Dare 2 Teach

* I'm a NYC public school teacher who loves learning and teaching. After entering the system through NYC Teaching Fellows, I am currently teaching 6th grade ELA and Social Studies. I see myself as a lifelong learner and am using this blog to keep track of all the interesting education-related information I come across.

[daring2teach-blog]

Link Lists

So many teachers and education professionals have compiled their 'Best of' lists.  Here are a few I've found helpful! Larry Ferlazzo's Blog (ESL & everything) http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/about/my-best-of-series/ 

[daring2teach-blog]

Teacher Grants: Purposeful Wanderlust

Browse through these links to find funded or subsidized professional development opportunities that will take you around the globe!

http://www.earthwatch.org/aboutus/education/edopp/edfelfund/ "As an Earthwatch Educator Fellow you'll receive funding to join one of our Earthwatch expeditions worldwide.  If selected, you'll join a team of other Educator Fellows and/or volunteers and work alongside leading environmental scientists, actively supporting their work, learning field research methods, and helping conserve threatened natural and cultural resources.  You'll also be asked to share your experiences through developing lessons and giving presentations on your experience, and by attending events designed to spread the word to other educators and volunteers."

http://www.fundforteachers.org/ "Fund for Teachers enriches the personal and professional growth of teachers by recognizing and supporting them as they identify and pursue opportunities around the globe that will have the greatest impact on their practice, the academic lives of their students and on their school communities."  Develop your own educational itinerary or borrow one from another organization (like GEEO) and the Fund for Teachers will help cover costs.

$ http://www.geeo.org/ Discount summer travel tours for educators.   GEEO is a 501c3 non-profit organization that helps and encourages educators to travel abroad. 

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/iegpssap/index.html "The program provides short-term study and travel seminars abroad for U.S. educators in the social sciences and humanities for the purpose of improving their understanding and knowledge of the peoples and cultures of other countries. Support is generally made available through interagency agreements. The Department of Education transfers funds through the State Department to Fulbright commissions in various countries to pay the costs associated with administering seminars. This partnership allows the program to use the services and expertise of binational organizations to plan and conduct seminars for U.S. educators."

http://www.iie.org/en/Programs/Toyota-International-Teacher-Program "The Toyota International Teacher Program offers fully-funded, international, professional development opportunities for U.S. educators. Funded by Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., the program aims to advance environmental stewardship and global connectedness in U.S. schools and communities through creative, interdisciplinary, and solution-based teaching methods." 

http://www.esuus.org/programs_British_Universities_Summer_Program.htm "Since 1957, the English-Speaking Union of the United States, through the generosity of participating Branches, has offered fellowships for talented teachers to study over the summer in the U.K."

http://www.americancouncils.org/educationalSeminars.php "The Educational Seminars Program offers Department of State funded grants for U.S. school teachers and administrators. Exchanges are short term, taking place during the summer, and focus on sharing of best practices and professional development. Current programs are administered with Argentina, Brazil, Greece, India, Italy, Mexico, Thailand and Uruguay."

http://www.koreasociety.org/korean_studies/fellowships/ "This fellowship program provides a unique and unparalleled learning experience with extensive travel within Korea. The costs of round-trip international airfare, accommodations, meals, and program fees will be provided courtesy of the generous financial support of the Korea Foundation. Social studies professionals, including middle school and high school classroom teachers, administrators, and professors or instructors in schools of education are invited to apply."

http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/lp/prj/top/txl/enindex.htm "Experience is what the Transatlantic Outreach Program is all about. Since 2001, TOP has sought to find the best and most qualified Social Studies educators and give them the opportunity to experience Modern Germany in the most dramatic way possible: in person. From Berlin to Frankfurt, from Stuttgart to Munich, from Hamburg to Kiel, from Dresden to Schwerin, and from Weimar to Leipzig, each corner of Germany is sampled through sight, sound, touch, and taste! These all-expense-paid study tours are two weeks in length and take place during the summer."

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.6135283/ "Heifer International will offer Study Tours for Educators, week-long trips designed for K-12 educators who are interested in learning in-depth about Heifer's approach to sustainable development, as well as root causes of hunger and poverty in the country. Participants will learn about these issues in a series of workshops at the beginning of the trip, and then visit with the project partners in their homes or communities to find out more about their lives, their hopes and dreams, and- most importantly- their work with Heifer to create a better future. Participation in these special trips is by application. If selected to join the trip, participants are eligible to receive a grant from Heifer. The grant covers international air transportation from a selected departure city, domestic land transportation, accommodations and meals, and resource materials for teachers, administrators and other educators." 

[daring2teach-blog]

Techie Teacher: Online Data Management

Need help tracking scores and calculating averages?  Sick of looking through stacks of papers for lost copies?  These websites will help you manage student data and paper piles.

Gradebooks & Online Tests

http://www.engrade.com/ Free online gradebook with many additional features, such as: messaging, online quizzes, homework calendars, wikis, attendance, and flashcards.

http://www.flubaroo.com/ Flubaroo is a free tool that helps you quickly grade multiple-choice or fill-in-blank assignments.  More than just a grading tool, Flubaroo also: computes average assignment score; computes average score per question, and flags low-scoring questions; shows you a grade distribution graph; and gives you the option to email each student their grade, and an answer key.

File Management

http://www.dropbox.com/ "Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Never email yourself a file again!" 

http://dropitto.me/ "Securely receive files from anyone to your Dropbox. Together with Dropbox you can setup an unique upload address with password protection." 

http://www.slideshare.net/ Use SlideShare to share presentations, documents and professional videos. Get a free account to upload and share. 

http://www.zamzar.com/ Online file conversion, covering a wide range of different image, document, music, video and compression formats. Free for files up to 100MB.

$ https://www.taskstream.com/ A subscription-based service that allows you to create units and lessons with links, attachments, and corresponding standards all in one space.

[daring2teach-blog]

Techie Teacher: PowerPoint Alternatives

Creative and varied alternatives to posters and PowerPoints.

http://prezi.com/   "The Zooming Presentation Editor: Create game-changing presentations online. Present your ideas on a large canvas and show their relationship with scale and placement."

http://voicethread.com/ "With VoiceThread, group conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world. All with no software to install. A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways; using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too."

http://www.glogster.com/ or http://edu.glogster.com/ Create multimedia "posters" about any topic.

http://www.xtranormal.com/ "Make your own 3D movies in minutes. Xtranormal offers a wide variety of characters, sets, and animations that you can easily add to any movie you create."

http://www.weebly.com/ Use weebly to create a free website or blog.

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ Create your own comic strip.

http://museumbox.e2bn.org/ "This site provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. What items, for example, would you put in a box to describe your life; the life of a Victorian Servant or Roman soldier; or to show that slavery was wrong and unnecessary? You can display anything from a text file to a movie. You can also view and comment on the museum boxes submitted by others."

http://www.zunal.com/ "The easiest way to create a WebQuest with more than 114.5 thousand users. Zunal WebQuest Maker is a web-based software for creating WebQuests in a short time without writing any HTML codes."

http://www.wikispaces.com/ "Wikis are simple web pages that groups, friends, and families can edit together." 

http://www.techsmith.com/ [Jing, Camtasia, or SnagIt] Jing: "Take a picture or make a short video of what you see on your computer monitor.   Share it instantly via web, email, IM, Twitter or your blog." Camtasia: "Turn screen recordings into polished videos that train, teach, and more." SnagIt: "Capture any image from your computer screen and turn it into an engaging visual to share with anyone." 

http://sketchup.google.com/ "A 3D software tool that combines a tool-set with an intelligent drawing system. You can build models from scratch, or you can download what you need. People all over the world share what they've made on the Google 3D Warehouse."

http://www.wallwisher.com/ Create a “wall” where you can place virtual sticky-notes. You can allow others to also place notes on the board, or keep it so that only you can do so (which is what I would recommend for students). The sticky-notes can include images you grab off the web, videos, or websites, and you can add text to them (you can also just include text without adding anything else). Each sticky has a 160 character limit for text.

http://middlespot.com/ "Middlespot is a search engine that is is like an even easier and embeddable Wallwisher. In other words, it’s a virtual bulletin board with virtual “stickies.” If you’re searching for an image, website, or video, though, you don’t necessarily have to copy and paste their url addresses (though you can) — if they are in the search results you just click on it to go into your “mashup” and it goes to it automatically. No registration is necessary, and you can collaborate with others. This new version makes it even more useful for higher level thinking skills like categorization."

http://corkboard.me/ "Corkboard.me is an easier and more functional Wallwisher-like tool. The site has just announced the ability to embed your virtual bulletin boards, which you are unable to do with Wallwisher. Other features include real-time collaboration and a chat room for the people collaborating. You can post images, but not videos. No registration is necessary."

http://popplet.com/ "Popplet is like Wallwisher on steroids. You can make an online “bulletin-board” with virtual “post-its” (called “popplets), just like in Wallwisher. And, except for the fact you have to register to use it, Popplet is just as easy and, in some ways, easier to use with a lot more functionality. With Popplet, you search for images and videos on the Web directly within the “popplet” instead of copying and pasting the url address (as you need to do in Wallwisher). You can draw within the “popplet” and it doesn’t appear to have an limit on the number of characters you can use. You can connect the “popplets.” You can also embed the whole thing."

http://www.spaaze.com/ Spaaze is similar to the other online bulletin boards in this list. Registration required. Everything is free now, but they say after they move from beta that they will charge for more than one bulletin board.

http://simplebooklet.com/ Create product guides, promotions, and brochures you can post to your website and across the social web

[daring2teach-blog]

"Those who dare to teach must never cease to learn."

- John Cotton Dana