Reading

Assignment

Read 2 articles (the first was recently published,
the second will be published this fall.)

The first article (in 2 parts) provides a model unit that
integrates multi-texts and many of the resources that
you will be researching for this class. This unit should
provide a picture of the kind of instruction we have in mind
with the texts and strategies that will be highlighted
in the following units.

Articles that were published in
Social Studies and the Young Learner.

1a. Pirates in Historical Fiction and Nonfiction:
A Twin-Text Unit of Study

1b. Swashbuckling Adventures on the High Seas:
Classroom Activities for a Unit on Pirates

Elizabeth M. Frye, Assistant Professor
Woodrow R. Trathen, Professor

Appalachian State University

Kelley Wilson, 4th Grade Teacher

Hardin Park Elementary School

The second article provides a description of the
Internet resources that were used in the model unit
described in the first article. These are the same resources
that we will be using in this course, and again we offer this
article as a model for how a teacher actually uses these
resources in a classroom.

Article to be published in The Social Studies.

2. Internet Workshop and Blog Publishing: 
Meeting Student (and Teacher) Learning Needs
to Achieve Best Practice in the 21st Century

Elizabeth M. Frye, Assistant Professor
Woodrow R. Trathen, Professor
David A. Koppenhaver, Professor

Appalachian State University

On your Blog, briefly summarize and react to each article.

Make sure you include 2 things from each article that you think are important.

Read and respond to others' posts.

Visit the North Carolina
Standard Course of Study for your
content area. Find the key content
that represents what you will teach.

This content is what you will use
to complete the assignments in
this course.

Identify the key objectives that you will
address as you complete that assignments
for this course.

Refer to the NCSCOS assignment you completed.

Browse through the following resources
and look for materials that you could
use to address your identified content
area and teaching topic:

CAROL Links

You may need usernames and passwords for some sites.

SAS Materials (To login as a teacher,
click here for instructions)

Student login:
ID: RCOEstudent
Password: None

SAS Information Kit

LearnNC offers resources to North Carolina teachers
and aligns the resources with NCSCOS.

Thinkfinity Education Resources are part of Thinkfinity,
the Verizon Foundation’s signature digital learning platform
designed to improve educational and literacy achievement.

The Futures Channel offers streaming video
that has educational value and lesson plans.

PBS Teachers is a collection of multimedia resources
for educators.

Youtube.com is a place where you can search for videos
about specific educational topics. Try physics, for example.

TeacherTube.com videos designed by and for teachers.

Google
Don't forget to use google searches to find educational material.
You can search for videos with Google Video Search.
Check out the maps for social studies and Google Earth.

American Memory from Library of Congress is a
wonderful collection of historical photographs.

NORTH CAROLINA WISEOWL
To access the NC WiseOwl resources,
the URL is www. http://www.ncwiseowl.org/
If you are challenged the password is wiseowl.
Check the magazines and the resources that
Grolier Online has--best to visit through WISEOWL.
Fantastic!

Smithsonian Education is the central education
Web site of the Smithsonian Institute. The
Smithsonian Institution is making curriculum
planning and teaching easier for teachers across
the nation by offering over 1,200 free educational
resources online. Smithsonian Education now
includes a feature that aligns those resources to
standards of learning in every state. Teachers can
enter the name of their state into the search engine
and find lesson plans, virtual exhibitions,
photographs and artwork, and databases of research
information that apply to their curriculum.

Kathy Schrock's Education Resources

Educators Reference Desk

NCTM (Math Resources)

Science Netlinks

NASA Educational Resources

AAAS Science Resources

National Geographic (Social Studies)

Edsitement (Humanities)

Web English Teacher

Kennedy Center (Arts)

New York Times Learning Network

The Internet Public Library is a reference guide to
professional resources in many different areas.

Alex Catalogue is a collection of archived material.

Awesome Library is a web page that provides
resources for teachers and covers subject areas:
the arts, English, Mathematics, Science, Languages,
Social Studies, Health and PE, Technology, etc.

Awesome Stories is a site that contains primary source
information (great for history).

Look at Read Write Think for literacy
instruction. It has a searchable index.

Middle Web is a site devoted to resources for middle school.

Middle School Portal is searchable collection of
resources for middle school math and science resources.

Discovery Education Unitedstreaming is a digital
video-on-demand and online teaching service to
help improve students' retention and test scores;
it is aligned to U.S. state and provincial standards.
You will need to click here to get the login instructions.


Trathen's Reading Resources
(See the resources for teachers
and reference materials for teachers as
well as other sites listed.)

Don't forget to look for books!
I like to use Amazon.com to find books
that I can use in content area classrooms.
The search engine on Amazon will provide
you with lots of resources. Also, in some cases
the listmania can turn up good resources.

Look for search engines on CAROL Links.

See course blog for detailed instructions.

Materials Worksheet

Assignment Check Sheet

After browsing these sites, you are to use the Materials Worksheet to help you review 3 materials sites and post these reviews on your blog. In essence, you are to locate 3 sets of materials (text) that you would use in your classroom and using the worksheet post 3 reviews of these sites on your blog. One of these texts must be visual (i.e., a video or photographic material, or picture book); for video, you are to post the video or a link to it on your blog.

See course blog for detailed example of how to search for materials and for an example of what a materials review should look like.

Then you will read other students' summaries and comment on some of them.

Post comments to other students' blogs. Minimum 1 response to others for each assigned blog post (5) and additional responses to other bloggers in class (minimum 2).

So a total of 7 comments for this unit.