Group items tagged

"Could you really run a makerspace that is fun, dynamic, engaging, thought-provoking and inexpensive?  Take the twice a month "5 In a Bag" challenge using only household and easily obtainable items.  Add pics and videos of your creations on the padlet, and particpate in the Twitter chat using #5inabag.  Who knows what you will come up with!"

"I've just presented another Webinar for the fab Eduwebinar team - this time on texts which support the makerspace movement. Some notes from this evening's webinar are below for attendees, and anyone else who may be starting their makerspace journey, or wishing to add to their existing resources."

"Our CREATE Education Project champions partner organisations who share our ethos for making 3d printing as easy, accessible and affordable as possible for everyone. In the name of open source we find synergies with many pioneers who understand that sharing is the way forward to developing and seeding innovation for new technologies. When we find these pioneers it is our mission to provide access to our community so that everyone can enjoy the progress and even add to it themselves.  One of the more challenging aspects of introducing 3D printing into schools is the complexity of 3D modelling software and the general cost of having computers that can handle such software. A good majority of schools have adopted a cheaper method of computing which is the tablet. iPads are fast becoming common in the classroom and this is where Gravity Sketch comes in."

"When I'm not busy working on our teaching websites, I can usually be found playing Lego with our children! It's an incredibly creative toy, but it can also be used to support work in a number of different curriculum areas. Here is our HUGE list of ways to use Lego in the classroom. Many of these ideas have been contributed by our wonderful Facebook community. If you have any other suggestions, please add a comment at the bottom of the page. Don't forget that many of these activities could use Duplo too!"

"Science NetLinks is in the early stages of gathering and reviewing STEM-related apps for both the iPad and the Android. Please check back often as we expect to add new app-related tools on a regular basis."

"One of the things we need to be doing as educators is to critically evaluate the resources and learning experiences that we provide for our students. This is even more important when we are spending vast sums of public money to implement new or innovative hardware devices into our schools. At the moment only short term studies have been released showing the benefits or not of using 1:1 tablet programs. There are few that are easily accessible to teachers or that outline specific strategies for implementing tablet programs. It would good to create a collection of these if people are aware of them. Send them through and I will add them to this article. These could even be cited when making the argument for implementing such programs. "

"For today's Weekly App Series we've found six great apps to add to your iPad collection. We have included six essential news and news reader apps in this week's bundle. Our editorial team goes through the data, picks the best and most interesting apps and then brings them to you on a regular basis."

"For today's Weekly App Series we've found six great apps to add to your iPad collection. We have included six Summer Olympics apps in this week's bundle. Our editorial team goes through the data, picks the best and most interesting apps and then brings them to you on a regular basis."

"Interactive visuals are great learning and teaching materials to use with your students in the classroom. From explaining difficult processes to visual brainstorming, interactive graphics are a good way to consolidate students learning and promote their comprehension. Below are three of the web tools I would recommend for creating interactive visuals, I know there are several other titles to add to this list but the ones below are, in my view, more student-friendly and simpler to use."

"Cosmic Cubs Storymaker is an iPad app that elementary school students can use to create short stories about space. Cosmic Storymaker provides a book layout to which students can add page backgrounds, clip art characters, and speech bubbles. Students drag pre-written words and sentences to each speech bubble on the pages they create. All of the pre-written text is related to space. Completed stories are saved in the app."

"This week I started introducing my 4th and 5th grade STEM students to coding with the free iPad app, Hopscotch. I was not able to find a set of "challenges" with Hopscotch to use in my lessons, so I wrote and published a short eBook that I've titled, "Hopscotch Challenges." You can download it (FREE) in ePUB format from my DropBox account. Please check it out, share feedback as comments here or on Twitter (@wfryer), and submit additional ideas for challenges to add to the eBook using the Google form I included in it."

"Below are some good iPad apps for History and Geography teachers. I am sharing them with you on the occasion of the start of a new school year. I invite you to have a look and share with us if you have other titles to add to the list. If you want more resources for back to school I recommend that you check this resource section."

"During one of my workshops last year in Boston, Brad Ovenell-Carter (@braddo) put his visual notetaking skills to action. I took his lovely summary drawing and used ThingLink to add layers of information and elaboration."

"Augmented reality should not be confused with virtual reality, for the boundaries of each concept are clearly demarcated. While virtual reality denotes a reality that exists only in the virtual world (online), augmented reality, on the other hand, keeps the real world but only adds a digital layer to it. or amplifies it. In other words, augmented reality gives you  actual information without changing or displacing the real world you are experiencing."

"The summer is a great time to explore new-to-you iPad apps that you might want to add to the iPads that you have in your classroom. Each day this week I'm going to share a selection of apps appropriate for four ranges of pre-K-12 grades. Yesterday, I shared 21 apps for Pre-K through 2nd grade. Today, I have apps 3rd through 5th grade students. Apps for grades six through eight will be shared tomorrow. Apps for 9th through 12th grade will be shared on Thursday. "