Featured 7-16-2014: MIT OpenCourseWare

 

MIT OpenCourseWare makes the materials used in the teaching of almost all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate courses freely available on the web.

 

With more than 2200 courses available, OpenCourseWare provides free MIT educational content that can be used to augment your knowledge or in teaching others.

 

Each course consists of at least two parts: some type of instruction (a syllabus, lecture notes, reading list, calendar, etc) and a learning activity such as assignments, quizzes, or exams.

 

You may choose to use a complete course from beginning to end or just implement select concepts. You may use the material at your own pace.

 

 

OpenCourseWare offers several resources for you to use, adapt, and share with your students:

• Use advanced search to find assignments, recitations, exams, labs, study materials, or related resources on a specific topic.
• Simulations, applets, and visualizations let your students modify or control experiments.
• Audio and video lectures can facilitate a flipped classroom.
• Students can review concepts they should master for your course.

 Visit the MIT OpenCourseWare YouTube channel

 

MIT OpenCourseWare is free and requires no registration.

 

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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 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 3-26-2014: The Inquiry Project

The Inquiry Project aims to build an understanding of science in students ages 8-10 that lays a foundation for later understanding of matter in terms of molecules and atoms.

 

The Inquiry Project is centered on material, weight, volume, density, and related ideas that are important and challenging for students. Elements of this work are the integration of mathematics and the focus on investigative inquiry.

 

Research, curriculum, assessment, and professional development are blended in one coherent system, each component being essential to developing an understanding of how to best prepare learners.

 

 

The basis of The Inquiry Project lies in three content-specific dimensions of inquiry: measurement of matter, change and conservation, and scale. It has been designed to feature the following fundamentals of scientific inquiry:

• Questions
• Evidence
• Explanations
• Knowledge
• Communication

 Watch an intro to Talk Science Pathways

 

The Inquiry Project is a partnership between teachers, TERC, and Tufts University funded by the National Science Foundation.

 

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Featured: 2-13-2014 Buck Institute for Education

The Buck Institute for Education (BIE) is a nonprofit organization that helps teachers learn how to use Project Based Learning in all grade levels and subject areas.

 

The Buck Institute for Education creates, gathers, and shares Project Based Learning (PBL) instructional practices and products and provides services to teachers, schools, and districts.

 

BIE offers teachers professional development on how to design, assess, and manage projects that engage and motivate students. BIE helps schools bring consistency and structure to PBL practices school-wide. BIE offers districts services and expertise in creating and sustaining district-wide PBL initiatives.

 

 

BIE offers a full range of PBL-related resources organized into three broad categories: Things to read, to watch, or to interact with.

• Things to Read include blogs, books, articles, and research about PBL, and also written documents you can use, such as rubrics, project planning forms, student handouts, and other materials for planning, assessing, and managing projects.
• Things to Watch include videos that showcase particular projects and PBL schools or to explain PBL, as well as an archive of recorded webinars on various PBL topics.
• Things to Interact With include live webinars, Google Hangouts, and Twitter Chats, plus online classes to take, conferences to attend, and websites to visit.

 

 Watch an interview with representatives from BIE

The Buck Institute for Education also recommends resources for teachers, principals, and district leaders who would like to take an independent approach to learning about PBL. The featured resources include a note on how you can use that item.

 

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Featured: 12-3-2013 Other Worlds/Other Earths

Other Worlds/Other Earths provides you and your students the opportunity to participate in the search for other worlds and other life using a telescope that you control online.

 

You will be able to take your own images of distant solar systems, interpret the data you gather, and become one of the few humans to detect a planet orbiting a star beyond our Sun. 

 

The goal of the Other Worlds/Other Earths project is to give your school and students first-hand experience with the nature of scientific inquiry. They will:

• Learn how to gather, assess and interpret their own data.
• Use interactive models to help make predictions and interpret findings.
• Communicate their results to a community of student observers and professional scientists.

 

Many of the basic concepts of earth science, astronomy, and physics that your students are already learning and will use throughout science can be applied in this project. This will allow you to assess your students' understanding of core concepts as they work through the project.

 

Other Worlds/Other Earths takes about two to three weeks to complete. In the first part students will be involved in the detection of another world, using the MicroObservatory online telescopes.  From their observations, they can deduce the size of the planet, its distance from Earth, and even whether the planet's orbit is tilted.

 

 

Students can learn how to use scientific models to tell much more about what these other worlds are like in the second part of the project. They'll use interactive models to learn how to decode light coming from exoplanets and what the light can tell us about a planet's surface.

 

Finally, students will have to draw on their imagination as well as the evidence they have considered to create their own 3-D model of their newly discovered planet. 

 

Other Worlds/Other Earths is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

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Featured: 11-20-2013 Race2Achieve

Race 2 Achieve is a free supplemental curriculum for 11th and 12th grade math classes aligned to Common Core standards. The focus is on how the Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR team uses key concepts from Algebra II and trigonometry, and applies them in a real-world context. 

 

The project-based curriculum includes a complete and adaptable kit with: 

• A comprehensive teacher’s guide
• Student notebooks
• Videos featuring Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Hendrick Motorsports Engineers
• Car kits for each team of 5 students 
• Pre- and post- curriculum assessments

 

Race 2 Achieve is designed to be used over approximately five-ten class periods. Small teams of students work together to each build a race-ready car culminating with a class “race day” competition to determine which team has built the most efficient car from the car kits provided with the curriculum materials. Teachers are provided with all of the components necessary for teams to assemble their cars. 

 

 

Race 2 Achieve was free to the first thousand 11th and 12th grade math classrooms interested. Unfortunately that number has been reached. However, complete the signup form here and you will be placed on a waiting list.

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Featured: 8-14-2013 Hopscotch / Daisy the Dinosaur

Hopscotch and Daisy the Dinosaur are two free iPad apps designed to help young children begin to learn to code.

 

Hopscotch is a free, visually appealing, easy-to-use programming language that allows kids to unleash their creativity and create their own games and animations.

 

 

Drag and drop method blocks into scripts, then press 'Play' to see your code in action. As the student becomes more advanced, add more objects and use custom events, such as shaking and tilting the iPad, to run the code. 

 

 See a video about Hopscotch

 

Hopscotch requires iOS 5.0 or later.

 

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Daisy the Dinosaur is a free, fun app with an easy drag-and-drop interface that kids of all ages can use. Students learn the basics of computer programming by animating Daisy to dance across the screen. 

 

 

Kids will intuitively grasp the basics of objects, sequencing, loops and events by solving this app's challenges. After playing Daisy, kids can choose to download a kit to program their own computer game.

 

 Watch a video about Daisy the Dinosaur

 

Daisy the Dinosaur requires iOS 3.2 or later.

 

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Featured: 7-9-2013 WeVideo

WeVideo is a web application that allows you to edit videos online and collaborate on the editing process with others.

Edit anytime, anywhere, on any device with WeVideo's powerful cloud-based video creation tools.

Teachers can set up class video projects with WeVideo for Education, making relevant media available to each class. The educator can also group students, view and comment on their work, and monitor the progress of each video project.

WeVideo has three interface levels. It can be used both by novices that have never before edited a video, as well as more experienced editors and even experts. You can switch between modes at will, as you like.

Unique Themes give your video a specific look and tone with a single click. Your video can be designed with professional visual effects, transitions, typography, and sound tracks.

 Watch WeVideo - Video Editing in the Cloud

Capture videos and photos and upload them into your WeVideo account using apps for your Android or iOS device. Mobile users who already use WeVideo can quickly transfer footage into online video editing projects.

For $100 (USD) per semester, up to 50 students can use WeVideo. Volume license pricing is available for multi-class, school, or district subscriptions at lower costs per student.

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Featured: 4-29-2013 Autodesk 123D [3D Design]

The Autodesk 123D family of apps makes it possible for users to design, make, and share 3D projects on the web, using a computer, or with an iPad.

Autodesk 123D includes five apps: Design, Make, Catch, Sculpt, and Creature.

The 123D Design web app can be used on any computer with access to the Internet. Or, create designs and play around with shapes on your iPad. Powerful but simple creation and editing tools allow you to develop more sophisticated designs.

Make awesome objects with 123D Make. Select from stock 3D models, then experiment with different configurations, or upload your own and try out various construction techniques. Print the plans yourself,  cut-patterns and assembly instructions are automatically generated. Alternately, you may choose to have the parts cut precisely and delivered to you. Either way, you can then assemble your 3D project using simple tools like glue and pins.

Catch turns ordinary photos into 3D models. With Shape, push, pull, pinch, paint, smooth, grab, tug your designs into just what you want. Bulge, flatten, or refine your creation to achieve dramatic, comic, or frightening effects with Sculpt. Creature lets you design and 3D-print incredible characters right from your iPad.

Watch the video: Autodesk 123D: Create. Share. Make.

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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.

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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.

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COD - 3/29/2012 - Shelfster [Writing]

Shelfster is a free tool designed to collect resources and place them all at your fingertips when creating a document. Your ideas and sources of inspiration are gathered together in one place, no longer lost or scattered in different locations.

Shelfster is sort of a hybrid of Evernote on the capturing and collecting side and Google Docs on the document creation side.

Shelfster's capturing tools let you clip text, capture all or parts of screens, bookmark sites, take notes, save online images, take snapshots, and record audio.

Features of the ShelfsterOnline Document Creator:

• Create new documents with everything easily at hand
• Access captured information and previous documents
• Drag-and-Drop images into documents
• Share documents and get feedback
• Export to PDF or HTML, download, or print documents
• Organize captured information and documents

Watch the videoShelfster - tools for writers

Try out the Shelfsterdemo

There are Shelfster desktop apps for both Mac and Windows, mobile apps for iOS and Android, browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox, and a convenient bookmarklet for any browser.

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