Wilson Grad Class

A great article on how the econony is affecting high school students decisions on choosing between a four year college or a two year college. With the way things are going in our society in regards to finance more students are becoming aware of and trying to avoid having to pay back large student loans.

Patty Duncan is a science teacher who teaches Chemistry and earth and space science. She is also a discovery education presenter and shared this wikispace at the 2010 PA PETE & C conference. It is a fantastic site.

This wikispace is great. Please share with anyone who teachers science.

Scientists are continually on a mission to learn more about the world around them, and thus the information available is continually changing as the knowledge grows. Good science teachers understand the importance of staying up-to-date with the latest happenings in the world of science. A great way to do so is by following blogs. Not only can teachers stay abreast of what is happening, but many of these blogs serve as an excellent resource for students, as well.

Flixtime turns your photos and videos into stunning and unique videos in just minutes. Free signup. Upload your images, videos and music and then watch your masterpiece come together. A tool like Animoto.

Cool site! A teacher can set up a site and have students dial in via their cell phones to submit assignments, and voice message responses. The teacher can log into the site and check the work submitted. Students can upload a variety of file types and can submit responses via voicemail.

I tried this out at the Pete and C conference and it was really cool. We phoned in an image to the teacher site and we were able to call in and submit a response to a questions provided by the teacher.

Integrating Social Emotional Learning in schools.

wikispace about study skills includes strategies for students

Developed in collaboration between Maryland Public Television, MIT's Education Arcade, and FableVision. When you need a fresh approach to teach math to today-s tech-savvy youth, Lure of the Labyrinth comes to the rescue. A ground-breaking online learning game blends cutting-edge design, graphic novel storytelling and stimulating game play to plunge middle school students into a captivating 21st century learning adventure. Labyrinth's mysterious world unfolds when students encounter animated monsters and challenging math puzzles that deepen students' understanding of critical pre-algebra skills. Math topics: ratios, proportions, fractions, variables, number and operations

This site was so cool. I created my own comic story. I was able to play brain buster games I read stories and had stories read to me, and watched videos about how to create a comic.. This site was created by Jim Davis, creator of the comic strip Garfield, in conjunction with Ball State University and PAWS, Inc. It give kids the opportunity to explore, create and connect safely with kids around the world. Jim Davis created this site because he felt there was a need to provide a high-quality, free, and engaging web site that could motivate children to achieve their full potential. The approach is kid-centric and tries to close the achievement gap between what kids seek to do on the Internet and standards-based educational activities. The mission of Professor Garfield.org is encourage children to explore academically sound literacy activities and provide them with tools to express themselves through creative writing prorams. It's an Internet destination that is safe, free and fun! The Professor Garfield and Sparktop sites (both found on this link) provide all kids of ways for kids to shine and showcase their talents and abilities! Students can record their own "talent" for Sparkstage (our American Idol-like competition), arrange music with the awesome music mixer tool, create their own comic strip in the Comis Lab, learn to sculpt, or be taught to draw by professional artists in the Art-Bot section. On Sparktop.org kids safely connect with other kids who knwow what they are going through. They find information about how their brain works and get tips on how to succeed in school and life. And they get to showcase their creativity and be recognized for their strengths. Millions of children from around the world visit the web site every month.

Hillsborough High School's Tim Zavacki engages students with creative design tools in his Intro to Technology course.

Really cool resource with lots of examples and idea for how technology can be integrated into a classroom.

Interactiave graphic organizer site

TubeChop allows you to easily chop a funny or interesting section from any YouTube video and share it.

CarrotSticks is an online multiplayer game that improves math skills for 1st - 5th graders as they practice and compete with peers around the world! Learn More free

National Geographic has a great collection called Forces of Nature. Here students can explore a natural forces lab where they learn about the extreme nature. Students can learn about tornadoes, volcanoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Students learn what the force of nature is, what causes them, their characteristics, the damage that they do, how they are forecasted, and then have the opportunity to actually create the force of nature virtually. Students can also view an interactive map that shows hot sites where the forces of nature occur, and read case studies of actual events.

In the Kids Interactive-Whales, students board the Discovery where they can explore 5 different rooms including the science lab, the research center, the office, the library, and the bridge. Each room has an "expert" that will help the students as they explore the room. As students explore each room, they can take notes by saving text to a clipboard. In the research center, students learn about whale migration, the effects of whale hunting, watch video footage of whales, take an up close view of whale pictures, learn about whale sounds, and even report a whale sighting. On the bridge, students will learn about the rules for viewing whales from land, listen to sounds that different whales make, learn about sonar, steer the boat, learn about the whales that live in Australian waters, learn the rules about watching whales from a boat, and learn the best time to go whale watching. In the underwater library, students will use the database to look up facts about whales (they can take notes on their clipboard), use a dictionary to look up unfamiliar terms, learn about the history of whaling, see how whale populations have suffered, and see pictures of whales that can be used in a research project. In the office, students can watch whales through a portal, read about Australian whale preservation, read a brochure, and view a timeline of how whaling activities have changed throughout the years. The science lab is the last room on the Discovery. Here, students can learn about what whales eat, take a closer look at the anatomy of whales, play a game to practice identifying whales, find out how whales are important to the ecosystem, learn about the difference between whales and dolphins, learn about the research that scientists do, and take a closer look at whale statistics.

Neat site about whales.

Field trips can be amazing learning experiences. They provide students with the opportunity to actively participate in education, offering learning possibilities that aren't readily available in the classroom. Unfortunately, it isn't always practical or possible to take students on field trips. Tight budgets, location, transportation, time, and resource restrictions can keep your students school-bound. Virtual field trips can fill this void. Virtual field trips have come a long way from the page of links they used to be. Now students can explore the world with simulations that are so realistic, they will believe they have left the classroom. Below are five of the best virtual field trips on the web:

I have used iKnow That: Alien Word Mine to practice the not contraction, but was looking for another opportunity for students to practice. I searched for some fun activities and came up blank. I decided to make an offline game that students could play as a class called "I have, who has?". In this card game, each student chooses a game card. Each game card starts with the separate words (for example: can not) and has a contraction (for example: aren't). Students stand in a circle holding there game card. Choose one student to begin by reading their card: "I have can not, who has aren't?" The student holding the card with "are not" responds: "I have are not, who has don't?". Play continues until all matches have been made

Looks like a cool site

Spelling City is a fabulous site for practicing spelling, I have written about its uses in the classroom before (here and here). Spelling City has just added a new feature that teachers are going to love, the ability to add your own sentences on Spelling City! Now you can customize your spelling lists to fit your needs. For example, if you are studying fish and one of your spelling words is "scales", the default sentence that Spelling City might offer is "The scales were not giving the weights accurately." Now as you create a list, you can click on "add" and type a new sentence to fit your classroom needs. The feature is also extremely useful for homonyms (our fifth graders are using this feature this week!). For the teacher created sentences, the audio read of the sentence will be done by a sophisticated voice synthesis. \n

In case you haven't seen this site. Love the capability for teachers to set up their own clas spelling lists that kids can access at home.

Kerpoof is one of my favorite creation tools for elementary students, it allows them to draw, create pictures, cards, books, and even movies. My original post about Kerpoof can be found here. Kerpoof has added some new features that make it worthy of another post. Students can now save their pictures, cards, stories and drawings locally (on their computers). On each canvas is a JPEG icon that will allow any picture to be saved to the computer locally. They are working on making it possible to download the movies locally soon. Kerpoof also introduced info bubbles. In the Make a Picture object library, students can drag out a picture onto the canvas. Now there is a new question mark button that shows up on an object. When students click on the question mark, a little bubble of information pops up. Students will gain all kinds of information from these little fact bubbles. They can learn everything from: who wrote Treasure Island, to learning the national animal of Austrailia.

Neat site for elementary