N4L | Pond Pond is designed to act as a central hub for digital discovery and participation, where educational resources can be accessed and shared more easily and effectively. It combines the best parts of existing online tools and platforms to create a new, yet familiar, environment. Pond is independent of N4L’s Managed Network and can be accessed using any internet connection. Access to Pond is free for all school users. How Pond works Pond is a place where educators can discover content and services, share knowledge and engage with their peers. Pond’s comprehensive search function makes it easier for educators to find what they need. Through the ability to recommend, rate and comment on content and services found in Pond, educators can ensure the most suitable resources can be discovered by other users within Pond and used in the most beneficial manner possible.
How Columbus Sailed Into U.S. History, Thanks To Italians : Code Switch hide captionThough he sailed in 1492, Christopher Columbus was not widely known among Americans until the mid-1700s. Spencer Arnold/Getty Images Though he sailed in 1492, Christopher Columbus was not widely known among Americans until the mid-1700s. It's been 521 years since the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus "sailed the ocean blue/in fourteen hundred and ninety-two." Since then, there have been thousands of parades, speeches and statues commemorating Columbus, along with a critical rethinking of his life and legacy. But the question remains, how did a man who never set foot on North America get a federal holiday in his name? This is in contrast to Juan Ponce de Leon (who arrived in Florida in 1513), Alonso Alvarez de Pineda (whose ships arrived in what's now known as Corpus Christi Bay in Texas in 1519) and fellow Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano, who reached New York Harbor in 1524. So why Columbus Day? Anti-Italian Sentiment Celebrating Heritage, Via Columbus Mario Tama/Getty Images
Inventive Games That Teach Kids About Empathy and Social Skills By Tanner Higgin, Graphite Play is nothing if not social. Games organize play, allowing us to wrangle and experiment with the world. Video games, however, have been a bit of an aberration in the history of play and games. 1. This app features a series of appealing animated episodes that model real world social situations. 2. Billed as an “indie minimalist platformer,” Thomas Was Alone’s characters are just colorful shapes, yet they all have distinct personalities. Thomas Was Alone 3. The most experimental and perhaps most irresistibly interesting game on this list, Way makes collaboration and communication crucial to success. Way 4. Developed by learning and behavior experts, Social Adventures offers a treasure trove of resources for caregivers or educators looking for ways to help kids –particularly those with learning difficulties or special needs – learn about and practice basic social strategies, skills, and routines. Social Adventures Click here for more reviews of games and apps.
How Deductive Thinking Can Drive Student-Designed Research How Deductive Thinking Can Drive Student-Designed Research by Jane Healey, Ph.D. I specialize in an odd subject—research. I teach students to select a subject area, pick a topic, craft a question, design a prospectus, follow through on the plans, adapt to obstacles and “interesting” findings, organize results, and create an appropriate outcome that matches the content and methodology of the project. Many teachers call me crazy for loving this process; teaching skills regardless of content seems difficult and abstract or too chaotic and uncontrollable. I think it’s fun. In two previous posts, I shared advice I give to colleagues who want students to research in the classroom and need a refresher about the process and effective ways of teaching it. Recently, a colleague claimed that I skipped steps of independent research for students: how do they create their own questions? Step 1: Subject The deductive thinking starts big and narrows as more is learned. Not done, yet. Step 2: Topic
Beyond Minecraft: Games That Inspire Building and Exploration By Tanner Higgin, Graphite The success and popularity of Minecraft in and out of classrooms is no surprise. It’s one of the best examples of the potential of learning with games because it embraces exploration, discovery, creation, collaboration, and problem-solving while allowing teachers to shepherd play toward any subject area. But Minecraft is not the only game of this kind. 1. Garry’s Mod (GMod) is a sandbox game like Minecraft but instead of building and exploring, students use a fun physics engine that simulates things like gravity and mass. 2. Kerbal Space Program has a robust physics engine too, but it’s more focused than Garry’s Mod. 3. Sound Shapes is a visually stunning platform puzzle game set to a rich musical soundscape. For creative kids who want to get their hands dirty, check out DIY, a site where students can find things to build, instructions for how to build them, and ways to share their creations with others. Related
Plant a Question… Grow an “Answer Garden” Need a digital scribble space? Then be sure to experiment with AnswerGarden, a web-based polling/survey tool that allows users to create and publish a question. Once visitors submit answers, they are immediately displayed as tags in a basic word cloud. AnswerGardens can even be embedded into web sites, wikis, blogs and/or social networks. In order to determine what technology project this year’s Language Arts students enjoyed the most, I utilized an AnswerGarden. FYI: A typical AnswerGarden is displayed in black and white. The same results—but exported to Wordle. More results—this time from Tagxedo. Classroom Connection: With AnswerGarden, creative brainstorming and collecting feedback has never been easier! The automatic creation of a tag cloud is an awesome feature—one that can be used as a visual to generate further discussions about a particular topic.
Search Engines | TryEngineering Lesson Focus Lesson focuses on exploring how the development of search engines has revolutionized Internet. Students work in teams to understand the technology behind search engines and explore how they can retrieve useful information using search engines. Age Levels: Objectives Learn about basics of a search engineLearn how to query search enginesLearn how to find relevant material using advanced search optionsLearn about teamwork and problem solving Anticipated Learner Outcomes As a result of this activity, students should develop an understanding of: teamworkimpact of search engines on world wide web (www)techniques to build efficient search queries Lesson Activities Students build search queries. Resources/Materials Teacher Resource DocumentsStudent WorksheetsStudent Resource SheetsComputers with Internet access Alignment to Curriculum Frameworks Curriculum alignment sheet is included in PDF.
10 Web Resources For Digital Field Trips To Museums I went to the Tretyakov gallery in Moscow. It was truly amazing. I wish I had been educated enough to fully appreciate the art. I sat in front of the Matisse. “I think I could make this myself.” “Well,” she said, “Maybe you’re not considering the training he had or some of his other works.” I had the good fortune to study an exhibit of Russian Orthodox icons with a professor of this style of art. “Professor, how does the museum preserve the art?” “Nobody vandalizes art in this country.” Such is life, I suppose. This week’s Learnist feature highlights digital field trips, travel writer Tyler Wilcox and others, as they take us to some of the best museums in the world. As always, please consider making some boards of your own or adding to some of these boards. The World’s Most Amazing Museums These museums boast amazing collections, but are also feats of architecture in and of themselves. The World’s Best Natural History Museums Guide to Boston’s Best Museums Military Museums & Attractions
Integrate iPads Into Bloom's Digital Taxonomy With This 'Padagogy Wheel' You’re going to want to turn on your printer and fire up a PDF viewer. This is just that good. It’s called the Padagogy Wheel and it offers a fantastically useful perspecitve on how to figure out which iPad apps work with Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy. The Padagogy Wheel takes an expanded approach Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy and offers 62 iPad apps that fit into the organized chaos that is Bloom’s. See Also: 35 Digital Tools That Work With Bloom’s Taxonomy What do you think of some of the apps and where they’re placed on the wheel? The Padagogy Wheel by Allan Carrington is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Arduino and Learning: H.S. Teacher Ariel Simons A powerful recipe for engaged learning: Show students how to command actions in the physical world – make lights blink, sounds sound, motors move, robots roam, sensors sense. Combine this concrete act of control over physical objects activity with the abstract power of programming – show students how to make those lights blink in response to the sounds, make the sensors guide the motors. Apply this combination of software and hardware hacking to measuring the radiation levels near Fukushima and aggregating radiation data, a task that the Japanese government apparently failed to do for months. Now you are talking about engaged students. Ariel Simons uses the inexpensive Arduino open source hardware platform to bring high school students together with coding, circuitry, citizen science. My own curiosity introduced me to Arduino recently. # The next line assigns pin 13 on the Arduino to the LED that I’ve connected to that # pin and a power source.