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Technology Integration Projects: What are they?
There are plenty of sites out there with a mad long list of great links to support the curriculum. So what makes this site different? A few things. For starters, its organization. This wiki is designed to be your **one shop stop**. It's organized by grade level, content and month, so you can easily find //what// you need //when// you it. It's also organized by the type of technology, which is explained below. This saves you time from sifting through everything just to find a game for your centers.Secondly, this wiki is heavily filtered. We don't need 100 good sites, we only need 5 GREAT ones. But I'm a K teacher, so I'm counting on other teachers to say hey or nay to what's on here for other grades. Which brings me to the 3rd reason this site is different. It's made by teachers who are currently in the classroom and hopefully by you too! If you have something that works in your classroom, please add it. (see instructions how)

A word about online resources
To me, online resources means something very 20th century. Lesson plans that don't involve technology, downloadable worksheets, and informational sites. Not that there is anything wrong with that. There is always a place for ideas, but we have enough TEs, the kids have enough busy work-the majority of our time online should be spent elsewhere, so you will see a limited amount of links under online resources.

Whole Class Presentations or Online Games
Presentations at their best include both audio and graphics to support their content and have some interactivity to them. These are hard to find and I hope that more teachers will create their own and post them here. Online Games posted under this category are meant to be played whole class with adult supervision either because of their difficulty, or their interface (too many distracting ads, clickable links or words the kids can't read) and this varies according to the grade level. (see below for more criteria)

Independent Online Games
A student version is available K-2 on a blog and 3rd grade is available as downloadable Word documents. The idea is that student could independently in centers or a lab setting, open the blog (have it bookmarked) or word document and find the games to practice the skills they need. Both K-1 have pictorial interfaces whereas 2-3 have lists of links. I am very critical of what makes it on the list of online games and even more so of independent games. First of all to be considered a **__good game__**, it needs to be: 1- challenging, but not too hard 2- easy to understand how to play 3- visually stimulating but not distracting 4- have a purpose, even if its only a score

To be a good **__online__** game you have to have all of the above and also: 1- not take to long to load 2- give the student feedback as if their was a real person playing ( a sound when they get it wrong or a happy face for getting it right) 3- monitor student progress in a reportable form to the teacher (ie. score)-this is difficult to find 4- have a balance of "fun" and "work"

To be a good __**independent**__ online game, it needs to have all of the above and also 1- not have pop-ups 2- not ask for individual information 3- not have other clickable links nearby (this is mostly for the younger kids) 4- be organized in a way that the child can independently access games differentiated per student

But when the options are limited, we'll take what we can get:)

Culminating Projects
These projects should take some investment (more than just the half hour lab slot) and be designed to showcase the students learning in a fun and meaningful way (to the child) with the expectation sharing it with an audience (family & friends or other classes). Optimally it would involve much decision making and collaboration on the part of the students and include many [|21st Century Skills]