Teachnology Podcast 01.05.05

I'm just getting a few things ready for tomorrow's podcast...I'll link later.

I wanted to get some great sites out there from several different curriculum areas.

Interdisciplinary
Brain Pop - Offers several excellent tutorials in math, health, science, english, and technology. There's a 10 question quiz for each tutorial as well as a crossword puzzle and lab activity for many of the topics.

There is a reasonable subscription price; however, they offer a full access 14 day trial period that only requires an email address. They also allow access to a few tutorials from each curriculum area without even signing up for the free trial. This is a good tool that students will find interesting. BrainPop could make this a GREAT tool by reporting student proficiency back to the teacher (like Quiz Lab). How do they know what learning is taking place without some data? Thus, how do they know which tutorials and excercises need revision. More importantly, the teacher has to provide their own independent assessment tool which shouldn't be necessary for the subscription price.

Math
Figure This - Includes several middle level math challenges. Each challenge also has a thought provoking hint that helps the learner become more of a critical thinker. You can also view a short promotional video that explains what the web site offers. One of the nicest features of this site is that the challenges are available in spanish.

Science
NOVA Teachers - Hosted by PBS. There's two things that struck me about this site (other than the name). :-) First, they offer a link to a full lesson plan relating to a recent show complete with answers and a list of National Science Education supported standards. The second aspect of this site that can be particularly helpful to teachers is the Teacher's Guide. This section offers two matrices, sorting their instructional tools by Program Title and by Subject. Each matrix indicates the type of activities available for each resource in a very easy-to-understand format.

Language Arts/Reading
Number2.com - Vocab Builder -Number2 is an excellent free test prep site that helps students prepare for the SAT, ACT, and even the GRE. This site also has a Vocab Builder which adapts to the learner's skill level automatically, and keeps track of the words each learner has seen to allow further attempts. Once the learner gets a word correct twice, it goes into a personal mastered words list.

Social Studies
Marco Polo - This could actually be listed under interdisciplinary as you can search for lessons and student interactives for all curriculum areas/levels from a multitude of online sources. Under the social studies umbrella specifically, the site offers a MarcoPolo Calendar which allows you to access information on historic events and associated MarcoPolo lessons and resources for each day. As if this weren't enough, the site offers Professional Development courses as well.

Health
Kids Health/Teen Health - An excellent resource for students that allows them to explore health-related issues that pertain specifically to their age group. The teen section is geared more toward high school--possibly late midddle school--you'll defiitely want to review content before turning middle schoolers loose on the teen health site.

It looks like the podcast will get pushed back to at least Saturday as I've got a cold and can barely speak. More notes on the other sites later...