February 9, 2010 by Curriki
Spreading the word about Curriki is as easy as copy and paste!
Want to share Curriki with other teachers, principals, and education decision-makers? Visit our Spread the Word Collection to find a wealth of pre-written emails, Power Points, case studies, and more that will help you share the gift of over 32,000 free and open education resources with those you care about most!
To start, why not send the email below to a friend?!
Your Pal,
@Curriki
Subject: FREE Teaching Resources for Your Classroom
Dear Educator,
I am writing to tell you about www.Curriki.org–a website for teachers that includes free access to over 32,000 K-12 high quality lessons, units, assessments and multimedia learning objects. All of the resources on Curriki are contributed by teachers, universities, publishers and education professional development organizations from around the world. Furthermore, content is reviewed by subject-area experts and members to ensure quality.
To start browsing Curriki resources by subject, click here. You can also use the advanced search option to look for resources for specific grades, languages, learning styles, etc. So that you can get a sense of what Curriki has to offer, here a few highlights from the collection:
For Elementary School teachers
For Middle School teachers:
For High School Teachers
Similar to an iTunes playlist, Curriki allows you build your own curriculum by assembling resources that work for your classroom into a collection. You can also upload material you’ve created yourself to add to your collections and share with others easily. To learn how to do this, click here. Or, visit the Curriki help collections to access a number of tutorials on how to use and take advantage of the content on Curriki.
The best way to start using Curriki is to join (for free) and to start browsing through the collections!
Sincerely,
INSERT YOUR NAME
Tags: Curriki, free educational resources, free lessons, OER, OER blog
Posted in Curriki Tips, Featured Content | Leave a Comment »
February 8, 2010 by Curriki
Early elementary educators, political, and environmental buffs alike will love the recent addition of Children’s Book: My Letter to Barack Obama to the Curriki collection.
Written by children’s book author Lana Dajani:
The book is about an 8-year-old girl – Ella – who is passionate about the environment. As she rides the bus to school, Ella notices that her community is polluted. At school, she finds that students leave trash behind on the playground after lunch. Ella leads by example and encourages her classmates to clean up and pick up trash off the playground.
Ella wants to create a National Cleanup Day so that children and adults across the United States can get involved and help protect the environment. She writes a letter to President Barack Obama because she realizes that he has access to a larger audience.
To accompany her delightful and educational story, Dajani teamed up with educator and consultant Kevin Simpson, founder of Know.Do.Serve.Learn, to create a full unit of instruction around the book aligned with both the National Council of Teachers of English and International Reading Association Standards. Filled with interactive pre, during, and post reading activities to build student reading comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills, this fun and engaging unit is not to be missed! Furthermore, many of the suggested activities and comprehension charts can be printed out and used for other stories (e.g., Word Castles, Readers Theater, Making Connections charts, etc.)
- To purchase a copy of the book, click here.
- To download the free curricula to accompany the book click here.
- To learn more about the book, author Lana Dajani and illustrator Emanuela Corti, click here.
Happy Almost President’s Day!
Anna Batchelder
Curriki International Consultant
@Curriki
Meet other international educators and keep up to date with new Curriki content additions by becoming a fan of Curriki on Facebook.
Note: The illustration above is the property of author Lana Dajani and illustrator Emanuela Corti and has been reproduced here with permission.
Tags: Curriki, Early Literacy, ELA, Emanuela Corti, K.D.S.L., Kevin Simpson, Know.Do.Serve.Learn, Lana Dajani, My Letter to President Barack Obama, Reading Comprehension, the Ella Collection, Writing
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February 5, 2010 by Curriki
image by Enrique Burgos Garcia
I am in the middle of conducting comparative research in the UAE about teacher use of and attitudes toward technology in the classroom – looking at teachers across a variety of curriculum systems (British, UAE, Indian, etc.).
Recently, while conducting focus groups with both teachers and principals, I learned that one of the things schools across all systems struggle with is parent engagement. How do you get parents to understand the importance of participating in their children’s education, especially in cases where parents don’t have many formal schooling experiences to draw from? Second, when many parents are offline, but on SMS, how can SMS be used in creative ways help parents learn about and engage with the schools’ curriculum at home in the case where parents simply won’t come to school?
While there are no magic answers to the questions above (although feel free to share recommendations and anecdotes in the comments section of this blog), the Open University has put together a very useful free online course for teachers called, “Parents as Partners” aimed at helping teachers 1) understand why parents do and don’t participate in school initiatives/activities, 2) develop a framework for working with all types of parents, and 3) prepare for the challenges and successes that arise when working in partnership with parents.
If you don’t have time to do the whole course, I recommend thinking about the activity Why work with parents? as a way to help you articulate to parents the variety of reason why they should be involved.
For more research on the topic of parental engagement, check out A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement (Southwest Education Development Laboratory 2002). And, for those educators working with parents that are engaged and online, feel free to share Digital Tools for Homework Help with classroom moms and dads. Make sure to check out the curriculum tab to see a wealth of homework help resources including:
- Age Appropriate Educational Sites for Kids
- Internet Search Tips for Finding Homework Help Resources in a Snap
- Open Education Resources of Note – Free Educational Content that Can be Shared, Mixed and Modified.
To partnerships!
Anna Batchelder
Curriki International Consultant
@Curriki
Tags: A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, and Community Connections on Student Achievement, Anna Batchelder, Digital Tools for Homework Help, Family, parent engagement, parents as partners, Southwest Education Laboratory
Posted in Open Source Education | 1 Comment »
February 3, 2010 by Curriki
During tough times, there are invariably cuts. It’s very hard to prioritize when someone’s education is at stake.
The Curriki February Survey is all about the economy and its effect on your classroom. Take 3 minutes to share your thoughts with the Curriki community today.
To see quotes and trends from past Curriki surveys click here.
@Curriki
Tags: Curriki, Curriki survey, The Economy and Its Effect on Your Classroom
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January 29, 2010 by Curriki
I recently discovered 101 Lectures for Your Open Source Education – a list created by Amber Hensley that includes a treasure trove of videos, podcasts, slideshows, and documents that:
1) Explain what open source is,
2) Highlight the implications of open source in media, software, business, economics, education, law and politics, and
3) Show how open source helps users innovate and collaborate.
If you are wanting to verse yourself in the ethos of open source, trying to find great open source tools for your classroom, or thinking about starting an open source project of your own, visit 101 Lectures for Your Open Source Education for hours of multimedia information.
Anna Batchelder
Curriki International Consultant
@Curriki
Check out the Curriki Facebook page.
Tags: 101 Lectures for Your Open Source Education, Amber Hensley, OER, open education blog, open ethos
Posted in Open Source Education | Leave a Comment »
