Classzone.com revelations

Today I was at Mears working with the 7th and 8th grade LA teams on their curriculum day. They asked me to come do a refresher training on classzone.com. Wanting to catch up with some old friends, I stumbled into a meeting for 8th grade social studies. They were discussing resources to use with their book on their smartboards. On one of the screens I noticed the term Classzone.com. Of course I had to gently step in and ask if we could check that out.
EPIPHANY! Social studies teachers are using the same book publishing company McDougal, so they have a similar classzone.com feature. They showed me how McDougal was putting the new version of the text online one chapter at a time and it actually had some interactive activities that were great for the interactive whiteboard. We re-enacted a battle scene during our lunch break. Way cool!
When I met with LA teachers later that day, they were unenthusiastic about my new discovery. It seems that our LA/SS colleagues figured this one out a long time ago.
Sooooo, how can we make this work for us? Many of the activities are similar on the sites. This is GREAT for students! Having a similar theme can help them navigate and feel confident trying new activities on both websites.
The ACTIVITY MAKER is AMAZING!!! Create your own review games and play them with your students. During the SS meeting, the Dept Chair came up with the BRILLIANT idea of using one account to create the activity review. That way the review would be saved in one 8th grade teacher account and they could all have access to it. YES-I shared that with their LA colleagues. Way to go Amber!! Such a good idea. I am going to investigate if their is a way to export this out to student accounts, or allow them access to the teacher created version. At this point it looks like it is best for a projected activity in class. It is one of the few that caters to that type of presentation style. Most of the activities are great for students to work on individually from computers at school or home.
What a great day I had working with the Mears team. I shared a small personal epiphany that allowed us to make some great connections for how teachers could be using the site classzone.com along with other resources.
Thanks for having me today Mears. You guys are awesome!
If you are interested in learning more about the options on classzone.com, send me an email. If you are brave, just start clicking around. There is a wealth of information available for both the teacher and the student. I especially LOVE the graphic organizer section.
www.classzone.com