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"A programme that brings live fish into classrooms to teach the fundamentals of biology not only helps students learn, but improves their attitudes about science, a new study finds. The study of nearly 20,000 K-12 students, who raised zebrafish from embryos over the course of a week, found that kids at all grade levels showed significant learning gains. They also responded more positively to statements such as "I know what it's like to be a scientist." The results, to be published by the journal PLOS Biology, suggest that an immersive experience with a living creature can be a particularly successful strategy to engage young people in science, technology, engineering and maths."

"As teachers, one of the biggest challenges that we face in the classroom is students who give up. 'I can't do it', 'It's too hard', 'I dunno'. We spend hours planning a lesson that could stretch and challenge our students, only to find that they don't want to be stretched and challenged because it's too much like hard work. Where do we go from here? How do we make sure that we are molding our learners to be Hobnobs rather than Rich Teas?"

Welcome to the first November edition of my Edtech and ELT newsletter. In this editions you can find: A discount code for my new ebook Some really interesting articles on how the internet is impacting on truth and fact Some great new apps and tools to encourage students to create their own videos.

Make learning the Periodic Table more enjoyable by playing this 'find the element' chemistry game. Choose the level of difficulty. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

Apps which change photos into art-like creation which use filters are easy to find. This astounding app uses artificial intelligent which makes choices adapt how to adapt the image to produce amazing results. There are currently over 30 styles to choose from… the AI allows you to do that bit!

"Children improve at maths when instruction engages their own bodies. This is one of the findings from a recent study coming from the University of Copenhagen's Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports. The results also document that children require individualised learning strategies."

A four quadrant coordinates game. Set the position of your characters and try to find where the computer or a friend has hidden them. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

As I'm reading on inquiry based learning, I came across another article, I'd like to share. In this article, it discusses how inquiry-based learning projects are driven by students. This very much aligns with the questions we ask on the Flat Classroom and other projects. The one point of meaning that I'm working to understand (and finding different answers depending upon the site) is that some differentiate that students should develop the questions rather than teachers "handing them" the questions. I have a lesson plan I sent through Diigo where the instructor designed a lesson around the question "Can there be giants?" and called in inquiry based. Under this article, it may not be called true inquiry based, and yet, I'm wondering if the question is intriguing and of interest and can be used in a way to teach if it really matters where the question originates.  My class is a mix of student-created inquiries (Freshman project) and project-generated inquiries (Digiteen, Flat Classroom). Interesting. Look forward to reading and understanding more (and sharing with you.) This is another nice article on the topic. Feel free to share yours. "Inquiry-based learning" is one of many terms used to describe educational approaches that are driven more by a learner's questions than by a teacher's lessons. It is inspired by what is sometimes called a constructivist approach to education, which posits that there are many ways of constructing meaning from the building blocks of knowledge and that imparting the skills of "how to learn" is more important than any particular information being presented. Not all inquiry-based learning is constructivist, nor are all constructivist approaches inquiry-based, but the two have similarities and grow from similar philosophies.

This is a great site to find all sorts of useful resources and information for teaching geography. There are pages of lesson plans, downloads, ideas and advice. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE%2C+RE%2C+Citizenship%2C+Geography+%26+Environmental

Jeopardy is a popular quiz show and a great format to use in the classroom. This is an easy to use Jeopardy quiz creator. Make your quiz by choosing a password and filling in the boxes for categories, questions and answers. Your quiz is published online along with many others to browse through. Use the search box to find what you want. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

A nice site for finding stylish icons and clipart. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Photos+%26+Images

I find this fascinating. Here is a Twitter hashtag for end of period exams - they have challenges and share ideas and thoughts. 

A great site for finding sound clips for to play and download. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Music%2C+Sound+%26+Podcasts

A great site for citizen science. Get your class to watch for signals from space with the SETI project. Who will you find? http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

Got a behavior problem? Behavior management expert Tom Bennett has a set of classroom resources for all types of problems you may have. Because he's from the UK, you're likely to find some fresh ideas here.

Very proud of my dear friend Cheryl Oakes from Maine who is on the Official Google blog with her work with those with disabilities. Cheryl is an amazing woman who loves children. My youngest son has met her only once (in San Antonio at ISTE) and still calls her Aunt Cheryl. She has that effect on people. Great post. "One teacher who has taken advantage of the web as an educational tool is Cheryl Oakes, a resource room teacher in Wells, Maine. She's also been able to tailor the vast resources available on the web to each student's ability. This approach has proven invaluable for Cheryl's students, in particular 16-year-old Morgan, whose learning disability makes it daunting to sort through search results to find those webpages that she can comfortably read. Cheryl taught Morgan how to use the Search by Reading Level feature on Google Search, which enables Morgan to focus only on those results that are most understandable to her. To address the difficulty Morgan faces with typing, Cheryl introduced her to Voice Search, so Morgan can speak her queries into the computer. Morgan is succeeding in high school, and just registered to take her first college course this summer."

A fun environmental recycling game where players help Michael find, collect and sort rubbish. Play full screen at http://funschool.kaboose.com/gamesFiles/flash/kaboose/michaelrecycle/earthday.swf http://j.mp/H96rVp http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE%2C+RE%2C+Citizenship%2C+Geography+%26+Environmental

A useful website for finding out about China and learning Mandarin for children and adults. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Mandarin+%26+Chinese+culture

This is a list of lessons for August. Bookmark it as lessons are added, you'll be able to find them here. I am reviewing the back to school lessons for my classes (I always love ideas to help welcome students and start well.) You can also upload your back to school lessons to enter the competition.