We have developed a six day Scratch unit for 7th and 8th grade math. One class period of each six-day cycle is devoted to Scratch, effectively spreading the lessons out over a six week period. During their course of study, students learn simple terminology, are introduced to the principles of object-oriented programming, and create original animations and games that are uploaded to our Scratch Web Gallery.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), created this Web site to educate adolescents ages 11 through 15 (as well as their parents and teachers) on the science behind drug abuse. NIDA enlisted the help of teens in developing the site to ensure that the content addresses appropriate questions and timely concerns.
Recognizing that teens want to be treated as equals, NIDA scientists were careful not to preach about the dangers of drug use. Rather, the site delivers science-based facts about how drugs affect the brain and body so that kids will be armed with better information to make healthy decisions.
Elements such as animated illustrations, quizzes, and games are used throughout the site to clarify concepts, test the visitor's knowledge, and make learning fun through interaction.
"Animaps extends the My Maps feature of Google Maps by letting you create maps with markers that move, images and text that pop up on cue, and lines and shapes that change over time.
When you send your Animap to friends it appears like a video - they can play, pause, slow and speed up the action!"
Eco Kids is a website with a great collection of ecologically focused games and activities. Students can complete interactives on wildlife, climate change, energy, the North, water, waste, land use, and more. I was hunting down a good interactive for students to learn and practice the food chain. Build a Food Chain has students order the elements of a food chain. Along the way, students learn why each animal within a food chain is so important. In addition to learning the basics of a food chain, students will learn about bioaccumulation.
PikiKids provides a variety of layouts to which students can upload images then edit the images or add text bubbles and titles. The comics that students create can be embedded into a blog or website as well as be shared via email. PikiKids is free to use, but it is a for profit website as it offers options for buying tee-shirts or mugs with user-created comics.
Strip Generator allows anyone, even people who claim they can't draw, to create a good-looking black and white comic strip. To create a comic strip all you need to do is select the number of frames you want then drag characters and objects into those frames. The menus for characters and objects are fairly extensive. Once you've selected a character or object you can adjust the size to fit your scene. Adding text is a simple matter of selecting a speech bubble and typing text. When you're happy with your comic strip you can save it online, print it, or embed it into your blog.
Pixton is a drag-and-drop cartoon creation tool which allows anyone regardless of artistic ability to create comics. Users can join the Pixton community to share their creations with other. In addition to the free individual accounts Pixton offers Pixton for Schools (not free) which allows teachers to create private rooms in which only their students can create and share comics.
Artisan Cam is more than just a comic creator, it is a comprehensive collection of online art activities. On Artisan Cam students can use the Super Action Comic Maker to build a six frame comic. The Super Action Comic Maker has a drag and drop interface which students use to select a background and character for their comics.
Outstanding site. Interactive graphs and diagrams of cell structure, DNA, chromosomes, etc. Excellent source to use with the ActivBoard because it's fully interactive.