Glen Westbroek’s attempt to discover the web 2.0 universe periphery.

During my homeroom class today, I had students create "posters" of what they are grateful for. These posters were created in Wordle. I learned this was my students first introduction to this Web2.0 activity. There was great enthusiasm and students consistently were trying to create longer "thankful" lists to see how they turned out. I showed the posters to our 7th Grade Counselor and she was so excited, she brought down a student aid and copies of the posters… Continue

One area that I feel does not receive enough attention by classroom teachers is the concept of formative assessments. Recently a tweet from @clifmims reminded me how I use games as a form of formative assessments. As I considered the variety of formative assessments I have used, I realized that games were where I saw students enjoying and participating the most. Any points earned in a game are for BRAGGING rights only. Below are variations of games and h… Continue

Yesterday afternoon, the Health Teacher in the room next door invited the principle to come with her into my classroom. She had seen me using my Promethean Board and was VERY impressed. The principal enjoyed the short few minutes he observed of the board's usage in the classroom. Then when my students began an activity, I invited him to come and play at the board. He saw the many possibilities for math, language arts, social studies, and of course the science I had been showing. In the last few… Continue

21st Century Learning is based on the philosophy of “It’s not what you know, but how or if you share what you know.” As I reviewed the NETS-S provided by ISTE, it seemed that this Learning Target could be applied within each standard. A review of the NETS-T provided the impetus behind my point of… Continue

I've been working to develop a test for my Biology students. We have been studying cells so tonight I developed a summative assessment to give my students. I use individual response devices from TurningTechnologies. The software interfaces between PowerPoint and the receiver. Because of this technology, I was able to develop this test including many color pictures (including some taken through the microscope.) This test also includes video clips (because I had the ability and it fit my material.… Continue