FETC 21st Century Reading & Social Studies

I attended a session @ FETC (Florida Educational Technology Conference) that was entitled 21st Century Reading and Social Studies. The presenters were fourth, fifth and special education teachers from P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School (PKY) which is located on the campus of the University of Florida. This school is funded as a special school district under the Florida Department of Education, and is given the responsibility to develop innovative solutions to educational concerns in Florida. The teachers are then responsible to share successful instructional programs with other school districts across the state.

Needless to say, these educators have a huge responsibility not only to their students, but also to every student in the state of Florida. Their passion for teaching and learning was apparent, and the presenters have spent numerous hours revamping how they teach Florida's 4th and 5th grade social studies content standards. Literature that offers text below, at, and above grade level reading expectations, and a variety of technology tools have been woven into their social studies curriculum. I left that session with some great ideas that I wanted to share with our K-5 SSt Committee.

I have shared a few Google Docs from the presentation with you, and below you will find the links to their 4th and 5th grade blogs and a sample of a reading weebly from PKY.

PKY 4th Grade Blog (Check out the Shelfari @ the bottom of the blog page.  Great SSt literature has been shelved and summarized there.)

5th Grade Blog (This link will take you the Reading/SSt portion of their 5th grade blog.)

Reading/SSt Weebly

In addition to Google Docs and the sites above that I have shared with you, there are some great resources from others who attended the session as well. To check them out, log into your Edmodo account and join the group 21st Century Reading and Social Studies. The group code is cs6206.

Let me know if you any questions! Thanks~Kelli

Meetings for grade level piloters

Dr. Brenner has approved 3 hours of paid time for piloters from each grade level to get together and go over how things are going with the TCI materials. Please determine a time that works for your grade level and then let me know the day and time (fourth grade has set a time for a Wed. evening from 4:00-6:00 for right now with the other hour to be determined). As you discuss things, please use this blog to indicate the following:

1) What are the specifics about using the TCI materials that are excellent and meet your expectations for teaching students?

2) What are the specifics about using the TCI materials that are issues we will need to address as we consider training for teachers for next year?

3) Are there technical problems you've run into using the online materials? If so, what are they and how have you tried to either solve them or work around them?

4) What other ideas do you have for using the TCI materials (e.g., ISNs - what makes sense?, prep that needs to be done for lessons, other materials needed, etc.)?

5) What would be on your "we must have" list for the proposal to the school board and what would be on your "wish list"? (let's get down everything we can think of and go from there - it doesn't hurt to think "outside of the box"!)

When you have determined your time and meet, make sure you print off the payroll request form located in the District folder in First Class. I will try to at least make it to part of each of the meetings, so I can turn in those forms for you or you can send them to me.

I will continue to add other comments and/or new blogposts to this blog, so please continue to check it. Thanks for all that you do!!

Anne

Student TCI Subscriptions

To add students, access your class list via your Teacher TCI login by clicking on the "My Classes" tab. Follow the directions below:

-Some of the students have 5 digit student numbers (6 is required for passwords)...so to make it work, Kent added a 1 after their number. So if the student number was 65432, he added a one, so the password is 654321.

-Since the usernames are the first name plus first letter of last name, there were many of the same. To fix that a 2 was added (KentR2)...or two 2's were added...but no more than 3 had to be added to a students username.

-Teachers should be able to export that information out to help students get logged in.

Idea Exchange

The Idea Exchange is a place to share the different ways you are using the TCI materials and lessons, along with other ways to integrate Social Studies content, e.g ., titles for guided reading, current event sites, writing ideas, Discovery Learning media, etc.

Click on the comment link to post to this portion of the blog. The "Post a Comment" window will appear on your screen and you can type your message there. Additional comments are above that field. Scroll up to view them.

Social Studies Essentials

Our committee spent the day answering the question,"What is essential for our K-5 students to learn in social studies?"  After reviewing the North Dakota Content and Achievement Standards:  Social Studies, teachers met by grade level and determined which benchmarks met the following criteria:  teacher input, endurance, readiness, leverage, and testing.