CHAPTER NINE: IDENTIFYING SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES Vonnie & Rachel

Recommendations for Classroom Practice  Teach comparing and classifying using similarities and differences  Give students a model of the steps.  Use familiar context.  Use a graphic organizer as a visual tool.  Guide students through this process. Gradually give less structure and less guidance.

Word Processing Applications  Use Microsoft Word Drawing toolbar to draw diagrams, charts, tables, or other templates to compare and classify items or illustrate a metaphor. Venn Diagram

Spreadsheet Software  Facilitates the comparison of data, making it an ideal tool to use with students to help them identify similarities and differences.  Students collect data, input into spreadsheet, apply any necessary formulas, and convert to multiple visual representations of their data.

Organizing and Brainstorming Software  Kidspiration (grades preK-5) and Inspiration (for intermediate and older)  Student-generated graphic organizers that helps students visually portray connections and experience new and deeper insights about the content.

Data Collection Tools  Very useful for identifying similarities and differences due to the fact that it allows students to quickly create many graphical representations for comparison.

CHAPTER 10: HOMEWORK AND PRACTICE Vonnie & Rachel

Recommendations for Classroom Practice  Homework  Establish and communicate a homework policy.  Design homework assignments that clearly articulate purpose and outcome.  Vary approaches to providing feedback.  Practice  Ask students to chart their speed and accuracy  Design practice assignments that focus on specific elements of a complex skill or process  Plan time for students to increase their conceptual understanding of skills or processes.

Word Processing Applications  Microsoft Word  Students are able to do research on a specific topic using the Microsoft Research tools. Microsoft 2003: Tools>Research Microsoft 2007: Review Tab> Research Eliminates the need to go back and forth between a browsing program/search engine window and the Word Processing software.  Other Resources Available: Thesaurus Dictionary E-Library

Spreadsheet Software  Using spreadsheets for homework and practice is typically about students using data to master concepts and skills.  Students can practice by calculating, manipulating, and displaying data to gain deeper understanding.  Example:  A P.E. teacher and football coach had students use spreadsheet software to enter their workout data.  Once data was collected, the students used their data to create a graph.

Multimedia Software  Using and creating multimedia requires a high degree of technology accessibility.  Multimedia homework is an opportunity to deepen understanding and gain proficiency.  Practicing with multimedia allows students to shape the experience to their individual learning style and increase their level of understanding to mastery.

Educational Software  EDDIE Awards  BESSIE Awards  Technology & Learning’s Awards of Excellence  eSchoolNews Readers’ Choice Awards  CodIE Awards  Discovery Education’s The Parent Channel (see page 193 for websites!)  In addition to learning from multimedia, students can learn with multimedia by creating their own projects.  PowerPoint games  Jeopardy  Battleship List of ResourcesCreate Projects

Web Resources  Allow students to practice concepts and skills repeatedly from their homes, during a study period, or even as an anchor activity in a differentiated classroom.  Online educational games have an inherent appeal and generate immediate feedback that allows a student, parent, and teacher to monitor progress toward mastery.

Web Resources  BBC Skillswise  National Library of Virtual Manipulatives  ExploreLearning  BrainPop  Iknowthat.com  Stellarium (see page for websites!)  Wizards & Pigs  Flashcard Exchange  Mousercise  Lever Tutorial  Kitchen Chemistry  Hurricane Strike!  Instant Project

Communication Software  Microsoft Word ‘Track Changes’ and ‘Insert Comments’ features to give feedback on student writing.  Writeboard.com allows multiple users to edit a document via the Web (similar to a wiki)  Backpack Checklist ( allows students to make individual or shared pages to organize notes, Web sites, to-do lists, etc.  Campfire ( is an online group chat tool which allows students to collaborate between classrooms, schools, or even countries.

Web Resources  Web resources used for text editing.  Google Docs (  YourDraft (  Sometimes referred to as WYSIWYG (wizee wig) which stands for “what you see is what you get”  JotSpot (

THE END Vonnie & Rachel