Useful links

   by  david.jost27 

• Introducing ScopeIT Education – YouTube “Published to YouTube on 17 Mar 2015. Hear from Glenn O’Neill, Mt. Kuring-gai Public School’s Principal, on how ScopeIT Education is bringing coding and 3D printing lessons to his students and many more around Australia”

• Microsoft WeSpeakCode Part of Microsoft’s YouthSpark endeavour. Seeks to encourage young poeple to learn vital skills and enjoy it at the same time.

• Code Club Australia “A network of coding clubs for Aussie kids aged 9–11. The mission of Code Club Australia is to give every child in Australia the chance to learn to code by providing project materials and a volunteering framework that supports the running of after-school coding clubs.”

• Kids who code: Why the App Store will soon be dominated by young developers “Teaching primary school children how to write computer code is becoming a high priority in schools across the world. But Australia is falling behind.”

• Stop playing political football with coding education – An article about coding in the Australian curriculum. Bec Spink lists here yhe content descriptions taken directly from the Australian ‘Digital Technologies’ curriculum that demonstrate the progression of SOME of the process and production skills students are expected to learn from their first year of school until Year 10.

• EMBRACING THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES CURRICULUM – etsmagazine

• 10 Important Password Tips Everyone Should Know “Your bank data, your accounts, your email, and your life are all wrapped up in your ability to create secure passwords and remember them. And yet most educators (and their students) struggle to remember passwords. With so many passwords stolen, there are things all of us SHOULD know to make our identities and bank accounts safer.”

• Book Creator – Android Apps on Google Play “The simple way to create your own beautiful ebooks, right on your tablet. Ideal for children’s picture books, photo books, art books, cook books, manuals, textbooks, and the list goes on.”

• From Book Creator to printed book – Book Creator app | Blog Here is a masterclass from a teacher on how to print your Book Creator ebook and get a professional finish. This educator used the iPad but an android version of app is also available.

• SmithsonianTweenTribune | Articles for kids, middle school, teens from Smithsonian | tweentribune.com | Current events, lesson plans, quizzes, assessments A daily news site created for student consumption. All sorts on interesting information and an “Ask” section. Created by the Smithsonian Institute so a reliable source.

• San Diego Zoo – Kids Nice site for younger students.

• Ask A Biologist | ASU – Ask A Biologist “Ask A Biologist began in 1997 in the School of Life Sciences as a biology learning resource tool for students, teachers, parents, and life-long learners. The site continues to be developed, and maintained by a dedicated group of volunteers. Ask A Biologist is visited by over 15,000 people every day and has answered more than 34,000 biology questions. This is a SafeSurf site.”

• Welcome to BugGuide.Net! – BugGuide.Net “We are an online community of naturalists who enjoy learning about and sharing our observations of insects, spiders, and other related creatures. We enjoy the opportunity to instill in others the fascination and appreciation that we share for the intricate lives of these oft-maligned creatures”

• Five Minute Film School: Movie Making For the Rest of Us! – YouTube “Published on 8 Jun 2015. Everyone is a filmmaker. Learn how to be one here!”

• Minecraft Archaeology – CraftingThePast – Roman Amphitheatre – YouTube “Published on YouTube on 17 Feb 2015. ‘Crafting the Past’ is a Minecraft education project bringing archaeology to life through digital digs. In this opening episode to the series we see the time-lapse of an archaeological dig in the UK, uncovering an ancient Roman amphitheatre.”

• Minecraft – World Heritage Day 2015 – ImmersiveMind

• Why Do We Need Teacher Librarians? This is a thorough explanation of the integral roll teacher librarians (and school libraries) should have in the education of young people.

• graphite | Lesson Flows – Featured Landing Page “CommonSense Media blog post introducing Lesson Flows, Darri Stephens shares that the framework redefines the traditional lesson plan by integrating digital learning tools and content with pedagogical intent. Quite simply, you can discover tools on Graphite and then align them to each part of your lesson –- the hook, direct instruction, guided practice, independent practice, and wrap-up –- thinking with purpose about your lesson redesign. Lesson Flows are excellent tools for teacher librarians to use as they design technology-rich collaborative projects with classroom teachers.”

• graphite | Lesson Flows – Featured Landing Page “CommonSense Media blog post introducing Lesson Flows, Darri Stephens shares that the framework redefines the traditional lesson plan by integrating digital learning tools and content with pedagogical intent. Quite simply, you can discover tools on Graphite and then align them to each part of your lesson –- the hook, direct instruction, guided practice, independent practice, and wrap-up –- thinking with purpose about your lesson redesign. Lesson Flows are excellent tools for teacher librarians to use as they design technology-rich collaborative projects with classroom teachers.”

• Parents’ Top 5 Questions to Keep Kids Safe Online | Common Sense Media “Common Sense Media parenting expert Caroline Knorr answers questions about keeping kids safe online.”

• What is flipped classroom – The University of Queensland, Australia This piece entitled “About flipped classrooms” from the University of Queensland gives a good description of the roles and expectations of teachers and students in flipped classrooms and the important technologies. They also provided “the diagram below about the Learning opportunities of the flipped classroom (adapted from Gerstein)” and offer useful links to more information.

• Jon Bergmann: Preparing Your Students for Flipped Learning #flipclass @coolcatteacher “Jon Bergmann talks with Vicki Davis (CoolCatTeacher) about flipped learning by which he means moving direct instruction to the individual space so the classroom space can be freed up for collaborative projects. Listen now to find out more about this pedagogical method.”

• MinecraftEdu Takes Hold in Schools | School Library Journal “With Minecraft, learners of all ages work together to ultimately create a product that has value to them. “The simple interface provides students in the classroom with endless possibilities to demonstrate creativity, think critically, communicate, collaborate, and solve problems.” A Swedish student research study also showed that collaboration in Minecraft provided a more immersive problem-solving experience than group LEGO building.One great benefit of a framework like MinecraftEdu is the community surrounding it. MinecraftEdu offers discounted licenses to schools to get them started, along with a huge community of fellow educators who can help teachers and librarians sustain their programs. Educators from around the world post lesson plans, activities, tutorials, and worksheets for others who want to use their game worlds. They provide step-by-step instructions for teachers who are new to the game.”

• How to Choose Digital Curricula for Blended Learning Infographic – e-Learning Infographics  “Blended learning is the foremost trend in education. While millions of elementary through high school students are participating in blended learning, it is a method, not a goal. The How to Choose Digital Curricula for Blended Learning Infographic provides answers to ten crucial questions educators should ask themselves when selecting digital curricula for Blended Learning:”

• Teaching with Technology | Blended Learning: Week 1 “Blended learning leverages the strengths of online and face-to-face interactions to promote student engagement and help achieve the learning goals of the course. The blended learning course design process focuses on:”

• Book People: James Moloney – Children’s Books Daily… A short piece about James Moloney that includes an interview: “Ten Things You Need to Know About James Moloney” Asked about favourite books, he names “Holes” by Louis Sachar and ‘Goodnight Mr Tom’ by Michelle Magorian and ‘Homecoming’ by Cynthia Voigt.

• Week 4 Essential question: What is the pedagogy behind a Maker Space? What are the benefits of this pedagogy to students? #UAEmergTech | jpboerger “With a Maker Space, you leave behind the theoretical or strictly digital and delve into a tactile hands-on project based learning environment. A physical learning environment is constructed to provide an array of project based learning activities that often require collaboration, critical thinking, and real world problem solving.”

• Transforming the Library Profession | American Libraries Magazine “Today our experienced professionals and new library workers must find their passion around people to build an educated and involved citizenry and ensure digital and economic opportunity for all. Library professionals are the essential element of strong schools, colleges, universities, and public communities.” Good quote: Today’s library is less about what we have for people and more about what we do for (and with) people.”

• 8 Top Tips for Highly Effective PD | Edutopia “Professional development is a vital part of improving your technique as a teacher. Learning best practices and practicing best practices are both important. You can make a school better by improving its teachers. Effective PD can do that”

• 15 Top Resources On Digital Citizenship for 2014 | Edudemic These resources offer practical lessons to help students learn about Digital citizenship and assist them in becoming safe, responsible users .”

• 9 Traits of Good Digital Citizens – Brilliant or Insane “An infographic, from ISTE.org, provides 9 traits of good digital citizens. “

• Hilary Mantel’s Ten Rules for Writing Fiction | Aerogramme Writers’ StudioHilary Mantel’s Ten Rules for Writing Fiction – Aerogramme Writers’ Studio

• Sculpture Books – Fubiz™

• You’re Being Watched Online “Everything you do online is being tracked. Your searches, the videos you watch, transactions, social events, even crime. Scandalous crimes. With a little help, especially with our guides, you’re still able to remain anonymous on the Internet. But understanding how you’re being tracked is an important lesson, as are the little things you can do to maintain your privacy.”

• Writer Creates “Color Thesaurus” To Help You Correctly Name Any Color Imaginable | Bored Panda

  “Ingrid Sundberg, a writer and children’s book illustrator, created a very useful infographic chart for anyone struggling with color names. The writer says that she loves to collect words that can help give her stories variety and depth.”

• 15 Best Google Drive Add-Ons for Education @coolcatteacher “Google Drive has enabled Google Add Ons and there are some that you and your students will want to enable right away. Others may appeal more to professional developers or those who work remotely “

• Let’s Make | A guide for promoting making in libraries “This guide is the result of a collaboration among a group of individuals who were grantees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Libraries initiative. We came together as a voluntary project group to share our research, insights and experiences from Chile, Poland, Ukraine and other countries about the value of making in public libraries. We have compiled this short guide to share our learnings about: the case to support making in libraries; different services libraries can provide to encourage making; lists of equipment, software and other tools you can use to create physical or digital content; tips and ideas on how to implement maker activities; as well as links to other maker spaces, resources, and much more”

• TypeDrawing – Android Apps on Google Play An interesting way to create visuals of text. Students could type a poem or just a line or phrase from a poem or a piece of prose and then draw the words with their finger. You can use your finger to create randomly shaped lines or draw horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines. You can choose from a selection of font styles, sizes, and colors and determine whether or not you want the lines of text to repeat and how much space between the words.

• Book Creator – create and publish ebooks to the iBooks Store or Google Play Store Book Creator is available as an Android and iOS app. Offers a way for students/classes to create their own individual books. Simple to use.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Creating Narrated Slideshows with Google Tools The post discusses using Google Slides and WeVideo as a presentation tool (rather than the ubiquitous PowerPoint). This is a way of sharing the presentation beyond the classroom without having to use some of the more exacting video creation tools. Outlined here is a process (with some tutorials) to make simple narrated slideshows using Google Tools. They can be created using Chromebooks, laptops or even a desktop computer as long as you have a microphone.

• How Librarians are Rockin’ the Makerspace Movement | Educator Innovator “Quiet in libraries is no longer the chief value. Instead, makerspaces are bringing books to life, and the new mantra is, “Innovate, create, collaborate.” Many media specialists still struggle with this transformation from silent reading space to innovative makerspace; with that in mind, I interviewed six women who seamlessly flow from rockin’ librarians to Creative Directors of Making in the same day to ask how they do it.”

• 10 ways to find global connections for your class | Ditch That Textbook A list of ideas about how educators, who are interested in the idea of connecting their classes to other classes or individuals, can approach the task of creating connections. There are many reasons why students benefit from these interactions and this post makes it a little easier to get started.

• Lego just launched a Minecraft competitor on Steam | The Verge “Lego has launched its very own Minecraft-like video game. Called Lego Worlds, the surprise game is available through Steam “early access,” essentially a paid beta program where you can purchase games still in development.”

• Paper Towns | Official Trailer 2 [HD] | 20th Century FOX – YouTube Published on 2 Jun 2015 Paper Towns | Official Trailer 2 : Adapted from the bestselling novel by author John Green (“The Fault in Our Stars”), PAPER TOWNS is a coming-of-age story centering on Quentin and his enigmatic neighbor Margo, who loved mysteries so much she became one.

• 5 Great Free Android Apps for Teachers ” Five good android apps that are available from the Google Play store that can be easily used by teachers, both in and out of the classroom”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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