Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

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

Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

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

Sites From Today's Surfing! (weekly)

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

Discovery Education Science TechBook

Current information from Discovery Channel and other places put into the Techbook content right away.

Streamlined pathway to address NCSCOS

Built around the 5E's model!

PD - Related to the needs and tools in your county
Silver Springs, MD - Discovery World Headquarters for training
Once a month streamed PD and Newsletter

When you login to Techbook through your Discovery Streaming account (new tab at top (Science Techbook)

Each lesson includes objectives, key questions, and list of vocabulary
5 E's - each section includes live links to the resources you need so you don't have to search.

Includes a 5 minute "teacher prep" video to give teacher information they may need to help teach the unit.

Quick links with each lesson - concept review, hands-on activities, student assignments, materials list

Science notebooks - right side = teacher input; left side = student output

Provides reading passages - ie. "Getting to know" documents (on grade level)
Provides more authentic article-type passages at 3 levels (above, at and below)
Provides e-books that have the read aloud function

Interactive Glossary - tabs for visual animation with text, written definition, video, and image

Virtual Labs that they can compare with the Hands On lab

Content is also in Spanish with translation tools to help with vocabulary

Student Center gives kids access 24/7

Virtual assessments that are graded for you for each topic. Assessments tied to concepts or standards, you can also add your own. Teacher gets students' scores in chart. Can look at each individual student's assessment broken down by concept. Those concepts the student didn't do well on, it gives you a list of resources for reteaching. Gives the teacher proficiency graphs for topics so you can easily pre and post test.
Under Builder Tools - Assessment Manager

Teacher Center - Process Skills Library (contains all virtual labs, hands-on labs, hands on activities, science sleuths, and mythbusters. Contains "student peer review sheet" Kids complete it as they watch the video to evaluate the scientific process Adam and Jamie used to conduct the experiment.

North America (to follow Life and Earth) coming in Spring 2012.

Full replacement for the textbook adoption. Can be purchased with textbook funds. Elementary for 6 years - $38/student (for all 6 years) Middle School - $40/student. One time purchase gets all updates put out over the 6 years. Training is included with the 6 year purchase. School or district purchase.

Geocaching 101

NCSTA 2011 Conference
Mark Case, Southern Guilford High

Gets kids interested with technology they are already using.

Worldwide game of hide and seek! http://www.geocaching.com/

What do students learn?
1. navigation
2. elevation
3. how soil affects what grows; drainage
4. how to understand legends and scale
5. environmental stewardship: cache in - trash out
6. high level thinking: research, reading, and understanding
7. provides physical activity (brain-smart!)

Idea: Put 6 clipboards around campus with questions and place for kids to sign their names (no credit if they don't sign). Each clipboard has the coordinates to the next clipboard.

LINGO
1. Traditional cache -log sheet and treasure hidden (log sheet, container with small items, etc.)
2. Multi-cache - involves two or more locations to record the cache
3. Mystery/Puzzle cache - requires solving a problem to get credit for the find.
4. Letterbox - use GPS coordinates to get to the starting point and use clues to solve the puzzle. http://www.letterboxing.org/
5. Event cache - a gathering of people involved in geocaching (ie. geocachers' flashmob)
6. CITO - Cache in Trash Out - events when geocachers clean out caches
7. Earth Cache - an earth science based cache
8. take something, leave something
9. leave the location better than you found it

GPS devices (Magellan, iPod touch, smart phones, anything that has a GPS chip in it) **Geomate Junior - http://www.mygeomate.com/

IDEA - Give kids list of coordinates and clue (ie. inside stump)

Questions for the kids:
How does the terrain affect your route to the location?
What happens to the elevation as you move around the school grounds?
Where is the highest elevation?
Where is the lowest elevation on campus?
What was the farthest point west/north?
What relationship did the elevation on the GPS have with the lines on the topographic map?

IDEA: Allows his students to sign a contract and sign out a GPS device. They have to fulfill a list of geocaching activities and he replaces their lowest test grade with a 100.

Waymarking - http://www.waymarking.com/

Werigo - Games, stories, challenging next step to geocaching - http://www.wherigo.com/ GPS adventures in the real world!