Take 5! Integration Update - April 28, 2010 (Vol.1/#10)

Here is your 10th installment of the Take 5! Integration Update.
“Take 5” is a weekly email update containing information related to teaching and learning for today and beyond...

Take just 5 minutes (or less) to look over these resources and see what might be helpful for your and/or your students. Better yet, set aside at least 15 minutes a week to focus on finding resources and ideas that will improve student learning and prepare them for their future!




Tips and Tools for Teachers


1) Blaberize - http://blabberize.com/
A talking llama!??!?! Make pictures talk... Perhaps a famous historical figure, an animal, yourself, or your students! Teachers have used this for introducing topics, “guest speakers,” and having students role play a famous person. 

2) Snopes - http://www.snopes.com/ 
Gotten any email rumors lately about some new thing to be fearful of, invest in, or spend your precious time doing? Before forwarding the message to hundreds of your closest friends, check it out on Snopes first! (One negative - this site has lots of ads, but it has good info and allow you and your students to practice your information literacy skills – discern ads vs. content!)

Here are some favorite “fakes” debunked on Snopes -- (i.e., these are ALL FALSE, they’re FAKE, NOT TRUE...)

• Child doing a science or social studies project where you are to add your name or an asterisk next to your name if listed.
  
• Mormons own the Coca-Cola Company.
  
• (better yet...) Little Mikey of LIFE cereal fame died from mixing Coke w/ Pop Rocks candy.
  
• Chewing gum takes 7 years to pass through the digestive system.
  
• (and one to be debated in science classes everywhere...) Dropped food remains germ-free if picked up within 5 seconds — ie, “The 5-Second Rule.” Just because we want things to be true does not make them so! (see link for more details - http://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/dropped.asp )

Ponderings

   OUNCE OF PREVENTION: When was the last time you backed up your computer files? (or at least the ones you’d be sad to lose!)

Learning Opportunities 

   REVS’ trainings & workshops calendar - http://ed-tech-integration.pbworks.com/Workshops (Summer offerings coming soon!)

Just for Fun! ;-)

   The 25 Funniest Analogies (Collected by High School English Teachers)
http://bit.ly/25analogies
(NOTE: I used bit.ly to shorten the full URL/web address)