Resources, resources, resources!

Inspiration is definitely one program that I hope whatever school I work in has; and if not I would definitely request it! It is a good visual instruction tool as well as a great tool for teaching students how to organize ideas. I could incorporate it in my classroom in a few ways in my content area, but I think even more so in other subjects. In Spanish, I can see it being used to show the steps involved in conjugating a verb. It can also be used to compare and contrast the steps involved in conjugating an -AR verb versus an -ER or -IR verb. It can also show differences in conjugating a regular verb versus an irregular verb. Because it is a good organizational tool, and even has a specific "tree" style organizer, I can use it with students when introducing the vocabulary for "family" and have students create their own family tree. This can be a post-instructional assignment, and therefore I can use it as an assessment tool, checking the student's understanding. It can also be used as an organizational tool in the pre-writing phase of a written assignment or composition. Students can create a graphic organizer or an outline and convert one into the other.

In class I was introduced to some new web resources, and reminded of ones that had slipped my mind. I've always known about Rubistar and have used it in previous lesson plans. It is a very quick and easy way to create an assessment tool, as well as give directions for a project if you provide students with the rubric so that they know what they will be graded on. It gives them an idea of how they should present or do their assignment.

I also like United Streaming because it has a ton of resources, in pretty much any subject area. It is a great way to find supplemental videos for a lesson plan that you have already created, or find a video that has a lesson plan attached to it that you can adapt for your classroom. It is also a good website if you are at the end of a unit, week etc. and need to find something for those students who have finished everything or if you need to keep a few students while you work with others.

I think I will use these two a lot; Rubistar because it can help make grading fast and ways when you have four dozen students and United Streaming because it has so much content that you can almost ALWAYS use it.