Group items tagged

All students and educators participating in the challeng will have their name flown on the Exploration Flight Test-I mission as a member of the virtual crew. This mission will be unmanned and will launch in late 2014. So, kids can be a "virtual explorer." There are 4 challenges, age appropriate, to help design protective radiation protection for astronauts. We need to get students interest in space travel for a variety of reasons. This is a lovely real world project for students to join or could be a project for one of your #geniushour teams. "The goal of the Exploration Design Challenge is for students to research and design ways to protect astronauts from space radiation. NASA and Lockheed Martin are developing the Orion spacecraft that will carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit and on to an asteroid or Mars. Protecting astronauts from radiation on these distant travels is an important -- and very real -- problem that needs solving. NASA would like your help!"

Fascinating article on design thinking and an attempt to catalog all of the schools using design thinking. I do predict that STEM, design thinking, and creativity are going to become increasingly valued by parents and many who are disenfranchised with a testing environment that is rapidly driving everyone involved to the edge - particularly the students. "Mapping a global movement. A global movement is unfolding, and in response to the overwhelming interest around design thinking in schools, IDEO and the d.school have created a new directory - Design Thinking in Schools - to highlight the network of institutions that are at the forefront of this movement. The directory, launched in mid-October, already features a wide range of programs and resources. There's a mix of learning environments, from charter and district public schools to museums and summer camps. The programs are diverse, including after school "lab" environments and schools that use design thinking as the basis for subject-matter courses. "

More than 5.4K people are excited about these apps on Mashable.Remember that parents are BUYING apps to help kids in your subject. Why not test them out and recommend them to parents in your weekly emails or your website/blog.

Alchemy smartbinder is a new app that lets you create lessons (perfect for flipped classrooms) and measure student engagement with the data. This is something I'll be testing. It is in BETA but you flipped classroom pioneers out there will definitely want to give this a try.

Awesome gifs and animations that are truly an inspiration and gift to teachers everywhere. I love this post from Buzzfeed about the great teachers. Some ring true and others are just kind of funny, but underneath it all is is how the teacher makes the student FEEL that counts. And you can't count that on a test. Enjoy and share.

This has got to be the funkiest instant poll, quiz, response site around. Create questions, quizzes and polls with optional uploaded images for participants to complete in real time from a computer or mobile device. The users access the quiz by using a pin code. The 'question master' gets the data back instantly and it is stored on the site or can be downloaded. This is superb for checking the knowledge of children in your class or that your audience is still awake. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

Got this email from a teacher Hi Vicki- I love your blog, tweets and contributions to flipboard! I am a teacher at a local school district charter high school and appreciate your zeal for teaching and learning. I am not sure if you have heard about Kahoot! but wanted to ask you to check it out by following it on Twitter or watching a few youtube videos of Kahoot in action. I have no financial investment in it or any reason for recommending it other than how much we are enjoying using it at our school and how valuable a tool I believe it to be. Questions can be entered by students or teachers and pictures can be uploaded to each question to add visual appeal. The students can use computers, smart phones, tablets and don't have to have an account- they just log in to kahoot.it and then join the interactive quiz. Everyone gets so involved and passionate and it is great for reviews before tests or for supplemental instruction. The results can be viewed on a spreadsheet and provide formative assessments. It can be used for any ages and any subjects. I am so jazzed about this great new tool and hope you will be too. https://getkahoot.com Kathryn Lewallen Payson, AZ Payson Center for Success High School

Scientists are continuing to advocate that work and school start later. Researcher Paul Kelley CLAIMS that test scores and work productivity should start at 10am. Of course, what he doesn't account for that this would push sports to later in the day and kids would go to bed even later than they do already. You can only cram so much into a day. Anyway, it is interesting reading. One of the most important things is emphasizing and encouraging to parents that kids get enough sleep.

A driver was given a ticket in California for wearing Google glass even though it was turned off... and yes, the drama has begun. The police officer said it obstructed the driver's view. "The Google Glass is a hands-free device, but that didn't stop a California driver from getting a ticket for wearing the headset during a traffic stop this week. Cecilia Abadie, who's in Google's Explorer program of people testing Glass before its official launch, got a ticket for speeding - and for wearing a device that could block her view of the road."

Haiku Deck is one of my all time favorite quick presentation makers when I just have to share something meaningful with my class and only have a few moments to pull it together. (For example, if I realize that students don't know something valuable, etc.) One of the best things about Haiku Deck is its incredible search feature for Creative Commons and automatic citation. If you're 1:1 ipad, this free app is a must have. They are beta testing and online version that should be available soon. Great tool.

This Chrome app (also available on Google play and the app store) lets you monitor how many apps are accessing your personal information. This website would be one for many who care about privacy to consider testing.

This looks like a very cool English game that uses all kinds of shows to teach. Thinking that ESL teachers will want to test this one out. Mau Butler send me this message about this new site: Hello Vicki, I've been an ESL teacher for 20 years, in several countries, and a reader of your coolcatteacher blog for a while. Congratulations. You do excellent work. :) For the past 3 years, I've been building a very innovative approach to teaching and learning English, which is now ready to use. Considering your work, I thought you'd be interested in trying it out. It's called Tripppin and I strongly recommend you see it for yourself on www.tripppin.com but this is us in a nutshell: "Tripppin is an English practice platform, which blends offline and online learning experiences into a game, a music channel, cooking shows, animation, entertaining videos shot around the world, and excellent support for English teachers everywhere." Hope you can have a look :) Thank you.

Booktrack gives you a way to read a book while listening to a soundtrack. I mentioned the research study in a previous bookmark / link. This is something librarians and literacy leaders should test and try out for themselves as it is a fascinating tool and potential. There are a thousand questions I have about this but plan to try it for myself.

Yes, this study was funded by Booktrack (a 2011 study), however, I find that the information is fascinating. By setting sound tracks of different mood music, this study showed: *Virtually all subjects performed moderately to significantly better on information retention tests. * Subjects reported a strong correlation with interacting with the enhanced platform and an ability to focus. There are other results on this, but I find this fascinating and find this a very interesting point to consider as ebooks evolve. Will ebook authors attach music to different pages? Will reading become more cinematic and theatrical? All kinds of interesting thoughts here.

Free Rice began as a vocabulary test that results in a donation of rice for each correct answer. The test adjusts difficulty level to the user so is appropriate for any age. Make sure to check out the other subject areas that have been added!

The sticking points when even the teacher next door calls you the "fun teacher" with a snarky attitude. Or when you show your principal some incredibly cool videos your kids made on science lessons, and his comment says something about them doing well on the state test because of all they learned. Do they get it? Maybe. Do they get ME? No. We just live in different worlds; that's all.

JUst in my inbox - a new bookmarking site for academics. My name is Andrew Cullison. I'm an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Fredonia. I just launched a social bookmarking site for academics, and you seem like someone who might be interested in playing around with it. You can check out the site here - http://www.sympoze.com I love social bookmarking sites like Digg, but I was always disappointed with the academic content that was promoted. I thought it would be great if there were a site like Digg that only allowed academic philosophers to vote up links. That way, I would know that the philosophy content that was voted up would definitely be up my alley. So two years ago, I started that site. Just two days ago, I expanded the site to all areas of academia. We are in beta testing now, but the idea is to eventually set everything up so that grad students and professors only vote up links in their area or a variety of general interest categories. It should be a quick and easy way for academics to find out what is popular in their area with their professional peers.

The Flip camera is great for all types of projects in science and math - at any grade level. Flip cameras are small handheld video cameras that can record 30 or 60 minutes worth of video. They connect to a computer with a USB plug that "flips" out from the side of the camera. The benefits of these cameras include another means for assessing students understanding of concepts beyond worksheets and tests. Besides a teacher's record, the videos provide a digital record for parents and administrators to show a student's successes or areas which need improvement.

From A Very Short List:  Based on a chilling contingency speech written for Richard Nixon titled "In the Event of Moon Disaster," this nostalgia-laced 15-minute radio broadcast, courtesy of American Public Media, tells its story entirely through the radio communication between Mission Control and the astronauts. Seconds after tuning in, you'll witness Apollo 11's crash landing on the moon. Buzz and Neil are okay, but the lunar module is destroyed, and the men are running out of oxygen. The story is haunting in its plausibility, and despite the fact that the astronauts sound less like test pilots from the Air Force than hipsters from Brooklyn, the quality writing and sound effects bring this macabre counterfactual deliciously close to reality.

"As a mobile learning device, the iPod Touch encourages learning anytime, anywhere! These mobile devices do not tie students to their desks or the classroom; they bring the world into the classroom through the lens of personalized learning. The value of an iPod Touch as a mobile learning device is its ability to transform student learning behavior. According to research by K-Nect Project (2009), students using this digital device achieved higher test scores. This was attributed to more interactivity between students, teachers, and content."