Heads in the Cloud

Like Project Noah, this citizen science project aims to involve people from all over in the process of gathering data. Focusing on the fireflies (in New England or elsewhere), this might be a little harder to work on in class - due to the hours, the timing of the school year, or location. It is a great example of partnerships - two colleges and a museum partnering together with the public for learning. Personally, I would probably visit the "Open Call" section with MS students and work on analyzing the data they have collected. You can use the Many Eyes site to make visualizations and maps based on their information from the past years. If you are in IBMYP, consider looking at this issue through negative side of Human Ingenuity - how does the bug spray we use to keep away mosquitos and other insects affect species that do not harm us?

Read Write Think has a number of different lesson plans available for teachers. Many of them involve interactive elements, like their new online publishing interface for students. Includes lots of graphic organizer and story/drama/essay map options to develop an understanding of reading and how to write. Has creative options for keeping student engaged - like the comic creator. Intended for K-12, and many of the interactive elements are going to work best with the elementary crowd.

Oceans, Nature, 3D Buildings

Lessons and web links for the math teacher. Includes over 100 online activities for K-12 with some overlap. Topics cover a variety of areas - including lots of work with fractions, factors and use of data. I like the paper tool that allows the teacher to create specially designed paper for an assignment.

Upper el and middle school students can explore math concepts in a (somewhat) real life context through games. Geometry, Scale, Proportion, and Measurement are applied in different games. In Rock n Roll Road Trip, students work through a series of word problems in each city. In Rio, they work on ratios. Students can only proceed to the next problem by answering correctly. Great for making sure students read the instructions in the problem and pay attention to details like order of terms and reducing to simplest terms. Once the student reaches London, the topic switches to measures of time. The "game" framework helps make the student want to get to the next city, and it gives good word problem practice (useful for those tricky standardize tests). Nice for a mixed review challenge.

Explore Engineering. Good for 3-5th graders exploring man-made structures or forces & materials. Labs and challenges let kids "see" the possibilities and problem-solve. Includes a database of big structures for kids to research. Activities and links for bridges, domes, skyscrapers, dams and tunnels. Students could definitely use this information to outline their own big ideas - it would be fun to follow some of this work up with real-life collaborative design and model-making.

Primary source material from the time is interspersed with modern-day photos of the land the party encountered. Contextual information ranging from Native American beliefs to Natural history are included. Videos of people speaking about issues of the day and an audio presentation of Lewis and Clark day-by-day add further enhance this multi-modal presentation of history. The section on technology might provide a starting point for an interdisciplinary unit between Humanities and Technology for an MYP program.

Example of an interdisciplinary project and digital collaboration - with some fun science content. To participate in the current project with your elementary or middle school class, investigate Bugscope at http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/.

Students need access to plenty of content that is available for them to use if they are creating - useful for everything from Animoto to websites.

EduPic Graphical Resource is a teacher designed free image resource for use by teachers and students. All images contained within are free for use by educational professionals and the students they serve without permission. All other use is by permission.

How to cite a web page, an online image, a database, e-mail or blogs PurdueOWL clearly and succinctly guides you and your students through referencing all your tech resources accurately.

Intended to show how poverty is an obstacle to education, Ayiti is a simulation game set in Haiti. They player makes choices for a family of 5 regarding their work, schooling, and health. Of course, this process is more difficult than it should be - with disasters, disease, and lack of education plaguing every season. Upper elementary students would probably have the best experience with this game, but middle schoolers and up will probably be impressed because this life really isn't easy.

This tool is so great because everything is so well integrated. Students can upload their own pictures and draw. Their thoughts can by typed and recorded. Everything in one place! Great range of color in the palette. Everything is easy enough for young elementary students to be successful independently. For younger students this could easily be used for fiction or nonfiction writing. The audio aspect allows them to explore more or different things than they may be able to in their writing. Kids love the fact that they made a movie. Easily shared with parents and others. Way to make kids want to become digital storytellers!

Choose an artist and create a story with that art. The pictures can inspire you. It is like a visual story starter. Students would have to lay out the pictures in the order they want and supply the test to accompany them. There are special teacher/class accounts to help educators get around the issue of student emails. I feel like this would work best for the Upper Elementary crowd - 4th to 6th - because some of the picture options are a little dark. I also think that the leaps that might be needed to make one page connect to another well would require some more sophisticated thought. Very appropriate for a poetry/rhyming type unit - on the writing end. What I like best about this site is that it shifts the way you look at writing - it presents new possibilities.

Use stock photos, video, and music or upload your own. Your images are coordinated with music to make a video that is great to insert in everything from websites to presentations. I used one as preview for a play to show all the behind-the-scenes work the students did. Free videos up to 30 seconds - or pay to have full length videos. Students can use Animoto to create their own videos- great for music class - but can be an interesting tool for anything from vocabulary to science. The one below is actually a mock-up I made showing waht a vocabulary exercise might look like.

Gamestar Mechanic features gameplaying leading to gamebuilding. Excellent problem-solving skills required. Accessible to older elementary and middle school students. The AMD challenge takes this interactive work into the realm of global issues, asking players to create games that have social impact. IBMYP teachers may see this as Community and Service. Students are asked to use the elements they have learned to make a game that raises awareness about challenges like "energy, food, pollution, and poverty." BTW, my 5yo loves this: enjoys playing others game and creating his own. He truly gets the collaborative nature of this space.

Morguefile.com free stock photos Students need access to plenty of content that is available for them to use if they are creating - useful for everything from Animoto to websites.

Simulations of scientific processes for middle and high school level content. Topics include semi-conductors and cellular respiration. Students can submit their assignments or print them out after they have completed working through a module. The website also provides options for teachers and students to create their own simulations. Free, open source tool.

Get a 3D perspective on human muscles,bones, and organs. Challenge your senses or map your brain. There's even an interactive on the changes the body goes through during puberty. Overall, good for middle school students to explore anatomy in depth (poor pun intended).

Watch the video to see many ways that people use Scratch. Students can really build their own animations and games using this code. Great for using the design cycle in technology!