Teacher's Curriculum Institute

Teachers are always looking for new and creative ways to get more involvement from the parents of their current students.  Often times we think of involvement as simply participation or support around field trips, class parties, or looking through their notebook or folder and checking their homework for completion.  If you are like me and [...]

  Consider the launch dates for the most widely used social media sites in the past ten years.  We begin in 2001 with the launch of Wikipedia, which became a destination site for many students as they research topics.  Of course the challenges would come because of how posts can be edited by the audience [...]

Create interactive meetings at Poll Everywhere

 More Web 2.0 Tools Handout A follow-up to TCI’s Guide to Free Web 2.0 Tools, this edition includes sites such as Tagxedo, Animoto, and The Bus Ride. All these sites are easy and fun to use with your students and have so many possibilities. The real power comes with the pedagogy you use.

As we gear up for yet another school year; we know the students are all the more tech savvy, right?  They’ve also become savvy on their homework excuses too.  Here’s a top ten list of the top ten new homework excuses taken from scientific research (re: my crazy head). 10. “Sorry, my house just doesn’t have 3G [...]

The focus of this year’s Leadership Conference was technology. But not just technology for technology’s sake. In fact, I began the conference with a keynote challenge asking participants: “Can technology create true interactivity in your classroom?” My fear is that technology may be making students less prone to true, deep learning.  I quoted a New [...]

I’m loving this website lately!  www.classtools.net You can quickly create fun, simple review games for vocabulary and to test basic content in a unit. Select the template “Game Generator,” enter your vocab or content questions, and then the website creates a game for you (using Flash).  Save the URL or embed the game into your blog, wiki, or class [...]

I joined TCI in early 1993 when the company was in its infancy. We were churning out thick binders loaded with supplemental activities and slides. Remember slides? One of the early milestones was the publication of our methodology book, History Alive!, by Addison Wesley. At the publication party, our founder, Bert Bower, presented us with [...]

It’s more than just virtual field trips! As we all strive to create model 21st Century Classrooms conducive to learning in a digital age, more and more teachers are turning to distance learning models for a variety of lessons and activities.  Living in a college town with a great teacher ed program, I have the [...]