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What is a fluid environment? Well, I believe when I first started teaching over 30 years ago, that my Social Studies text book, the atlas, and my worksheets were my fluid environment. Occasionally I would show a film strip if I could find one on topic. We were fortunate to supplement with Weekly Reader. Today a fluid environment consists of books, interactives, infographics, videos, songs, animations, web 2.0 tools, online resources - maybe even the kitchen sink! How can we create a fluid environment when we have so many possibilities? How can we move seamlessly from one media to the next? My best advice is to learn from the greatest - Annette Lamb! Her eduscapes website provides many, many examples!!!!

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 * Infographics
 * Google Earth layers or maps
 * Wolfram Alpha
 * iPad books/apps
 * Gizmos on Explore Learning or other simulations
 * Earthguide Diagrams - such as the water cycle
 * Graphics - comics
 * Photos - try to create them yourself
 * Interactives
 * Visual Dictionary: @http://visual.merriam-webster.com/
 * Videos - WatchKnowLearn - search for videos on this site. The site looks for videos on SchoolTube, TeacherTube, YouTube, etc.

Tools for Today:
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The following are tools that we'll be using in today's presentation.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">QR Codes - go to qrcodes.kaywa.com to create a QR code. My first QR code was a message to my husband which he found on his breakfast plate. He had to use his cell phone to scan the code in order to read the message! Awwww, how sweet! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Check the apps on your cell phone to see what you have available to scan QR codes. I use ScanLite on my Android. On the iPads we have NeoReader. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">To download the QR reader on your laptop, go to @http://www.dansl.net/blog/?p=256 Follow the instructions on this page. Download QR Reader and Adobe Air. Once you download those you'll probably be notified that you need to update perian. Go ahead and update perian. Even though there are three things to install (QR Reader, Adobe Air, and an update to Perian) it goes very quickly - all simple installs. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">media type="custom" key="10456598"

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Infographics - information + graphics = infographics. These posters mash-up photos, timelines, data, vocabulary and more for the purpose of making information much more interesting and visual. After using infographics in your classroom, have your students try to create their own using Pages. To learn more about infographics go to my wiki called Infographics in Education.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">iPads - iPads are such a fabulous addition to a fluid environment. One example is the app called Dracula. This is a book with sound effects, music, visuals, and interactivity. Toy Story is also a great interactive book that mashes up coloring pages, with quizzes, with voice recording, and more!

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Heather's Animations - Do NOT use this site with students! Contains adult content! This site is full of great (most of them) animations that work in Keynote, in ActivInspire, blogs, and wikis. Download the ones you want - right click on the animation and save the animation to a folder on your computer. I have put several of these on the server - mostly holiday animations. Just log onto the server and drag them onto your computer.

===<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Content Connections (this is a 5th grade example on Place Value) === <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">These are a work in progress! This is our attempt for grades 3 -6 to harness the resources into units or fluid environments. The original template was made in a Google Doc then duplicated for the other grades and content areas. The following questions are the guidelines for our connections: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Because there are so many resources available it is much easier to differentiate instruction and to teach using multiple intelligences. Howard Gardner believes that most people have at least 8 intelligences, however, in traditional settings we only focus on three: linguistic (words), logical-mathematical (numbers), and intrapersonal (self). The Content Connections include the instructional practices to encourage teachers to teach in a variety of ways and Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. Technology is certainly a piece of the content connections as well. We're hoping these will help us as we transition to the Common Core State Standards.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">What do we expect students to learn and/or be able to do?
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">How will they learn? What will you do if they haven't learned?
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">How will you know if they learned?