December 2010 - Tandberg

Every school in our region is now equipped with Tandberg video conferencing equipment! Have you ever heard of Skype? Well, Tandberg is Skype but better!

Have you ever received an invitation to attend a virtual field trip? This is the tool you want to use for it. Or even better, you can find and schedule one that truly meets your needs and curriculum.   This is truly exciting!

Here are some ideas to help you think of ways to integrate the Tandberg into your classroom or utilize it for your professional development endeavor. Check out other possibilities at the K5 Libraries website in Teacher Resources. 

Meet your ePals.	Take a virtual field trip to a zoo to make those Asian animals you're studying come to life.
Attend a meeting at CASS while staying at your school in Morrill.	Find a connection to have a class chat with a group in another state or country.
Have peer readers visit your class from another building.	Connect with an author to bring the story you've read to come to life.
Let your students meet their future teachers as they prepare travel to their new school.	Hold grade level meetings across the region while staying in your own classroom.

Lance Ford will be teaching a course for UMaine, Farmington in Spring 2011. It is a 3-hour Graduate Level Credited Class. If you are interested, please email lance.ford@tandberg.com or Pam Wilson using pwilson@maine.edu and ask about the graduate class.

Showcasing...

Teachers at Stockton Springs have begun making their class webpages at the Stockton Springs website > Teacher Websites. Check out the Landform Glossary the the 4th graders made in Mrs. Baldridge's class. If you are interested in having a class webpage sooner rather than later, let us know and we'll help you get started.

This is video about The Pledge of Allegiance that Mrs. Hussey's 1st grade class made to honor our soldiers Veterans Day. They are so cute!

Favorite December Sites:

Celebrate Winter Holidays Explore scrapbooks to learn the history and traditions behind three popular winter holidays: Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. Neat clipart.

Make a Greeting Card.

Brainstorm holiday words and then make a Wordle. It's lots of fun! Hint: Enter the word multiple times to make them bigger and to make two words show as one, connect them with a tilde, eg. Merry~Christmas.

And my all time favorite - Make a Snowflake.