Samoset Middle School Blog

From Free Technology for Teachers

Once again, Open Culture has discovered a real gem for education. Khan Academy has a YouTube Channel on which they have posted hundreds of mathematics and science tutorial videos. The videos range in length from five minutes to 20+ minutes. The videos that I previewed had clear spoken commentary as well as clear visual aids….. Read the rest of the article at Free Technology for Teachers

You can use several tools to download and convert the You Tube videos for use in the classroom.

1. YouTube Downloader is free and available from CNET a trusted site.
2. KeepVid is a site based on the web which allows easy access to download YouTube videos.

Tags: Math, Science, Youtube

by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) From Free Technology for Teachers a great resource site.

Manga High is a new site offering free mathematics games for K-12 students. There are four games and a quiz program that offer graduated activities. Students earn gold, silver, and bronze “coins” to track their progress. While the games and quiz program are free, the rest of Manga High is a fee-based service.

Applications for Education
Manga High, like a lot of mathematics games sites, provides an intuitive and engaging platform for students to use to practice their mathematics skills. One of the benefits of Manga High is that it doesn’t have the intrusive advertising that some mathematics game sites have.

Read the rest of the article here @ Free Technology for Teachers

Tags: Math

by James Hollis from Teachers love Smartboards Blog

If you’re a teacher looking for a good online resource for studying vocabulary, you might want to review the WordAhead Vocabulary Videos and Flash Cards site. One of the reasons I like this site is it allows students to take a greater role in their own education, whether they’re studying for the SAT or the ACT or whether they are using the site as an ESL resource.

The WordAhead site allows you to choose from hundreds of words to review in video format. Each video uses graphics, text, and audio to describe the word, give it’s definition, and present the word in various contextual situations to provide a deeper understanding of the word. You can also view the videos in fullscreen which is great for displaying on the SMARTBoard.

Read the rest of the article here.

Tags: Smartboard

by James Hollis From Teachers Love Smartboards Blog

Here are five of my favorite websites for creating original artwork. These sites go way beyond just drawing a picture on the computer and they all work great on the SMART Board. Enjoy!

artPad

This is one of my favorite sites for creating original artwork. In addition, you can do various things with your artwork like playback the drawing, include the drawing in a art.com gallery of other paintings, and view and modify other drawings in the art.com gallery. The interface is fantastic and it works great on the SMART Board.

Bomomo

This is a very unique painting site that uses abstract paint brushes to create extremely imaginative and beautiful artwork. One of the things I like best about this site is the ability to save your artwork directly to a “jpg” file.

Mr. Picassohead

Believe it or not, the name of this says it all. You create your own Mr. Picassohead using various “picasso-like” features for face, hair, eyes, nose, etc. It’s really quite engaging and definitely a lot of fun.

Repper

I’m really addicted to this site that allows you to use your own images to create patterns. This site is very easy to use and the patterns you create can be used as backgrounds. The site has a short video that shows you how easy it is to use Repper and take the pattern that you create and share them or use them in various ways.

Thisissand

This is sand. Yes it is. To use this site, you touch on the SMART Board and sand will begin pouring from where you are touching. You can change colors of the sand and you can drop the sand from anywhere on the screen. Click on the small box in the upper-left corner of the screen for instructions. One of the neatest things to do on this site is look at the gallery of images other people have created. Some of them are simply amazing.

Mathsframe.co.uk provides software for teaching maths on interactive whiteboards.

One of the best websites for finding K-12 Language Arts lesson plans and high quality web-based activities is ReadWriteThink. On their site, they also have a section called Student Materials which contains a great library of interactive activities. When you click on the activity name, you go to a page that links to the activity and provides a list of lesson plans that utilize the interactive resource. Read the rest of the article @ Teachers Love Smartboards.

BY BILL FERRIS @Instructify Blog

In Escape from the Mummy’s Tomb! your elementary students must recover Egyptian artifacts from inside a pyramid. As the title of the game has no doubt alerted you, you’ll have to wrest these artifacts from an undead mummy’s cold, dead, bandaged fingers.

After your students have finished their archaeological adventure, they’ll find themselves in a museum, where they must put the artifacts in their proper display cases. Once that’s done, they must answer questions about the artifact — for example, what is the significance of the model boat in the Mummy’s tomb? (Answer: it’s how they get around, because the Afterlife is apparently flooded). The questions aren’t exactly sphinx-like, but they do make for good review of Egyptian history.

SMART Notebook Math Tools extends the capabilities of SMART Notebook software with a dynamic set of math-specific tools and features, so when you create and explore lessons on your SMART Board interactive whiteboard, you only need one application.

Designed specifically for middle and high school math classrooms, SMART Notebook Math Tools has built-in features such as an equation editor and custom graph builder. You can manipulate shapes, use interactive measurement tools and even launch your Texas Instruments brand emulator from right within the software. SMART Notebook Math Tools is also the first interactive whiteboard application to have handwriting recognition for mathematical symbols.

Tags: Math

from Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… by Larry Ferlazzo

Tags: Business, Careers

The Carbon Cycle Game

What it is: The Carbon Cycle Game is a free online game that teaches students about how carbon cycles through the Earth system. It is appropriate for 4th-9th grade students learning about the carbon cycle. As students play the game, they will learn that carbon cycles naturally through living and non-living parts of the Earth system in a complex, non-linear way, that burning fossil fuels adds carbon to the cycle, the impact of additional carbon dioxide on global warming, and that carbon is essential for living things. Students will travel around the game as a little carbon atom. They will stop at key places on the game board and get a pop-up of information about the carbon cycle. At any point students can click on key words in the pop-up and will be directed to a page with additional information. Students will also land on question marks that pop-up questions testing students about what they have learned so far. When students answer questions correctly they earn game points.

How to integrate The Carbon Cycle Game into the classroom: The Carbon Cycle Game would be best…..read the rest of the article here.

Tags: Science

iPlay Math Games

from iLearn Technology by admin

What it is: iPlay Math Games is an outstanding collection of printable math games for grades k-12.  Math games can be searched by grade level or skill.  These math games are printable pdf files and can be played with common items (dice, cards, and other manipulatives).  iPlay Math Games helps students build math skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, percents, algebra, long division, measurement, graphing and exponents, problem solving, puzzles and games, geometry, probability, reasoning, logic, numeration, patterns, and counting.

How to integrate iPlay Math Games into the classroom: iPlay Math Games is an excellent collection of printable math games that can be downloaded and printed out for the classroom.  Use these games……..read the entire post here

Tags: Math