Mrs. Tumenas

Computer Class Links

Searching for good quality, credible information online is sometimes a frustrating, time consuming task. The sheer amount of information available can be overwhelming, and then you still need to verify your sources. Many students simply turn to Google and take the top 2 or 3 links they find. I recently had the opportunity to learn more about a new search engine, designed especially for education. Sweet Search is a relatively new search engine, which is great for students to use. This is from their website:

It searches only the 35,000 Web sites that our staff of research experts and librarians and teachers have evaluated and approved when creating the content on findingDulcinea. We constantly evaluate our search results and “fine-tune” them, by increasing the ranking of Web sites from organizations such as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, PBS and university Web sites.

SweetSearch helps students find outstanding information, faster. It enables them to determine the most relevant results from a list of credible resources, and makes it much easier for them to find primary sources. We exclude not only the spam sites that many students could spot, but also the marginal sites that read well and authoritatively, but lack academic or journalistic rigor. As importantly, the very best Web sites that appear on the first page of SweetSearch results are often buried on other search engines.

For more, including a comparison of search results between SweetSearch and Google and Bing, read this blog post.

Try it out for yourself:

Whether you are just learning how to type or learning how to do 3D object oriented programming, it takes practice. Middle school students who are struggling with keyboarding, presentations, word, excel or upper school students who are working with new google tools, InDesign or Alice- the more you practice your skills, the better you will be. Try it- it works!

This is a compilation of the results from all who responded to the survey. Click to enlarge the image.

Created at wordle.net

5Q made a Voice Thread with their grandparents and grandfriends.

They did a great job taking pictures and making short videos. you can see the larger versions of the videos here.

Students in grades 4-9 have been introduced to a new tool this fall, Voice Thread. Each class has worked in Voice Thread, talking about their hopes and dreams or goals for the year. You can check the links for the individual grades on the right to see these. The second part of the assignment for the older students is to make your own Voice Thread around a topic of your choice. Although many students are still in the midst of completing this assignment, the 3 featured below have generated the most comments thus far.

Today President Obama delivered a speech to American students. Before the speech aired there was a lot of controversy over allowing students to watch this in school. This is a short video from Meet the Press about some of this controversy. Did you hear, read or see anything on the news about this? What do you think?

You will find the video of President Obama’s speech below. I would like you to comment on either what you think about the controversy that surrounded the speech before it was given, or about the speech itself. What does it say to you? Does it apply to you? What do you think about goals for your education?

As you formulate your comments, please keep in mind some of the basic rules for blogging in the classroom, or anywhere online. This link about blogging rules is from a school in Thailand…and they all apply to BCD as well.

Created with wordle

Welcome to Mrs. Tumenas’s blog, part of MyBCD. Here you can learn about what’s happening in Mrs. Tumenas’s classes, get homework, and contribute to a discussion. Stay tuned for updates!