BY BILL FERRIS
Ever wondered about the physics behind the slapshot? I haven’t. But after looking at Science of the Olympic Winter Games from NBC Sports and the National Science Foundation, I at least feel guilty about it.
Read milestone documents from American history at Our Documents
Our Documents is a completely free-to-use, wonderfully cataloged and explained collection of 100 milestone documents in American history.
Build your own educational games at ProProfs BrainGames
ProProfs Brain Games lets you create simple online games for your class without expending much time or effort. The game varieties include crosswords, word finds, jigsaw puzzles, and so on. Not super-complex, but perfect for test reviews and elementary classrooms.
Find STEM resources at BioED Online
BioED is an online repository of lesson plans, teaching resources, full blown presentations and interactive contests for students. All the materials are aligned to academic standards, available for PDF download, and presentations are usually broken into components so if you wanted to use a slide or image from a presentation, they are available separately.
Actors read books to kids at Storyline Online
The Screen Actors Guild Foundation has produced Storyline Online, a streaming video site where SAG members read a wide selection of children’s books.
Misquoth Poe, nevermore: Poestories.com
You can find an excellent online repository of Edgar Allen Poe’s work at Poestories.com, which hosts many of his complete stories, poetry, and a link network to locate works not hosted.
I’ve been a big Edgar Allan Poe fan ever since he was an option for bedtime stories (before that it was Yeats or Lawrence, both highly effective at inducing sleep). Besides the well-known pieces Poe wrote, there are many works that are lesser-known but just as enjoyable. You can find an excellent online repository of his work at Poestories.com, which hosts many of his complete stories, poetry, and a link network to locate works not hosted.
BY BILL FERRIS
One of the best moments of my day is reading a bedtime story to my boys. We get quality bonding time, they’re fostering what I hope is a life-long love of books, and I get to work on my list of character voices, which consists of “Gruff Adult Male,” “All-purpose Female,” “Little Kid,” and “Carnival Barker.” But little do they know that instead of putting up with Daddy’s lack of dramatic range, they could instead listen to James Earl Jones. The Screen Actors Guild Foundation has produced Storyline Online, a streaming video site where SAG members read a wide selection of children’s books.
We had the LEARN NC staff retreat last week, and one of the subjects that received a good deal of discussion was efforts to promote STEM education resources. Seeing as we’re not scientists here at Instructify, the best way we can promote STEM is to shine our light on groups of scientists who are fighting the good fight. In that spirit, we direct your attention to BioED Online, offered by the good folks at Baylor University, is an online repository of lesson plans, teaching resources, full blown presentations and interactive contests for students.
Can you believe 2010 is one 12th the way over already? With time rushing by so quickly, here’s a look at some of the great posts from January that you may have missed.
Online Stopwatch keeps your running class on time This periodic table includes elements and their real-world applications Explaining new technologies, 7 Things at a time Map word relationships at Lexipedia Make better animated movies with Xtranormal State Educational videos, organized, at WatchKnow FreePoverty donates drinking water based on your geography knowledge Free lesson planning from the Red Cross for disaster preparation See, hear historic congressional moments with the Oral History of the U.S. House of Representatives Learn about free speech in books in Libraries and the First Amendment
BY BILL FERRIS
ProProfs Brain Games lets you create simple online games for your class without expending much time or effort. The game varieties include crosswords, word finds, jigsaw puzzles, and so on. Not super-complex, but perfect for test reviews and elementary classrooms.
ProProfs does the hard work of configuring the puzzles themselves, meaning you just have to come up with questions and answers. So if you’ve got a bunch of vocabulary words you want your students to learn, consider putting them in a crossword format to make the exercise a little more entertaining. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s what’s going on at the NASA Earth Observatory, brought to you by Fred Beyer at EarthSciTeach.
World of Change: Yellow River Delta
Once free to wander up and down the coast of the North China Plain, the Yellow River Delta has been shaped by levees, canals, and jetties in recent decades.Water Watchers
In Idaho, NASA’s Landsat satellites are helping officials manage water resources and settle conflicts.
Primary resources are the most important historical tool that students, teachers, and scholars have to examine the past. As someone who holds a degree in history and holds history near to his heart, the compacting and summarizing of society-changing documents into a single paragraph in a text book brings a tear to my eye. More and more, historical documentation is referenced for justification by those who have not read what was actually written.
The Centsables fight against financial irresponsibility
The Centsables is an interactive training tool for explaining and teaching students about economic and monetary responsibility. The premise revolves around a group of financial superheroes who explain healthy economic principles in a campy comic-book format that is engaging and fun for young students.
Living Galapagos explores balance between man and nature
In order to document and present the challenges the Galapagos islands face, a website call Living Galapagos has been created with a wealth of information about these islands’ current situation.
Talk about gaming and learning in the Learning Games Network Teacher PLC
Are you passionate about gaming as a valid form of education? You’re not alone. The Learning Games Network wants to put you in touch with other like-minded educators through their Teachers Professional Learning Community.
Win education travel fellowships from EarthWatch
EarthWatch has created fellowships for students, teachers, conservation professionals, and corporate employees to participate in research expeditions worldwide.
Net Cetera: A handy cybersafety booklet from the FTC
I don’t know what I did to get on the Federal Trade Commission’s radar, but I’ve gotten a bunch of email from them lately. So far, it’s all been good — the first email was for YouAreHere, a cool site that tells kids how to be savvy consumers. Now they’ve sent me Net Cetera, a handy guide for good online citizenship.
BY BILL FERRIS
I don’t know what I did to get on the Federal Trade Commission’s radar, but I’ve gotten a bunch of email from them lately. So far, it’s all been good — the first email was for YouAreHere, a cool site that tells kids how to be savvy consumers. Now they’ve sent me Net Cetera, a handy guide for good online citizenship.
Net Cetera deals with the benefits and hazards of P2P file sharing, privacy issues, identity theft, phishing, spamming, cyberbullying, sexting, and other cleverly named vices unique to the internet. Read the rest of this entry »
BY DAVID BARGER
As Mark Twain famously remarked, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” In today’s world of war and unrest, it is not hard to see that we all could use a little less of these things in our lives. Given the current economic climate, though, overseas travel is probably not making the cut in most family budgets. Although our wallets might be getting smaller, the world is not. It’s as big and wonderful as it has always been.
So how do we get out there and enjoy it? The folks at the EarthWatch Institute have a good idea. They have created fellowships for students, teachers, conservation professionals, and corporate employees to participate in research expeditions worldwide.
BY BILL FERRIS
Are you passionate about gaming as a valid form of education? You’re not alone. The Learning Games Network wants to put you in touch with other like-minded educators through their Teachers Professional Learning Community:
“The PLC will provide a forum for teachers to share experiences and ideas for using existing games in the classroom, as well as discuss ideas and concepts for where games could fill gaps and niches in curricula. Read the rest of this entry »
Ever since Charles Darwin published On the Origins of Species 150 years ago, the Galapagos Islands have always been of particular interests to scientist and environmentalist alike. Back then the diversity of species as they evolved in relative isolation formed some of the basis of Darwin’s ground-breaking and controversial scientific hypothesis.
Fast forward a century and a half and a new debate surrounds the famous archipelago and its renowned environmental treasure. Like the rest of the planet, the Galapagos is trying to deal with an ever increasing human population in relationship to a finite amount of resources locally available; it’s a delicate balancing act in an area with a fragile ecosystem.
In order to document and present the challenges the islands face, a website call Living Galapagos has been created with a wealth of information about the current situation in the Galapagos. Read the rest of this entry »
Understanding how to budget your resources and not spend more that you take in can help children create a foundation for success later in life. Unfortunately, the subject often seems boring and intangible for students — graphs of production curves, widgets, butter versus guns, the law of diminishing returns…I remember them all from my economics class, but at the time, they seemed to have no relevance to my personal situation.
But here we have The Centsables, an interactive training tool for explaining and teaching students about economic and monetary responsibility. The premise revolves around a group of financial superheroes, The Centsables, who explain healthy economic principles in a campy comic-book format that is engaging and fun for young students. Read the rest of this entry »
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