Who Wants to be a Millionaire PowerPoint Game!

Updated: September, 2011 - The New Who Wants to Be a Millionaire PowerPoint Game has been released.  To find out how you can get it simply click here.

Updated: August 2011  - Even Greater News: The New Wants to be a Millionaire PowerPoint Game will be released Sunday Evening, September 4, 2011.  Be one of the first to get it.  We will only offer a limited supply.   Stay tuned for more details to come.

Greetings,

I hope you are having a great weekend.  This is the PowerPoint that all of you have been waiting for.  Simply click on the picture above to download the free game.  Make learning a fun and enriching experience for your students.

All you will have to do is click in the text boxes to type the questions and the answers for your students.  Once you have saved it, save it again and rename it.  You can continue to create different Millionaire games by saving the template with a different name.

This game can be used with any multiple choice review or exercise.  As you move up to different money amounts the questions need to be more challenging.  One way to play the game is you select a student to come to the front to go through the questions. 

The rest of the students are going to be part of the audience.  If the student misses one question, then you can select another student to play. The student also is given three choices to get help.

1. 50:50 - With this option, you take away 2 wrong answers and let the student choose the correct answer.

2. Telephone Call: - With this option, the student can choose to talk to another student for 30 seconds regarding identifying the correct answer.

3. Take a Poll: - With this option, the teacher will take a poll for the correct answer.  While the teacher says the letters the students are suppose to raise their hand on the one they think is correct.

When you are playing this game, make sure you turn on your computer speakers and listen to the great sound effects.  Your students will love this game!  I will see you next week with another exciting topic.

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Great Student Centered Activities (Grades K - 1)

Greetings,

I hope you are having a great day. Today I am sharing with you a great web site with free student centered activities for grades K – 5.  This one of the best web sites I have found with hundreds of great student centered activities that you can make.  You will want to save the books that I will be sharing with you.  Once you save them, then you can print them in color and cut them out to use in centers or a small group setting.

According to the Florida Center Reading for Research (FCRR), “The Student Center Activities were created over a three year period. Student Center Activities for Kindergarten and First Grade were published in 2005, Second and Third Grade were published in 2006, and Fourth and Fifth Grade were published in 2007. The activities are formatted in the following manner.”

This week I will be sharing with you the free resources for grades K – 1: These resources include games and activities that students can play in reading centers. If you look down below, you can download all the resources for free.

Kindergarten and First Grade Student Center Activities:

Kindergarten and First Grade Professional Development DVD (6 Parts)

Teacher Resource Guide

Part 1: Five Components of Reading, Frequently Asked Questions, Implementing and Managing Student Centers in the Classroom, Interpretation and Implementation of Activity Plans (50 page PDF)

Part 2: Crosswalks (Sorted By Activity Number and Subcomponent), Kindergarten and First Grade Benchmarks (28 page PDF)

Part 3: K-1 Glossary of Reading Terms, References (14 page PDF)

Book 1: Phonological Awareness and Phonics Student Center Activities Introduction & Contents (5 page PDF)

A. Phonological Awareness

Part 1: Rhyme & Alliteration (82 page PDF)

Part 2: Sentence Segmentation, Syllables & Onset Rhyme (54 page PDF)

Part 3: Phoneme Matching (56 page PDF)

Part 4: Phoneme Isolating & Phoneme Segmenting (55 page PDF)

Part 5: Phoneme Segmenting and Blending & Phoneme Manipulating (36 page PDF)

B. Phonics

Part 1: Letter Recognition (43 page PDF)

Part 2: Letter-Sound Correspondence (115 page PDF)

Part 3: Onset and Rime (43 page PDF)

Part 4: Encoding and Decoding (37 page PDF)

Part 5: High Frequency Words (71 page PDF)

Part 6: Variant Correspondences (59 page PDF)

Part 7: Syllable Patterns & Morpheme Structures (46 page PDF)

Book Two: Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension Introduction and Contents (6 page PDF)

A. Fluency

All Parts: Letter Recognition, Letter Sound Correspondence, High Frequency Words, Oral Reading (83 page PDF)

B. Vocabulary

All Parts: Word Identification/Words in Context, Words that Describe/Word Meaning, Word Categorization/Word Knowledge, Word Structure/Word Analysis (135 page PDF)

C. Comprehension

All Parts: Sentence Structure & Meaning, Monitoring for Meaning, Story Structure, Narrative Text Structure, Expository Text Structure, Text Analysis, Main Idea/Summarizing (79 page PDF)

To download all the resources and to view the DVD parts for FREE, click here.

Ok, next week I will be sharing with you the grades 2 - 3 reading resources.  I hope you have a great week.  Take care.

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How to Use the Pocket Digital Video Camera: Part 3

Greetings,

Today we are going over all the parts of the Flip Digital Pocket Video Camera, including the basic operations. Listed below are the Camcorder features. To see the picture up close, just double click on the picture below.

Basic Operations:
Recording Videos:
1. Press the Red Record button to start and stop.
2. Press Up/Down buttons to Zoom in/Out.

Playing Videos:
1. Press Play button to Start and Stop.
2. Press left/right buttons to view previous/next.

Deleting Videos:
1. Display the first from of the footage to be deleted.
2. Press the Trashcan button.
3. Press Yes to confirm.

For a great breakdown on the Camcorder basics, please see the video below.

Various Shots:

Wide shot: Establishes the scene.

Medium shot: Give more intimacy and focuses on one subject at a time.

Close Up: For emotion and direct connection to what is happening in the scene.

Extreme close up: Very close and personal, intimate and has an emotional effect to it.

For great video shooting tips with the Camcorder, please view the video below.

If you visit the following web site: www.flipvideospotlight.com/resources/storytelling.aspx you will get more information on storytelling, shooting, video production and distribution.

The camcorder comes with a step by step guide, instructions, strap, A/V cable, software and media are built in the camera. Additional items you can purchase include the rechargeable battery pack. If you invest in the rechargeable battery pack, you simply plug your camcorder in the computer to recharge it.

The specifications on the Camcorder are listed below:

Internal Memory: 4GB (120 minutes)

Screen Size: 2.0 (transflective TFT)

Screen Resolution: 960 x240 pixels

Video Resolution: 640 x 480 pixels

Frame Rate: 30 frames per second (constant frame rate, progressive scan)

Video Bitrate 4.0Mbps (average auto adaptive algorithm)

Video Format: H.264 video compression, AAC audio compression (Ipod ready), saves as MP4 file

Lens Type: Smooth multi-step 2x digital

Aperture: f/2.4 (fast lens for great results in low-light environments)

Zoom: Smooth multi-step 2x digital

Interface: 8 Buttons (Power, Play, Delete, Record and 4 way navigation)

Dimensions: 4.25" x 2.19" x 1.17 (H x W x D)

PC Connection: Built-in flip-out USB arm (up to USB 2.0 speed)

TV Out: Composite Video (cable included)

Battery Life: Up to 2.5 hours (with 2x AA Alkaline batteries). Up to 6.5 hours (with 2 x AA Energizer e2 batteries)

Tripod Mount: Yes

Operating Systems: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX

Min. Requirements: (PC) 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or faster processor, Windows XP SP2 with 512 MB of RAM 0r Vista with 1 GB of RAM, and USB 2.0 port. (Mac) 1.0 GHz Intel Core or faster processor, 512 MB of RAM, OS X Tiger 10.4, Leopard 10.5 or Snow Leopard 10.6 and USB 2.0 Port

Remember next week, I will be blogging about how to work with video footage and the software Flipshare. Hope to see you soon.

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Tell the Whole World!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what is a talking picture worth? This week I am introducing a new web site that lets you turn any picture into a talking picture. That’s right, a regular picture into a talking picture. All you have to do is click on the picture to the left or click on the following link: http://www.blabberize.com/ Just like the picture says, it only takes 30 seconds. It's fast, easy and also fun to use. How would you like to use this tool to teach the students a concept or an idea from a talking picture?Your students or audience will love it. You can also put it in presentations or entertain your audience to make a point. Hope you have fun playing with it and we will see you next week.

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