Middle School Science Resources

It is amazing what a dedicated teacher can do.

My Science Box - is a fantastic resource for middle school science teachers. Developed by a Californian teacher, these lessons and resources are gold standard, and getting bigger.

With lesson plans, learning programs and guides this is a great help to any teacher who wants to make science that much more interesting.

Aligned to Californian state standards (referenced) it shouldn't be too hard to match them to either Australian or other science curricular. Resources are mainly in word format so that you can adapt them to your classroom requirements.

I also have to applaud the website design - simple, clear and easy to use - many commercial sites should have a look at this.

All resources are creative commons - non commercial so you are authorised to copy and reuse.

Lower Primary IWB Resources

I've just finished a three day country school tour, visiting clients and demonstrating technology to new schools.

I'm constantly asked for resources for lower primary - so here are a few new ones as well as some old favorites.

iBoard -a free website specifically for use with an IWB and specifically for lower primary. The iboard is perfect for warm-ups as well as a main teaching point resource. It's all in Adobe flash so can run on any board (including eBeam), and is grouped by subject area and grade level.

Starfall - A graded site for early reading, again free. lots of colour and good use of sound. Perfect as an interactive bigbook on your IWB.

Crickweb - Another graded site - this one has interactive for IWB's from lower primary right through to lower hight school. A bit of advertising on the main page but otherwise and excellent resources

topmarks - Yet another UK site. This one is very comprehensive and has a huge range of interactives with lesson ideas as well.

BGfL - yep another UK site. This one is set up by the Birmiham Grid for Learning. A great collected work of some of the best flash interactives around. All sorted by subject groups

Scootle - If you are in an Australian Government, Catholic or even at some idependant schools, you have access to scootle. Designed by the Learning Federation with funds from the federal government. Scootle/learning federation resources cover a huge range of subjects and levels. Government and Catholic schools usually access this site via their portal - in the case of WA its the DET portal - then look for the learning federation resources.


There is more - let me know if you have found any that you use on a constant basis.

Free eBeam IWB resources

I work for Keepad Interactive, an Australian based technology company that focuses on interaction between people and how that can be augmented through the use of appropriate technology.

One of the products we sell and train people in is eBeam from Luidia, a device that easily turns any ordinary whiteboard into and interactive whiteboard with the help of a computer and a projector it is a very cost effective way to put a fully fuctional IWB in a classroom without sacrificing board space.

Luidia is always updating their software for this particular peice of hardware, but they have also been collecting resources to use with it, and now it is all available on their web page.

http://www.luidia.com/education/web-resources.html


A huge selection of resources sorted by type and age group. It's nice that the company I sell for also take the time to research and find good resources to use with their hardware.

Japanese Language IWB resources

For some reason I have been approached by a couple of Japanese language teachers independantly looking for IWB resources and games for Japanese language classes. So I had a look around and I've found a few out there. If you know of anymore please let me know.

http://lrnj.com/ - slime forest adventure. A RPG style game – free for the first 100 or so Kanji

http://www.learn-hiragana-katakana.com/ - A great site with a bunch of interactive flash programs to help with the basics.

http://www.japteach.com/ - from Queensland with some free worksheets that can be used at”backgrounds” for IWB’s like eBeam.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/japanese/ - The BBC introductory site.

http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/index.html - A great primary site for begiining japanese. The Games section have a few flash based games that work well on interactive whiteboards.

http://www.tjf.or.jp/clicknippon/en/index.html - This website provides information for both those interested in Japan and those involved in Japanese language education. There are plenty of materials that can be used for Japanese language and social studies, as well as education in international understanding.

http://minnanokyozai.jp/kyozai/home/en/render.do - A resource website for Japanese teachers. Resources are mainly for remixing into either paper based or IWB use.

http://www.thomsonlearning.com.au/secondary/lote/obento/deluxe/student/About%20the%20course.html - The companion website to the Obento Deluxe books for Secondary Students. Interactivea are available for each chapter.

http://www.nihongomemo.com/resources.htm - A range of printout and templates for IWB's

http://www.ajalt.org/sj/com/com_index.html - Survival Japanese.


Additional one I have found post post.

Eco Zoo - Thanks to Free Technology For Teachers for this one. A bilingual site (English / Japanese) for environmental awareness - Fantastic 3D visuals with this one, and a nice sound track as well.

Free maths worksheets

Even I have to admit that there are times where drill and practice is required in maths. Or sometimes you just want to use some examples.

Enter Mathmaster.org This website helps you create worksheets for most grades up to about year 7. You can either save them as jpg or pdf or print them. If you have ebeam installed you can even print to eBeam Scrapbook as a background that you can then draw on and mark up as required for a demonstration.

Making up maths worksheets with all the grids, nets, shapes and number lines can be really painful in MS Word - especially if you want then to be precise enough for the students to actually measure. Dynamic Paper from the illuminations website might just be what you are looking for. There is a whole slew of resources for maths teachers there. Go nuts.


I'll repost one of my other favourite literacy worksheet makers - lessonwriter.com. This not only does the worksheet for you based on the text that you give it - it even writes your lesson plan.

Good music education software is hard to come by - This looks like it will fit the needs of most primary teachers. LenMus

LenMus is a free program for learning music. LenMus program allows you to focus on specific skills and exercises, on both theory and aural training. The different activities can be customized to meet your needs, and it provides interactive feedback until mastery of each concept is achieved. It also includes an score editor.

And if like me you have no musical ability at all you might want to try out this grid based synth. Be careful you could spend hours on this. http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

Sorry I haven't been blogging lately but the boss came over for a visit from the emerald city and things got really busy.

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Primary Maths

Keepad Interactive has now got the rights to Mult-e-Maths software and it is now available to customers. Its a great tool to use with either an eBeam or a Graphire tablet. Every time I do a demonstration, teachers are blown away by it's simplicity and ease of use.
You can get a trial of it here.

For those of you who can't get there hands on it - there is another option.
Math playground This has a range of games, manipulatives, and videos that work great on an IWB or tablet.

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More web based interactives and visualisations

I remember doing a project in primary school about cars... I think I was in year five.
I got pictures from magazines and I did research and it was one of my best projects.... But when it came the the engine part - pistons and systems - I literally copied an image/diagram out of a book and had no real understanding of what actually happens in a petrol engine. It wasn't until I saw a cut away model that you could turn the crank on and a video of what happens did I truly get the engine - this was much later when I took up motors and machines in high school.

So for all those people who were wondering what goes on under the hood. I present the interactive car.
http://www.cars.com/go/advice/intercar/ic_index.jsp

So I was wondering that there must be heaps of these interactive animations around - I just had to find them....
Found them

http://www.educypedia.be/
This is an amazing resource of animations, visualizations and interactives.

One of my favourites is the the direct anatomy site -

http://www.directanatomy.com/

Free Photo Resources

Copyright - it is one of those things we really have to teach our students (once we get our heads around it). It's all very well saying you can't but what can you use for free, without restrictions?

US sites - Using flickr
The Smithsonian Institution - Large photos to be used in a number of ways.
The collection: The Smithsonian Institution

George Eastman House - check out the advertising photos from the 40's
The collection: George Eastman House

The Library of Congress
The collection: The Library of Congress

The New York Public Library
The collection: The New York Public Library

NASA - Perfect for the year of astronomy
The collection: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The Kids Collection
http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/wi/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources




Australia
the Powerhouse Museum
the collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/powerhouse_museum/

State library of NSW
the collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/

ReImage Australia
http://www.pictureaustralia.org/contest/index.html



That should do you for now.....

Massive Digital learning Repositories

Good afternoon -
I hope you`are feeling better than me at the moment - Burning the candle at both ends this week - work all week and then exhibit and present at a conference over the weekend, and another conference tomorrow.
Anyway still found some stuff you should know about.

Scootle - the learning federation (Australia) is a licenced product for all schools in Australia - most people have access to it from their department portal if they work for Government schools - for all others there is scootle. You have to look at this - thousands of great videos and interactive digital tools for teachers - Free for you (if you live in Australia and are teaching)


For everyone else in the world - there is FOSSWEB - FOSS (FULL OPTION SCIENCE SYSTEM) Web
is the official site for the inquiry-based FOSS science curriculum.
A place for support, resources, and fun activities.

Pete's Power Point Station

Teachers are always looking for pre-made resources for their subject area. Sometimes you are just looking for ideas, and sometimes you have to give youself some PD.

All of these needs are met at PPPS - a massive repository of high quality powerpoints and links to other ppt sites. Ranging across subject areas there are powerpoint to use in class or for PD in the staff room, or just to learn something new. Backup documents are also available - worksheets, fact sheets and quizzes.

A huge resource that can easily be turned into a TurningPoint resource with a few well placed interactive slides.

http://www.pppst.com/index.html

Kindersite and the Enigma Machine

This is a great collection of interactive games, videos and resources for K-7 teachers.

http://www.kindersite.org/ - Again most of this can be used with a Wacom tablet/slate or your eBeam.

The resources are all sorted into learning areas so finding something for your class should be fairly easy. I do like the story section.

These are all links to other sites and then you can go on from there exploring for more interactive resources at each site.

For those of you who have an interest in computer history / code breaking the Bletchley Park site has a virtual enigma machine running in JAVA - link here.

http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/enigmasim.rhtm

lets make some code.