Force & Motion Apps

Roller Coaster Builder

This free app serves as a great review of the basic concepts of force and motion.Students must have a knowledge of these concepts to solve the problem presented of getting your rollercoaster from one side to the other. Optimized for iPhone & iTouch, but will work on iPad as well. View in Itunes Store

6th Grade TEKS 6.8A,B,C,D,E
7th Grade TEKS 7.7A
8th Grade TEKS 8.6A, B,C



Touch Physics

This is a highly awarded app that teaches students about the basic laws of motion. A new iPad version was released in August 2010 and features real physics modeling. iPod Touch and iPhone versions are also available. Have your students draw shapes with a crayon that come to life. These shapes interact with the wheel according to physical laws. An extension idea is to have your students design their own level and to illustrate how they would go about solving it by using various types of simple machines such as levers, inclined planes, etc.

6th Grade TEKS 6.8A,B,C,D,E
7th Grade TEKS 7.7A
8th Grade TEKS 8.6A, B,C

Earth & Space

Google Earth & Google Sky

This is a free app available for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Explore
the worldʼs oceans, biomes, track migration of whales, or examine the
features of the ocean floor. Google Earth layers allows students to use
images and links to study volcanoes or tectonics movement of
earthquakes. Version 4.2 now recognizes the Google Sky plug-in that will
allow you to teach your students about astronomy while using real images
from the Hubble Telescope. Layers include Planets, Galaxies, Stars and
Stargazing.
6th Grade TEKS 6.10A,C,D, 6.11A,B
7th Grade TEKS 7.8A,B,C, 7.9A,B
8th Grade TEKS 8.7A,B,C, 8.8A, 8.9B, 8.9C, 8.10C


Nasa HD

This is a free app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Students can instantly gather information, photos and video feed from the latest Nasa missions and the astronomy picture of the day. Have students visit the stars or visit the moon.

6th Grade TEKS 6.11A, B, C
7th Grade TEKS 7.9A, B
8th Grade TEKS 8.7A,B,C, 8.8A,B,C.D,E, 8.10A

Planets

I believe Planets is one of the best apps available for educators and its free! Students can view the solar systems and constellations in 2D or 3D and quickly find information on the planets and moons. Available in iPad, iPhone & iTouch versions.

6th Grade TEKS 6.11A, B, C
7th Grade TEKS 7.9A, B
8th Grade TEKS 8.7A,B,C, 8.8A,B,C.D,E, 8.10A





iPODS in the Classroom

Willing to become lifelong learners

I ran across this statement awhile back on a blog maintained by Karl Fisch.

"If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to
make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago
who didn't know how to read and write."

Wow. My first instinct was maybe a bit of an extreme statement. But as I continue to think on this I believe it is so true. Especially the "unwilling to learn" part of the statement. This is the key for me. Educators should by nature be lifelong learners. We expect our students to continually evolve as leaners so why shouldn't we? Teachers who refuse to learn technology and how it can impact their students are cheating their students. Period. Not that we should all be technology experts. That is not feasible for anyone. But teachers need to willing to learn how to teach today's students utilizing technology as another tool in their bag. I believe the majority of teachers are starting to understand that today's learners are different. I applaud their willingness to learn, change, adapt. I can only imagine where I would be today if my former teachers didn't know how to read and write!

Powered down students

I am most intrigued by the thougth of students "powering down" to come to school. This should truly cause educators to take a long hard look at how we are teaching today's students. My own children, ages 8, 6, and 4 are all intuitive digital learners. Hand them an ipod and they can find anything quickly without your help. Leave your iphone unattended and watch out. Avatars, downloading, digital cameras and video are all standard to my own young learners. Students today are capable of high levels of work utilizing every technology that is available to them. They can be great facilitors of technology knowledge to teachers if only allowed to do so. We must change the mindset of how we use to teach. The industrial age students are long gone. In fact they have been transformed themselves into digital immigrants. Let's Power UP!!

Using Blogs in Teaching and Learning

Capitalizing on emerging technologies: a case study of classroom blogging
Summarized by Melissa Motes

Educators are beginning to discover the power of blogging as an education tool with our media literate students. This case study involved a high school math teacher and his students as they used blogging in their classroom. This study's findings support the concept of using blogs as a teaching tool.

This case study explores the focus of a high school calculus blog to provide a snapshot of ways support learning through blogging in math and science classrooms. The problem as stated by the authors is as follows : "How does one high school mathematics teacher, Mr. K., capitalize on blogging to enhance classroom-based instruction?" The authors focused on teacher intent, classroom use and perceived value to the students.

Mr. K had each one of his students take turns at being classroom scribes that recorded what happened in class each day. Students posted class notes, example problems and highlights of class discussions. They also reminded each other of possible pitfalls in problems. The student
scribe would also post the assigned scribe for the next day. This was a fun way of making sure all students checked the blog daily. Mr. K also had students blog reflections on their learning in each unit before taking a test. Posting a game or problem on Sunday nights was another practice by this teacher. Mr. K had students post to a del.icio.us accounts to keep up with relevant resources for the course and linked these to the classroom blog to allow students quick access to resources if they needed them. Students commented in post study interviews their learning was clearly being supported by the classmates' posts to the blog.

I found this study quite interesting. I believe the this was a very thorough case study that provides a great example of a learner-centered classroom. Students were the authors and thus took responsibility for their own learning. I absolutely love the idea of a daily classroom scribe entering a blog. I would also like to see teachers use the blog similarly to this study in posting reflections. This allows students to again take ownership of their learning. I would also build upon the idea of the blog as an enrichment tool to post additional resources not given in class time. I have long believed that peer review is one of the greatest motivators for students as opposed to turning in work for the teachers eyes only. Blogging accomplishes this perfectly and allows students and teachers to build relationships as described in by the author. Another way that I would instruct teachers in blogging as a classroom tool would be to design activities that create interactions with other students' posts. I have been guilty of posting isolated assignment post that only require the user to answer my discusion question. I would use blogs in every subject area similiar to Mr. K in this study. So often I am asked how do you blog math. This is a prime example. A slightly different situation that I would apply some of these strategies mentioned in the study would be to have teachers blog highlights of professional development sessions. Every teacher that posts gets entered into a drawing for a small prize to be delivered to your mailbox post training. Everyone wants to win, that is the nature of human beings.

I feel that this teacher did an outstanding job of using blogs a tool to extend the learning in his classroom. The examples provided will be an invaluable resource to me as I work with faculty members this school year in the area of classroom blogging as a teaching tool.

Capitalizing on emerging technologies: a case study of classroom blogging.(Case study)Publication: School Science and MathematicsPublication Date: 01-MAY-08Author: MacBride, Robyn ; Luehmann, April Lynn

Educational Blogs

http://techchicktips.net/ A great blog hosted by two texas teachers, Anna and Helen. This site focuses on instructional technology in the classroom and is loaded with information. I have heard these teachers in numerous presentations and appreciate the fact that they share their information, handouts, presentations, etc on this blog. They also have a wiki, http://techchicktips.pbworks.com/ that is great! This site is relevant to my career as a Technology Curriculum Coach because I am always looking for new material and insight into how they can impact instruction for teachers and students. One lesson that this blog teaches concerning blogging is that you can have lots of other formats on a blogging page besides your posts. For example wikis, pod casts, links to articles, etc.

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/ A weblog hosted by renowned instructional technology guru Wesley Fryer. Written for K-12 educators, this blog is overflowing with relevant, fresh information in the field of educational technology. Mr. Fryer posts his handouts as well as numerous links and embedded videos. Although I had heard of delicious, this blog shares the authors delicious links and was most helpful. This site is relevant for me also as a resources for teachers and students