Surfing the information highway can be a fun and enriching experience, but like all activities that require learning and practice, you can help ensure that your child does not get in over his/her head and wipe-out online. In my role as technology consultant to schools, I've collected lots of good resources for parents, teachers and kids from learning basic technology skills and online safety to online activities that are educational and cool!
basic technology skills
these are the basic technology skills that every elementary child should acquire
- Internet Safety - Children should be given the opportunity to practice working on computers safely and securely.
- Keyboarding - Children should be encouraged to practice their keyboarding skills and measure their progress.
- Researching- Children should be given the opportunity to hone their online research and citation skills.
- Reporting - Children should be given the opportunity to produce reports using document, spreadsheet, and/or presentation software.
online safety
do know where your children are online?
There are many good things about the Internet, but it is very important that you review and monitor the places your children are visiting on the Internet.
- safekids.com
- great site for learning about online safety - do you have an online safety contract with your kids?
- common sense
- internet survival guide for parents
- getnetwise
- more online safety info, including reviews of filtering & monitoring tools
- safetynetaap.org
- online safety info from the American Academy of Pediatrics
- surf swell island
- fun site for kids to learn about online safety
- kidsmart
- online safety games for kids
- websites for kids
- websites reviewed by the association for library service to children
security
what you don't know can hurt you
- malware 101
- what is malware & why should you care?
- free avg
- free anti-virus software for home use - there's also a business version, better & cheaper than Norton
- windows defender
- free windows spyware for XP (included with Vista)
- spybot S & D
- free program that scans for known adware and spyware installed on your computer
- ad-aware
- free program that scans for known adware and spyware installed on your computer
online search tips
search smarter
- Use as many keywords as possible to narrow down the results, but don't include articles like the, an, and.
- If you don't find a useful website on the first page of results, you didn't provide the appropriate keywords.
- If you want to type in a key phrase (more than one word) and have the search engine look for those words together, put them in quotes.
- Once you have found a page, use your browser's Find feature to find a specific word on the page you are looking for.
- A search engine, like Google, gathers results from all over the web without verifying it's validity or appropriateness. Therefore you are more likely to get junk in your results that you will need to filter out.
- A directory service, like Ask Jeeves or Yahoo, gathers results from the web based on a list of sites it has approved. Therefore you may get fewer results, but hopefully more on topic.
- A wiki, like wikipedia, is a collection of text and photos, nearly all of which can be visited and edited by anyone at any time. Therefore a wiki may have lots of information about some topics and little on others. Because it can be edited by anyone, you may need to validate information with other sources.
- Do not copy and paste information from a website into your project. This is plagarism. Put the information you learn into your own words.
- You always want to cite your sources, including websites where you learned information or found an image. Google is not a source, it is a search engine. The source is the web address where you found the information.
online references
find the answers here
- enchanted learning
- picture dictionary
- atlapedia
- physical maps and political maps as well as key facts and statistics on countries of the world
- dictionary.com
- dictionary & thesaurus
- encyclopedia.com
- encyclopedia
- wikipedia
- the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit
- yahooligans
- web guide for kids
- askforkids
- askjeeves for kids
- google earth
- explore all over earth from your computer
- library of congress
- more than a library
- visual thesaurus
- interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps
- ask an expert
- lists of sites where you can ask the expert
- world fact book
- latest country info from the CIA
- usgs
- U.S. geological survey
- american factfinder
- U.S. census bureau factfinder
- Visuwords
- online graphical dictionary
online activities
kid tested, mother approved
- lego
- lego is so cool!
- whizzball
- build your own puzzles and share them
- national geographic for kids
- games, stories, news, animals, pictures
- primary games
- loads of games for the primary crowd
- game goo
- learning that sticks
- tryscience
- science fair project ideas
- exploratorium
- the observatory
- multiflyer
- fun way to practice math
- pbs kids
- games from your favorite shows on PBS
- math magician games
- practice math facts
- funbrain.com
- games for number, words and more
- sea and sky
- the splendors of the sea and the wonders of the universe
- dance mat typing
- free & really fun online keyboarding "lessons"
- touch typing
- free touch typing lessons
- funschool
- lots of fun learning games
- Tom's trap-o-matic
- help Tom build a trap to catch Jerry
- math magician
- are you a math magician? practice your math facts.
- math playground
- give your brain a workout
online stuff for teachers
cool stuff to do with your students online
- webquests
- find or create a webquest (online research activity for a student or group of students)
- internet scavenger hunts
- use these online scavenger hunts to have your explore topics online
- brainPOP
- cool animations that cover a wide variety of topics
- thinkquest
- online learning resources created by kids for kids
- ippex
- interactive plasma physics education experience
- CELLS alive
- computer-enhanced images of living cells and organisms for education and medical research
- the atom's family
- this resource contains educational activities relating to different forms of energy
- America's library
- America's story from America's library
- education world
- lesson planning resources
- molecular expressions
- science, optics & you
- vocabulary university
- free word puzzles and activities
- ask dr. math
- have a math question?
- geometry junkyard
- usenet clippings, web pointers, lecture notes, research excerpts, papers, abstracts, programs, problems, and other stuff related to discrete and computational geometry
- access excellence
- for health and bioscience teachers and learners
- edheads
- cool simple machines activities online
- digital information fluency
- the ability to find, evaluate and use digital information effectively, efficiently and ethically
- Al's relativistic adventures
- interactive story about a boy named Al, where you'll learn about Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity
- periodic table
- animated periodic table
- weather maker
- investigate how weather is made
blogging guidelines
blog smart
A blog is a website where member(s) post content that is time-stamped and archived. Most blogs encourage interactivity, providing a mechanism for readers to provide comments to the posts. There are all kinds of blogs: personal journal, political, religious, technical, humorous etc. See wikipedia for more information on blogs.
- Be polite. Do not threaten, harass, or otherwise derogatorily impact another person.
- Use appropriate language. Do not swear, use vulgarities, abusive language, or any other inappropriate language.
- Appropriate activities. Illegal activities are strictly forbidden. Respect copyrighted material.
- Privacy. Do not reveal personal information, such as address or phone number, about yourself or any other persons.
- Use common sense. You blog (or post on the blogs of others) at your own risk.
blogging
resources for reading & creating blogs
- Bloglines
- web-based personal blog aggregator (subscribe to your favorite blogs and see updates online)
- SharpReader
- personal RSS aggregator for Windows (subscribe to your favorite blogs and get notified of updates on your computer)
- blogger
- create your own blog for free
- TypePad
- create your own blog with categories & other features (for a fee)
open source software
free programs based on the open source philosophy
- wiki: open source software
- what is open source?
- open office
- everything you get with MS Office, but free!
- gimp
- image editor - sort of a PhotoShop lite
- nvu
- web authoring - sort of a DreamWeaver lite
- StarLogo TNG
- very cool 3-D programming environment for kids
- NetLogo
- easy to follow programming & modeling environment
- paint.net
- free software for digital photo editing
Kim's Tech Lessons
I teach technology to Upper Elementary thru Middle School students in a Montessori classroom. I am using this blog as a way to document and access the lessons I give online.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byideas for tech teaching
really cool blog I found with lots of good ideas & links
Fetching RSS feed... please stand bycool cat teacher
Fetching RSS feed... please stand bylink of the week
Fetching RSS feed... please stand bytechnology lessons
under construction
these are technology lessons that I have created and/or modified and used successfully in the classroom
- create an online quiz
this lesson involves online research skills, use of presentation software & use of web authoring tool
level: middle school
source: me - image editing
this lesson involves use of image editing tool, with focus on using layers & animation
level: middle school & upper elementary
source: me
