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!

Twiigs.com: A Simple Poll-making Site

Just had to post real quickly about Twiigs.com as I just used it and found it so simple. In less than a minute I was registered for the site. Within another minute, I had made my poll for my edublogs student blogging site. And after a little research, I had my poll published to my blog. Really cool. Now, let's see if I can do it again, by putting a poll into this blog. Here you go...

poll by twiigs.com

Why Should Educators at Least Try Web 2.0? Here You Go....

Pretty short and simple powerpoint presentation from Sacha Chua made 2 years ago, but very good and powerful. Makes a great point towards the end and seems to be geared for the educators who just aren't sure if they should try Web 2.0 tools like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Learning Communities, Skype, email, chat, etc. Or maybe they are not sure if these things are just fads or would even help. I think taking a minute or two to view these slides that I have embedded below might make us all rethink our stance on Web 2.0 and see some value in it. Thanks to Sacha Chua for the presentation!

link for presentation click here!

A Teacher's Guide To Web 2.0 at School

View more presentations from Sacha Chua

As 9-11 Anniversary Approaches, Here are Some Teaching Resources

Again, credit and thanks to Larry Ferlazzo and his Websites of the Day for grouping several great teaching resources about 9-11 in one blogpost. If you are going to teach or reference anything about 9-11 to students in the coming weeks, this might be a great place to review and research or even use in class. I still highly recommend the archived videos as they are a very powerful reminder of how everything unfolded that terrible day. For our middle school students, we have to remember that they were not even in school yet and likely have no memory of the event except what has been told to them. To their minds, it truly is a history topic. Some of the resources in this blogpost by Larry might help 9-11 come to life for them and show them that although it is history, so much of what life is like today can be traced back to that day. Hope some of these ideas and resources help.

Larry Ferlazzo's 9-11 resources click here!

More on Online Educational Games

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo and his Websites of the Day blog, he has helped me find the best of the best online when it comes to educational games. This blog post might be more for me than anyone as I will soon have my 6th graders test some of these games out and give me a review. I find it very important to have students use technology and be online, but I also feel it is important for their online time to be mainly educational and productive, even if it is when they are playing games. There is a lot of "junk" on the web, so if they are going to be on there, I want them to be on sites that might increase their thinking ability and improve their basic skills. For anyone who wants to know what these game sites are, please click the link to Larry's blog below. Have fun!

Larry Ferlazzo's best online educational games list

Great Social Studies/Science Educational Game and Simulation Site!

Catching up on my blog reading over the Labor Day Weekend, I came across a couple blogs highlighting a teacher's social studies blog. This is not just any blog, this is a huge list of interactive social studies, science, and ethics games that kids can play straight from the links the teacher gives. And as an amazing bonus, he has also linked the worksheets, study guides, and questions he has the students do as they play and finish the games. What a resource!! This could be a great site for a teacher, a student teacher, or even the students to really test out and get into and review what they liked best and learned from the most. Give it a try!

Mike Farley's Social Studies blogsite click here: