As I was looking through my Wakelet of links I had saved over the last week and most seemed to be focused on STEM. So, after an initial list of upcoming PD, most of what I am sharing this week are STEM resources. Friends who teach bio are looking for ways to do the labs remotely, although the physics teachers at least have some online simulations to use. Hardest to find are activities for elementary science that do not presume that students have access to a bunch of different materials that they may well not have at home or any way to procure. Hopefully some of the various resources can help.
Upcoming PD
My inbox overflows with all sorts of professional development offerings. One that caught my eye is the interview with Ken Burns- happening on Wednesday- tomorrow 4/29. I can't go as I have prior commitments, but maybe you can.
As we look to the future, anarticle on Edsurge seemed to offer a way to start examining how we can remotely do PD for teachers who are now teaching remotely. Their solution seemed to be to use centralized repositories of information. "Instead of talking shop and sharing tips in person, Butts says he and his colleagues have organized and shared links to resources in Google Drive folders that they can all access." This is more or less what we are doing in our district. It's a process.
These are ongoing opportunities that you may want to check out.
EdTechTeacher has been offering a great variety of one hour webinars. I attended one this week on using AR in remote learning. They are offering a couple on using Google Applied Digtial Skills this week.
Mystery Doug & Mystery Science...
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WWF brings Wild Classroom to classroom or to students home
"Connecting educators and parents with the tools and resources they need to help kids explore and understand the world around them. Together we can inspire the next generation to build a future where people and nature thrive!" |
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Seeds of STEM offers great ideas for the younger students. Aimed at early childhood, Seeds of STEM is a year-long problem-based STEM curriculum, developed in alignment with four sets of standards. They have some great weekly curriculum ideas to share as pdfs with your families.
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This is an example from one of the Daily Do lessons called Why are Flowers do Different? You can see the whole lesson here.
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The NSTA Daily Do
"are sensemaking tasks teachers and parents can use to engage their students in authentic, relevant science learning. Students actively try to figure out how the world works (science) or how to design solutions to problems (engineering) using the science and engineering practices. |
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One of my favorites, which I wrote a bit about this a few years ago, is the OK GO Sandbox. The video to the left is from the UPSIDE DOWN & INSIDE OUT lesson. "OK Go Sandbox is an online resource for educators that uses OK Go’s music videos as starting points for integrated guided inquiry challenges allowing students to explore various STEAM concepts."
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The Christa McAuliffe center at Framingham State has an excellent page of curated resources for STEM at home. You can check them out here and look through thespreadsheet ( this document changes daily)
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Create & Learn offers some really interesting courses for kids to learn from some of the best schools in the world. Just pick the course, check the schedule and sign up for free. Created by Stanford, Harvard graduates, and former Tech Leaders at Google & Apple https://www.create-learn.us/ |
STEM Learning Ecosystems has put together an excellent resource list as a spreadsheet and has also reached out to the various ecosystems for even more ideas.
"The STEM Ecosystems Initiative is built on over a decade of research into successful STEM collaborations, and seeks to nurture and scale effective science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning opportunities for all young people." |
Here's the info:
"For many years, Netflix has allowed teachers to screen documentaries in their classrooms... However, this isn’t possible with schools closed. So at their request, we have made a selection of our documentary features and series available on ourYouTube channel. If you are a parent or teacher, please check the ratings so that you can make informed choices for your students and children. For more information and to download accompanying educational resources please visit the Netflix Company Blog."
K-12 Learning Blueprint is a well organized, not overwhelming list of resources for educators. Check it out here.
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OWLS is a site that is curating resources for students, educators and parents. They have pulled together some padlets with information for all subject areas. Easy to use.
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The To-Do List
I wasn't going to include this one, but then realized that with everything else that you have going on , you may not know that it is there. Check out theshort blog post and share with your students if you are just starting out in Google Classroom.
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New to Templates in GSuite?
Check out the Google Teacher Tribe podcast. Then learn more from Kasey in the video below on on her blog. |
https://bit.ly/MathChoiceBoardsK-2
https://bit.ly/ChoiceBoards3-5
https://bit.ly/MathChoiceBoards6-8
The RIO school district over in Oxnard, CA has put out some excellent resources, including a list of printable packets and thisexcellent resource for Math Choice Boards. Again, remember to make your copy of these documents and to credit the authors.
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Laura Rogers K-5 Click here
Rob Baier from Pennsylvania made:Math Choice Boards K-8!
Here is the Crosswalk Document so you can see which CCSS standards these match up with: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WMVie3DAhf71Wq5Km-HWKUeD9OMI7-qb/view
Illustrative Math https://tasks.illustrativemathematics.org/content-standards
YouCubed https://www.youcubed.org/tasks/
NRich https://nrich.maths.org/11993
Dr Paul Swan https://drpaulswan.com.au/teaching-at-home/
I was used to using VM for virtual manipulatives, but have seen a lot of posts lately that mentioned Toy Theater. This is a treasure trove of manipulatives, games and so much more. Check it out.
If you need printables visit https://classplayground.com/category/math/
This is just a screenshot of some, not all, of the vitural manipulative available.
It feels like I am attending anywhere from 1 to 3, 4, or more webinars a day lately. One presenter, aside from Greg and Avra at EdTechTeachers stands out this week, Leslie Fisher. I attended one of her webinars on using Merge Cubes last week, enjoyed that one, so I signed up for one of her book creator webinars this week. Now, I have used Book Creator with kids, and honestly, didn't think I would learn a whole lot. I was wrong. Not only have they added over 200 accessibility features to Book Creator, but Leslie came up with very cool ways to use it- for all ages, not just elementary. I plan on attending another one this coming Friday- Book Creator and Accessibility. You can register for it here. The one I liked the other day is still open "on demand" til Monday 4/20.
Resources to Share
| Commonsense Media has created an excellent resource for teachers, families, students. " Wide Open School is a free collection of the best online learning experiences for kids curated by the editors at Common Sense. There is so much good happening, and we are here to gather great stuff and organize it so teachers and families can easily find it and plan each day. " It is divided up by educator or a family and then by age range and then by topic. Worth exploring by both teachers and families. |
| "MIT FULL STEAM Ahead is a collection of resources that MIT is putting together for teaching and learning online. These are meant as a rapid response to the need for online resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will curate existing resources for K-12, higher education, and workforce learners, as well as provide a weekly package of relevant materials for K-12 students and teachers." Check out these great resources here. Don't forget about the Edgerton Center while you're in the neighborhood. They have great instructables here. |
| Helperbird is a browser extension that gives you the features to make the web more accessible and make you more productive. By providing you with features such as dyslexia fonts, change the font & background color, text to speech, overlays, dyslexia ruler, immersive reader, reader mode and much more. Download the extension for chrome here. It is also available for Edge and Firefox. |
| Choice Boards for all disciplines, for all ages seem to be making a comeback as we search for ways to make home learning work for all. Miguel Ghulin down in Texas does a nice job of going through some of the many possilbiities when using Google Slides as wlll as a basic how to. If you would rather read it than view it- click here |
CoBUILD19 is the Facebook group associated with the folks at Infosys, but actually started by Adam Maltese. Here's part of the blurb for this one, "CoBuild19 - Sharing Activities for Kids and Families at Home was created by educators and researchers to help youth and their caregivers to spend quality time together building and creating'...'The activities are designed to be completed with free or low-cost materials, supplies, and tools found commonly in homes, around communities/neighborhoods, or readily accessible at local stores or ordered online." |
Infosys has opened up their Pathfinders Institute to all. I took the MakerEd courses for a week the last 2 summers out in Indiana and it was worth the time. Looking forward to exploring what they have on offer for all. Just an FYI- it is not all tech, not all CS, not all art, but a great combination of all of these with low-tech, no-tech projects as well. Here's the official blurb: "This virtual classroom allows students, teachers and families to access computer science and maker education content from home in an interactive and engaging online environment. Below are video lessons, links to resources and activities, and opportunities to join live training sessions led by educators and professional development providers. Explore the content and get started today!" |
| National Geographic Explorers offers a live Daily show every day at 2 pm EDT. These are really cool ways to explore from climate change to frogs to following the pathways of the first humans who migrated out of Africa in the Stone Age. Check out the upcoming discoveries just waiting for you here. |
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