Educational Documentaries

Some of you might be interested in perusing this educational site I came across, Snag Learning. I was looking for some good, educational films or documentary snippets I could show my World Cultures class for Hispanic Heritage Month and stumbled on to this site.

You can search by subject, and I've added the links here to make it easier for you, (arts & music, foreign language, history, math & science, political science & civics, world culture & geography) or search by grade level, or by specific channel (your choices are PBS, National Geographic, Explore, and Sundance). The few I checked out were really good. There are some full-length films, as well as some shorter 10-15 minute films that you might be able to work into your lessons if you need an extra "boost" to show your students something and not just talk about it. Let me know what you think...

Thinking Blocks: Model Your Math Problems

Yesterday our building had a staff meeting to discuss our 1:1 laptop program. A few of the math teachers mentioned how difficult it is to find ways to use the laptops in math classes. Later that day while perusing my Google Reader account (by the way, if you don't have a Google Reader account, you should consider signing up for one! I'll put up a blog about this later), I came across Richard Byrne's post on his blog Free Technology for Teachers about a website called Thinking Blocks--a website that helps students model their math word problems.

Because of my extreme disdain for math, I hesitantly checked out the website. After playing around a bit, I can see how this could be useful for students. Byrne recommends that this be used for K-8 math, but I really think this could be used in some of the lower level math courses we offer at the high school. The website allows students to visually map out their process when solving a problem. Students can use shapes, number lines, colors, and text to solve the problem. It's like having manipulatives on the computer. I struggled with math in high school partly because I am such a creative, visual, hands-on learner who was quite honestly scared of the subject. I think this tool would've taken the edge off of math for me. It would've given me a visual, hands-on way to solve word problems. If you're interested, check out the Modeling Tool page to find videos of the tool in action.