Teaching ideas - from a physics teacher

For more information about how people learn, I highly recommend two great FREE online books from the National Academies Press:

• How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School
• How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom .

If you are a physics teacher, be sure to get these discipline specific books about how students learn physics:

• Teaching Introductory Physics (Arons)
• 5 Easy Lessons (Knight — who also wrote calc-based and algebra-basedphysics texts)
• Teaching Physics with the Physics Suite (Redish, FREE online)

And just in case you think I’m an armchair critic with nothing to contribute, I want you to know I’ve opened up my classroom to the whole world on myNoschese 180 blog, where I’ve been sharing a picture and a reflection from each school day.

Wisdom Begins with Wonder - and other blogs about science teaching

SCIENCE TEACHING BLOGS

• Adventures with the Lower Level
• Large Q Quality
• Science Education on the Edge
• Science Teacher
• Shifting Phases
• Teaching as a Dynamic Activity
• TEACHING|chemistry
• What It's Like on the Inside
• Wisdom Begins with Wonder

Free Technology for Teachers: Google Tutorials

Free Technology for Teachers: Google Tutorials: "Google Tutorials

Google Tutorials

This page contains some  tutorials for using Google tools.  Thanks Richard.


Google for Teachers


Google for Teachers II -


Google Earth Across the Curriculum -

Create and Publish a Quiz in Google Docs
Below I've embedded a slideshow with directions for creating and embedding quizzes using Google Forms, but here are a few points that should be emphasized.

1. Make sure the first question is "student name." Otherwise you won't know who submitted which answers.
2. You can mix question types (multiple choice, short answer, paragraph) but if you have too many types and too many students, the spreadsheet can become difficult to navigate.
3. When embedding the form into a blog, make sure you edit the width to fit within your blog's main column. You can use the same principles of editing the size of a YouTube video for editing the width of a spreadsheet.

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Breathe New Life Into Your PowerPoint Slides With Dozens Of Exciting Free Tools & Resources

Breathe New Life Into Your PowerPoint Slides With Dozens Of Exciting Free Tools & Resources

This is a great set of ideas for anyone wanting to look sharp using powerpoint.

Imagezs

This advanced set of templates contains two dozen striking animations and step-by-step instructions on how to recreate each of them with your own pictures and text

Slideshare Presentations Plus Audio
SlideShare is a popular free tool that lets you upload your PowerPoint decks and run them across the web. This SlideShare presentation explains how you can add audio to a SlideShare deck using the free applicationAudacity.

Check out Presentation Magazine for tons of tips, tricks, and templates: http://www.presentationmagazine.com/
This online magazine has lots of great resources focused on improving your PowerPoint presentations, such as:

• A whole section of articles devoted to enhancing your PowerPoint presentations
• Tips to give your PowerPoint presentation the ‘wow factor’
• Plenty of articles focused specifically on PowerPoint 2010
• Hundreds of free PowerPoint templates

Free Productivity Resources for Educators | Emerging Education Technology

Free Productivity Resources for Educators | Emerging Education Technology:

RESOURCES DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR EDUCATORS

Activity & Materials Creators

• Awards Certificates:www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#awardCertificates
• Bookmarks and Book Plates:www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#book
• Calendars & Classroom Organizers:www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#book
• Flash Cards – Create Your Own at StudyStack (have to register):www.studystack.com/CreateStack.jsp
• Flash Card Exchange (register for adv. functions):www.flashcardexchange.com
• Form filler (have to register): www.fillanypdf.com
• Holiday & Seasonal Worksheets:www.abcteach.com/directory/seasonal/
• Puzzle Maker (lots of types – word search, math squares, mazes, much more!): puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com
• Word Search Puzzles (lots of them): www.thepotters.com/puzzles.html
• Worksheets (lots of preformatted worksheets):www.superteacherworksheets.com

Communications Tools (Print & Electronic)

• EducationWorld Newsletters & Parent Communications: www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#newsletters
• TeacherFiles: www.teacherfiles.com/resources_newsletters.htm

Course Management Systems & LMS alternatives
(You have to register to use these tools, so you can save your own personalized content. Note that these tools are generally more involved than many of the other resources on this page. Some of them offer both paid and free functionality)

• Blackboard’s “CourseSites”:coursesites.blackboard.com/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp
• EctoLearning: www.ectolearning.com
• MyiCourse: www.myicourse.com
• rCampus:www.rcampus.com/help/about/course_and_learning_management_system.cfm
• Schoology: www.schoology.com
• SchoolRack: www.schoolrack.com

Clipart

• DiscoveryEducation: school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart
• School-Clipart: www.school-clipart.com
• TeacherFiles: www.teacherfiles.com/clip_art.htm

Educational Videos

• A Dozen Free Online Video Lecture Sites:www.emergingedtech.com/2010/02/a-dozen-great-free-online-video-lecture-sites
• Watchknow: www.watchknow.org

Interactives (for White Boards, or Powerpoint)

• 4 Free Digital Whiteboard Apps for the iPad
• ABCTeach: www.abcteach.com/directory/interactive
• Promethean Plant (have to register): www.prometheanplanet.com
• SMART Exchange: exchange.smarttech.com
• TopMarks: www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx

iPhone, iPad, and Android Apps

• 100 free iPhone Apps for Educators
• Free iPad Apps for Educators (and Parents)
• Attendance (for Android)
• Grade Book (for Android)
• Grade Rubric (for Android)
• Grade Ticker (for Android)

Lesson Plans

• AtoZ Teacher Stuff: atozteacherstuff.com/Lesson_Plans/index.shtml
• Discovery Education: school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans
• LessonPlansPage: www.lessonplanspage.com
• Scholastic: www2.scholastic.com/browse/lessonplans.jsp
• Teacher.net: teachers.net/lessons

Open Educational Resources

• OER Consortium: oerconsortium.org
• OER Commons: www.oercommons.org

Quizzes & Tests
(These types of sites require sign up)

• Easy Test Maker: www.easytestmaker.com
• Quizstar: quizstar.4teachers.org/indexi.jsp

Rubrics

• 4TEachers: rubistar.4teachers.org
• Rubrics4Teachers: www.rubrics4teachers.com
• iRubrics: www.rcampus.com/indexrubric.cfm

Social Learning & Collaboration

• Edmodo: www.edmodo.com
• Edutopia: www.edutopia.org
• Room21: room21online.com
• TakingITGlobal: www.tigweb.org
• The Schools United: www.theschoolsunited.com

OTHER/Miscellaneous

• EmergingEdTech’s 2011 Free Education Technology Resources eBook
• Google Apps for Education
• Microsoft Live@EDU
• OnlineCollegeClasses.com: Searching for online courses
• FreeTech4Teachers (Richard Byrne’s excellent blog, with lots of free resources that featured daily).
• The Definitive Source for Information About IT Issues Effecting Higher Education

GENERAL RESOURCES (not intended just for educators)

Animation

• GoAnimate
• Voki

Blogging

• Blogger
• Edublogs
• WordPress

Document Management

• Google Docs
• Zoho

File Management

• Dropbox

Group Projects

• EnterTheGroup

Literature Summary/Analysis

• CliffNotes
• SparkNotes

Mind Mapping

• Bubbl.us

Online Interactive White Boards

• 4 Free Digital Whiteboard Apps for the iPad
• Dabbleboard
• ImaginationCubed
• Scribblar

Picture, Photo, & Image Editing & Organizing

• Aviary
• FotoFlexer
• Photofunia
• Picasa
• Pixenate

PowerPoint

• Watch this video to learn about creating your own Custom Animations, and learn about many other free resources.
• This tutorial from Online Tech Tips explains how to create slide transition automations using easy pre-configured tools in PowerPoint.
• Click here to access a preconfigured search of Microsoft’s Office Site, set up to return dozens of articles with hundreds of free templates for PowerPoint.
• PresentationMagazine.com provides tons of tips, articles, PowerPoint templates, and more

Screencasting & Presentations

• Fotobabble
• Glogster
• Jing
• OneTrueMedia
• Prezi
• Screenpresso
• Screenr
• Screencast-O-matic
• Slideshare
• ZohoShow
• Voki

Other/Miscellaneous

• Random.org (a true random number generator that some teachers have said they find useful).
• Read it Later

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