Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Beautiful timelines for history or social studies.

Especially good for young learners- middle school. Has hundreds of games and resources, and subject videos are contributed by kids. You can also search for a word in one of their video, includes history, poetry and other literature, holiday stories, etc. From Carla Arena.

"CK-12.org is a non-profit organization dedicated to education. Their website offers a large collection of resources for students and teachers like Brain Genie which I previously shared. The bulk of their resources are math and science centered where students can learn about chemistry, physics, algebra, and geometry just to name four. They also offer resources for other content areas as well including history, English, and SAT prep. Their website is free to join and offers a wealth of learning resources and activities. Their site offers articles, quizzes, interactive lessons, videos and students can keep track of their learning as they complete lessons and activities and members can upload their own resources to the site as well. " This looks like a good attempt to crowd-source materials for K-12 in the U.S. Could have uses for ESL/EFL, particularly with content- and project-based learning.

This is truly the best of the best podcasts for the inquisitve mind. Includes links to TED talks, "Stuffy you missed in history class," "This American Life," and even "Wait, Wait..." for fun. Excellent for the teacher who wants to keep up, or the advanced learner who might want lots of listening practice while learning about American culture and interests.

"Project-Based Learning (PBL) has a long history, beginning with educational philosopher John Dewey, who called the practice "learning by doing."" PBL focuses on real-world problems and encourages students to explore authentic issues outside the classroom. This article helps explain why PBL is such a powerful tool for learning.

This TESOL board has lots of good discussions and ideas from teachers. (This is just one example -- check out past history for other ideas.) One nice feature -- you can add your own example and/or write a comment on someone else's.

As Vance Stevens points out, TBL sounds a lot like "communities of practice." The Wikipedia article has a brief history, motivations and benefits, etc.

An explanation of the history and development of the CC for English Language Arts.

What makes a great "social LMS"? " Does it provide a means to rate and prioritize the social learning interactions? Does it allow for evaluating the effectiveness of the social learning experience? Does it integrate with and enhance an organization's existing system? Does it track the history and outcomes of the social learning process? Does it allow for open collaboration and knowledge sharing? Does it improve productivity? Does it make learning easier?" All the reasons whya traditional LMS may not work well in an educational setting. Can Moodle adapt?

This blog entry has some great, but simple, ideas for getting group work to, well, work. One is to award, for example 40 points for a 4-person group, and have students award each other points based on how much they thought they did in the group. Another is to use G-Docs histories to see who has actually been working on revisions. And a third is to make students more cognitively aware of themselves as part of a team -- identifying with their team and investing in its success. Great collaboration ideas. This log is focused on middle school learners, but the ideas will work well for any age.

This is one of the more educational timeline services and is mostly video-based. Especially appropriate for secondary students, but you will need to do some preparation to use the videos with English learners.

Games and history activities to help students learn about this ancient culture.

This blog discusses a tool that allows you to collect data on your personal use of email, and helps you understand all the controversy over government collection of data. "They have created a new program called Immersion. It works by signing you into your Gmail account and collecting only the meta-data from your account usage history. From there you can get a picture of your emailing habits from that single account, and you will be shocked at what you see. "According to the three creators, there are four purposes to the program: self-reflection, artistic representation, privacy revelations and the ability to develop a strategy in your communications on a professional level."

100s of informational videos on history, computers, science, language arts, Common Core subjects, etc. Use these as the basis for your lessons.

"The Education and the Environment (EEI) Curriculum teaches to mastery select K-12 California academic content standards in Science and History-Social Science, using the environment as a context for learning. " Includes Common Core standards in general science as well.

This blog describes a first experience with using a backchannel to help out students while they were watching a history film in class. Applicable across the curriculum and for ESOL.

Some beautiful websites with video and photos. You'll have to explore for yourself what the copyright issues are. Some of the sites have good search categories for teachers, like "history" and "art." Using emotionally laden and content-rich digital images is a great way to start a writing project or a speaking class.

This looks like a very useful tool, once students got used to using it. Has political, ecology, population, etc., possibilities. Visualize history.

"Geeky teachers have brought Minecraft to subjects ranging from history to biology to probability. The game is being rolled out to every secondary school in Northern Ireland this month. If you're a parent, you've noticed Minecraft offerings spawning in your local summer camp listings. The Chicago Architecture Foundation offers a Minecraft camp for budding builders. Ninety-two libraries participated in the International Games Day Minecraft Hunger Games tournament, andcrowned a 13-year-old girl as its champion. And, I've helped launch Connected Camps' Summer of Minecraft, a new in-game online camp. "Progressive educators have been advocating for games-based learning ever since Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail, and Reader Rabbit opened up a new market for consumer children's software in the '80s. SimCity demonstrated how a building and tinkering game could be embraced by parents, kids, and educators. And, Scratch shows how kid-centered learning communities can thrive online. "Minecraft is part of this lineage of learning games, but it fundamentally rewrites the playbook." This blog talks about why Minecraft is so popular with kids and with educators alike, referring back to Papert's experiments with "turtles." My 9-yr-old granddaughter is totally absorbed by the game and the games within the game she can play. She's even venturing into the "survival" mode where exploration includes fighting zombies. What's not to like?