Engineering/STEM Games

If you teach science, technology, physics, or any sort of STEM type learning, these games might be some fun or interesting ones to try. I have not tested them out, but there are many to choose from and they all will get kids using their STEM knowledge and hopefully get them more interested in these subjects. Everything from building a bridge to making solar cars race virtually, this game site has lots of options. Test some out or better yet, have some students test them out. Good luck.

Engineering Games click here (from the game site, you can go to the home site for more engineering information)

Slow Motion Youtube Videos

Thank you to Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers for alerting me to the idea of slow motion videos on Youtube. As a former science teacher, how awesome is it to be able to film some of your science experiments on the weekend or even in class and then upload them to Youtube AND put them in slow motion so you can explain what is going on and students can see what is going on!! Lots of applications for coaches, but I think teachers could really use this slow motion option too, especially science teachers. Very cool!

Here is Richard Byrne's blog post about this slow motion option.

BrainyBox: Cube Review, Presentation, Whatever you Want it to Be!

  I used a site like BrainyBox a few years back and students loved it. But it didn't always work very well. I am hoping technology has improved and this site works much better. I made a basic cube and am going to attempt to embed it below and link to it, so you can see what you think. I did not try to add any images or video, but if it supports that pretty well, the possibilities of this site are endless. It is in Beta testing, so I can't guarantee the stableness of the site, but for now, it was pretty cool to use and could be used for review, new knowledge, note-taking, or just for students to show their true learning on a topic or book. Give it a try...I created the one you see below in 4 minutes!

BrainyBox homepage click here!

My BrainyBox attempt click here!

And I embedded it below and it looks pretty cool!

Larry Ferlazzo's Best of 2012 Blog Post Has Arrived!

Many educators and online blog readers anxiously await Larry's Best of 2012 blog post at the end of the year so they can bookmark it and take advantage of the many resources he has posted in one place. Well, the blog post is out and I have linked it to this blog post. I would suggest clicking on it and bookmarking it on your computer as you will find yourself looking at it throughout 2013 even as Larry starts his 2013 lists. Thank you Larry for this great list of resources, I know it helps many!

Best of 2012 resource list from Larry Ferlazzo click here!

Gooru: Good for Math, Science, Etc. Practice and Learning

Thanks to Richard Byrne and his blog post about Gooru on his blogsite called Free Technology for Teachers, I have learned about Gooru, a pretty neat site for students and teachers, especially if they are interested in math and science. It appears there are other subject areas on this site now. I tested out some of the math stuff, including a quiz. Pretty detailed and good practice. Also, if you get it wrong, it has a brief explanation why your answer is not right and why the correct answer is. Students and parents may find that especially helpful. This is a great site for parents and students to add to their math/science help/study sites for weekends, extended breaks, and nights before a big test or quiz. If you have a moment, try it out and see if it could help you!

Gooru Learning click here!

Trading Cards for Historical or Fictional Characters

I love ideas like this! Next time you are studying something in history, social studies, or even reading a book in literacy, have the students make a trading card of one of the historical figures or book characters. To make the cards, you would have to know lots about your person and the student would have to research the person more to add details to the card. Similar to the fake Facebook page for a historical person, but a little simpler. Would be fun to see what the students come up with. Give it a try or have some students do it for an extra credit option. Good luck!

Trading Cards of historical figures click here!

(Oh, you could do it for famous scientists too!)

Creative Uses in the Classroom for IPads

The presentation embedded below was done by Mike Amante, a teacher from New Hartford Senior High in New York. If you have a QR reader or have downloaded one, you can get even more information. But even without a QR reader app, you can still find some great apps for the IPad to use in your classroom. Especially if you are a science teacher. I don't teach science anymore, but seeing some of the apps he uses makes me wish that I was sometimes back in the classroom using cool technology to make my lessons and activities better. Flip through his powerpoint below and make note of some of the apps. Even if you don't have an IPad right now, some of these could help you later in your career when you do. Thanks Mike!

Creative Uses for iPad in the Classroom from Mike Amante

Add Test Review to Your Class Blog...Amazing Ideas!

Wow, I love a couple of these ideas! Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers blog had a guest blogger, Dan Klumper, a 6th grade social studies teacher, post some wonderful ideas. I wish I taught high school science again and could do a couple reviews like his "Silent Video Review". At our middle school, I could see tons of courses/teachers take advantage of it. You don't have to have a class blog to do the idea, but it would be helpful as you could just embed the video to your blog. The 2nd idea is one that I have thought about doing for my counseling/life skills class sometime. Have a designated date/time for online chat/forum in the evening. Parents, students, whoever could join. I also think the Wallwisher idea (Especially since WallWisher has now been updated and many of the bugs from the past year or two fixed) would be super for any class/class review. Either way, please click on Richard Byrne's blog entry and click on the ideas, especially the first one. These are definitely ideas we could use and the students would really benefit from. (If you have an IPad....the first idea is even easier as you can video and upload in a matter of minutes!)

Ideas on how to Use Your Blog for Review Purposes by Richard Byrne (written by guest blogger Dan Klumper)

Two Great "Best Of" Lists from Larry Ferlazzo

  I have shared one of these lists before, but it is always good this time of the year. The 2nd list is a new list based on our current on-going drought, something that is talked about daily here in Iowa. If you are looking for a current event that will get the kids talking, learning, and sharing outside of our school, the drought might be a good topic to start the year with. As for the other list, the Best Resources for Planning The First Day of School, I get something new from that list almost every year. The one caution I would suggest is to talk with your team about the idea you might use so that you are not all using the same idea. And they don't all have to occur on the first day I have learned as well. Lots of great ideas to try at some point. Enjoy the lists and thank you to Larry Ferlazzo and his Websites of the Day blog

Best Resources to learn about our current Drought

Best resources to plan for the first day of school

PicMonkey for Art, Literacy, or Science Collages

Not sure where this might fit in the school curriculum, but maybe art, literacy, or even social studies. If you are looking for a project idea and are thinking of having students make a collage of what they have learned, PicMonkey might be a great site for students to try. No email registration needed and I got my collage started just seconds after getting to the website. Students could make a science collage of an animal or concept they are studying, make an art collage, or even a collage that shows what they learned about a book they recently read. Lots of uses, but play around with it first to see how you might use it. Also, you can use the collage feature to make your Facebook banner picture at the top of your profile page. Another fun feature of this site! Give it a try this summer!





PicMonkey click here!

Educational App Review Site

   Looks like this site is new and hopefully grows and adds more, but it has potential. This site is from the UK and collects information about educational apps for IPods, IPads, etc. that are out there and puts them in curriculum categories that make it easy to find what you are looking for. Looking for a math app or science app? Easy to find on this site. It simply needs to add more apps to become much more useful. But for now, you might find some good stuff to try out.

Teaching Appz click here!

7 Sites for Art, 7 for Science, and 7 for Typing!

  Thank you much to Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers for 3 great lists of websites for our educators. I got caught up in blog reading this week and Mr. Byrne's award-winning blogsite is one of the best out there. From time to time, he will take about 7 of the best sites for practice, instruction, etc. in a certain subject area. As I caught up, I found he did this 3 times recently. Once for keyboarding practice, once for science teachers, and once for art teachers and students. I have placed links to each of his blog entries below. If you teach in these areas, you may want to check it out. And make sure to sign up to follow his blog or have it added to your own Google Reader, a great read for all educators. As a former science teacher, I really enjoyed some of the science Youtube channels he shared. I could see our middle school kids really liking these. Thanks again Mr. Byrne!

7 Youtube Channels for Science

7 Keyboarding Practice/Game Sites

7 Sites for Art Teachers and Students

Fact Sheets on Endangered Animals

For any science teachers who have students do projects on animals, especially endangered animals, this site is for you: KidsPlanet! This site has a link that contains great fact sheets for 50 endangered animals around the world. Might be a place to start the "animal picking" process by students or a link to give to students for research. Either way, pretty good site!

KidsPlanet.org Endangered Species Fact Sheets click here!

Online Whiteboard Tool You Can Do Lesson on and Send To Parents and Students.

I love this tool and I originally found it as an IPad app first, but you don't need an IPad to use it. Basically, you can draw anything on your "laptop whiteboard" or "IPad whiteboard" and you can record everything you do. When finished, hit stop and publish and you can publish it to Facebook or Twitter, or more likely, you can send it as an email to students or parents. Maybe you even just email it to yourself and play it for students in class or play it during worktime so if they have questions, they can simply watch your whiteboard lesson and re-learn. If you have a microphone, you can talk while you do your whiteboard lesson and the audio is recorded too. I have learned to send my whiteboard lesson to myself and then send the link it gave me to parents, students, family, or whoever I want to send it to from there. Or like I said, maybe I could just use the link in class to have students see the lesson again. We can do similar things with our Mimio, but with this whiteboard tool, it saves to a website so you don't have to worry about how big of a file it is and if it will be able to be emailed. Plus, all of your lessons are saved to your online whiteboard account, so you can go back to them whenever you want. Very cool application. Give it a try (especially if you teach math or science, 2 areas I think would really be good for this)

Whiteboard App click here!

Simple Whiteboard that I made click here!

One very simple Whiteboard I made

Useful Charts Has Some Cool Stuff!

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo and his Websites of the Day Blog, I have found the site Useful Charts. And the site is just that....Useful Charts. Lots of cool charts for a teacher to either study and help with their lessons, print and use somehow in class, or order laminated versions. Many of the charts have copywrite protection, but the information is still great. You might even have students add to the charts or make up their own charts using some of the ideas you get from the charts on this site. And the charts are also divided by subject so you can find the ones you need easier.

Useful Charts click here!

Another Cool Interactive Periodic Table

Don't have to say much about this site because if you teach science or learning about the elements, this site is great. Very interactive and lots of information. Easy to use for students and easy to navigate around. Try Ptable by clicking here!

Great List of Discovery Education Tools

I think I have published once before, but thanks to Educational Technology Guy, here is the updated list. His blog post is a great one to bookmark whether or not you currently use Discovery Education. And if you don't use it, pick one or two things from his list and try to use them in the upcoming weeks. You will be glad you did!

Graphic Organizers!!!

Here is a great site by "Holt" for any teachers who like graphic organizers and use them in class. This has tons of downloadable graphic organizers ready for free download. So....feel free to search and download as much as you want!

Holt's graphic organizers click here!

Another Great Science Site!!

Thanks to Dave the Educational Technology Guy again, here is another great science site. From lessons to demonstrations to videos to worksheets, there is a lot on here, too much for me to look at! Hopefully, if you teach science, you can find some things on this site. Check it out in your "free time"!

NY Science Teacher Site

Cell Biology Site for Middle School

Thanks to Dave the Educational Technology Guy and his blog, I learned about a website for students and teachers learning about the cell and everything that has to do with the cell. Even better for us, it is geared towards middle school students. Lots of great stuff on here, so use what you can.

Cell Biology Texas A&M click here!