Happy Birthday Teaching Palette!

September 25, 2009 by admin · 2 Comments 

birthday paletteWe made it!  One year old and we have grown in so many ways. Here’s a little history on how our blog started:

Email from Hillary to Theresa (Labor day weekend 2008): “What do you think about starting a blog where we can post all our classroom management stuff ?”

Yea, we’ve come a long way since that email. Our primary goal was to favor quality over quantity (which also coincidentally matches our teaching styles).

So, we started with classroom management, music + art integration, and product reviews. It was a great focus (and we still try and discuss these topics often), yet we expanded even further. We invited YOU to join us. (Thank you to everyone who has been a guest author!!) We added lots of web 2.0 tools, advocated for the arts, and added things just cool and creative.

We have also expanded our readership (thank you everyone!). Our email subscriptions doubled over the summer. Therefore, since many of our new readers missed our infant stages (which we still think are useful), we decided to celebrate our 1st birthday with a few of our favorites from the archives:

Theresa’s personal favorites:
The Clean-Up Map – Inspired by Dora the Explorer (yes, kids CAN follow directions!?!)

Photography as Art and History – Just love the contrast in music and imagery over this 100 year span.

Hillary’s personal favorites:
The Magic Pocket Name – Love how this simple technique can be so effective in the art room!

American Revolution Portraitist – It’s exciting to make connections between American history, art and music.

Filed under: Cool + Creative
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Tizmos: Post-it Notes for the Web

December 30, 2008 by Theresa McGee · Leave a Comment 

It is amazing how many cool websites exist out there – just when you think you’ve seen it all, someone else comes up with a better mousetrap. I always promise myself I will remember to get back to those sites “when I have time.” The reality is, I rarely go back to the website and it is lost somewhere among my bookmarks/favorites menu.

Recently, I came across Tizmos, the perfect visual reminder! Tizmos is a web- based, personalized homepage that allows you to “see” your chosen web addresses from any location.

Each “Tizmo” looks and acts a bit like a multi-colored Post-it note linked to the web that can be dragged and dropped, edited, or deleted. Tizmos can also be set to open as your home page so you are reminded of interesting sites or used as quick access when presenting to students. The screen shot below clearly illustrates Tizmos.

Filed under: Classroom Management, Organization and Preparation
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