Fold it: Solve Problems for Science and Change the World

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Fold it: Solve Problems for Science and Change the World3230 views

What it is: Fold it is a puzzle game based on science that helps change the world.  Download the Fold It game and puzzles for free and contribute to the understanding of protein folding and amino acids. By playing this game, students take part in actually contributing to science.  The implications of the Fold It game are huge, playing this game helps scientists better understand protein structure prediction and protein design.  This means that by playing a little puzzle game, your students are contributing to better understanding of the role proteins play in diseases such as HIV, cancer, and Alzheimers, and even bio fuel technology.  Scientists collect data from the game to find out if humans pattern recognition abilities and puzzle solving abilities make them more efficient than computers at pattern folding tasks.  If it turns out that humans are more efficient, human strategies can be applied to computers to make the process even faster.

How to integrate Fold It into the classroom: If your students are currently learning about cells, proteins, amino acid, and biological make up, Fold It is an incredible way for them to really understand all of these working parts, while contributing to science.  The puzzle and pattern nature of this game should appeal to a wide range of students…who doesn’t enjoy a good exercise in pattern recognition and problem solving?  On the about page, your students can read the background “briefing” about the game and the science that they are contributing to by playing the game. There is also a Fold It wiki with great links for more in-depth learning and understanding.   Not only will your students be learning important science concepts (I’m talking the building blocks of life here!), they will also be actually contributing to science by playing.  How cool is that?!  There is a large collection of puzzles with new puzzles being released and completed puzzles expiring. Don’t know anything about biology? No problem, you can play the game without understanding the biology concepts behind it (although for me, knowing the background of what I am looking at makes it that much cooler!).  Check out the blog where you can read the results of how the game play has affected real science.

Tips: The idea of building games to impact the real world is incredible to me, the first time I had considered this was when I watched this TED talk by Jane McGonigal.  If you haven’t seen it yet it is worth a watch!  You can read my original post about this TED talk here.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Fold It in your classroom.

Google Science Fair: Registration open!

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Google Science Fair: Registration open!2522 views

What it is: About a month ago I wrote a post about Google Science Fair… great news! Registration is now open 🙂 Google has partnered with NASA, CERN, National Geographic, Scientific American, and LEGO group to create a new global competition.  Students ages 13 to 18 can take part in the competition and compete for prizes including once-in-a-lifetime experiences, internships and scholarships.  Submissions will be accepted between January 11 and April 4, 2011.

From the Google Science Fair website:

Why Google Science Fair?

  • Digital — Students are immersed in a digital world and can be thought of as digital natives. Why not have them investigate, evaluate, analyze, synthesize, and publish their results using an electronic medium that is relevant for them? It is a cost–saving and greener alternative.
  • Global — This program’s reach goes far beyond that of any school site, district, region, or even state. Be among the schools around the world that will be sharing students’ findings with each other.
  • Collaborative — Google tools are all made to be collaborative whether students (and teachers) are in the same classroom or across the Atlantic. Students have the ability to work together anywhere, anytime to investigate a topic or question of interest.

How to integrate Google Science Fair into your curriculum: Google Science Fair is a fantastic opportunity for your students to connect with others globally and work on some scientific inquiry at the same time. Check out the website for full details about the competition and ways that you can integrate it into your classroom.

Tips: Sign up today to receive the Science Fair kit and get your students entered into the competition!

January Issue of Project #PLN Goals for the New Year

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on January Issue of Project #PLN Goals for the New Year3267 views

The January Issue of Project PLN is here!  This issue was all about your educational goals for the new year.  We appreciate everyone sharing with us and meeting some new PLN faces.  I often get the question, how do I join a PLN (Personal Learning Network)?  It could not be easier, just interact with other educators on blogs through commenting, through conversation on Twitter, through connections on a Ning, or face to face.  As soon as you do any of those things you are considered part of the PLN! I suspect that ALL of you are part of a PLN in some capacity, even if it is just talking education in the teacher’s lounge over lunch. Enjoy meeting some new educator friends in this issue of Project PLN and be inspired by their goals for education this year!


projectpln10 – Goals for the New Year

Create Your OpenZine

Nick and I hope that you will participate in the next Project PLN, below is the topic for February and ways to participate:

When we think of February, we think of love. Love is the main reason we do what we do each and every day in education. Educators have a passion for what to hear why you are passionate about education. Share with the world why you get up each morning and do what you do. February is Passion month and we want to know why you are passionate about education. Feel free to contact though email projectpln10@gmail.com or Twitter @projectPLN. We would love to have your thoughts ready to share by January 8th. Thanks again for your continued support of Project PLN.

Just Doodling: Making Math Relevant for Students

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Just Doodling: Making Math Relevant for Students3659 views

What it is: This has got to be one of my new favorite videos on YouTube.  I ran across this video and tweeted about it a few weeks ago, but felt that it deserved a blog post.  Doodling Stars (above) is a stream of conscious video about doodling in math class instead of  learning about factoring.  As the video unfolds, you quickly realize that she has learned all about factoring through her doodles.  I would have connected in some major ways to this video when I was in school (maybe that is why I like it so much now), it would have given me that “wait that was math?” moment.  Doodling Stars is a video by Vi Hart who has a blog where she has other great math videos.  Her other videos include: Binary Trees, Snakes + Graphs, Infinity Elephants, and sick number games. Explore the blog a little further and you learn that ViHart is serious about her math.  In addition to videos she has mathematical foods, ways to play with balloons as mathematical models, paper instruments (relating music to math), music boxes, bead work, and a variety of other math/music resources.  Vi describes herself as a mathemusician, dig into her blog and you will know why!

How to integrate Doodling Videos into the classroom: Math shouldn’t be a subject confined to a textbook, seen only in terms of equations and functions.  I think I was in college before I figured out that math was all around me.  I had truly never made the connection to the formulas I was learning and their applications in real life.  Oh sure, there were the “If you left Denver at 1:05 pm driving an average speed of 63.2 miles per hour and arrived at another point 12 hours later how many miles have you traveled?” But really? That is not real world…I have NEVER calculated any sort of trip that way, and anyway, now there is an app that will give me all of that information if I really want to know.  If someone had told me that math was in my doodles, in the music I listened to, in patterns of nature?  Now that is something I want to explore more.  I’m sure you have students who have never made the connections between the formulas they are learning and the applications that are all around them.  These videos will have them visualizing math in a whole new way.  Dig a little deeper into Vi’s blog and share her math foods, balloons, and paper instruments.  See if your students don’t start viewing math differently!  Use Vi’s blog as inspiration for your next math lesson.  Use the videos to help introduce or reinforce concepts, or have students complete balloon math models.

Tips: If you can’t access YouTube at school, use a tool like Kick YouTube or Keepvid to download the video for offline viewing.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Doodling in Math Class Videos in your classroom.

Free WebEvent with Livebinders and Yours Truly: Creative Thinking with Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy

Kelly Tenkely7 Comments on Free WebEvent with Livebinders and Yours Truly: Creative Thinking with Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy1937 views

Mark your calendars for a FREE web event this Thursday, January 13 (2011).  Click here to find out when it will be live in your timezone.  I will be joining the ladies at Livebinders and Dean Mantz for a conversation about Creative Thinking. The discussion will be focusing on Blooms to inspire critical thinking and collaboration creatively using a variety of web tools.  I will provide some insight to her methods of evaluating sites and tools before I recommend them on iLearn Technology.  It is sure to be a fun time!

Join us on Thursday using this link.

I created this Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy Livebinder for the web event, start perusing it now and bring your questions to the live event.  This Livebinder has a variety of my favorite websites and webtools organized by Bloom’s Taxonomy.

I hope to see you all there!

Friday Recap: Math Apps, Free PD, and More!

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Friday Recap: Math Apps, Free PD, and More!1556 views

Happy Friday!  I hope you all had a wonderful week as many of you got back into the swing of things at school.  This week was a busy one with the final preparations for the Reform Symposium Virtual Conference.  I look forward to “seeing” you all there!  Here is a recap of what I was doing when I wasn’t blogging here:

Have a wonderful weekend!

Reform Symposium: Free professional development you can get in your jammies!

Kelly Tenkely3 Comments on Reform Symposium: Free professional development you can get in your jammies!1868 views

This Saturday (January 8, 2011) is the Reform Symposium Virtual conference.  We have an incredible lineup of speakers, presentations, and conversations.  It just doesn’t get much better than a conference you can attend in your jammies! Don’t forget to spread the word to all of your friends (use #rscon11 hash tag on Twitter).  You don’t have to take my word for it, take a look at the full program embedded below!

Register now (doing so makes you eligible for our prize giveaways!) by heading over to the Reform Symposium website.

Tag Galaxy: Visual Word Relationships

Kelly Tenkely9 Comments on Tag Galaxy: Visual Word Relationships5175 views

What it is: Tag Galaxy is a neat little tool that helps students to explore relationships between words and ideas as well as view pictures related to that word.  Type in a word to search and immediately you are transferred to a galaxy with the original word at the center and the associated ideas orbiting around it.  When you click on the word in the center, a globe populates with pictures from Flickr that are tagged with that word. Click on one of the orbiting words and tags related to that word start to orbit.  Tag Galaxy is a very neat way to view information!

How to integrate Tag Galaxy into the classroom: Tag Galaxy is a brilliant way to visually  explore word relationships.  Students can use it to type in spelling or vocabulary words and discuss the relationship the related tags have to the original word.   Students can click on the original idea to get a visual understanding of the word in the form of a picture globe.  The connection with Flickr helps students to visualize words, ideas, and concepts by providing a variety of pictures that match the tag.  Tag Galaxy would make for a fun story starter.  Students can type in a word tag to get them started, view related words, and then click on the globe of pictures to spark creative writing ideas.  Tag Galaxy can be set up on classroom computers as a creative writing centers, or used for  whole class inspiration  with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard.

Check out science, math, art, or geography vocabulary on Tag Galaxy, the resulting collection of images will help your students attach meaning to those tricky science concepts like my photosynthesis example above.

As a side note, Tag Galaxy also offers a pretty good visual aid for learning about orbit 🙂

Tips: ***Very important***  Whenever you are using tools that pull from other sites to populate, it is important to test out the words prior to using with students.  You never know how people will tag an image and the image might not be appropriate for all age groups.  When using Tag Galaxy with elementary students, have them suggest words that you test before using with the class.  In my classroom, whenever students wanted to do an image search, I had them fill out an “image wish list” first.  On the wish list students write down words they would like to search. I would do a quick test of the words and sign off on them.  This worked well as there were a lot of similar requests (i.e. animals!) 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Tag Galaxy in your classroom.

Rock Our World: Using music to collaborate and change the world

Kelly Tenkely7 Comments on Rock Our World: Using music to collaborate and change the world3287 views

What it is: Rock Our World has one goal, to give students authentic global collaboration opportunities by connecting them with music.  Rock Our World has been doing just that since 2004.  Students and teachers collaborate in composing original music, making movies, and meeting each other in live video chats. Using GarageBand (Apple), each country creates a 30 second drum beat.  Every Friday, the drum created rotates to another country, where the bass guitar is added. It gets passed from country to country with another instrument added at each stop.  When it gets back to the original country, it is an original piece of music that has been created with the help of kids around the world.

While the music is being passed from country to country, students have opportunities to meet and discuss various topics of curriculum in live video chats.  Incredible companies have been involved in this project including Apple, Fablevision, Discovery, American Film Institute, Smart Technologies, NASA, Visual Learning Company, Lintor Publishing, Mariner Software, actor Will Smith and more.  Pretty impressive!

Applications for Rock Our World will be accepted for pre-kindergarten through university  in January. You can sign up for membership by providing your email address to be alerted to the exact date you can begin applying.

How to integrate Rock Our World into the classroom: This is an incredible opportunity for your students to work and collaborate with other students around the world.  Not only will your students be learning and interacting with new cultures, they will also be learning more about music.  Your students will be a part of creating a unique song by adding their piece to it. At the end, each country will have a song touched by students around the world.  How cool is that?!

It would be really neat at the end of the project to create an iMovie of the final song that includes the globe animation zooming into each country as their bit of the song is played and including a slideshow of students from each country.

Tips: Take a look at previous projects by clicking on the “Media” tab.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Rock Our World in your classroom.

Corkboard: Classroom Collaboration

Kelly Tenkely19 Comments on Corkboard: Classroom Collaboration5549 views

What it is: Corkboard is a neat little collaboration tool that I learned about on Twitter yesterday thanks to @Grade1. Corkboard reminds me a lot of Wallwisher (which has been a little unreliable lately). Best of all, it is literally a one step set up process.  Just type in the web address: http://corboard.me and it automatically creates a unique url for your corkboard.  Click to add a sticky note on the corkboard. Give students or other teachers the unique url so that they can add a sticky note. Easy!  Sticky notes can be as big or small as you like.  Click and hold down on a sticky note to move it around the corkboard.

How to integrate Corkboard into the classroom: Corkboard provides an easy to use platform for students to brainstorm, collaborate, and share ideas. Students can use Corkboard to brainstorm ideas for writing, research, and collaborating on group projects. Ask students to add their thoughts to any conversation on history, literature, science, phonics, or vocabulary corkboard.  Students could practice spelling by typing out their spelling words along with a sentence or synonyms on sticky notes. Students can share a board to discuss a book they are reading together, predictions for a class science experiment, and to share what they are learning in any subject or lecture. You could create a new corkboard each week where you post homework, resources, to-do items, etc. for your students. Students can add sticky notes to the board about what they are learning throughout the week. These Corkboards can be added to a Weblist.me so that there is a record of the whole year.

Tips: Looking for other alternatives to Wallwisher? Check out: Edistorm or Stixy. Each has a little different features!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Corkboard in your classroom.