Group items tagged

"Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects."

I have used and have seen this used. It is like a PowerPoint but web based. Presentations can be embedded.

Kodu lets kids create games on the PC and XBox via a simple visual programming language. Kodu can be used to teach creativity, problem solving, storytelling, as well as programming. Anyone can use Kodu to make a game, young children as well as adults with no design or programming skills.

"Picturing America, an exciting new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, brings masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide. Through this innovative program, students and citizens will gain a deeper appreciation of our country's history and character through the study and understanding of its art. The nation's artistic heritage-our paintings, sculpture, architecture, fine crafts, and photography-offers unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country. By bringing high-quality reproductions of notable American art into public and private schools, libraries, and communities, Picturing America gives participants the opportunity to learn about our nation's history and culture in a fresh and engaging way. The program uses art as a catalyst for the study of America-the cultural, political, and historical threads woven into our nation's fabric over time. Collectively, the masterpieces in Picturing America, used in conjunction with the Teachers Resource Book and program Web site, help students experience the humanity of history and enhance the teaching and understanding of America's past."

"The Big History Project is a collaboration designed to bring big history to life for high school students. It is entering the second year of a pilot program designed to create and refine a world class curriculum and online experience that will ultimately be freely available to schools worldwide. More than 80 partner schools are enrolled in our current piot program."

COREPlus is an exciting collection of FREE educational software programs that makes it easy to learn all about history, geography, science, fine art, and more. Click any title to start the program.

This site offers a list of resources and providers. There is a charge for out=of=state users. Join the listserv to find out about available programing. Sometimes programs are free.

I will be sharing sites I found in an article called Bring the Word into Your Classroom.

"Here is our collection of interactive whiteboard games for educators on PBS KIDS. Students will enjoy participating in these collaborative, fun and engaging experiences, while exploring curriculum from trusted programs such as Curious George, Super Why and Arthur. Like our programs, all of our games are age-appropriate and vetted by educators. "

Online programs for students in grades 8 and higher for video game programing and 3D Animation.

To help local education leaders with their own school reform efforts, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) has produced a new series of onlin evideos highlighting successful school improvements from districts across the nation. The videos illustrate how several school districts have successfully turned around their low-performing schools using the four models endorsed by ED's $3.5 billion Title I School Improvement Grant program. This program makes funds available to states by formula, to help them target the bottom 5 percent of U.S. Schools--or approximately 5,000 chronic underperforming schools nationwide. Local school districts compete for the funds after identifying the schools they wan to overhaul and then determining which of four models is most appropriate: transformation, turnaround, restart, or school closure. Through interviews with school administrators, teachers, parents, and studetns, the videos aim to show how sometimes difficult changes in school leadership, personnel, curriculum, and culture can lead to dramatic improvemetns in student achievement.

"The National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council held a symposium to coincide with the release their report "Engineering in K-12 Education: Understanding the Status and Improving the Prospects." Participants spoke about the recommendations and implementation of programs to include more engineering topics in primary math and science classes. The report assessed the value of developing and implementing engineering curricula for kindergarten through grade 12. It also describes what engineering concepts children are able to understand and at what age, and provides an analysis of more than a dozen engineering curriculum projects. "

this network is a consortium in Philadelphia that runs high-quality networks (Internet2). Programming is free for members but fee-based for nonmembers. It's free to join the listserv.

I will be sharing sites I found in an article called Bring the Word into Your Classroom.

Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web. As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

DesignBlocks is a drag-and-drop programming language based on Scratch, TurtleArt and Processing. It is being developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab.

Via @kjarrett -- This is ISTE's list of criteria by which to judge the effectiveness of a training program for potential technology integrators. This could be used to assess tech coaches for how well they are addressing the demands of NET*S at the building or district level.

Via @kjarrett -- This is ISTE's list of criteria by which to judge the effectiveness of a training program for potential technology integrators. This could be used to assess tech coaches for how well they are addressing the demands of NET*S at the building or district level.

Babylon in Every School. The program makes Babylon's dictionary and translation software available to K-12 schools and their studetns free of charge.

We are an online spelling program that makes practicing for spelling tests fun. SpellingCity.com has: - Over 35,000 spelling words and eight spelling games! - A REAL person who says each word and sentence - Thousands of free spelling lists. Or save your own!

"Discovery Education, Sanford Health and WebMD teamed up to create a new program called fit 4 the classroom, an extension of the fit initiative designed to educate, motivate, and inspire children of all ages to live a healthy lifestyle. You will find a series of elementary lesson plans with engaging activities and videos that can tie into your math, science and other subjects and demonstrate the importance of a balanced daily life."

"a digital badging program that connects and rewards classes as they learn through discovery and collaboration. From the art world to the zoo, from underwater to outer space, from current problems to future solutions, students can explore their interests and make connections across subjects. "

"This K-6 program is designed to promote science literacy in elementary schools through free hands-on science activities and supporting videos. Access fun activities and enter to win a school-wide science assembly! "

In January 2010, the website "ipl2: information you can trust" was launched, merging the collections of resources from the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians' Internet Index (LII) websites. The site is hosted by Drexel University's College of Information Science & Technology, and a consortium of colleges and universities with programs in information science are involved in developing and maintaining the ipl2.