Featured 7-17-2014: Highlights for High School

 

Highlights for High School is a companion website to MIT OpenCourseWare* providing open educational resources for high school educators and students.

 

Highlights for High School includes content created specifically for high school students as well as resources collected from the MIT curriculum that can be used effectively in high school.

 

Available resources cover not only science and math, but also engineering, humanities, and social sciences. The material can be integrated into classroom lesson plans, shared, reused, and remixed. Though meant primarily for juniors and seniors in high school, motivated younger students can also benefit from these courses.

 

 

The website is organized into two main sections:

• The Subjects section is arranged by topics likely to be encountered in high school, such as mathematics, physics, and biology. Within each of these you will find a variety of content, such as labs, courses, and video resources.
• The Exam Preparation section is aimed at students who are preparing to take AP exams in biology, calculus, chemistry, or physics. These materials are meant to supplement classroom learning. Relevant OCW course materials have been mapped to the topics in these exams and are easily searchable.

 In addition to YouTube access, Highlights for High School has posted all of their videos to TechTV, an MIT-based video service similar to YouTube.

 

*See yesterday’s post

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Plus 7-11-2014: Makerspace

 

Simply described, Makerspaces are community centers with tools combining manufacturing equipment, community, and education in order to enable members to design, prototype, and create manufactured works that wouldn’t be possible with the resources available to individuals working alone.

 

Makerspaces can be organizations affiliated with or hosted within schools, universities or libraries sharing space and tools. Providing access to equipment, community, and education is common to all Makerspaces, but each is unique in how it is set up to meet the purposes of the community it serves.

 

 

A fairly new phenomenon, Makerspaces are beginning to produce significant concepts through the democratization of design, engineering, fabrication, and education. 

 

 Watch What is a Makerspace? by Andrew Goodin, Facilitator of the Makerspace at Grand Center Arts Academy in St. Louis, MO.

 

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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. 

 

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Featured: 8-1-2013 Sensor Tools

Sideric Sensor Tools lets students perform classroom physics experiments using their own smartphones.

Sensor Tools uses built-in sensors and Internet connectivity to turn the phone into a personal instrument for physics experiments, collaboration, and learning.

Version 1.2 of Sensor Tools includes two modules:

• Motion Tracking - for capturing, analyzing, and plotting the motion of a falling ball or a glider on an air cushion track, for example. 
• Light Refraction - for analyzing the refraction of light from one medium to another and determining the index of refraction.

All data, graphs, and video/photo material can be easily exported to Dropbox and/or shared via email.

Sensor Tools is $2.99(USD) in the Apple iTunes Store. The app is compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad with iOS 5.0 or later.

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Featured: 2/11/2013 Teachers' Lab [Resources]

Annenberg Learner created the Teachers' Lab with a goal of providing educators with a deeper understanding of commonly taught math and science concepts.



Many of the Teachers' Labs are based upon professional development workshops. Each lab mixes online activities with background information, interactive polls, or worksheets participants can use in their classroom, plus links to related material. The emphasis of each lab is on different teaching methods and content that can be used in the classroom.



The Teachers' Lab is funded by the Annenberg Media Math and Science Project and provided free on its website, Learner.org. Since its origin in 1991, the goal of the Annenberg Media Math and Science Project has been to provide high-quality professional development materials and resources for math and science teachers.

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Catch of the Day - Jefferson Lab's Science Education - 9/14/2010

The Jefferson Lab's Science Education website provides high-quality resources for science teachers and their students.

The focus of Jefferson Lab's Science Education site is on increasing the number of teachers with significant knowledge and skills in math and science and boosting the motivation and preparation of all science students.

The Teacher Resources area offers a wealth of material such as teacher programs, workshops, reference materials, hands-on activities, online games and puzzles, printables, and more. Here you'll also find Frostbite Theater, a large collection of science videos produced by Jefferson Lab.

The Student Zone contains homework helpers, online games and puzzles, and information on internships.

Another goal of Jefferson Lab's Science Education effort is to address the under representation of minorities and females in science, math, engineering, and technology careers.

The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) is a user facility for scientists worldwide, its primary mission is to conduct basic research of the atom's nucleus at the quark level.

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Catch of the Day - National Lab Day - Jun 25, 2010

 

National Lab Day is a US initiative to develop communities of support that will nurture project-based learning collaborations among students, teachers, and volunteers.

Volunteers, college students, STEM professionals, and other community members work together with teachers and students to bring discovery-based science experiences to grades K-12.

When an educator posts a project to the National Lab Day system, the NLD network can help them get the resources needed to realize that project.

As the experts on their students and classrooms, teachers are the center of the National Lab Day initiative. Teachers know what they need to improve the hands-on learning experiences of their students. Teachers work with local volunteers to meet those needs.

National Lab Day volunteers (university students or professionals in science, technology, engineering, or math) are asked to work with local elementary, middle, and high schools to help them do more project-based learning with their students.

Watch a video introduction to National Lab Day

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Catch of the Day - Wed 29 July 2009

The catch of the day for Wednesday is iLab Central.

iLabCentral is where teachers and students go to access real lab devices over the internet, making high school science labs more real, more engaging, and more accessible.

The iLabs online experimental facilities can be accessed through the Internet, allowing students and educators to carry out experiments from anywhere at any time. These remote labs significantly increase the breadth of experiments that students have access to in their classrooms thereby greatly enriching their science education.

iLabs currently offers nine labs in conjunction with the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northwestern University's Office of STEM Education Partnerships. Included among these offerings are the Polymer Crystallization Lab, the Shake Table Lab, the Neutron Spectroscopy Lab, and the Radioactivity Lab.


The following are possible through The iLAB Network:

• Science teachers and learners in traditional and online high schools and informal science education programs now have the ability to experience the excitement and authenticity of using high-end equipment to investigate the world in the same way that scientists do.
• Students are provided new research and learning opportunities, allowing them to share and discuss procedures and results.
• Teachers can learn to integrate iLABs in a range of science courses (including AP courses), encouraging them to go beyond the current paradigm of cookbook science labs with outdated or inappropriate equipment
• Students around the world can access costly or delicate lab equipment which their schools might not other wise have the resources to purchase and operate .

Click here to see a Flash video example of the ELVIS lab located at MIT.

The iLab Network is supported in part by the National Science Foundation