Waffle Bytes

Next Gen Personal Finance is a great resource for teachers that are either teaching a Personal Finance course or incorporating personal finance topics into their curriculum The site includes: learning units course mapping - from an 8 hour workshop, to a full semester course resources (including "question of the day," activities and projects)  & case studies professional development and networking opportunities All materials (excluding pictures) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commerical 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC) License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ ).  This means you can share and adapt the content following the terms of use (see note below) without seeking written permission.   "The CC BY-NC License allows you to freely share and adapt CFCI Content, provided that: (i) you give proper attribution to CFCI in the manner specified by CFCI, but not in any way that suggests that CFCI endorse you or ...

From the Michigan Department of Natural Resources - Michigan teachers can get wildlife  – w ildlife topics, that is  –  in the classroom! Registration is open for  wildlife classroom curricula  available to elementary through high school educators.  Curricula fit current state educational standards and are free of charge.  K-5th grades Go Wild for Michigan’s Wildlife  i ntroduces elementary students to a variety of species found throughout Michigan and their habitats.  Included in the materials are sets of "critter cards" for each student to keep. Sets of the cards are limited and are issued on a first-come, first-served basis to Michigan educators who register.  6th-8th grades Students can learn about Michigan black bears – from their life history to how the DNR manages populations – with  A Year in the Life of a Michigan Black Bear .  Students get to “follow” black bears' movements by looking at actual loca...

Are you looking to implement some digital literacy into your curriculum?  If you teach middle and/or high school students, you may want to check out the Applied Digital Skills site (formerly or part of CS First).  They have free curriculum lessons for teachers focused on a variety of different skills. Some examples:

  Lessons from the Vietnam War The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF), the nonprofit organization that founded and preserves the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall, has released new curriculum materials that are available to teachers to teach Vietnam in their classroom. The Echoes From The Wall curriculum set explores the Vietnam War and era through 14 lesson plans that include background readings, in-class and extension activities tied to national learning standards, and lecture presentations incorporating primary source audio and video . The lesson plans cover a range of topics, from Motivations for US Involvement to the Legacy of the War in Vietnam. Educators can review and download individual lesson plans or the full curriculum from the VVMF website. Click Here to Access Free Lesson Plans Plus : For students who would like to view artifacts of the war up close and behind the scenes, VVMF has debuted a new videoconferencing/distance lear...

From "Big Deal Media" - Just as motorists take driver’s education to learn how to recognize and react to road situations, digital-age students need a course in how to navigate precarious situations online, such as cyberbullying and copyright infringement. That’s what led ISTE to develop the Digital Driver’s License (DDL) project , a free and easy-to-navigate resource that schools or individuals can use to teach and measure digital citizenship proficiency .  DDL is both a platform and curriculum ... From ISTE DDL Site -  The idea of being a good digital citizen becomes more important as schools start to adopt 1:1 initiatives, get more comfortable with students bringing in their own technology and use various technology as a part of the learning process. Where does this get taught? Who teaches it? How do we keep track of all of this? How do we know what areas need addressing and/or follow up? The DDL project allows learners (wether they be students or teac...

If you are looking for some suggestions and ideas for differentiating your classroom, Edutopia has put together this collection of a wide variety of resources.  Differentiated Instruction: Resource Roundup Topic areas include: Understanding Differentiated Instruction Knowing and Assessing Students Planning Tips, Ideas, and Tools Teaching Diverse Learners Additional Resources on the Web

From Discovery Education:   We are pleased to announce Discovery Education’s cyber safety certification program, the  Intel ®  Security Digital Safety Program: Think Before You Link . Intel Security and Discovery Education have partnered to present a series of  free, interactive tools  that educators, students, and parents can use to gain critical information on  cyber safety, cybersecurity and cyber ethics . Each self-paced, interactive student module is about 10-15 minutes long and concludes with a  certificate of completion , endorsed by Intel Security, Discovery Education and the  National Cyber Security Alliance.   The accompanying  educator guides  prompt in-class activities to extend learning beyond the online interaction. To facilitate parental engagement, the program also provides  parent-facing modules  that give caretakers tips on how to promote positive online behavior in the home. PROGRAM...

Calling All School Leaders! The Digital Leadership for Learning Day will be held Thursday, August 14 at Parma-Wstern High School.  The day is designed for Principals, Curriculum Directors, Superintendents, Technology Directors and Teacher Leaders. Learn what it means to be a digital leader and bring back new techniques and strategies to effectively establish a vision and implement a strategic process that creates a teaching and learning culture that provides students with essential skill sets. The day's keynote speaker is Eric Sheninger .  Eric is the award-winning Principal at New Milford High School located in Bergen County, NJ. His work focuses on leading and learning in the digital age as a model for moving schools and districts forward.  Check out his blog:  A Principal's Reflection s.

Registration for the MICCSS MOOC is now open! Audience : K-12 ELA & Math Educators and Curriculum Leaders Course Duration : 4 weeks - July 14, 2014 to August 15, 2014 Cost : Free (optional - 20 SCECHs for $10 fee; you MUST register prior to July 11 to be eligible for SCECHs) Registration : http://www.solutionwhere.com/remcam Course Information : This is a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for Michigan educators to help build awareness and share implementation strategies for the MI Common Core State Standards (MICCSS).  It is an online course - all work will be completed online using Moodle.  The course will be moderated and facilitated by instructional leaders around the state.  Participants are expected to participate in forums and submit weekly assignments.

Here it is Friday again!  This weeks Five Friday Finds are about getting out and about in the world... As always, share with others and have a great weekend. General   Useful Charts Just that - some useful charts for a variety of areas. ELA Google Lit Trips A teacher created and shared site that is free for other teachers.  Among other things, the site provides free downloadable files that "mark the journeys of characters from famous literature on the surface of Google Earth. At each location along the journey there are placemarks with pop-up windows containing a variety of resources including relevant media, thought provoking discussion starters, and links to supplementary information about “real world” references made in that particular portion of the story." Math   Battleship Numberline Brainpop interactive activity where students play "battleship" to learn about the numberline or work at estimating to hit the ship or submarine.  ...

ScreenChomp   (Currently Free) Basics: Record your explanation along with your "markings" on the device at the same time.  Called a "doodling board," you use some simple drawing tools to explain or bring to life a problem or picture.  You can start with either a blank screen or a picture from your Photo Library.  The recordings are uploaded to "the cloud," and give you access to a url link you can use to either email out or post to a site for easy access; you can also download the video as a mp4 file for editing or local storage. Educational Use: Teachers and students can easily create short tutorials, sample problems, diagrams with explanations, etc that can be shared with each other.  As a teacher, this can be used to help reinforce concepts taught OR (if a student created the material) to check for learning.  As a student, I could have a site to go to if I need to revisit the material and I can view it at my own pace as many time as needed....

 iTunes U (Currently Free)   Basics: iTunes U has LOTS of curriculum material created by educators categorized by subject area, submitting institution, and grade level.  All the material is vetted through the submitting organizations, mostly Colleges, Universities and K-12 Education groups.  There is a Beyond Campus area that also has materials from museums, libraries (think Library of Congress!), and other educationally minded organizations.  Best of all - all material is available for  FREE . Educational Use: iTunes U is all about education as a majority of the information has been created by educational institutions.  Find the material needed to introduce, reinforce or supplement topics you are teaching about.  If you are in a situation where your students have the devices, as a teacher you can now push out the material you choose within iTunes U to the student devices using a common Apple Account (as long as students leave it l...

iBooks (Currently Free) Basics : Yes, you can buy eBooks from the Store within iBooks, but you can also add your own materials (pdf and epub formats), and add materials garnered from other places on the web.  The highlighting, note taking, built in dictionary, and bookmarking make it an interactive experience without defacing an actual book. Educational Use:   I have heard of many students with certain reading problems that can read better using iBooks as they can increase and change the font, and even change it from black text on white to Sepia or white on black.  The ability for teachers to share their materials with students on the mobile device is nice; however, when teachers make their materials ePub format it is huge as it adds the functionality of the interactive pieces.  The interactive features make it a great way to teach students how to take good notes that have meaning for them, and that are tied to the actual material the notes are about....

In our area, many of the local school districts have a subscription to Discovery Education.  Often teachers wish to have their students access some of the content they have marked for their lessons/curriculum, but not in a whole group/class setting.  Yet they do not have a need for their entire class to be "enrolled" into the system.  One solution for doing this is using a generic student account.  Here are the directions I put together for setting this up. There are times that you may want to make materials on Discovery Education available to students without actually downloading it. One possibility is to create a generic student account for your class (or classes). While you could create an entire class, for most purposes a single generic student account will work. Hereʼs how: Go to Discovery Education and login with your account   Click on Classroom Manager (located towards the upper left side):   Select My Classes   If it is your first ...

I just created a little manual (well, ok it turned out to be quite large) about managing the Moodle site for our Moodle Administrators.  We held our meeting yesterday, and I noticed that many of those that attended along iPads.  I had the brilliant idea of sharing the document out electronically, and remembered that I had been told that Apple's Pages will export to ePub.  So, of course, it gave me an excuse to play! Wow, it worked slick!  However, I thought I'd share out some tips to make your experience more rewarding, and less of the exploration (and problem fixing) mine was. Screenshot of the document in Pages Screenshot of the document in iTunes as ePub  Some suggestions in Pages: If you like to customize your headers (I used a lot of Moodle orange), use the Create New Paragraph Style from Selection under the Format Menu AFTER you set the text to the size, font, color, alignment, etc that you like. Use the built in Table of Content feature...

(Last week I participated in a professional development day at one of our local school districts. These are the notes from the sessions held in the morning.) I know that there are many teachers that want to integrate technology, but don't. Whether you are not because you are intimidated by it, don't feel like you have to time to learn about it, or just plain aren't sure where to start, this is a session for you. I'm going to overview ten websites and/or tools you could easily implement in your classroom tomorrow. The ten tools I've picked are a variety: some are for productivity, some for communication, and some for creativity. My hope is everyone will walk away with at the minimal one, but hopefully two or three tools you will use beyond today. Tool #1: iTunes U Download Required: iTunes iTunes U is an area within the iTunes Store. It is on this list as (unlike other areas of the iTunes Store) everything there is FREE. iTunes U was firs...

(Last week I participated in a professional development day at one of our local school districts. These are the notes from the sessions held in the morning.) I know that there are many teachers that want to integrate technology, but don't. Whether you are not because you are intimidated by it, don't feel like you have to time to learn about it, just plain aren't sure where to start, or maybe you just are looking for something new to implement into your habits or classroom... this is a session for you. I'm going to overview ten websites and/or tools you could easily implement in your classroom tomorrow. The ten tools I've picked are a variety: some are for productivity, some for communication, and some for creativity. My hope is everyone will walk away with at the minimal one, but hopefully two or three tools you will use beyond today. Tool #1: iTunes U Download Required: iTunes iTunes U is an area within the iTunes Store. It is on this list ...