Mar 4
Alphabet Rain is quick and free game to help elementary students with their typing. As letters fall from the top of the screen the student hits the corresponding key on the keyboard and earns points. Each round lasts a minute and gets progressively more difficult, and would be a great warm up for a lab or keyboarding session.
NY Times – Inside the Olympic Action:
“The New York Times has good collection of videos and audio slideshows designed to take you ‘inside the action‘ of Winter Olympic events. The videos will take you down a luge run at 90mph, through a snowboard half pipe, and down the men’s downhill ski course. Along the way athletes and coaches explain intricacies of each event and how the athletes maneuver through their events.
Applications for Education
Inside the Action could be a good resource for learning about Olympic events from an ‘insider’s perspective.’ You might want to use these videos in conjunction with a Google Maps Street View tour of the Winter Olympics.”
(Via FreeTech4Teachers.com.)
NASA Lunar Simulator on iPhone and iPod Touch:
I don’t often write posts about iPhone apps or iPod Touch apps, but today I learned about one that I had to pass along. NASA recently released an iPhone app that they’re calling the Lunar Electric Rover Simulator. As I don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch myself, I haven’t been able to try it yet, but the Lunar Electric Rover Simulator looks like it could be a fun learning experience for students that have iPhones or iPod Touches. The app is free and can be found in the app store where you can see more screen shots of the app in action.
Mashable, which is where I learned about the app, has some more information that you may be interested in reading.”
(Via FreeTech4Teachers.com.)
A Brief Timeline of FDR’s WWII Decisions:
“Yesterday, while exploring Time’s website I came across this timeline featuring the key decisions made by President Roosevelt during World War II. The World at War is an interactive timeline in which you can click on any of the key decisions listed to learn more about those decisions. The decisions interspersed amongst other key events of WWII. None of the events are terribly detailed, but the timeline does provide a nice general overview.
Applications for Education
The World at War could be a good introductory resource or review resource for US History teachers and their students. Teachers could have each student in a class select an item from the timeline to research and teach to their classmates. ”
(Via FreeTech4Teachers.)
TIME Magazine Interactive World at War Timeline
Doing What Works: Research-Based Education:
“Doing What Works is a project of the US Department of Education, West Ed, and Little Planet Learning. The purpose of Doing What Works is to share the best research-based education practices. Doing What Works presents those best practices with videos of real teachers using them, interviews with educators, visual planning diagrams, and information for further research.
Applications for Education
A lot of websites share ideas for implementing new education practices, but few sites share videos featuring real teachers talking about their practices. Doing What Works does a good job of presenting both ideas and examples. ”
(Via FreeTech4Teachers.com.)
Digital Dialects – Activities for Learning 55+ Languages:
“Digital Dialects has a large selection of educational games and activities for learning 55 different languages. Most of the games are designed to learn and practice the basics of each of the 55 languages listed on the Digital Dialects homepage.
Another good website for learning and practicing language basics is Literacy Center.net. Literacy Center offers games for learning and practicing French, Spanish, German, and English. The Literacy Center is a 501c non-profit with a contract from the US Department of Education.
Applications for Education
The educational games and activities found on Digital Dialects and Literacy Center are great for students just beginning to learn a new language. The games provide instant feedback to students and parents so that they can monitor progress and choose a skill or set of vocabulary terms to practice”
(Via FreeTech4Teachers.com.)
Defend your space station from incoming meteors by solving multiplication problems or drag race your friends through division. AcademicSkillBuilders.com has a number of great math games covering Multiplication, Division, Fractions, Addition, Subtraction, and Integers. The games run great under any web browser and are quick to start and easy to play. All of the games are research based, and aligned to state standards.
Theres also a selection of language arts games focusing on spelling, vowels, verbs and Social Studies games focusing on State Capitals and countries. Now I better close the window so I can get some work done…
Flash cards are a staple of students studying toolbox, but the tedious work required to create and share them sometimes gets in the way of their regular use. Enter BrainFlips, one of the best flashcard sites I’ve come across. An account (free) is required to create and share flash card decks, but no account is required to use the decks that other users have created which as of this writing there are 726 decks available. Some cool examples include: Barack Obama, Addition, and Introductory Spanish. Plus each deck can be viewed in one of 3 ways: Introduction mode, which gives you the question and answer side by side, Traditional Mode, shows question and then the answer, or Response Mode, which creates a multiple choice game out of the cards.
Thanks to FreeTech4Teachers for finding this site.
Oct 28
This movie from BrainPop helps students, teachers, and parents talk about the facts and clear up any misconceptions they may have about the H1N1.
For younger students, BrainPop also has a video on hand washing:
http://www.brainpopjr.com/health/bewell/washinghands/
The Elements Song With Pictures:
“The Elements Song has been around for a long time (I actually heard it on vinyl in high school chemistry). There are many videos of the song on YouTube. Some of which have nearly one million views. This version of the song on YouTube has a picture representing each element throughout the song.
Applications for Education
The pictures that accompany the mention of each element in the song could help some students remember the elements. Just be sure to remind students that the song does not contain all of the elements that are now on the periodic table.”
Learn the Periodic Table Tetris-Style:
“eChalk offers a mix of free and premium educational games. One of the free games that I learned about today is Periodic Table Tetris. Periodic Table Tetris uses the style of the classic video game Tetris to help students memorize the periodic table of elements. To play the game, students use their keyboard’s arrow keys to move element blocks into the proper place. The game has three levels for students to progress through.
Thanks to the Woodchurch Science blog for the link.
Applications for Education
Periodic Table Tetris could be a fun and engaging way to learn the periodic table. I wish this game had been around when I was a high school student having to memorize the periodic table.”
(Via FreeTech4Teachers.)
