WatchKnow.org

WatchKnow.org is a great new website from the creator of Wikipedia. It is a huge collection of educational videos from all over the net. WatchKnow does not host videos, but collects links and shares them. All the videos are pre-approved for content and appropriateness. Here's a short video about WhatKnow.

One of the best features is that you can sort videos by name, age, and curricular content. I've used it on several occasions, and it is expanding everyday. You can suggest videos to add to the site. Check it out the next time you need a video!

-  Patrick

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Unique Summer Curriculum Review

I took the opportunity this summer to try out the Unique Curriculum from the folks at News-2-You. I was impressed by the program, and felt it did a lot of things very well. There are a few parts that they could improve.

The summer theme was "Summer". We talked about going to the pool, taking walks, going camping, etc... It was a good topic for a summer session, and even included an "indoor camping" lesson to end things. I was not able to complete all the lessons (we had a short ESY session this year), but do have some thoughts on it.

Good Points:

• The theme was something that all the students could relate too. It was easy to find activities that they understood.
  
• The curriculum covers all the areas. There were lessons for reading, math, science & social science.
• Differentiation! All lessons included several different levels to help teachers plan for different level students.
  
• Available for Primary, Intermediate, Jr. High & High School levels.
• Multiple materials available. Books came in 3 levels, worksheets came with pictures or without, even tracing or non tracing sheets for handwriting.
  

Things to work on:

• The materials are all in black & white. This did not engage my students as well as other materials I've used.
  
• The lessons were in an odd order. Now this may be a misunderstanding by me, but all the reading lessons were first, then science, etc... I expected the different subjects to be scattered throughout the entire unit. Admittedly reading was prevalent in the majority of the lessons, but other subjects were more limited.
• I don't feel that there was enough core content to justify using it as a full curriculum. I can see using it for science/social science (since it has great themes), but using it as my full reading curriculum does not feel right to me.
  

These are just my thoughts on the free Summer Curriculum from Unique Learning Systems. Did you use the curriculum this summer? or do you use Unique Learning System during the year? I'd love to hear your thoughts

Patrick

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: Xose Castro

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FREE Unique Learning Summer Curriculum

Readers of this blog might remember that I've talked about News-2-You before. They also have a curriculum called the Unique Learning System. The Unique Learning System is a thematic curriculum with reading, math, science & social science standards built into it. They have included multiple bands, i.e. grade levels, to facilitate teaching multiple groups of students. And they are giving away their summer curriculum for free! You can download the free curriculum from here:

Summer Curriculum

Patrick

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Literacy for All

Teaching reading to all students has been something on my mind for quite a while.  While at my last district I was part of a team that investigated different curriculum's to teach reading to all students.  One curriculum that impressed me greatly was the Early Literacy Skills Builder, from Attainment Company.  It was created by Dr. Diane Browder from University of North Carolina and her staff.  Several years ago she began looking for reading programs for students with disabilities that met the National Reading Panels recommendations, but was unable to find anything that met all the recommendations.  She decided to create a reading curriculum to use with students with significant cognitive disabilities.


The research for this program was started several years ago, and is part of a 5 year research study.  Dr. Browder is in year 3 of this study, and so far all students who have participated have made significant gains.  Here is a white paper about the research: White Paper.

The program is designed as a Direct Instruction type program. It is scripted and includes most of the necessary materials to teach the program.  Sight words, phonemic awareness, and direct phonics instruction are part of the program.  Comprehension and vocabulary are covered by using storybooks.  There are 10 steps to using the storybooks to work on these skills.

This program is literally the only program available that has been researched, and shown significant results for students with significant cognitive disabilities.  It is a great program.




-  Patrick