While reading Helen Keller’s Miracle Worker, Lisa McTague had an interesting challenge on [...]]]> With six more months of school, it’s time to think about updating your teacher website, but what can you do to make it more interesting to students and teachers while using your time effectively? How about incorporating student work into your website?

While reading Helen Keller’s Miracle Worker, Lisa McTague had an interesting challenge on her website for her students. One student would use sign language to spell a word or sign a phrase while another student videotaped the sign language. Lisa then posted the video with a challenge to the students: “Send me an email telling me what the sign language video means.”

Have a look by visiting her website HERE.

Second Life is great for adults and teenagers, but for the elementary [...]]]> Secret Builders is new to me–I’ve tried to be a part of virtual worlds like Second Life, but have been hampered by a slightly older computer.  Virtual world sites do require a fast internet connection and a late-model computer, but they are worth investigating.

Second Life is great for adults and teenagers, but for the elementary and ‘tween set, Secret Builder is the way to go.  Students can create an avatar for themselves and interact with each other as well as important historical figures such as William Shakespeare and Galileo.

I’ve been walking around, and there are some interesting games.  The Reading Room in one of the houses (saw Charlotte Bronte on the way in) has a neat typing game, Sudoku, and an interesting slingshot game.  Secret Builders must be based on the west coast since “game time” is three hours behind us.

The computing power required for this doesn’t seem to be outrageously intensive, but I’ve had to close the browser three times already because the application stalled, so I’d think twice about getting students involved with this on a large scale.  This might be neat to introduce to them as a center activity or independent activity when they are done early.

Anyway, I’m not a huge fan–yet, but I think it’s worth having a look.  Let me know what you think!