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Just the facts, monster

July 25, 2008

Okay, let’s be honest — I know that some of you still have maps hanging in your classroom with Germany separated into two distinct counties and the USSR. Or worse, some may not even have a map or globe in your classroom at all. Are you fighting with other teachers for use of the limited reference books in your school’s library? Are your Social Studies or Science books not presenting enough information for your lessons? Well Fact Monster is here to put an end to that, and bring your classroom up to date with the latest facts from around the world.

Fact Monster is a great child-friendly reference website that is full of factual information. It has Almanacs, an Encyclopedia, Dictionary, and Thesaurus. You can find maps of any place in the world (think of all the wall space you will save). The site allows you to calculate distance to and from places or find the exact coordinates of a location. You can access information from all over the world on wars, geography, natural disasters, accident archives, and religion.

Explore information on the US in the areas of history, government, education, laws and rights, population, race and ethnicity, landmarks, and speeches and documents. Learn about people with fun facts, biographies, and information on US Presidents and Famous Women. The sports section presents information ranging from any sport you can think of to the Olympics to animal sports including the Iditarod and much more. There are endless Science, Technology, and Math resources. This is a great site to use for current events discussions. Your students can use the site to help with homework or project assignments. They can also accesses a Blog for Boys and Girls from age 6 – 14 to read articles on current events or participate in interactive activities. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

Fact Monster

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Adventures In Alice Programming Workshop at Duke University

July 24, 2008

Teachers and students from across North Carolina learned the Alice programming language this summer during a workshop and camp at Duke University with support from the National Science Foundation and IBM. Alice uses simple commands to animate student-created movies and video games. According to the workshop organizer, Dr. Susan Rodger from Duke University, “Middle school students don’t really know what computer science is about. Alice is changing that by attracting both boys and girls with its virtual worlds storytelling and interactive capabilities. Our workshop showed that Alice can be used for problem solving and presentations in different disciplines such as math, science, English, art, business, and history.”

Students and teachers alike were drawn to the visual format. Tom Robertson, a middle school mathematics and technology teacher from Asheville, said, “This summer I had the opportunity to observe middle school students using Alice to build creative 3-dimensional interactive worlds. They were completely engrossed in the task at hand: computer programming. Clearly, Alice was providing a technology experience that went beyond the typical PowerPoint presentation.” Janie Torain, a business teacher from Person High School in Person County, agreed. She noted that students in her class will use Alice Programming software to explore multimedia production while creating presentations in a ”FUN-damentally’ different and more enjoyable way than ever before.”

Teachers from many disciplines beyond technology and career education connected with Alice. Math teacher Bridgette Scott created a world for teaching the coordinate plane. Math teacher Cheri Grantlin from Durham plans to integrate Alice into creating engaging class starters. Nashville science teacher Alisa White noted Alice’s assessment possibilities. She said, “Worlds created by middle school students effectively promote interdisciplinary understanding, problem solving and learning fundamental concepts in life, earth, and physical science within a short period of time. It is a great assessment tool.”

Humanities teachers recognized Alice as a way to encourage student creativity and engage students with literature. According to Person County teacher Andrea Payne, “Alice slows the thinking down and helps a child think about ‘thinking about.’ Storyboarding takes thoughts from abstract to concrete. This is how screenwriters do it: they storyboard.”

For students, the most important aspect of Alice was the opportunity for self-expression. Jesse, a middle school student at the camp, said, “It’s interactive; that’s cool. It’s open - you know - there’s a lot you can do with it.” Brittany, another middle schooler, was looking forward to using Alice for projects. She said, “I like that you can actually create your own ideas and express yourself and have fun with it.”

Teachers who are interested in Alice can download free middle school lesson plans and materials from the Duke workshop. -DR. SUSAN RODGER

Note: This article was put together by Dr. Susan Rodger and several teachers attending the Adventures in Alice Programming Workshop held at Duke University in June and July 2008.

Alice (free download)

Free Alice lesson plans for middle school

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Environmental science is elementary at EcoKids

July 23, 2008

Tired of teaching from the text book? Having a hard time fitting environmental science instruction into the school day? Well EcoKids can change all of that!

EcoKids is a Canadian interactive website created to engage students in environmental activities. This site is full of resources for teachers such as lesson plans, printable resources, and helpful links. It even has specifically designed lessons for ESL (English as a Second Language) students using the different environmental themes. Teachers can access information on Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, The North, Waste, Land Use, and Earth Day to initiate any environmental or science lesson, or provided a great follow up to an end-of-unit study. This site even has a Fact of the Day that teachers can use to initiate classroom discussions or writing activities about the environment. Looking for an environmental project for your classroom or school? You can visit different links on the site that show different types of environmental projects students and schools are involved in for ideas.

Students can access the site and engage in games to practice what they have learned in the different areas of Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, the North Pole, and Land Use. The games integrate the environmental themes with reading, math, science, problem solving, and social studies. Students can work on their writing skills by responding to questions posted periodically on the site, or commenting on the blog. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

EcoKids

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Convert metric units easily with this Conversion Calculator

July 22, 2008

When I was a lad, I hated when math story problems used metric units. Sure, the rest of the world is able to adequately measure stuff despite using the metric system, but I prefer good old American units like inches, pounds, or Fahrenheit. Like Grampa Simpson said, “The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that’s the way I likes it!”

At some point, however, your students will need at least a cursory understanding of base-10 measurement, whether they plan to be scientists or mathematicians, or if they just want to take a drive through Canada. Next time your lesson plan calls for them to go metric, let your students know about the World Wide Metric Conversion Calculator. This site will take your miles and ounces and convert them to kilometers and grams. It can even change them back, with no ill effects from the transformation.

Maybe World Wide Metric will make your students more trusting of the metric system than I was growing up. They may end up liking the metric system enough that they start using metric time. -BILL FERRIS

World Wide Metric Conversion Calculator

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Free scientific calculator: Calculator Tab

July 11, 2008

Why shell out big bucks for a scientific calculator when your computer can run circles around it? Powerful free calculators abound on the Internet. F’rinstance, take Calculator Tab, a sleek, stylish online calculator loaded with features and bereft of a price tag.

At first glance resembling a cheapo giveaway calculator, Calculator Tab reveals a bevy of functions if you simply pull on the many tabs surrounding it (hence the name). Figure sines, cosines, exponents, all that stuff you’re trying to teach your students, Calculator Tab has it tucked away in its tabs, so your kids won’t be slowed down by gawking at more functions than they need. Handiest of all, Calculator Tab also has a pop-up version so you can use it to crunch numbers in another open program. When you complete your calculations, Calculator Tab’s memory can store an infinite amount of numbers for an infinite amount of time, too.

Now that cell phone technology has advanced so much, it’s possible that students could use a Web phone and connect to an app like Calculator Tab rather than buy a scientific calculator (yeah, I know, school firewalls, cell phone policies, etc. Someday this kinda thing will be normal, I tell you). Calculator Tab packs a lot of power, and looks good doing it. -BILL FERRIS

Calculator Tab

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Power up Your Phone with gWhiz

June 26, 2008

Sure, your phone plays music, surfs the Web, sends email, and has GPS capability (and you can, you know, talk to people with it, too). That stuff is cool, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve only scratched the surface of what these handheld powerhouses can do. Now, with one simple download, you can give your phone some extra power you can use in the classroom thanks to gWhiz.

gWhiz is a suite of mobile learning tools that includes a powerful graphing calculator, a personalized reference library, and a flash card application. If Little Johnny wants to email his friends the graph of a tricky equation, he can do it straight from his phone. Create custom reference guides for an upcoming test on state capitals. Students will be able to get a lot of mileage from these apps, and they’ll always be within easy reach.

Now, the bad news. Right now, gWhiz is only available for BlackBerry phones. They’re working on adding more phone compatibility, though, including Google’s upcoming Android mobile phone platform. Maybe by the time summer vacation is over I can add gWhiz to my Motorola Razr (or maybe not). If you don’t have a BlackBerry, you may want to check back in a few months to see when gWhiz will be compatible with your phone.

Schools can really benefit from enhanced phone technology, since these devices are small, increasingly powerful, and within the price range of many students’ families. Applications like gWhiz can leverage this technology to create a powerful learning tool within the palm of every student’s hand. -BILL FERRIS

gWhiz

Make Math Easier with the Math and Algebra Expression Simplifier

June 13, 2008

As if Firefox couldn’t get more useful for teachers and students, now you can use it to solve algebraic equations. Studenthacks.org has the scoop on the Math and Algebra Expression Simplifier and Solver, a handy tool that’s pretty much what it sounds like. But the best part is that you can install it into your search bar in Firefox (and yeah, Internet Explorer, too).

To simplify or solve an equation, simply type it into your browser’s search bar (you can also enter it at the solver’s main page at Algebra.com). The Math and Algebra Expression Simplifier and Solver will then simplify or solve your equation.

The creators ask that you please keep in mind this simplifier/solver is still a work in progress, so it may not quite be able to solve everything you throw at it - yet. You should also keep in mind that many mathematical expressions are tough to type on a standard keyboard, so entering equations is an exacting process. On the other hand, when typing is the hardest part of using a tool, that’s a pretty good sign. This is one plugin that makes a complicated subject like algebra a little simpler. -BILL FERRIS

Math and Algebra Expression Simplifier and Solver - Firefox/IE Plugin via studenthacks.org
Math and Algebra Expression Simplifier and Solver via Algebra.com

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Free Interactive Math Manipulatives

June 11, 2008

Tired of hearing the crash of math manipulatives hitting your tile floor? Do you ever wonder if your students are engaged in the math lesson while they are building the tallest tower of manipulatives possible? Then the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is for you.

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is a free website that allows you access to a multitude of interactive virtual manipulatives. They range from pre-kindergarten up to twelfth grade. This allows for differentiating instruction for students’ different learning levels. The manipulatives are arranged into five categories - Number & Operations; Algebra; Geometry; Measurement; and Data Analysis & Probability. In each category you can find numerous interactive math manipulatives and activities for many different math concepts.

With the use of an interactive white board or projector these munipulatives can be used for discovery and inquiry-based learning by all your students. Your pupils will become actively involved as they see, hear, and do different math activities with the use of the manipulatives. This site can also be used to allow learners to make connections, and review concepts taught on individual classroom computers, in computer labs, or on home computers. In addition the site can be displayed in English, French, or Spanish, a great resource for our ELL (English Language Learners) populations. The days of manipulatives taking up shelf space are coming to an end. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

Visualize Measurements with SensibleUnits

June 10, 2008

Whether doing a story problem in math class or calculating square footage of a house, I’ve never been good at visualizing measurements. Three hundred square feet could be an apartment or a shoe box for all I know.

If you or your students are as bad at weights and measures as I, take a look at SensibleUnits. This site takes a unit of measure and converts it into real-world objects that will help you visualize what you’re looking at. Two square miles is the size of 12 Vatican Cities. A hundred ounces equals 4.7 basketballs, 19 human kidneys, or 3.8 hardback copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And 700 square feet translates to a single squash court, 4.8 parking spaces, or 1.1 cricket pitches (and who among us can’t relate to a cricket pitch?).

If you’re a math teacher, you can use SensibleUnits to write more interesting story problems (”If you have 45 domestic cats - 500 pounds - on your porch and a dog chases away 10 of them, how heavy are the remaining felines?”). SensibleUnits makes visualizing mass and distance easier than ever, even if the images are a little weird. -BILL FERRIS

SensibleUnits

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Dress Up Your Data with These Visualization Methods

May 23, 2008

Are you looking for a new look for your data? Are you tired of the same old boring bar graph? Do you wonder if you have the right visual for the occasion? Will a line graph tell the story, or would a Venn diagram do a better job?

For answers to these and other vexing questions with graphics, check out A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. This site lists the major (and minor) visualizations and separates them by category: data, information, concept, strategy, metaphor, and the combo special of the visualization world, the compound visualization. With so many choices, you’re bound to find the right one. Another version of this type of site is also available at Information Design Patterns.

After that, you’ll need some ways to make your visualizations come true, and plain old Excel by itself, may not make that happen. Fortunately, there are some options. One is Chart Chooser, which has ready-to-go templates for Excel and PowerPoint, organized by type. For the adventurous, check out Many Eyes, an online data visualization site from IBM, where you can view visualizations by others, or upload data of your own to play with. To broaden your palette to the possibilities, check out a site like information aesthetics which highlights new and innovative data design. Really, you’ll never use that default pie chart in PowerPoint again. -ALICE MERCER

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
Information Design Patterns
information aesthetics - data visualization & visual design
Chart Chooser
Many Eyes

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Geometry Meets Writing Instruction with Bio-Cube

May 19, 2008

You might have read this review of the Read*Write*Think Activities which described a “veritable playground” of fun, and instructionally sound activities. In case you have not taken the time to check this site out, I wanted to share one of the fantastic activities available on the site, Bio-Cube, that had some of my fourth grade students engaged, writing, and loving it. And best of all, at the end they got to make “art” from their work.

What is a Bio-Cube and where can you get them? Bio-Cube is an online flash (animated) application where students (or even you, dear teacher) fill in details about a character, or themselves - who doesn’t love to talk about themselves? It then formats what you put in, and when you print it out, it has a template with easy-to-use instructions to cut it out and glue it together in a cube. It’s writing, it’s math, it’s awesome. Check it out! -ALICE MERCER

Bio-Cube
Bio-Cube Lesson Plan for Teachers
Read*Write*Think Activities

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Win with Wikis in the Classroom

May 16, 2008

Wetpaint WikiWikis can be a useful tool in the classroom because they allow your students to not only create content, but maintain and edit it as well. With Wetpaint’s free Wiki creation tool, you can set up a specific type of wiki for whatever your subject matter might be. Students can then begin plugging in info based on your specifications. One of the most powerful aspects of creating a wiki is that they can be used for virtually any subject. If you’re reading The Sound and The Fury, students can add character descriptions, chapter and section summaries, or symbols used. If you’re an Algebra teacher, students can aggregate the wiki with their “favorite” proofs and theorems.

Wetpaint’s creation tool is simple and intuitive, and only requires a valid email address to sign up. It’s easy to set up and invite your students and set permissions on who is able to view your wiki. If you want to bridge the gap between the web and the classroom, this is a great place to start. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Wetpaint Free Wiki Websites

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Wheel of Fortune, Meet Educational Games: Computer Lab Favorite from Scholastic

May 14, 2008

Tired of kids doing the same games from your list of activities? Would you like to add the element of random chance into your curriculum, but still have solid academic (yet fun) online activities for kids to do? Let Computer Lab Favorites at Scholastic.com change up your mix. This site generates new content and activities suitable for independent work at the lab.

The activities are presented on a wheel, which features four color-coded subjects (English, Math, Social Studies, and Spanish). It comes in two levels K-2 and 3-5, and a “spin it” button to let you do a random selection, adding the element of chance to your session. Activities include phonemic awareness and reading games from Clifford, science from Magic School Bus, writing activities from “Dog’s Life” and other “Flashlight Readers, and the poetry machine.

This is a great resource for high interest, easy-to-use independent activities on your classroom computers, and a rendezvous with Madame La Chance. -ALICE MERCER

Computer Lab Favorites at Scholastic.com

Carnival of Education #171: Career Fair

May 14, 2008

ou_ags on flickrWelcome to the Carnival of Education Career Fair! We’ve retracted the bleachers and set up the booths on the gymnasium floor so these brave teachers can see what they might be doing if they weren’t teaching (perish the thought).

Motivational Speaker
Mr. D at I Want to Teach Forever agreed to sport a freaking mohawk as long as his students worked hard, which was about three weeks. Sadly, his motivational experiment has concluded. Long live the mohawk.

Camp Counselor
As a kid, my wife got to go to Space Camp and Marine Science Camp. Had Tisha Kulak and American Consumer News been around back then to point out how to save money on tuition to summer research camps, I might’ve been able to go, too.

Productivity Consultant
Instructify-favorite studenthacks.org has some great tips for students who want to learn how to write a research paper.

Pro Athletes
The Jose Vilson uses Derek Jeter as an example of how nurturing students’ talent and leadership ability early on can reap great results.

And over at Jay P. Greene’s Blog, the author talks about the importance of identifying students’ talents, whether they’re a left tackle or potential honor student.

Economist
ESL teacher Larry Ferlazzo knows that money is the international language.

Translator
Melissa B. at The Scholastic Scribe provides a handy-dandy English-to-Eduspeak dictionary.

Director
Mathew Needleman at Creating Lifelong Learners takes a proactive approach to managing disruptive students during a class movie project.

Advice Columnist
Let’s Play Math! has some advice on teaching math to a struggling student.

Detective
OverwhelmedMom gets to the bottom of problems that gifted students face.

Investigative Reporters
The proprietor of a voice from the middle knows the means to discovery is asking the right questions.

In addition, eduwonkette responds to a Wall Street Journal article about the criteria used to evaluate teachers.

Game Developer
Alvaro at SharpBrains shares a few games to stimulate your temporal lobe.

Diplomat
Coach Brown tries to reach an understanding with hostile parents.

Nutritionists
At Homework. Dinner. Life. Angela points out that good nutrition habits ought to be maintained year-round, not just a few days before the test.

Meanwhile, Chanman at Buckhorn Road says all that caffeine students drink can’t be good for them.

Cartographer
Dan Callahan, a.k.a. geek.teacher, harnesses Google Maps for a lesson in community mapping.

Librarian
@EDU takes the work out of student research by pointing them toward Google Alerts.

Politician
Jane Artabasy at Golden Apple Teaching Excellence Network unloads the loaded word of the day, “elitism,” showing it’s nothing to be frightened of - especially in schools.

The folks at Golden Apple also mull over the differences in races and learning styles.

Astronaut
HowDoWhy asks, what is a solar system, anyway? Furthermore, just how big is ours?

Human Resources Specialist
Over at Right on the Left Coast, Darren discusses the sticky situation of a teacher dating an 18-year-old student at a different school.

Mentors
Allison Jones at Entry Level Living wants to revamp the way young people think about leadership.

The folks at the Efficient Leadership Files have some ideas on that as well.

Statistician
Lead from the Start crunches the numbers about the disconnect between teachers and EdSector.

Strategist
Seth Pearce at NYC Students Blog has an intriguing idea on how to overcome schools’ non-stop test preparation.

Lobbyist
PZ Meyers at Pharyngula has some news about a disturbing bill in the Oklahoma legislature regarding religion in schools.

Road Grader
As the great homework debate rages on, Shabam School makes a good case for grading homework.

Kindergarten Teacher (sorry, I couldn’t come up with anything else)
Kiri at Elbows, Knees, Dreams shares her thoughts (and asks for others’ opinions) about early entrance to Kindergarten.

Photo credit: ou_ags on flickr

Mathematics from the Right Side of Your Brain

May 13, 2008

Ever have that student that just can’t seem to get a concept (especially in mathematics) without concrete examples? How about the ones that do better when they make something, rather than taking notes and doing calculations? That probably describes 50-85% of some classrooms. Well dear readers, we have some tools for you.

Are you teaching about symmetry and reflections? Kaleidoscopes are a great way to teach students about these concepts. Myoats is a great online tool for this. It lets users create kaleidoscopic images with 1 to 16 lines of symmetry. You can even save your creations as an image file. There is also a library of images created by others that you can use as examples.

Tessellations are great for visually showing patterns, and Math Cats’ Tessellation Town! is easy enough for primary kids to start building. It gives you a choice of different tiles to work, and you can start clicking away.

Do you have tappers and drummers in your class? Spring is their season, so let them go to Phil Tulga’s Playing Fraction Pies to get all those phat beats out of their system, AND learn about fractions.

So give the right side of your kids’ brains a workout during math with these fun and easy-to-use sites. -ALICE MERCER

Myoats
Math Cats’ Tessellation Town!
Phil Tulga’s Playing Fraction Pies

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