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The Best of the Web for Teaching Writing

August 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Aim Academy Pre-AP English teacher, Lauren Bailes, has compiled a list of the best interactive writing tools on the web you can use to help your kids learn to love the process of writing.  We’re making it available as a free PDF file you can download here.

Here is a snippet you will find inside:

Select & organize
http://www.exploratree.org.uk

There are thousands of graphic organizers out there, but
some are a little stale. Exploratree is the next generation of graphic
organizer. With dozens of templates plus customizable shapes, colors, and the
possibility for collaboration, this site is actually capable of capturing
thinking as it happens – and as it changes. (Bonus tech tool: use this teaching guide
for additional pointers with many graphic organizers.)

 

Filed Under: Digital Education, Free Resources, Teaching Writing
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Handouts for Compass Homeschoolers

February 12, 2012 By 2 Comments

I had a blast speaking to one of my favorite groups — COMPASS Homeschoolers in Glen Mills, PA. I’ve uploaded the PowerPoint presentation for that group. There are links embedded so download this to your computer if you want the links to work.

Why Home Schooling Makes Sense…Now More Than Ever

21st Century Homeschooling: The Road Ahead

21st Century Homeschooling Handout

Debra

Filed Under: Digital Education, handouts, seminars
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Push Pop Press – The Future of the Book

August 16, 2011 By 2 Comments

The future of learning is a topic of great interest to me — just as technology is rapidly reinventing the way we live, I think technology is rapidly reinventing the way we learn. Case in point: Push Pop Press set out to reimagine the book of the future. Here’s a peak inside their first creation:

Al Gore’s Our Choice Guided Tour from Push Pop Press on Vimeo.

Don’t get hung-up on the subject matter. Rather, what do you think about the possibilities here? Is this a more powerful learning tool than 20th century textbook?

Unfortunately, Push Pop Press sold their soul to Facebook recently, and no further digital book publishing is planned in their future. But I’m sure other start-up companies will soon be mirroring their reinvention.

What do you think? Do you see ways this kind of presentation of content might be motivating for your kids? Is there a downside?

Filed Under: Digital Education
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Prestwick House Free English Lessons

August 18, 2009 By 2 Comments

We are all about free around here – as that is the hallmark of 21st century homeschooling. It doesn’t have to cost much anymore. But at the same time, we want to troll through all the options and find you not only free but quality materials available online.

That’s what you will find at Prestwick House — monthly free English lessons to download and use with your high schoolers. Here’s a link to a list of all that are currently available:

http://www.prestwickhouse.com/articles.aspx?id=5

 

Also, browse around the site, and you will find a generous supply of sample pages from their publications that can be used in your English program,too.

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WatchKnow Organizing the Web's Educational Videos

July 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Here’s a site to bookmark:

http://watchknow.org

This organization, headed by Wikipedia’s co-founder Larry Sanger, is creating a compendium of educational videos on the Web. Right now they are beta testing, but they already have an impressive collection of videos to watch. What WatchKnow is bringing to the party is an excellent organizational system that will allow students to find helpful videos on the precise topic they need.

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Academic Earth

June 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Academic_Earth

Here’s a site to bookmark and peruse. I’ve been surveying the open content available on the Web for homeschoolers and just this morning I thought, “I wish there was a site where users were rating these lectures so I didn’t have to spend so much time trying to find the best ones.” Well, if you can think of something that ought to exist on the Net, then it probably already does. A recommendation on the Yahoo Groups:homeschool2college granted my wish: Academic Earth is the site which consolidates many of the open content lectures scholars are making available free of charge. Registered users can grade the lectures. Top ranked courses and lectures appear on the home page.

www.academicearth.org

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How to download videos to your computer

May 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

YouTube and other Internet sites have tons of content you might want to use in your homeschooling, but, frequently the surrounding content is offensive. So, here’s what to do — download those video clips to your computer and keep them on hand for later use. Don’t want to load up your hard drive with these large files? Then, keep an external hard drive close at hand ( I carry one in my purse.

Here’s a link to a blog I follow with the instructions for downloading these files and even changing the format:
http://www.lytebyte.com/2007/04/24/how-to-download-video-not-just-from-youtube/

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The World Your Kids Are Entering

May 25, 2009 By 1 Comment

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21st Century Homeschooling

May 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Here are the handouts from my workshops at FPEA this past weekend.

 

http://groups.google.com/group/debrabell?lnk=iggc

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Welcome

May 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak at the FPEA conference in Orlando, FL.  Here’s the YouTube clip I showed during my session on 21st Century Homeschooling.

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