" What Job Would You Hire a Textbook To Do? "
It was a fun and thought-provoking two days at Discovery Education's Beyond the Textbook event. Thanks so much to Steve Dembo, Dean Shareski, Hall Davidson, Laura Wenograd, and all the other folks at Discovery who not only planned this thing, but took very good care of us while we were there (Full Disclosure: I did not get paid to attend, but Discovery covered all expenses). And thanks to my fellow attendees for making this a great learning experience. (Oh, just a reminder Dean, there are still a couple of light bulbs you need to change.)
Discovery Education and 3M have partnered to bring the science of everyday life into your classroom. This fantastic collection of resources is for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. On the site you will find videos and interactives that help kids learn about the science around them and make connections to what they are learning in school. Lessons are inquiry based and encourage exploration in life science, physical science, earth science and technology/innovation. Virtual labs are interactive flash-based labs where students can discover more about science like wind energy. At the Innovation HQ portion of the site, students can travel through time and look at innovations that they use in their every day life and "meet" 3M scientists. On the Student page, students can see a young inventors hall of fame.
Is there chemistry in the kitchen? Is there physics at the park? Videos and interactives will help students discover the real-world science around them and make connections to what they are learning in school. There is something for everyone!
Building a Personal Learning Network (PLN)
Connecting with other educators and building a personal learning environment to support your professional learning. You'll be surprised how many educators are online sharing ideas, resources and discoveries.
Need convincing? Look at some of the great ways my PLN have supported me in the last couple of months:
uquery.com is a new search engine focused on the emerging market of iPhone & iPod Touch applications. We have listened to many requests of the community and the frustration of being able to search and find applications on the iTunes AppStore. With 81,816 applications available on the AppStore, it has become tremendously difficult to find the right application.
Our goal is to index and offer a very fast and easy way to find the application that you need. Utilizing new indexing technologies we have created a huge index of all the applications currently available in the United States iTunes AppStore. With features like: filtering by price, date and category and a full-text index of the application description, we allow all iPhone & iPod users to quickly improve their app discovery experience.
We strongly believe these applications that we allow to search on our website is considerably changing the way we live our lives, and we would like to improve this experience with an awesome search product. We encourage all iPhone & iPod users to send us feedback on how we can improve our product
bout Gajitz | One-Stop Gadgets, Science & Tech Spot
What is Gajitz dot com? Gajitz is as much an interactive archive of innovations past, present and futuristic as it is a collection of the latest and greatest gadget designs, sensational scientific discoveries and terrific new technologies … with a twist. The primary focus of this tech publication (read: blog) is on objects, finds anddesigns that defy particular typologies, wander away from convention and are more than merely consumable objects.
With her award-winning Guide for Educators, Kathy Schrock has become the guru of online education resources. She is also an Director of Technology for Nauset Public Schools, a previous library media specialists, an Adobe Education Leader, a Google Certified Teacher, and a Discovery STAR Educator.
Kathy has been kind enough to share her Top 12 favorite free ed tech tools!
Educational games and learning activities grades K-12 in multiple subjects. Math and English activities are aligned with Common Core. The activities and games come from various publishers like PBS, Discovery, Khan Academy, Scholastic and National Geographic. Teachers can create classes and assign specific activities.
See for yourself what the Web 2.0 buzz is all about. Aside from being highly interactive, accessible and collaborative-it's a fun use of technology! Our experts will guide you through six different ways to incorporate Web 2.0 into your classroom. Prepare yourself to learn a lot and be entertained along the way. GO EXPLORE!