Featured 7-15-2014: Biblionasium

 

Designed to engage, encourage, and excite young people about reading, BiblioNasium is a free, social network for children in elementary and middle school.

 

 

BiblioNasium includes the tools to function as a literacy partner, helping teachers efficiently develop and propel an effective, challenging, independent reading program.

 

Differentiate reading programs to meet students' individual needs by monitoring reading logs, creating reading challenges, and helping students expand genre choices and tailor reading lists. Build and manage programs by group, class, grade, and individual student.

 

 

More that you can do with BiblioNasium:

• Track what each student is reading and at what level, using Lexile® measures provided onsite.
• Virtual bookshelves help kids keep track of what they’ve read, what they like, and what they plan to read.
• Kids can share book recommendations and books, building conversation and connections around reading.
• Mascot and reading coach Chip Manzee motivates and entertains kids, challenging them and rewarding good reading behavior.

 Tour the Biblionasium website

 

BiblioNasium has taken measures to keep information safe. Only approved friends and the registered educator can see a student’s name and school.  Other signed-in users can see the student’s anonymous username, books, and other non-personal information. No users can see student information without authorization.

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Featured 7-2-2014: Peekaboo Studios

 

Peekaboo Studios is an educational app developer focused on building apps aligned with Common Core State Standards for PreK-12.

 

Peekaboo Studios has created over 140 apps that teach early concepts, critical thinking, vocabulary, math, music exploration, and more. A few of the available titles are Best Books for Tweens, Ultimate Trivia: The Fault in our Stars, Learn the Colors, Math 7 Testing Prep, Learn the Alphabet, and Reading 5.

 

There are apps available for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Google Play Android devices, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and Amazon's Kindle devices. For a full list of apps:

• iPad/iPhone/iPod: Apple apps
• Nook apps: Nook apps
• Apps for Kindle: Kindle apps
• Android apps: Google Play apps

You can contact Peekaboo Studios for a free promo code to try out one of their iOS apps (only Apple provides promotional codes).

 

 

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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 6-11-2014: School-2-School (AUA)

 

The School-2-School program, part of the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors* initiative, promotes goals related to education and mutual understanding at the  grassroots level in the United States and in the Muslim World.

 

Through School-2-School, an American school partners with a school in the Muslim World to design and implement a plan for their students to engage with and learn from each other. Further, the American school helps its partner school by raising money to purchase needed educational supplies.

 

 

Over the summer, an educator from the American school volunteers to travel to the partner school and work with the school’s students and educators. This teacher then shares the experience with his or her school and the local community.

 

School-2-School is a competitive program open to all American middle school or high school educators. Partner schools are carefully vetted to assure students and teachers have the appropriate English language skills and infrastructure to fully participate.

 

 See video profiles of AUA Volunteers and School-to-School teachers

 

Since 2005, School-2-School has benefitted thousands of students and their teachers in countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the United States.

 

* America’s Unofficial Ambassadors is a citizen diplomacy initiative aimed at developing mutual understanding and enhancing people-to-people partnerships between America and the Muslim World by placing Americans in volunteer positions in the Muslim World.

 

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Featured 5-28-2014: One Hen

One Hen provides educators with flexible curriculum resources designed to help students develop financial responsibility, personal initiative, global awareness, and giving back.

The motivation for One Hen comes from the children’s book, One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference. A young Ghanaian boy named Kojo who uses a small loan to buy one hen, which in turn lays eggs and hatches more hens, until he eventually becomes the largest chicken farmer in the country.

 

One Hen challenges kids in grades K-8 through a series of interactive lesson plans, an engaging storybook, and a website of games and activities. Teams of students face the challenges of running their own real-world small businesses. With the profits they earn, they repay their loans and make a donation to a non-profit organization of their choice, helping to meet a local or global need.

 

 

In the process, the young entrepreneurs learn necessary skills in business math, personal financial literacy, and social entrepreneurship.

 

One Hen is a non-profit organization whose mission is to "empower all kids to become social entrepreneurs who make a difference for themselves and the world.”

 

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Featured 5-27-2014: BrainPOP Educators

 

BrainPOP Educators presents tips, tools, and resources to excite and support anyone who educates young people.

 

BrainPOP offers animated educational movies, quizzes, games, activities, and other resources for students in grades 3-12, covering more than 750 topics in the areas of Science, Math, English, Social Studies, Health, Technology, and Arts & Music. The movies are supplemented with resources including a quiz, activities, related games, a timeline, and a selection of high-interest reading.

 

 

On BrainPOP Educators you’ll find resources including lesson plans, calendars of events, and creative suggestions for using BrainPOP in the classroom. It also includes a blog that announces new BrainPOP features, hosts guest bloggers, and follows current events from the world of educational technology. 

 

 

A database, searchable by standard, subject and grade level, correlates BrainPOP topics and games to Common Core math and English standards is available. The database also allows you to correlate BrainPOP movies with curriculum standards from individual states and Canadian provinces.

 

 See an overview of BrainPOP Educators

 

BrainPOP Educators offers a variety of training resources including outlines for giving workshops, handouts, and webinars.

 

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Featured 5-13-2014: ReadWorks

 

ReadWorks is a national non-profit organization that provides free, research-based, Common Core-aligned reading comprehension curriculum.

ReadWorks supplies units, lessons, and authentic, leveled non-fiction and literary passages directly to educators online to be shared broadly.The curriculum is based on the most highly regarded, proven research on reading instruction, and includes:

• Informational and literary passages and question sets for grades K-8
• Skill and Strategy lesson units for grades K-4
• Comprehension (close reading) units for grades K-5
• Novel study units for grades 5-6

ReadWorks is committed to "solving the nation's reading comprehension crisis by giving teachers the research-proven tools and support they need to improve the academic achievement of their students."

 

 

 View Intro to ReadWorks

 

The ReadWorks curriculum is aligned to the Common Core State Standards, the standards of all 50 states, and to top core reading programs. Each lesson page lists the standards that a specific lesson aligns to on the Standards Alignment tab. You can also edit your profile to automatically show the standards alignment for your state and grade.

 

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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.

 

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Featured 5-6-2014: AppInventor.org

 

Learn how to program Android mobile apps using MIT's App Inventor at AppInventor.org. An on-line book and video lessons walk you through the creation of successively more complex apps.

 

AppInventor.org is also intended to be used by teachers. The teaching materials included here have been used as a basis for middle school, high school, and college courses. The course-in-a-box provides structure and material to get a new course up and running quickly.

The book is designed for absolute beginners. It is organized in a way meant to motivate learning. The learner is walked through the creation of twelve successively more complex apps. The apps section is followed by a separate Inventor's Manual section which explains programming and computer science concepts in easily understood terms. Note: The book is a web document, not PDF.

These tutorials are refined versions of the tutorials that have been on the Google and MIT App Inventor sites since App Inventor's inception and have been used by thousands of beginners to learn programming.

 

 Go to the App Inventor YouTube channel

 

AppInventor.org is funded by the W.M. Keck Foundation and theNational Science Foundation. It is part of the Democratize Computing Lab at the University of San Francisco.

 

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http://www.appinventor.org/

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.

 

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Extra 3-21-2014: NYPL Children's Books

 

A group of librarians from The New York Public Library read more than a thousand titles this year, shared countless stories with the children who visit their branches, and compiled Children's Books 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2013.

 

This list includes the titles NYPL’s librarians thought to be the very best children's books for toddlers through sixth graders. 

 

 

Many of the stories focus on classic, timeless themes, stories that reveal feats of bravery, quests for justice and redemption, friendships lost and found. In these books, "heroes and heroines find ways to slay dragons, right wrongs, and prevail against all odds. They offer reassurance and inspiration in a world that can sometimes seem strange and dangerous."

 

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Featured 3-5-2014: Teaching Kids News

Teaching Kids News produces daily, timely, relevant kid-friendly news articles for kids, classroom educators, and parents. A new article, based on what is actually happening in the world, is offered every day (except holidays).

 

Every story is in kid-friendly language and is appropriate for kids in grades 2-8. As well as accessible vocabulary, Teaching Kids News provides context for everything in each story, so students can understand what’s going on, and why.

 

In the Curriculum Connections, students are encouraged to think critically about the story and also about the way the story is presented. Does the story exhibit a bias? How might the story be written differently by another journalist?

 

Teaching Kids News strives to "teach balanced literacy in a meaningful way.” Teachers have a current events resource that can be used for shared, guided, and independent reading lessons. At the bottom of each article are Writing/Discussion Prompts, Grammar Features, and a Reading Prompt that will enable you to connect with your students and solve real-life issues.

 

 

The articles are intended to work well in a classroom setting, in small groups, or for individual students. Each article can be a nearly complete lesson plan.

 

 See a video introduction to Teaching Kids News

 

Teaching Kids News has a sister site, Getting Kids Reading, with tips, activities, games, websites, research information and ideas that will help you get your kids reading.

 

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Featured: 1-15-2014 Mission US

Mission US is a multimedia project that immerses players in US history content through free interactive games.

 

 

The Mission US games are designed to improve the learning of American history by students aged 10-13. A variety of materials to support use of the missions by educators are provided, including overview and background information, standards alignments, activities, and primary sources, plus videos of teachers using Mission US with their students. 

 

There are currently three missions:

• Mission 1: “For Crown or Colony?” puts players in the shoes of Nat Wheeler, a printer’s apprentice in 1770 Boston. They encounter both Patriots and Loyalists, and when rising tensions result in the Boston Massacre, they must choose where their loyalties lie.
• In Mission 2: “Flight to Freedom,” players take on the role of Lucy, a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky.  As they navigate her escape and journey  to Ohio, they discover that life in the “free” North is dangerous and difficult. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act brings disaster. Will Lucy ever truly be free?
• In Mission 3: “A Cheyenne Odyssey,” players become Little Fox, a Northern Cheyenne boy whose life is changed by the encroachment of white settlers, railroads, and U.S. military expeditions.  As buffalo diminish and the US expands westward, players experience the Cheyenne's persistence through conflict and national transformation.

Mission US has more missions planned for release in 2014 and 2015.

 

 View the Mission US promo 

 

Mission US is produced by WNET 13 New York Public Media. Funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

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Extra: 1-2-2014 Sally Ride Science

Sally Ride Science provides tools for college and career readiness designed to fuel students' passion for STEM fields and careers.

 

Sally Ride Science strives to bring science to life for students ages 10-13, supporting and sustaining students' natural interests in science and technology. Books and eBooks on Cool Careers in Science and Key Concepts in Science vitalize science and show kids that science is creative, collaborative, fascinating, and fun.

 

The Sally Ride Online Academy offers professional development, helping educators incorporate engaging career-focused approaches into their existing instruction.

 

 Watch a video about he basics and benefits of the Sally Ride Online Academy

 

The Sally Ride EarthKAM is a NASA-backed program enabling students and teachers to learn about Earth from the unique perspective of space. 

 

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Featured: 11-6-2013 Figure This!

Getting families to enjoy mathematics outside school through a series of fun and engaging, high-quality challenges is the goal of Figure This!.

To meet the need to master the higher-level concepts and approaches to problem solving that are key to success in work and everyday life, the NCTM, in cooperation with the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Widmeyer Communications, and the Learning First Alliance, launched Figure This!.

Figure This! presents interesting middle school mathematics challenges for families to do at home and emphasizes the importance of high-quality math education.

Each challenge features:

• A description of the important math involved
• A note on where the math is used in the real world
• A hint to get started
• Complete solutions
• A "Try This" section
• Additional related problems with answers
• Questions to think about
• Fun facts related to the math
• Resources for further exploration

In the Family Corner, Figure This! offers family support materials including:

• Sample questions to ask teachers and administrators about the school setting
• Information on how to prepare students for continuing education
• Suggestions to help with math homework
• Information on the changes in mathematics education
• Examples of math in literature.

Funding for Figure This! was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Education.

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