog. I will be updating it as I come across things that I think the participants in the BER workshops and others reading might be able to use.

Friday, October 19, 2007

On The Road Again

I have not updated this blog for awhile, because the true purpose of this blog has not really begun as yet. I will be mainly writing this blog as an update to the content of my technology workshops for classroom teachers, administrators, media specialists and technology specialists. Most of my workshops are presented through BER- The Bureau of Education and Research. I begin the first of my 36 workshops for the year on Monday, October 22nd. in Champaign, IL. I then go on to Springfield, Peoria, and Chicago North and Chicago South next week. There will be two sources for my updates. First of all, I never leave a workshop without learning something new from the participants and I also learn form the many blogs, listservs, and newsletters that I read each night after a workshop. I so often say to myself, "I really wish I had this idea, website, etc. when I did today's or yesterday's workshop!" Now, if the participants subscribe to my blog, I can keep the workshop virtually all year and who knows how long into the future?

I just found something tonight that I will now add to Monday's workshop. It is a website with the cutest, educationally sound, and motivating online stories and songs about science. It is called Science Story Books and can be found at http://msnucleus.org/membership/guide/storybooks.html

Starting Monday night, you will hear more about the workshops, my travel woes, and about the wonderful people I meet along the way!