January POGO Special Ends Soon!!

Hurry, you don't have much time left to snag this POGO (pick one, get one) special!

From January 3rd - January 30th, you can pick Eminent Domain or Who Owns What? and receive the other as an automatic bonus!

Teach your students about the laws of Eminent Domain. 

Teach your students about conflicts over property rights and government regulations.

Who Owns What? is one of our titles that isn't available for streaming on our website, so you're going to want to grab the DVD version!

Click here to learn more about this POGO.

Do you wanna help?

Teachers, we need you!

For more information, email Susan Gable Director of Educational Curriculum at: opportunity@izzit.org.

When Horses Fly in School by Jean Alicen Brady

Students in my class love the video When Horses Fly. This izzit.org video is about one of the most important inventions of our time - the jumbo jet. Students come along as 47 prize-winning thoroughbreds journey halfway across the globe. They learn that air freight is more than just about flying horses, but global business partnerships.

Whenever I use When Horses Fly, I stop the video at different points so we can discuss critical pieces of information. Allowing these pauses creates time for students to think about the video more carefully.

For the non-verbal students in our group, I have created social stories, which include pictures to help the visual learns. We use a magnet board to show the sequence of events, an activity in which the students happily participate. Since my students are low-functioning and autistic, we repeat the same cycle the following day for critical understanding.

On the following day we complete a crossword puzzle on the board based on When Horses Fly. Even those students who appeared not to be paying attention would moments later begin talking about the video and some of the things they liked about it.

Some of my co-workers were skeptical the videos from izzit.org would be accessible to our special-needs students. Unfortunately, there is a bias against students who are considered "different," and so often good material like this is not provided to them.

With this in mind, I invited some teachers into my room to see for themselves how the program can work. They were impressed and have since signed up themselves.

This year during spring break I went to a conference for izzit.org and it was a great learning experience for me.

Most special-needs children need visual and auditory lessons to learn. What an inexpensive way to do this - through free videos once a year! This is the best resource I have ever bought at any price. I would say to any teacher, if you have not tried out the program - you are really missing out. That goes especially for special education teachers: These films can be simplified based on a student's ability, but always expect more.

The izzit materials can easily be modified to meed the needs of these precious children. With videos like When Horses Fly, I have some of the teaching tools I need. It has given them the perfect opportunity to show not only that they are capable of learning, but it can be fun, too.

Jean Alicen Brady works for HAVEN, a day school for students with intense behaviors that cannot be tolerated in a general education environment. Working out of Mableton, Georgia, Jean is a dual diagnosis teacher, working with emotional behavior disorder students. She was a real estate agent until 6 years ago when she went back to school to become a teacher.

Great Teacher Resources – Brainpop and FreedFlix by Mike Siekkinen

Have you tried Brainpop? Our school bought a site license for it last year; it was very reasonable. Brainpop is a multi-topic site that kids really enjoy. Students log in and then can be assigned topics/areas to visit on the website. It really does have something for everyone. Students can play games, watch short videos and then take quizzes on the assigned topics. Best of all, these can be very quick (10 minutes) or lengthy, depending on what you assign. I find the site easy to navigate and my middle school students love it.

Another site I am using is FreedomFlix.This also requires a site license but is also very reasonable. FreedomFlix is a history related site that is customizable with regards to reading levels. It has loads of topics ranging from early colonization to all of the wars America has been involved in. Three different Lexile levels are available with each lesson as well.  Students can even select "read aloud" and the text is read to them. I find both options great for my multi-level readers as well as my ESOL students. I, with very little effort, design webquests for my students that guide them through the site and information. There are videos, maps, historical documents and stories for each topic as well as external links to other sites. Great site for high, low and in between reading levels!

My students think the website is fun and enjoy when they are "assigned" topics to do on Brainpop. I have always thought it the best of both worlds when students are enjoying themselves and are learning at the same time.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve used either of these resources, or if you have other places teachers should know about.

Dr. Mike Siekkinen, a retired U.S. Navy submariner, became a teacher as a second career. He teaches history at St Marys Middle School as well as Adult and Career Education at Valdosta State in Georgia.

POGO (Pick one, get one) Eminent Domain and Who Owns What

Happy 2016!!!

Even though our elves might be a little tired after wrapping up the 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway Spectacular, and shipping out ALL those DVDs and Roku streaming sticks, we thought why not start the year off a POGO?! (Pick One Get One!)

From January 3rd - January 30th, you can pick Eminent Domain or Who Owns What? and receive the other as an automatic bonus!

Teach your students about the laws of Eminent Domain. 

Teach your students about conflicts over property rights and government regulations.

Who Owns What? is one of our titles that isn't available for streaming on our website, so you're going to want to grab the DVD version!

Click here to learn more about this POGO.