Check it Out! New APPS on the iPads...

We have added four new apps to our iPads!  Did you know that you can recommend apps for us to install on our iPads?  Just e-mail Tony Eatchel an app you would like to see on the iPad and it can be downloaded and installed after it goes through a verification process!  Check out the four new apps that you can start using right now!!!!

Watch and Learn about Wildlife

3 Good Places Where Students Can Watch and Learn About Wildlife

by (Mr. Byrne)

Explore.org produces and hosts high-quality documentary films and photographs. The films and images focus on exploring the world and the work of non-profit organizations around the world. The films and images are organized by location and by charitable and or environmental cause. Explore.org is funded in part by the Annenburg Foundation. Part of the video gallery includes live webcam feeds of animals in their habits as well as recorded videos. Explore.org offers a lesson plan section for teachers. Not all lesson plans are appropriate for all grades and the lesson plans are labeled accordingly. All of the lesson plans are based upon videos hosted by Explore.

Arkive.org offers an extensive collection of videos and images of plants and animals. The videos and images are cataloged according to animal, plant, eco-region, and geo-political region. You can navigate the galleries by selecting one of the broad categories then choosing a subject within that broad category. For example, choose the Antarctica eco-region and then you can explore all of the images and videos about plants and animals found in that eco-region. Videos on Arkive can be downloaded to for your classroom use. Arkive offers a dozen online games for kids. The games collection is a mix of quiz games and problem solving games. One of the games that I tried out is Animal Survival that required me to keep a Sand Lizard alive by correctly answering questions about Sand Lizards' daily lives.

Wild Earth is a site that has organized more than three dozen live webcam feeds of animals. While watching the video feeds, registered users can chat with each other about what they're seeing. If the video feed is not live when you visit the website, you can choose from any number of recorded videos.

This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers .

Winter teaching ideas

Using the Outdoors: Winter weather ideas

The weather in Minnesota presents students and teachers with a varied and plentiful amount of outdoor teaching ideas. Unlike many places south of here, we get a chance to experience a full range of the 4 seasons during the course of the school year. Taking advantage of these resources benefits both teachers and students. Now that we find ourselves heading into the doldrums of winter, let’s find a way to make the cold and snow educational for our students. Here are some ideas that can easily be implemented into a lesson on winter.

Winter weather idea 1:

Snow can be used to teach students about the concept of insulation. Since there is a lot of air between the flakes, snow does a wonderful job trapping in either cold or warm air, relatively speaking. This is most evident in that the air under the snow, close to the ground, can often times be warmer than the actual air temperature above the snow. You can demonstrate this with your students by placing a thermometer underneath the snow, next to the ground, and comparing its temperature to another thermometer that is above the snow, measuring just air temperature. I think this experiment would work best on a day when the air temperature is well below 32 degrees. If you want to try this, I suggest using a probe thermometer to measure the temp under the snow, and we have some great USB thermometers in the lab that you can use.

Winter weather idea 2:

Take your students outside and have them form snowballs, making sure they do not throw them at each other of course! Tell them not to compact the snow too much, just enough to make it stick together. Once they have formed snowballs, bring them inside (preferably in a bucket) and place them next to a block of ice. If the snowball and piece of ice are about the same size, that will make for better comparison. Let the snowball and ice chunk sit in the room, checking on it periodically. Have your students predict which one will melt faster and why they think so. Since the snowball is made of snowflakes, which have more surface area than the block of ice, it should melt faster. But even if it doesn’t, it makes for a great discussion of ideas with your class about why.

Winter weather idea 3:

To teach your students about how frost forms try this activity. Take a metal coffee can that has a lid. Fill it with a bunch of ice and ½ cup of salt and let your students stir. At this point, you can put the lid on and let it sit for a few minutes, but you’d be missing an opportunity to discuss the freezing point of water.

Many students will know that water freezes at 32 degrees F, or 0 degrees C. But how does salt affect the freezing point? Before putting the lid on the can, take the temperature of the salt and ice mixture once you have stirred it (again, the USB probe thermometers in the lab would work great). You should find that it will be below 32 degrees, yet there will still be liquid that has not turned to ice. This is a good point to discuss how salt lowers the freezing temperature of water, thus we use it to keep sidewalks and streets from getting icy.

Once you put the lid on the can and let it sit for a few minutes, frost will form on the outside of the can. Where did it come from? This is a great way to show students that the air is full of water vapor, even though we can’t see it. When the temperature dips below freezing, the water vapor condenses on the cold surface of the can.

Winter weather idea 4:

Let your students discover the unique beauty of snowflakes. We have all heard the expression that no two snowflakes are alike. Take your students outside, preferably on a snowy day, and let them catch snowflakes on black paper. Then let them use a hand lens to observe the snowflakes. While it would be hard to prove that no two flakes are alike, they will still get to see the many variations in snowflakes.

Winter weather idea 5:

Have an “Ice Cube Melting Race” with your students. Give each pair of students 2 ice cubes in plastic cups. Have several saltshakers ready for the class to use. When you start the time, have one student pour some salt onto one of the cubes and leave the other cube plain. Have the students observe what happens. The cube with the salt on it will melt faster than the plain cube. If you let the cubes sit for a while but check them periodically, you can check to see how long it took for each cube to melt.

Thinglink a NEW Interactive Image TOOL!

Thinglink is an amazing new web based tool.  It is easy to make an interactive item for your classroom.  I created this Sample Thinglink about Penguins in just a few minutes.  To get started you need an image.  The next step is to add content, this is called tagging.  On my Penguin Thinglink I listed some facts about penguins as well as a YouTube video clip.   Another idea would be to add websites to the images you'd like students to visit.  Below are some video tutorials on how to use Thinglink.

Creating a Thinglink is an easy way to pull together all of your resources for a topic.  Another idea would be to have a group of students explore a Thinglink at the SmartBoard.  

What do you think?  What ways do you see yourself using Thinglink?

S.T.E.M Magazine

A recent publication worth taking a look at is STEM Magazine.  Wayne Carley, the editor of this magazine is an experienced educator working with students all over the world in the area of STEM.  The goal of the magazine is to present information by experts in each of the STEM fields. 

I especially enjoyed the article on ways to infuse writing in science and math.  The article speaks to predictions of the future job market and the number of STEM fields. 

Take a minute to check out this resource.
http://www.stemmagazine.com/index.php

Getting the Most out of our SMART Boards by Tony Eatchel

Hi All!

Over the last five years we have been working hard to integrate our lessons with our SMART Boards.  We have come leaps and bounds from where we started.  I attended a training called SMART Advanced - Marzano Lesson Creation Strategies that Increase Achievement.  It was a great training based on Marzano Research (see link below for full article).   I pulled out some great tips to think about while you are using your SMART Boards.  Check it out!

Getting the Most Out of the Technology

This study, as well as what we know about good teaching in general, suggests how teachers might use interactive whiteboards more effectively. I recommend the following:

• Teachers should think through how they intend to organize information. They should group information into small, meaningful segments before they start developing the digital flipcharts (notebook files). Once they've organized the content, then they can design the flipcharts to complement the organization. To ensure that they don't run through the flipcharts too quickly, teachers can insert flipcharts that remind them to stop the presentation so students can process and analyze the new information.

• Digital flipcharts should contain visuals, but those visuals should clearly focus on the important information. Also, no single flipchart should contain too many visuals or too much written information.

• After asking a question and getting student responses using voting devices, the teacher should typically discuss the correct answer along with the incorrect answers, making sure to elicit opinions from as many students as possible.

• When using reinforcing features like virtual applause, teachers should make sure that students focus on why an answer is correct or incorrect. Although these features can produce high engagement and certainly enliven the atmosphere in a classroom, they can also be distracting if used without a clear focus on essential content.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov09/vol67/num03/Teaching-with-Interactive-Whiteboards.aspx