Featured 6-30-2014: The Pericles Group

 

The Pericles Group provides game-based learning solutions for students, teachers, and administrators in a wide range of situations and a variety of disciplines.

 

The Pericles Group offers ‘practomimetic' courses that blend stories and game play providing students the opportunity to explore learning as a narrative and as a game.

 

 

The attitudes and behaviors of students learning in the practomimetic courses change along with their level of knowledge. They can become active learners, metaphorically engaged in making the world a better place.

 

The Pericles Group partners with teachers to develop and deliver materials for game-based courses and curricula that capitalize on the opportunities of teaching as a digitally-enhanced practice. Although the practomimes don’t look like traditional video games, the play is similar and they teach more. Practomimetic courses can teach students to "play the curriculum," reaching the learning objectives and mastering the skills and content the practomime is designed to support.

 

Students might play as scientists, recruited by a shadowy multinational corporation, investigating phenomena out of science fiction and fantasy. Latin students could play as operatives on a mission to find a lost inscription that can only be deciphered if they are able to read Latin. 

 

Currently developed products of The Pericles Group include:

• Operation LAPIS is a two-year introductory curriculum in Roman civilization and the Latin language
• Operation BIOME is a full-year game-based (practomimetic) course in biology.
• Operation CAESAR is an advanced Latin course aligned with the new Latin AP standards.
• CARD-tamen is a stand-alone card game where players construct a persuasive argument about the subject matter in relation to a controversial topic.

 

 

The Pericles Group offers a series of professional development seminars that demonstrate the potential of practomimetic courses. These seminars can be customized to the needs of each school district.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 5-22-2014: The Math Open Reference Project

 

The Math Open Reference Project is free, interactive math textbook on the web covering high-school geometry.

 

 

The Math Open Reference Project has the goal of providing high-quality digital content free of charge to the end user, while providing numerous benefits over paper textbooks:

• Accessible anywhere, any time.
• Interactive, interesting experience.
• Hyperlinks promote exploration and easy lookup.
• Use the search to look up a word or term.
• Interactive quizzes with instant feedback.
• Lower cost.
• Less weight.

Using interactive tools and compelling animations, The Math Open Reference Project provides an engaging way to learn and explore the subject. A vast library of virtual manipulatives can be used to demonstrate concepts using a computer, projector, and whiteboard. Students can use the same manipulatives themselves outside the classroom.

 

 

The Math Open Reference Project meets the NCTM standards for content and is aligned with the Common Core standards, but also has the potential to adapt to and comply with the standards for every state.

 

The Math Open Reference Project will work with most popular browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. The interactive illustrations use Java and/or Flash, so these plug-ins must be installed on the user's computer.

 

The copyright and license agreement permit any printing for non-commercial use, useful for class handouts.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 5-12-2014: EverySlide

 

EverySlide involves students by making it possible to integrate open-ended questions and polls in the same slides you are already using.

 

A free EverySlide educator license can make your classroom more interactive:

• Re-use existing slides
• More engaged students
• Know what students are thinking
• Generate class reports
• Instant polls and word clouds
• Students use their own devices

Upload a presentation created in PowerPoint or Keynote to EverySlide and press ‘present'. A unique registration link will be generated that your class can use to join your slideshow using any device they happen to have.

 

 

Ask a question or run an instant poll. After the presentation, you can review students’ interactions online or download their details and answers as a spreadsheet. You can leave a copy of your slides on participants’ devices.

 

 Watch an overview of EverySlide

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 5-7-2014: Shooloo Learning

 

 

Upper-elementary and middle school students can help one another practice word problems and apply math to real life using the collaborative learning platform, Shooloo, which means “Number Joy” in Chinese.

 

At Shooloo  students can write their own math word problems, publish them onto the web, get feedback from other students, demonstrate their solutions, and continuously clarify their math reasoning.

 

Tagged with the associated Common Core State Standard, word problems are accompanied by I Can statements. Students can easily compile their own I Can journals, enabling teachers to assess which students are struggling with which Common Core standard. Analytics provide automated progress tracking, real-time reporting, and standards-based grading.

 

 

Founded just last year, Shooloo already claims the world’s largest collection of student-authored math word problems that can be used for on-line learning, worksheets, discussions, and assessment.

 

 Watch Shooloo -- Collaborative Learning for Common Core Math

The Shooloo concept aligns with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practices. Students publish their own math word problems, construct viable arguments, critique the reasoning of others, and model real life with mathematics.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 5-1-2014: Pear Deck

Pear Deck makes it easy to plan and build interactive lessons that promote active learning in the classroom. Real-time data provides teachers the feedback needed to make on-the-fly adaptations.

 

Create a new Pear Deck from Google Drive then use the editor to quickly create any of four kinds of slides: static, multiple choice, Draggable™, or free response. You can also import slides from most presentation software, such as Powerpoint or Keynote, as a PDF.

 

 

Once your Pear Deck is built, launch a unique presentation session directly from the editor to your students using your Google Apps for Education domain. Pear Deck’s Google Chrome extension lets you launch the presentation on their devices with no cooperation required.

 

 

Students follow along on their devices and respond to the unique question types when prompted. As the teacher, your device can isolate individual or groups of answers to put on the interactive whiteboard for further discussion or review.

 

 See how to present a Pear Deck

 

Pear Deck is currently in limited beta. They are looking for schools that:

• Use Google Apps for Education
• Use or are evaluating Chromebooks
• Are driven to fostering an environment of active learning
• Are driven to increase and improve formative assessments and data-driven instruction

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 4-3-2014: Coggle

Coggle is a free, easy-to-use web application for creating beautiful informative diagrams.

 

Coggle users can quickly and easily produce attractive diagrams and share them with others to enhance collaboration. Classmates can work on diagrams simultaneously.

 

Key features of Coggle:

• Drag-and-drop images from your desktop into your diagrams.
• No limit to the number of images you can add.
• History mode lets you go back to an earlier version.
• Track who made what changes to shared documents.

 

The mission of Coggle is to "change the way that people work and collaborate forever, to make you more productive, and to make it easier to share information with others, and to do it in a way that's beautiful, and a pleasure to use."

 

 Watch a video introducing you to the basic controls for using Coggle

 

Coggle is free and promises that it always will be.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 4-2-2014: Doing Science: The Process of Scientific Inquiry

Doing Science: The Process of Scientific Inquiry is a creative, inquiry-based instruction program designed to promote active learning and stimulate student interest in medical topics. 

 

Doing Science: The Process of Scientific Inquiry brings cutting-edge medical science and basic research discoveries from the National Institutes of Health into middle school classrooms. The objective is to help students:

• Experience the process of scientific inquiry and develop an enhanced understanding of the nature and methods of science.
• Appreciate the role of science in society and the relationship between basic science and human health.

The Doing Science curriculum supplement has been designed to complement existing life science curricula and to be consistent with the National Science Education Standards. The supplement was developed and tested by a team composed of teachers, scientists, medical experts, representatives from the NIH, and curriculum-design experts. Real scientific data and actual case studies are incorporated into classroom activities.

 

 

Teachers can effectively facilitate learning and spark student interest by using scientific concepts in real-life scenarios. The inquiry-based activities promote active and collaborative learning and help students develop problem-solving strategies and critical-thinking skills.

 

 

The Doing Science: The Process of Scientific Inquiry curriculum supplements, available at no cost to teachers across the US, each come with a complete set of classroom materials including printed materials, background and resource information, and an interactive website.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 3-27-2014: AirPano

Created by a team of Russian photo enthusiasts, AirPano is a not-for-profit project focused on high-resolution spherical panoramas shot from a bird’s eye view.

 

AirPano claims to be the largest resource in the world (by geographical coverage, number of aerial photographs, and artistic and technical quality of the images) featuring high-resolution aerial 360° panoramic photographs.

 

During next two years, AirPano plans to create aerial photo panoramas and virtual tours of more of the most significant places in the world. They currently have nearly 2000 aerial panoramas showing over 200 famous locations, including the North Pole, Antarctica, the Mariana Trench, and even the view of the Earth from the stratosphere. New virtual tours are published every week.

 

 

A spherical panorama can give you and your students a sense of being on location, where you can turn completely around and have a closer look at every detail. This can be especially effective when viewed on a large screen such as an interactive whiteboard. You can zoom in closer and examine objects of interest, or "fly" to a new location by simply moving your hand.

 

AirPano offers most panoramas in several different resolutions to accommodate the viewer’s internet connection speed and computer hardware. There are even panoramas suitable for mobile devices.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 3-17-2014: Oppia

Students can learn by doing using the interactive online activities that can be created with Oppia  It allows students to engage more deeply with activities in a way that videos or books often do not permit.

 

Oppia uses interaction dialogues to facilitate the way that a student has and a teacher work together. In an interaction dialogue, a teacher asks a student a question, and the student then reacts. The teacher responds in a way that is helpful to the student. Unfortunately, the teacher will sometimes not have time to address every individual issue or to work out an appropriate response. In many cases another teacher in a different school has been faced with the same question. Teachers using Oppia to record such interactions can share their knowledge with more students without duplicating effort.

 

Oppia explorations are the main units of learning. These multi-stage interactive activities are meant to engage readers in a learning conversation and provide formative feedback.

 

Any user of Oppia can play through, browse, and search for any public explorations. To create or edit explorations, a user will need to be logged-in and author his/her work under a username. All explorations are initially private, meaning they can only be viewed by the exploration's editors, invited playtesters, and site administrators. 

 

Responses submitted to explorations are stored anonymously. These responses are shown to exploration's creators and editors, in order that the explorations can be improved over time. When an exploration has developed to the level of being appropriate for general use, it may be published.

 

 

Writing, editing, or learning from explorations on Oppia is completely free, no trial periods, no freemium plans, no advertisements. Additionally, all lessons on oppia.org are licensed Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, which means that you are allowed to copy, modify, and reuse lesson content.

 View an overview of Oppia

 

Much of the code that powers this site was written as an open-source project by a group of Google engineers in their '20% time.' However, Oppia is not a Google product, and Google bears no responsibility for the content of this website.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 2-19-2014 Timerime

TimeRime is a web application that allows users to create, view, and compare interactive timelines.

 

TimeRime timelines can be interactive and multimedia, incorporating text, music, YouTube movies, Google Maps, and so on.

 

 

The TimeRime online community allows people from all around the world to view, create, and compare timelines about anything that relates to time. For instance a timeline about a scientific development, or an historical event.

 

 

Visitors to the website can register for a free account allowing them to create timelines. Timerime Edu Standard offers the following additional features for an annual fee of €149 (about $200 US):

• Your own TimeRime environment with restricted access.
• Access for all students and teachers in your school.
• Unlimited number of timelines.
• No advertisements.
• Teachers have admin rights that allow them to view, edit or delete timelines of students, and to grant and deny access to students.
• Timelines can be saved as pdf.
• Smartboard compatibility.

 Watch a screencast showing how to use Timerime

 

Timerime is available in English, Dutch, and Spanish. Flash is required.

 

 DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0 

Featured: 2-11-2014 Quandary Game

Quandary is a free, online, award-winning game for players aged 8 to 14, that engages students in ethical decision-making and develops skills that will help them manage challenging ethical issues in their own lives.

 

 

Quandary presents situations relative to building a new colony on the planet Braxos. Players must make decisions in situations that have no clear right or wrong answers but do lead to consequences for themselves, others in the colony, and to the planet Braxos. Players must consider facts, opinions, and solutions as they interact with other settlers in the colony, 

 

Playing Quandary can help participants develop such skills as critical thinking, perspective-taking, and decision-making. The game provides a structure for approaching ethical decision-making without telling players what to think. 

 

 

Quandary is a digital card-based game with three scenarios. Each takes about 10-30 minutes to complete, depending on the speed of the player. 

 

 See a video showing how teachers and students can use Quandary in the classroom

 

 Read a PDF that shows how Quandary correlates to the CCSS for English Arts

 

The game and supporting materials are all free. Quandary will work on any web browser with the latest version of the Flash player plug-in. 

  Quandary is also available as a standalone app for Android and iOS tablet devices.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 2-10-2014 Concord Consortium

Concord Consortium is striving to help students learn science through a collaborative, inquiry-based program that incorporates the best features of digital technology.

 

Concord Consortium is a nonprofit educational research and development organization based in Concord, Massachusetts, whose mission is to "ignite large-scale improvements in teaching and learning through technology."

 

Hundreds of the Consortium’s resources are free, research-based, and available to use right away. A simple interface enables STEM teachers to easily find activities that correlate with the Next Generation Science Standards.

 

STEM Resource Finder helps locate standards-based activities encompassing a large variety of science topics and time-tested math interactives. Models and simulations can make complicated topics easier to understand. Most of the activities let you see assessment feedback after students do the activities.

 

Use your probes and sensors with one of many probe-based activities and start collecting data seamlessly. Students need not learn how to use complicated graphing or data analysis software, even use probes from different vendors within the same activity.    

 

 Watch Concord Consortium - Inquiry Space

Teachers have the opportunity to pilot test the Concord Consortium software. Sign up to be a pilot teacher or subscribe to updates about their cutting-edge classroom technology. 

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 1-30-2014 Versal

Versal is a simple publishing platform with everything you need to create interactive courses.

Currently in beta, Versal lets you add text, videos, images, quizzes, and interactive learning gadgets. You may create on your own, or invite others to contribute to your course.

 

Versal brings interactivity to online learning through the implementation of customizable exercises called “gadgets” – simulations, charts and more. Drag and drop gadgets right into your course, no coding required.

 

Once you’ve signed up for a Versal account, follow the easy steps and your course will be up and running in no time. The course creator is a blank canvas, add gadgets, lessons, and more. Your work will be automatically saved as you go.

 

 

Once published, it’s easy to share your course with anyone. Right now, there are three main options: social media, email, or direct link. 

 

 View Welcome to Versal

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0