Featured 6-18-2014: CollegeEd

 

CollegeEd is the free, standards-based* college planning and career exploration program for middle and high school students from the  College Board.

 

 

Drawing on more than a century of experience by the College Board in guiding students on the way to college, the CollegeEd program provides lessons and activities meant to help students evolve the skills needed to meet their goals. In collaboration with Roadtrip Nation, CollegeEd gives students the chance to "explore their aspirations and set long-term goals to get them on the path to higher education and a successful career."

 

Lessons written by experienced counselors and AP teachers are organized around three consistent themes: "Who Am I?", "Where Am I Going?" and "How Do I Get There?" 

 

 

CollegeEd offers flexible options for teaching, implementation, and family involvement. The program consists of three levels, each with its own student workbook and accompanying educator guide:

• Grades 7-8 gets students thinking about the path to college.
• Grades 9-10 has engaging activities to help students discover their interests and begin planning for college.
• Grades 11-12 guides students through the college search and application processes.

 

CollegeEd materials can be used online and are also provided as downloadable, printable PDFs. Materials are also available in Spanish.

 

* The CollegeEd program is based on standards developed by the College Board, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and ASCA.

 

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Featured 3-10-2014: Nepris

Nepris makes it possible for teachers and students to easily connect with the right industry experts, learn from them, and bring the real world to the classroom.

 

The vision of Nepris is to provide more opportunities for the average student to be inspired to choose STEM subjects and careers. With the support of industry leaders and professionals and by using technology solutions, they hope to bridge the gap between industry and schools.

 

Choose a curriculum topic or student project then let Nepris find the right industry expert to show how that topic is applied in practice, to provide guidance to students with their projects, and to assess final student products. Students can submit questions and take part in discussions. Each session is recorded and can be reused.

 

 

 Watch Nepris - Real World Delivered to Classrooms!

 

Through exposure to tech professionals and their related job skills, students can connect what they learn in the classroom to real people and real careers on a regular basis.

 

Sign up at Nepris for free as an educator or an industry expert.

 

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

Special Offer to PBworks Education Users

PBworks has partnered with ApplyKit to offer PBworks educators and education users and their students a free tool to manage all the parts of the college application process.

 

What ApplyKit can do for your students:

• Research more than 9,000 two- and four-year colleges throughout North America.
• Apply to multiple colleges (not just Common App schools) from one online location and track your progress with checklists and analytics.
• Stay on top of upcoming deadlines, so that you never miss an application component.
• Share your progress with recommenders, consultants, and parents who will receive automatic updates on your progress.

Educators or mentors can manage the progress of all their students using the ApplyKit educator dashboard.

 

As a special bonus, any high school that uses or upgrades to PBworks Campus Edition can get the premium version of ApplyKit for free (normally priced at $99 per account) for every current student. 

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

Featured: 6-24-2013 Student Cultural Exchange

Student Cultural Exchange provides immersion-based travel opportunities designed to give American and international student travelers the opportunity to develop deep, lifetime connections with previously unknown people and places.

Student Cultural Exchange immersion-based programs are designed to fill a perceived void in the overall education of international students studying in the US. SCE programs strive to provide a structured, fun, and inspiring setting where international students can immerse themselves in American culture and activities.

SCE’s international programs aim to get young people out of their comfort zonesand into new, unfamiliar places. Unique programs stress the importance of developing deeper connections with the people and places the students visit. The goal is to transform travelers to mature global citizens.

Student Cultural Exchange acknowledges that their varied program themes and locations may present different risks and potential hazards. The safety of their travelers is a primary objective from the planning and design to the implementation and completion of programs.

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

Featured: 6-4-2013 TeachersPayTeachers

TeachersPayTeachers is an open online marketplace where teachers buy and sell original downloadable educational materials, hard goods, and used educational resources.

TeachersPayTeachers's mission is to "empower teachers by bringing together those who create curricula with those who are seeking fresh new approaches in the classroom."

TeachersPayTeachers top resource types include printables, activities, worksheets, clip art, lesson plans, literacy center ideas, math centers, white board activities, powerpoint, and fun stuff.

You can sell original curricular materials such as lesson plans, unit plans, examinations, teaching guides, worksheets, etc. Upload your original files to the TeachersPayTeachers catalog, in one of the supported filetypes, and then set your own prices. TeachersPayTeachers takes care of the sales transactions and delivers instant downloads to buyers.

You can sell hard goods, too, both teacher-created and used educational materials. Selling a hard good works similarly except that you upload photos of the items instead of product files. You are responsible for shipping to the buyer after receiving an email with the buyer's shipping address. The cost of shipping will be reimbursed to you.

Basic Membership is free and offers a 60% royalty on gross sales less transaction fees. Premium Membership costs $59.95(USD) annually but offers an 85% royalty on gross sales and no transaction fees.

Joining TeachersPayTeachers as a buyer or seller or both can make your teaching career even more gratifying.

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

 

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Extra: Generated Paper Features Over 40 Specialty Paper Templates

Print over 40 types of specialty papers at Generated Paper. Find PDF templates for ruled paper, graph paper, business cards, music sheets, and more, all completely free.

 

All the templates at Generated Paper are high quality blackline PDFs designed to print with less ink. You can use them as is, modify them to suit your needs, and share them.

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

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Stuff I Like: Forecast

Forecast is a new global, full-featured weather service that includes 7-day forecasts that cover the whole world, beautiful weather visualizations, and a time machine for exploring the weather in the past and far future.

The smooth radar animations in Forecast allow you to scrub up to a week into the future to see how storm systems will develop and evolve world-wide. Dragging the pin around explores different locations on the map.

Get up-to-the-minute forecasts that can predict rain or snow down to the minute at any location where Forecast can access radar coverage (currently the United States, the UK, Ireland, parts of Canada, and Puerto Rico). hourly and daily forecasts cover the entire globe.

Hour-by-hour observations gathered from tens of thousands of ground stations world-wide, sometimes going back a hundred years, power a sort of “time machine” that lets you explore the past weather at any given location. This data has also been used to develop statistical forecasts for any day in the future.

Forecast tries to bridge the gap between too much and too little information by keeping the interface as simple as possible, but also providing links to additional detailed information.

Watch a video: CNET How To -- Forecast.io is a beautiful weather app for any Web device

You can access Forecast from all of your devices, your desktop/laptop, iPhone, Android phone, or tablet. There’s a mobile web version for your phone or tablet. It’s completely free.

 

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

Things I Like: Coffitivity

Research shows that ambient noise, an important environmental variable, can affect creativity. Empirical results demonstrate a moderate versus low level of ambient noise enhances performance on creative tasks. A high level of noise hurts creativity. A moderate level of noise increases processing difficulty, inducing a higher construal level and thus promoting abstract processing, which subsequently leads to higher creativity.

I've always suspected that this was personally the case for me. I spend a lot of time working in cafes and I feel more focused and productive in that environment. On occasions when I might be working in the quiet of my home, I sometimes seem easily distracted and not able to get deeply into whatever task is at hand.

Therefore, I was delighted to stumble upon this website. Coffitivity delivers the vibe of a coffee shop right to your desktop, so that when your workspace just isn't quite working, you can find that cafe ambience anywhere.

Coffitivity generates the mix of calm and commotion of an environment like a coffee house that has been proven to be just what you might need to get the creative juices flowing.

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

Featured: 2/20/2013 ClassBadges [Tools]

ClassBadges is a free, online tool that enables teachers to award badges for student accomplishments.



With a ClassBadges teacher account, you can award badges customized to your classroom or school. Teachers have complete control on ClassBadges. With hundreds of badges to choose from, every teacher can create a unique experience for their classroom.



Badges can help keep students on track and motivated when working on large projects. Students can be recognized for their accomplishments, saving all their awards and sharing them with their family and friends.

Watch a videoIntroducing ClassBadges

ClassBadges could be a great way to keep track of student mastery and learning goals. Students and their families can check their progress from anywhere, anytime.

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

Featured: 1/10/2013 Students First [Community]

StudentsFirst was initiated in 2010 in response to an increasing demand for a better American education system.



Led by Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, StudentsFirst hopes to mobilize parents, teachers, students, administrators, and citizens, and to direct their energy toward meaningful results on both the local and national level.

The stated mission of StudentsFirst is “to build a national movement to defend the interests of children in public education and pursue transformative reform, so that America has the best education system in the world.”

Principle tenets of StudentsFirst:

• Great teachers can make a tremendous difference for students of every background; all children deserve outstanding teachers.
• Every child deserves to attend a great school; all families should have quality school options available.
• Public dollars should be used on effective instructional programs where they make the biggest difference.
• Parent, family, and community involvement is vital to increased student achievement.

In summary, the goals of StudentsFirst are to elevate teaching, empower parents, and use resources efficiently to ensure sustainable spending that puts students first.

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

Featured: 12/12/2012 SAGrader [Assessment]

SAGrader improves student learning by providing immediate feedback on their content-area writing. SAGrader provides a powerful alternative to multiple choice assessments.

SAGrader is perfect for knowledge-based courses in high school and college like biology, psychology, and history where writing is important.

You assign writing tasks to your students within SAGrader. Each student then responds and submits his or her essay online. SAGrader automatically grades the submission and gives the student instant feedback. The student can then revise and resubmit getting more feedback each time.

SAGrader encourages deeper learning and understanding through informal writing and revision guided by frequent feedback.

Easy to set up and rigorously tested to agree with human scorers, SAGrader is efficient and accurate saving time by eliminating hand grading.  

Other benefits for instructors:

• Assure objectivity and comparability of every writing assessment.
• Easily monitor student learning.
• Get a window into your students' learning by comparing their revisions over time.
• Add your own comments to student submissions.
• Maintain complete control over final grades.

SAGrader is a fully-hosted, web-based service. No software need be installed.

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

Featured: 11/28/2012 Calameo [Self-publishing]

Calaméo instantly creates interactive web publications from your PDF files.

Publish, search for, and share all your documents online with Calaméo. Organize your publications into subscriptions. Your colleagues and students can add comments to and start discussions on each publication.

The Calaméo publishing method offers a wide variety of options and is simple to use. From a PDF file, create an interactive electronic document that is accessible from a computer and can simulate the feeling of reading a paper document: page turning, mark the pages, zoom in. Your documents can have as many pages as you like.

Watch Creating Online Publications with Calameo

A basic Calaméo account is free. Upgrading to a Premium account allows access to more features.

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

Featured: 11/21/2012 Portfoliogen [Employment]

Portfoliogen is a free online service where teachers can create their own customized portfolio webpage to share with prospective employers, principals, professors, and peers.

Portfoliogen was created to allow you to use modern technology to create a web-based portfolio to display your skills. Create your own professional looking web page in less than 5 minutes.With Portfoliogen you can:

• Get a personal url for your portfolio webpage.
• Post information about yourself, certifications, work-related photos, and a profile picture.
• Upload documents such as your resume, teaching philosophy, lesson plans, and more.
• Add work-related links to other useful sites.
• Customize the design and layout of your web page.
• Toggle your portfolio web page on and off.
• Stay connected with a message center where potential employers can contact you.
• See how many people are viewing your portfolio web page.

Portfoliogen includes a career center where employers post their current job openings. Registered users will receive targeted postings and be able to share their portfolios with employers.DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Spark Supports Creative Kids In The Pittsburgh Region

Spark, a program of The Sprout Fund, creates a sustainable support structure for the Kids+Creativity Network, a group of people in the Pittsburgh region working together across disciplines to provide all young people with opportunities to learn and be creative.

Spark provides catalytic support, technical assistance, knowledge sharing, and enhanced communications to the Kids+Creativity Network. The goal is to "spark" more relevant and imaginative learning opportunities that make compelling use of technology, media, and the arts.

Spark serves two distinct groups:

• Kids and adolescents aged 18 and younger, as well as their families and caregivers
• Educators, technologists, media producers, researchers, grantmakers, entrepreneurs, cultural leaders, and other professions serving youth

Watch Pittsburgh: Building a Regional Learning Network

Spark hopes to build greater awareness of and access to exceptional learning experiences for children, youth, and families in the Pittsburgh region.

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

COD - 5/14/2012 - Faculty Project [Online Learning]

The Faculty Project brings together the best professors from the world's leading universities to teach online for free.

The vision of Faculty Project is a series of free online courses taught by instructors who have been recognized for their excellence in teaching or have shown a talent for educating, that will dynamically engage millions of learners around the world who do not have access to the world's great institutions of higher learning, but do have an Internet connection.

Faculty Project launched early this year with courses taught through online video, PowerPoint, PDF, and articles on Udemy.com. Learners can interact with each other and the instructor via a course discussion board. 

Faculty Project promises content will be available for free, forever, to anyone who wishes to use it.

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