Blog Archives

Technology and STEM

4/24/2017

STEM Resource - Design Challenges-Curiosity Machine

The Design Challenge site has lots of STEM lessons. Even though it is a site where you would need a membership to get to a number of the lessons, there are some free lessons. This link goes to the page of free lessons,click here.

California Academy of Sciences

This site has a variety of resources, but the one I am sharing is about setting up your science notebooks. This was shared by Ben Smith, the STEM Specialist at IU 12. Click here to see the step by step process of setting up science journals with your students.

STEM Network

Ben Smith has established an IU 12 STEM Network. It is open to all educators. If you are interested in the emails and online networking, click here.

Ed Puzzle

I recently held an EdPuzzle workshop and am sharing a follow-up video about the types of analytics you can obtain from an EdPuzzle assignment. For those who have not tried EdPuzzle, I encourage you to check it out. It's very easy to use and the analytics are great and its the perfect price, FREE! Click here to visit EdPuzzle. If you would like to learn more about EdPuzzle, make an appointment with me and I would love to sit down and show you all the cool features it provides.

Skyward Tips from Linda Swift

Did you know you can search for a student by namekey but also our 5 digit ID Number and even PA Secure ID number right from the Student Profile Screen?

Just hi-light the box and type your information.

Did you know dates can be typed without slashes or whole year?

Type 4117 in a date field and it will automatically convert it is 04-01-2017

And for those who think in military time...that converts to standard time automatically too!

Digital Feedback: Using iPad for Assessment

This is a free book, by Daniel Tom, to be viewed in iBooks. Click here to access. Feedback has a huge impact on pupil progress. This One Best Thing demonstrates how to use apps such as Showbie, Notability, and Explain Everything to give effective digital feedback via the iPad.

Vsauce - A Youtube Channel with More Educational Material

Vsauce is another excellent YouTube channel featuring a wide variety of educational video content. It has playlists on knowledge, physics, human behavior, space, earth and many more. Click here to check it out.

Vertasium - A Youtube Channel all about Science

Veritasium is a channel of science and engineering videos featuring experiments, expert interviews, cool demos, and discussions with the public about everything science. Click here to check out Vertasium

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Lots of Great Tips This Week- Check Them Out!

4/3/2017

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Reminder about the SAMR Course

It needs to be completed by May 26. If everyone could have their final lesson uploaded by May 22, that would allow time for feedback and revisions so that everyone could be noted as complete on May 26. May 26th is the deadline for this course to be completed. Contact Dr. Sipe X 1007 if you need help joining the course.

Google Announcement - Google Calendar App

There is now a Google Calendar app for iPad and iPhone. It has all of the features you are use to using with your Google Calendar web-based tool. Click here to go to the app store for more information.

Youtube Add-ons

This week I am sharing some neat Youtube Extensions. These extensions can be used to enhance your viewing of Youtube videos. You should only add one of these extensions. Adding multiple of these extensions could create an issue as they will conflict each other so pick the one you think would best meet your viewing needs.

Turn Off the Lights Extensions

Adblock for Youtube

This extension lets you dim the screen around the video with a single click focusing only on the Youtube video. It seems very simple to use. Click here for a preview of this extension. Click here to get to the add to chrome button to add it to your chrome browser.

I think this extension is really nice because as educators we hate to see all those adds around our Youtube videos. If you add this extension those adds are gone forever. Click here to for a quick video on how it works. Click here to go to the add to chrome button and add it to your Chrome browser.

Enhancer

Improved Tube

‘Enhancer for YouTube™ is a very lightweight extension that is highly customizable, easy to use, and that will greatly improve your YouTube™ experience! It allows you to: Control volume level and playback speed with the mouse wheel; remove ads from videos (automatically or on-demand); remove annotations (automatically or on-demand) and many more’
Click here to go to the Add to Chrome button.

ImprovedTube provides you with a number of functions to enhance your YouTube viewing experience. Some of these include: dark color themes for better viewing at night, set default player size, hide YouTube elements like header and footer, hide annotations and related videos and many more. Click here to go to the Add to Chrome button.

Made with Code/Google - STEM Tool of the Week!

I played with this coding site and thought the projects were easy and fun. The activities on this site are geared toward girls. It's a great way to introduce girls to coding. Click here to check it out. Check out this Youtube video that gives a brief intro to Made with Code and would be a great intro video if you offer this opportunity to a group of girls.

iPad Apps for Education

Here are some new apps for iPads to use in education.

Wokabulary – Learn and manage your vocabulary Wokabulary is your personal vocabulary trainer that helps you learn and organize your vocabulary efficiently. It features a flash card system based on difficulty. Free
Click here to learn more.

Encode: Learn to Code
This tool for iPad provides interactive code challenges and lessons. Encode is perfect to anyone new to the world of coding. Free, Click here to learn more.

Bloom by Megalearn
In Bloom, your child explores the ingenious strategies used by plants to spread their seeds.
Your child will learn
- Three different dispersal strategies.
- The anatomy of a plant.
- The names of some common plants.
- The required conditions for plants to grow.

Plants featured
- Dandelion.
- Raspberry bush.
- Coconut palm.
$4.99, Click here to learn more.

Justin Guitar Beginner Song Course by FourChords
This is THE app to get you started if you are picking up the guitar for the first time, or if you been playing for a while and want to make sure you have not left any holes in your knowledge.
Key Features:
- Step-by-step play-along learning path to play guitar: basic chords, chord changes and strumming patterns
- Over 25 exclusive Instructional Videos by Justin (well over 90 minutes!)
- Exclusive chord change counter and strum along chord changing songs
- Self-assessment system to track your improvement
- Song collection of over 200 hit songs
- Play-along style display with easy chords, adjustable backing tracks and lyrics
- Accurate and easy to use tuner
This is a free app. Click here to learn more.

Terminology Dictionary: Thesaurus and Dictionary
Terminology is a browser for the English language – part dictionary, part thesaurus and part research tool. Terminology makes it easy to explore words and phrases, diving down to more and less specific terms - accessing the web and other apps for more detail and sharing. Free app, click here to learn more.

BiomeViewer
BiomeViewer lets you explore and discover Earth’s ecosystems with a tap of your finger!
Features include:
• Descriptions for every major biome on each continent
• Biodiversity data for more than 16,000 species of reptiles, amphibians, and mammals
• Gridded historical climate data for the entire planet
• Global precipitation and temperature maps
• Maps of human alteration of ecosystems over the last 300 years
• Side-by-side biome comparisons
• Fully interactive globe and flat map versions of all datasets
• Gridlines and political boundaries
• Animated data sets
• Educator guide with tips for use in the classroom