Wednesday DEN Report

Yesterday I began my journey to become a Discovery Education Network Star. As part of my journey I am to host "events" where I share new and exciting tools I learn about the Discovery Education Network. My goal is to use Wednesday blog posts as events and share all I learn with you! I have posted before about Discovery Education (DE) but I want to take a minute and give you guys a little explanation as to what DE is and what it offers. (**Discovery Education is a subscription site that our county has purchased for all teachers. I highly recommend bringing this site to the attention to your admin!**)

About Discovery Education
From the DE website:

Discovery Education transforms classrooms, empowers teachers and captivates students by leading the way in providing high quality, dynamic, digital content to school districts large and small, rural and suburban and everything in between.

Accelerate student achievement in your district by capturing the minds and imaginations of students with the fascination of Discovery, tapping into students' natural curiosity and desire to learn. Discovery Education offers a portfolio of opportunities for districts to meet students where they want to learn in the digital age. With award- winning digital content, interactive lessons, real time assessment, virtual experiences with some of Discovery's greatest talent, classroom contest & challenges, professional development and more - Discovery is leading the way in transforming classrooms and inspiring learning.

Discovery Education offers a breadth and depth of digital media content that is immersive, engaging and brings the world into the classroom to give every student a chance to experience fascinating people, places, and events. All content is aligned to state standards, can be aligned to custom curriculum, and supports classroom instruction regardless of the technology platform.

My first experience with DE many years ago was just using it as a video resource. I would use videos to introduce a topic, to reinforce a topic, and to be completely honest - a way to keep my kids quiet during nap time while I did one on one assessments or intervention small groups. This past year I have had my eyes opened to a whole new world of possibilities using Discovery Eduction. It can be a little overwhelming so I plan to just talk about one resource at a time and to spend more time showing you how I actually use the different resources with my Kinders. 

Today lets start where I started - videos! There are a lot of great videos on DE. My favorites are the Reading Rainbow and Magic School Bus episodes!!! I still sometimes use the videos the way I mentioned above but I have also ventured into using them in "better" ways too. I have used them to teach my kids how to write a book review based around the book Where the Wild Things Are and using the end of different Reading Rainbow Episodes - I post about this back in October. As mentioned above, I used the Reading Rainbow episode of "My Shadow" to teach about poetry and shadows. I am currently using the videos to teach my children about making their own videos to talk about their learning. We are currently making videos about space. I will post pictures and links once we are done. 

Have any of you ever used Discovery Education in your classroom? I would love to hear about how you have used DE! Also let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them!