Science – Page 7 – iLearn Technology

What it is: I first wrote about Qwiki in 2010 when they launched their search service. I just got word that you (and your students) can now create your very own Qwiki. When students search using Qwiki, instead of coming up with a list of links to websites, images, and videos, a slide show of images and videos begins complete with computer voice narration. It is truly an incredible experience.

With Qwiki Creator, it is easy to create your own Qwiki to share. Creating a Qwiki is really easy and intuitive. First, you find the content and media you want to add to your Qwiki. This could be web content, video, images, maps, content from your computer, text or even a tweet. Next you add narration and set your timing. Finally you can preview your Qwiki and publish it. I created the Qwiki above in about 5 min.

If you are looking for the original Qwiki, you can get to it at http://qwiki.com/reference.

How to integrate Qwiki Creator into the classroom: Qwiki Creator is a fantastic way for students to create impressive presentations about their learning. Students can quickly create mashups of web content and record or type narration to demonstrate understanding of material. Qwiki Creator is also a great tool for teachers, create customized content for your students. This is textbook 2.0 for sure! It can be tailored to the exact needs of your curriculum and can become an additional way for your to “flip” your classroom.

I love the idea of students creating their own digital textbooks as they learn about a subject. Throughout their learning and research, students can keep a table of contents of items they want to be sure to include in their Qwiki. Students can create a Qwiki about the information they have learned, add text/voice/video narration to help describe the learning and publish it for classmates to learn from. The Qwiki can be shared easily or embeded on a student blog or website.

Create your own series of Qwiki’s for your classroom blog or website where students can further their learning. They can access any of the websites or resources you include in your Qwiki for a majorly upgraded version of a webquest.

Qwiki Creator could be used for digital storytelling. Students can find images, videos and maps that help them tell their story and narrate the creative story for others to enjoy.

In a foreign language class, students can give a web tour where they narrate in the language they are learning. This would also be neat to do in a geography or history class.

If you teach students who are younger than 13, consider creating Qwiki’s as a class using an interactive whiteboard and teacher account. Students can help put the Qwiki together and the finalized Qwiki can be put on a class blog or website for students to learn from any time.

Tips: Students must be 13 years old or older to use Qwiki Creator according to the Terms of Service.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Qwiki Creator in your classroom!

Widbook: Online Collaborative ebook Creation

June 15, 2012June 15, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3520 views

Widbook – Write, read and share! from Widbook on Vimeo.

What it is: Widbook is a new publishing platform for ebooks. What makes this publishing platform so neat is the social aspect, it allows authors to collaborate and make suggestions. Each user also gets their own bookshelf where they can subscribe to other author’s work.

When students start a new ebook, they can choose who can see the book when it is published, choose whether they will accept collaboration for the book, and choose if they want to accept comments for the book. Actually writing the book is fabulously simple. All of the onscreen tools are easy to use and intuitive as to their function. The book can have a table of contents, multiple chapters, and pictures and video embedded right into the book. When students are finished, they simply save the book and publish it. The finished book gets a unique url that can be shared.

How to integrate Widbook into the classroom: Widbook is a fantastic, simple tool for secondary students to use to create ebooks. Students can create individual published works that can be commented on by other students and the teacher. Students can receive relevant-real time feedback not only from their teacher, but also from other students. Students not only get practice writing their own works, they also get practice evaluating writing of their peers.

Students can use Widbook to write final drafts of any piece of writing be it an essay or creative writing assignment. The ability to add video and images easily is wonderful.

Widbook would also be a great place for students to collaboratively create books about their learning. Each student can add a chapter, or groups of students can create chapters together. Instead of assigning students a textbook to read for the semester, include them in the creation of a collaborative textbook. Provide students with a table of contents and put them to work creating a chapter for each topic/unit throughout the year. At the end of the year, each student will have a book of their learning that they helped to create. Much more useful than a textbook that one of the Big Six wrote that gets opened only before tests!

Are you having trouble finding a book that matches your classroom learning needs? Create an ebook that perfectly meets your students right where they are. Include videos and images relevant to learning.

***For younger students be sure to check out BoomWriter!

Tips: Older students who have Facebook accounts can choose to link their Facebook account for easy login (make sure you know your school’s policy on social networking sites being accessed at school, even if it is just to login with).

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Widbook in your classroom!

Pinterest Classroom Inspiration Roundup

May 21, 2012Kelly Tenkely4 Comments21705 views

Holy Smokes. It has been a CRAZY couple of weeks. Don’t let anyone tell you that starting a school is an insane amount of work; that is a piece of cake compared to ending your first school year! Blogging has obviously taken a back seat. It feels strange not to blog every day after making that a habit over the last 4 years.

Today is dedicated to Pinterest. I find so many fantastic things that spark ideas for must-dos at Anastasis. I’m sharing a few of them here. I hope they spark some ideas for your classrooms!

This year we did some composting, this was followed by planting seedlings in newspaper just like this. Each student made a newspaper “pot” for their seeds. We love that it is biodegradable!

We are ending the year at Anastasis with a Storyline Expo. This is a showcase of student work throughout the year. We wanted to show a progression of learning and a timeline seemed like a great way to do it.

We are making preparations for our first field day. Water noodle target practice looked like a great activity. What are we most excited about? A food truck for lunch. We are cool like that.

We have spent a good majority of the year sharing wishes and dreams. For our storyline expo, we are creating silhouettes of students sharing what they love about our school.

We have done SO many hands on experiments throughout the year. This one was particularly neat to visualize weather in a cup.

We took pictures of all the kids “holding-on” to rope like this. They made great bookmarks for our first ever read-in!

Every student created a poster with this quote on it. It so perfectly summarizes what we believe about students and learning.

This is SUCH a great way to practice equations and algebra. Each number on the clock is represented by an equation. Our students made some unique “geeky” clocks this year.

We really wanted students to find freedom in their learning this year. Creating unique thumbprints with information and thoughts from each student was a great way to kick this thought process off. They turned out great!

Words we live by daily!

To see the originals of these images (and many more), visit my Pinterest Classroom Inspiration page. Pinterest is my guilty pleasure, I add to it even when I don’t have time to blog! If you haven’t joined Pinterest yet, I highly recommend it. Fair warning: it is addicting!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week Goodies from Learning a-z

May 7, 2012Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4449 views

What it is: It’s teacher appreciation week! One thing that I quickly learned in starting a school, teachers ARE the school. I always appreciate companies that recognize and honor this. Learning a-z is holding an Open House during teacher appreciation weeks which gives you free access to all 6 of their sites for the whole week. It also happens to be their 10 year anniversary, to celebrate they are giving away 10 free licenses each day of this week. Learning A-Z is an excellent resource that I have used for ages. Sites include: Reading A-Z which is a great collection of printable and projectable books and resources for 27 different levels; Raz-Kids which is a student-centered site where kids can practice reading online; Vocabulary a-z where you will find 12,000+ pre-made vocabulary words where you can build custom lists for students; Science a-z which delivers science curriculum resources across more than 60 units and includes three reading levels for each; Writing a-z which contains everything you need to teach writing in your classroom; and Reading-Tutors which provides more that 400 reading resource packets to use for one-on-one tutoring.

Be sure to take advantage of these great resources that are being offered FREE to you this week (May 7-11).

How to integrate Learning A-Z Open House into the classroom: The materials and resources at Learning A-Z are wonderful. I like the way they are available at the touch of a button so that you can instantly customize resources and lessons for students on the fly. Learning A-Z is like an instant boost to your classroom library. Students have additional resources that they can access both at school and at home. When I was a new teacher, Learning A-Z was a lifeline! I didn’t have a great classroom library built up yet and I didn’t have the money to go out and build it up immediately. Learning A-Z helped me give students exactly what they needed, when they needed it. My second grade students loved the printed books, they would often color them, take them home and read them over and over again. It gave them a sense of ownership over their reading.

Learning A-Z resources are great book-buddies for home. One year, I podcasted all of these (I wish I had saved them so I could share!) and sent my students home with the book and an iPod nano so they could read along at home. This was wonderful for the kids that didn’t have someone reliable at home to read with.

I also used the Learning A-Z resources as part of my literacy and science tub work. You can learn more about tub work here.

The resources can be used for individual students or for a whole class using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. Be sure to set up your classroom computers with these resources for your students this week!

Tips: Learning A-Z isn’t always a free resource, but they always offer some free material for you to access. You may find after this week that you would like a subscription. Be sure to register for the license give away…great end of the year present!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Learning A-Z in your classroom!

TED-Ed: Lessons (videos) worth sharing

April 26, 2012Kelly Tenkely2 Comments5535 views

What it is: I have long been a TED talk fan, so much so that I started a lunch group at my previous school called TED Talk Tuesdays where teachers could gather over lunch, watch TED Talks and discuss it’s implication on education. TED has a brand new education site that I am excited about. TED-ed is a collection of educational video lessons that have been animated. These lessons can be used as a supplement in any classroom. Each video on the TED-ed site has an associated lesson, a Quick Quiz with multiple choice comprehension questions, Think which asks questions to help students think more critically about what they have watched, and Dig Deeper which helps students to explore the topic further. In addition to the videos, TED-ed gives educators the ability to “flip” videos. You can use, tweak, or completely re-do any lesson that is featured on TED-Ed, or even create lessons from scratch based on any video from YouTube. You can re-title a lesson to fit your classroom, add context, questions and follow-up suggestions, and create a custom URL for your video lesson. You can even track your student’s progress to see who has viewed the assigned video, the number of questions they attempted, the answers they provided, and the answers they got correct.

How to integrate TED-Ed into the classroom: TED-Ed is a fantastic new resource for the classroom. The videos can be used for flip teaching. Flip teaching changes up the classroom model. Normally students come to school to get instruction and do their practice work at home as homework. In a flipped teaching model, the instruction is watched at home as “homework” and the practice happens in the classroom where students can receive teacher support. This means that the focus in the classroom is on higher-order thinking and learning skills instead of on instruction. How novel. 🙂 Student can come to class ready for deeper inquiry, critical thinking, discussion with classmates, collaboration and get more personalized attention from the teacher. You maximize classroom time by “going home” with the students.

Video is a great medium for learning because it allows students to learn at their own pace and gives them the ability to replay as many times as they need to. Visuals are always useful when learning something new, video is a great medium because of the way that it helps enhance understanding through the use of visuals.

Videos are searchable by those that have been featured, those that are part of a series or by subject. Students can learn about the arts, business/economics, design/engineering/technology, health, literature/language, math, psychology, science/technology, and social studies. The library will continue to grow as teachers flip the videos and TED-ed adds content from educators around the world.

The videos are great in a flipped classroom model but can also be used within the classroom. Videos can be watched and discussed as a whole-class or put on classroom computers as a learning center. When I taught second grade, I made sure that I had time individually with my students each week. In the mornings, my students worked on groups with “tub work” to make this time possible with individual students. These videos would make a great “second teacher” in a blended learning classroom where students could continue their learning while you work with students individually.

Tips: Remember, if you don’t find a video that meets your classroom needs, you can always flip any video you find on YouTube!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using TED-ed in your classroom!

The Scale of Life

April 19, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2880 views

What it is: The Scale of Life is a neat website that I learned about from a parent in @michellek107‘s class today. The Scale of Life is flash based, and shows the size of objects relative to other objects. Along the bottom of the site is a slider that lets students zoom in or out in size to see things relative to each other. Students can get as small as 0.0000000001 yoctometers to as large as size of the known universe.

How to integrate The Scale of Life into the classroom: The Scale of Life is a neat way for students to explore size, science and math. Students can examine the scale of objects compared to other objects and make observations about size and purpose of the object in the universe. This would be a fun site to explore as a class using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard. As a class, students could adjust the scale and discuss size and purpose of the objects. Split students into teams to choose a different scale to learn about. Students can learn more about the items that are in the size range to share back with the class.

The Scale of Life could be a fantastic site for students learning about exponents and scientific notation. Visual students will appreciate that they can see what these big (and small) numbers are representing.

Tips: @michellek107 is digging the music on the site…she has it going in the background of her classroom right now ;). If you aren’t loving it, there is a music note in the upper right corner where you can turn it off.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using The Scale of Life in your classroom!

Be the Beat: Interactive heart and virtual CPR simulation

April 18, 2012April 18, 2012Kelly Tenkely2 Comments6837 views

What it is: The American Heart Association has a new set of heart interactives on their site, Be the Beat. On Be the Beat, students can explore the heart, view a healthy vs unhealthy heart and perform virtual CPR during a cardiac arrest. The interactives have extremely life-like graphics and can be manipulated to view the heart under a variety of circumstances. Students can speed up heart rate or adjust layers of the heart. The CPR simulation is excellent. It leads students through a scenario where a friend collapses. It is up to students to decide how to administer CPR and use an AED to help the friend.

How to integrate Be the Beat into the classroom: Be the Beat is very well done. I’m impressed with the level of information, the interactive graphics and the ability to manipulate how the heart is reacting. Be the Beat would be a great site for students to visit when learning about the heart. This could be as part of a science class, health or PE class.

On the interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer, students can take turns adjusting and manipulating what is happening to the heart. As they take their turn, they can play “scientist” and describe what is happening to the rest of the class with the help of the captions on Be the Beat. The CPR interactive would be a great whole-class activity. As a class, students can make decisions about what to do to help their friend who has gone into cardiac arrest. They can take turns calling for help, administering CPR and using the AED.

Be the Beat would make a fantastic hands-on center on classroom computers as students are learning about the heart. Students can stop by the center and explore the different areas of the heart. Assign each student to study a different area of the heart so that they can take turns explaining the functions to each other.

Tips: The American Heart Association has a whole new program where students can learn to save a life in the School Challenge. Learn more about it here.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Be the Beat in your classroom!

3D Toad- 360* images worth more than a thousand words

April 16, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2840 views

What it is: 3D Toad is a site I learned about from @rmbyrne‘s fantastic blog, Free Tech for Teachers. This is like hitting the lottery of educational image libraries. It goes beyond your typical image library and has 3D images that students can spin all around and explore from every angle. Stinking awesome! Even better? (Yes, it gets better.) It works on mobile iDevice browsers! There are great images to explore on a variety of educational topics including: dissections, animal skeletons, human skeletons, music, geology, dental hygiene, coral, yoga, ballet positions, fossils, history, chemistry, emergency preparedness and computer networking.

Our students are learning all about earth systems right now so the fossils, geology and coral are especially exciting!

How to integrate 3D Toad into the Classroom: They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If a regular picture is worth a thousand, these 3D images are worth at least 360 times more. The 3D images on 3D Toad let students examine all 360* of an image. Students can examine, discover, and analyze images from various angles. 3D Toad helps students really visualize learning in new ways.

Use 3D Toad as a visual glossary on classroom computers. Students can visit this “visual glossary” center to explore objects and new vocabulary that they are learning. It would also be great on an interactive whiteboard or classroom computer where students can examine objects together. 3D Toad has a video on their site that shows a teacher using 3D Toad with students. I don’t love their example because the teacher is at the center of a review time before a test. The best use of this site would be to let students loose on it so that they can explore the images on their own.

3D Toad would be a great place for students to practice their observation skills. Each student could choose an object to explore in depth, write a detailed description and observation of the object. Working with a partner, they can describe their object and see if their partner can identify the image from the description alone.

These 360* images can be used for introducing new concepts, as a visual aid for students who are presenting learning, and as a place for further exploration of a topic or object.

Tips: Double click to zoom-in on an image. ***Some of the images have alternate 3D views that can be viewed with 3D glasses! The Giraffe skull is a good example of this. How cool would it be to outfit your students with some cheap 3D glasses for this lesson? I’ve asked local theaters to share leftover glasses in the past, they are usually very willing/happy to help out!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using 3D Toad in your classroom!

Science and Technology Office of Naval Research

April 2, 2012Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2392 views

What it is: The Office of Naval Research has a great interactive site filled with science and technology exploration for students. On the site, students can explore oceanography, space, and blow the ballast. Each section of the site has sub categories that let students narrow down their focus. The majority of the site is purely informational with accompanying images and short quizzes. My favorite portion of the site is the seasonal constellations. It really is the star of the site (no pun intended). The constellation interactive focuses on the constellations that can be viewed during each season. When students click on a season, they will see the constellations and options to show/hide the pictures, lines and names of the stars. The explanation of constellations and the seasonal impact on what students will see in the night sky is fantastic. In the Teacher’s Corner, you will find great animations for each topic (space, oceanography, and submarines). These are fantastic visualizations of complex concepts made simple for students.

How to integrate Science and Technology Office of Naval Research into the classroom: The Science and Technology Office of Naval Research isn’t the flashiest site I’ve seen. In fact, it looks a whole lot like a site that was created in 1995. I recommend it, in spite of the aged design, because of the wealth of information that it offers students and the student-friendly language and explanations it uses. This is a great site for students to conduct a research project in the early years. The information is concise, easy to understand, and offered in bite-size chunks. Students can approach the topic of oceanography, submarines and space independently.

As I said above, the constellations based on season is pretty neat. It shows students the constellation and allows them to overlay the image with additional information as they want it. If your students are studying seasons or constellations, this is a nice visual and description. Students could explore the constellations on classroom computers, or better yet, together as a class on a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard. Google Sky is amazing, but sometimes it can be overwhelming with detail before students understand the basics of what they are looking for in the night sky. The images on this site are a great first step that can lead to a next level of detail in sites like Google Sky. I love that technology lets us bring the whole universe into our classrooms as a smaller scale planetarium. As a side note, if you have an iPad…go download Go Skywatch now. You will thank me!

Be sure to check out the animation section, these are wonderful for introducing students to complex concepts. The animations would be great on classroom computers as part of a science center rotation. They are perfect for sharing with the whole class on an interactive whiteboard! At Anastasis, students keep a running vocabulary collection where they create a “glossary” that they can refer back to. They do this in Evernote, these animations are perfect for linking to within the glossaries so that they can refer back to an illustration of the word.

Tips: The Science and Technology Office of Naval Research includes a teacher resource section. This is where you will find the Animation Gallery I mentioned above.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Science and Technology Office of Naval Research in your classroom!

Smithsonian Wild: 206,340 images of animals around the world

March 28, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment10039 views

What it is: Smithsonian Wild is a site that I learned about from @shannonmmiller the other day through a tweet. This is a part of the Smithsonian website that I hadn’t seen before, so I was excited to take a look at it. Smithsonian Wild lets students explore 206,340 camera trap images collected at research sites around the world. Animals are searchable by species name or location in the world. The site is pretty incredible, it puts students up close and personal with animals and the research being done on the animals around the world. Students can view still images, videos, and information about the animal. In addition, students can learn more about the research being conducted concerning animals around the world.

How to integrate Smithsonian Wild into the classroom: Smithsonian Wild is a great site to help kids see animals in their natural environment. Students can use Smithsonian Wild as a starting place for a research project, a creative writing prompt (students as field researchers), or as part of a habitats and environment inquiry unit.

Students will enjoy exploring this site. Wild animals always pull kids in and keep them excited about watching for what comes next. This is a great one for a big screen like an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. The students will feel like they are right there with the animals. This is pretty much the next best thing, even the zoo can’t touch the number of animals that kids can see up close. 🙂

This site is a fantastic way for students to learn geography. As they “travel” to new places, they will be able to associate the country/continent with the animals that are indigenous. Use a Google Earth Map to “track” animals by dropping a pin in the country that they are found in. Students can attach images and facts to each pin on their custom-made map.

Tips: Are you students learning about animals and habitats? They should also make sure to take a look at these habitat websites and Arkive.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Smithsonian Wild in your classroom!

Category: Science

Qwiki Creator: Create the textbook of the future with a few clicks