Useful Information In and Out of the Classroom 4/12/13

Here are some interesting sites that I’ve found this week, thanks to my PLN. As a teacher, I feel we have to keep up to date concerning research in our field and current issues in the education system. I hope some of these inspire you, inform you, and even have you asking questions. Thank you for coming by and visiting!

Note: Each resource is labeled with a level and subject area to make it easier to use.

Levels: E: Elementary; M: Middle; H: High; G: General, all levels; SN: Special Needs; T: Teachers

Subject Areas: LA: Language Arts, English, Reading, Writing; M: Math; S: Science; Health; SS: Social Studies, Current Events; FA: Fine Arts; Music, Art, Drama; FL: Foreign Language; PE: Physical Ed; C: Career; A: All

Genius Hour Projects - “Goals of this project:
*to promote, support and model creative, innovative thinking and inventiveness
*to allow students an opportunity to discover/investigate one of their passions and reflect on/share their learning with others
*provide students and teachers an opportunity to develop skill sets that are valuable in any learning situation (research, experimentation, collaboration, creativity, problem solving and critical thinking)
*to provide an opportunity for classes to share their Genius and Passion Projects with others” (L:G; SA: A)

Spree Games - free K-12 educational learning games (L:G; SA: A)

Magnifying the Universe - “This interactive infographic from Number Sleuth accurately illustrates the scale of over 100 items within the observable universe ranging from galaxies to insects, nebulae and stars to molecules and atoms. Numerous hot points along the zoom slider allow for direct access to planets, animals, the hydrogen atom and more. As you scroll, a handy dial spins to show you your present magnification level.” (L:G; SA: S)

Image Quiz - “Welcome to ImageQuiz, a website that uses the power of images (1 image = 1000 words) to help you learn. The website contains a variety of quizzes, tagged according to topic: just select a topic that interests you from the sidebar, then select a quiz. Each quiz will prompt you to click on a particular part of the image that you will hopefully recognise. For example, the image might be a map of the world and the prompt asks you to click on Brazil (easy, it's the biggest country in South America!).” (L:G; SA: A)

Edcanvas - create a canvas where you can save resources for specific topics for your classroom(L:T; SA: A)

Original Image: Tools by Pat Hensley