Field Trips 2.0

Field trips are enjoyed by both teachers and teachers alike. However, often they are not treated as the great learning experience that they can and should be. Recently, as part of the Classroom Without Walls program, Grade Six students produced reflective and interpretative podcasts about their experiences. Have a listen, and if you like these, check out twenty more at ISM6 CWW.

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Round Three of Super Websites for Middle School Students

Three uniques sites are ably promoted by Maddie, Jim and Adilet.

They include National Geographic for Kids, Nobel Prize Games, and How Stuff Works.

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More Awesome Websites!

Sites reviewed here include:

Yahooligans!

Teacher Tube  

NatGeo World

Brain Pop

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Student Recommended Websites I

From Santi, Kein, Maria. Students recommended some sites that are both educational and entertaining. The sites reviewed here are Teachertube, Middle School Survival, and Chem4kids.com

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CSN - Edheads

This Podcast is about the website EDHEADS and Rabiah (me) is explaining about it from a radio station, CSN–Computer Studies Network.

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Helpful or Horrible: HOMEWORK!

After a recent Middle School survey regarding homework, Sturgeon’s Locker Force spoke up about with their thoughts on the subject. Midway through a teacher drops by the room and gives her opinion. Overall, a very interesting, mature discussion. As you will hear, there is a wide range of thoughts on this topic.

What do YOU think?

What do your parents think?

Why do teachers assign homework?

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SLAM! POETRY

Recently Grade Eight students performed some Slam Poetry for their Language Arts classes. Listen here to some of the best performances.

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Six Starter Video Podcasts

More recommendations for you! This time the focus is on video podcasts.

Best of YouTube http://bestofyoutube.podshow.com/feed.xml

Top 5 from CNET TV http://feeds.feedburner.com/cnet/top5

Discovery Channel Video Podcasts http://www.discovery.com/radio/xml/discovery_video.xml

National Geographic Video Shorts http://podcast.nationalgepgraphic.com/ng-video-shorts/

Howcast Food http://feeds.feedburner.com/HowcastFood

David Pogue: New York Times Technology search for David Pogue in at the iTunes store

If you subscribe to any of these podcasts and get them onto your MP3 player, show it to me. I am always interested in who interested in who is enjoying the podcasts! Copy the feed then a) in iTunes… click Advance Tab, then Subscribe to Podcast, paste OR a) go to the iTunes Store in iTunes and search by title

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Ten Basic Tips for Using Search Engines

Middle school students can encounter problems when researching on the web. This can lead to a wasting of a great deal of time and energy. Here are some very tips that should make the job much easier.

1. Spell keywords properly.

2. Choose strong keywords. For example if you were trying to determine what turtles eat, you may want to use turtle and diet as your keywords. Example: If you want to buy a car, don’t enter the keyword “car” if you can enter the keyword “Toyota.” Better still, enter the phrase “Toyota Dealerships” AND the name of the city where you live.

3. More keywords narrow your focus. Poodles black quiet “for sale” will result in fewer hits.

4. Keyword order counts. When using multiple keywords, the first word may carry more importance depending on the search engine.

5. Fine tune your keywords. If the number of results is too large, add keywords or change them.

6. Eliminate subtopics. Dogs –poodles, or you can eliminate words. This is using an option in the Advanced search of most search engines as well.

7. Use the Advanced Search option. This will give you more options. You can add or eliminate keywords or phrases and even search for specific document types such as PowerPoint and PDF files

8. Use “quotation marks.” This will lock in your words. “smelly turtles” will only fins sites that have the two side by side.

9. Choose the correct search engine. Use different search engines depending on your need. Understand search engines: general search engines for specific needs, directories for broad topics, metasearch engines to search many search engines at once. If you insist in writing and entire question such as, “What is the tallest building in the world?” then sites such as answers.com, or brainboost.com may be for you.

10. Go Old School, use books! Printed materials are often much easier and more efficient. Students often think the web is the only place to find information.

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Around the World

At International School Manila, students are fortunate to have the opportunity to travel the world. At the end of one day, I quickly asked the students where they spent their holidays. Check out the wide variety of responses. Where did you spend your holidays?

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Spin Me Round

Just in time for the holidays coming the latest video from ISM teachers! Mr. Dingrando uses fellow teachers and even security guards to go round and round and round and round and round and round… Keep an eye out for the clever filming and editing tricks that he uses. Check out their previous videos on YouTube: Thriller , Bebot , U Can’t Touch This

Enjoy!

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