The illustration below links to a blog post listing free online scientific and graphic calculators. Many do not need downloading as they are used online.
Google is now a graphing calculator. Enter the equation in the search bar and you get your graph. You can even do multiple functions, just separate them by a comma. You can also zoom and pan in the graphs. You can also do other calculator functions using the search bar.
The following link to the blog post from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning provides access to various tools for 33 different skills. It is wonderful to have such a varied and pertinent list including the tools needed to succeed in each skill all in one place. Both teachers and students shoud be aware of skills they need to keep up with digital learning in the 21Century. Here is a great place to start!
The 33 Digital Skills every 21st Century teacher should have
Here is a list of 43 tools and activities for students – to make learning fun at the same time as exercising your brain!
Cool Tools to Engage Your Brain over the Summer curated by Lisa Johnson provides activities from across most KLAs with a bent towards K-6 students but with many applications for older students as well.
Early in March the new video channel TED-Ed was introduced. The platform is now more than just a repository.
Within the growing TED-Ed video library, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform. This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED’s, and easily create a customized lesson around the video.
This facilitates a new trend called “Flip Teaching” where students watch a prepared video lesson at home and class time is devoted to discussion, building ideas and creative responses.
TED-Ed enables shared lessons via Twitter, Facebook or email with the ability to check who has viewed your lesson and how they progressed in any activities within the lesson – with their permission.
Traditionally schools have collected student work samples to store physical examples of accomplishment and compare individual achievement over a period of time. E-Portfolios have so much more potential. They can be used to “help students find purpose and passion through reflection and goal-setting” as they develop their own record of learning. Dr Helen Barrett explains how it is possible to incorporate the use of digital tools in learning to achieve this goal.
This website (with recently released free App) has a wealth of videos on educational topics – mathematical concepts, biology, art, history and more. Secondary teachers: Integrating one into lesson revision or as a starting place for discussion would work well with these videos. Many are available on YouTube and can therefore be embedded into Moodle lessons.
This channel follows in the tradition of TED talks but is specifically aimed at educators and students. Nominate an educator, an animator or suggest a lesson. This screen-shot link to their channel shows just a few of the topic areas waiting to be explored.
This wheel includes digital technology for each cognitive process. Note that the four knowledge dimensions are included. It is interactive – a great planning tool for teachers with suggestions of activities and tools for each level.
This morning one of our teachers used an iPad App to teach her PDHPE class about the human heart. The IRC’s new SMART Board attached to an iPad had the students enthralled – as of course did the teacher’s excellent demonstrations,manipulation of the App and her questioning techniques! It was a wonderful example of quality teaching and switched on learning!
Students love to present their work in new formats. Fluxtime Studio offers a free animation tool with easy to follow steps for young children. Membership is available and online competitions can give a global perspective to the task at hand.
Scoop.it! curators are presenting us with a wealth of material in one place. This “Handy Online Tools for Schools” Scoop.it! curated by Petra Pollum has links to many new technologies and tools that work in the classroom environment.
This clear procedure for using Skype in the classroom leaves us no excuse so we must give it a go soon!
The new Smart board in the IRC will make it easy to establish and share our first Skype author visit with our students.
This new tool allows people to gather online resource links to issues in one accessible place. Here are links to some created by Teacher Librarian colleagues who curate in a number of relevant educational topic areas.
The Value of Twitter – Linda Weeks
Web 2.0 tools for English Teachers – Linda Weeks
Digital Citizenship in Schools – Judy O’Connell
Social Networking for Information Professionals – Judy O’Connell
Graphic Novels in the Classroom – Di Laycock
Following on from Apple’s educational announcement last week, this article looks at some of the benefits of using the iPad as a tool in education. This article is worth reading as we decide which way to ‘jump’ at our school.
‘The Daring Librarian’ has posted a great list of things to do to smarten up online presence.
These five are a ‘must’ to get ready for the new school year. For the rest please visit The Daring Librarian’s Blog:
