Free Webinar On Scratch… A Free Program From MIT… Imagine, Program, Share!

Are you  itching for ways to engage and empower students and their inherent creativity? Scratch will bring instant relief to a classroom of kids  ready to collaborate, innovate, and create! Please join me as I present some Scratch Basics while informing educators how to get students Scratching across the curriculum! This Scratch Webinar sponsored by the awesome people at the  Siemens Stem Academy and the Discovery Education Network is bound to create a rash of enthusiasm. I also wish to thank in advance both Steve Dembo and Hall Davidson, two of the very best, for the moderation they will be providing. The date and time is Tuesday, November 30 at 7:00 PM EST! Please join me, and while you are at it, subscribe to this 21centuryedtech Blog by either RSS or email. You can also check out my 21centuryedtech Wiki or follow me on Twitter. Most of all, please register for this free Scratch Webinar and join me for a journey into 21 Century Learning! Have a great week! – Mike

When was the last time you got a good smell of a Crayola Crayon? It really doesn’t matter the color! Just the scent will turn on the imaginative juices possibly lost since Kindergarten!  Or perhaps you remember the hours you spent with Tinker Toys. An adventure filled with a constant flow of  unchecked time  building, tweaking, and tinkering!  Then there was the Easy Bake Oven. A true childhood dream of combining, remixing, and creating. The brilliant inventors at MIT’s Life long Kindergarten Group have found a way to repackage, reinvent, and integrate these same concepts and come up with an ingenious package called Scratch. It is a mix of on-line experiences,  computer programing, animation, game creation, multi media, fine arts, science, social studies, language arts, math, and collaboration. Join me in this Scratch Webinar to discover why Scratch is a must for every 21st Century classroom!

Do you want to build a game? Scratch can do it. Do you want to create a work of art. Count on Scratch to allow you to fit together the Master Pieces! Do you want to discover mathematic? You can count on Scratch to make sense out of numbers and number theory. Do you want to tell a story? Scratch can do that with pictures, sounds, and movement! Do you wish to experience sound and music? Scratch will carry quite a tune!  There is simplicity for elementary, challenges for middle school, and complexity for the older students. Educators can help students Scratch their way through any level and curriculum.

Perhaps your school is fascinated by STEM, or intent on pulling in the fine arts by creating STEAM! Possibly your classroom is venturing into the world of Project and Problem Based Learning. It may be the 21st Century Skills that you are building with students each day. Scratch can be used as a tool to promote all of these awesome  avenues that promote student centered high level learning!

This really is a must attend webinar where you will learn…

1. Scratch basics

2. Why you must incorporate Scratch

3. How to get the free program and more

4. How to get students started

5. How to get students far ahead of you

6. Opportunities in every curriculum at all levels

7. Ways to promote 21st Century Skills

8. Methods to promote community and on-line collaboration

9. The art of creating, remixing, and innovating

10. Ways to explore resources at MIT and beyond

You will discover how to get students a basic beginning and later get them involved in animation, drawing, interactive art, games, math, music, simulations, and even a possible contest. You will view student creations while listening to their experiences. Most of all this webinar will introduce you to a vast amount of resources and ideas to send you and your students on a quest that will allow them to imagine, program, and share! I will even show you ways to bring Scratch outside of the computer’s environment allowing interaction in awesome, inspiring, and relevant ways!   While this webinar will only “Scratch” the surface, it will provide the foundation to incorporate Scratch into your curriculum and get students excited about STEM education and opportunities.

Please send and retweet  this post to educators across the internet and share with other colleagues in your building! When you sign up for the Scratch Webinar, be sure to also subscribe to this Blog. Be on the look out for my up-coming post  bringing you links to resources uncovered in the Scratch Webinar. In fact, that is just one more reason to turn on the RSS feed or email subscription to my 21centuryedtech Blog. You will also find information and resources at my 21centuryedtech Wiki and I hope you are itching to follow me on Twitter at mjgormans!  Again, please join tthe educators that will participate in this free Scratch Webinar from Siemens, Discovery Education, and yours truly! I look forward to sharing and learning from you! I am also excited to view your comments, replies, and back channel chat on Tuesday, November 30 at 7:00 PM EST! As always, thanks for stopping by and keep progressing, as you continue to transform your classroom for the 21st Century! – Mike

Free Resources… Integrate The Arts In Every K12 Subject Area

Welcome to the seventh in a series of summer posts dedicated to bringing you the biggest collections of national and international resources you will find anywhere. Summer is a  perfect time to examine what you just might want to include in next year’s lesson plans that will engage your students. I plan to share resources that will cover all the curricular areas. Each article will give an in-depth and informative visit to one of these sites. Make sure you bookmark, copy, RSS, subscribe by email and visit my 21centuryedtech Wiki! You will want to share! If it is not summer where you are, then you can jump right in and facilitate learning with some new material  tomorrow. I will announce each post on twitter at (mjgormans) so be sure to follow. – Mike

What could all teachers find on a site devoted to integrating the fine arts? The answer, new lessons to engage students while facilitating Project Based Learning, STEM activities, and 21st Century skill acquisition. ArtsEdge is an amazing site that contains science activities such as, How Many Cells are Born in a Day? and Acoustical Science, plus Language Arts activities with titles like Comparing and Contrasting Fables and Characterization in Literature. Physical Education teachers may want to try Street Games while math teachers have their students discover Melodies & Math: Telephone Improvisations.   With ArtsEdge you won’t forget to put the A in STEM in order to STEAM it in to full power! Language Arts teachers will bring out student creativity through amazing projects, while social studies teachers can make history come alive.  This is an all encompassing resource from the Kennedy Art Center! ArtsEdge, the National Arts and Education Network, has a mission to place the Arts  at the center of the curriculum and further, advocates creative use of technology to enhance the K-12 educational experience. Artsedge claims that it “empowers educators to teach in, through, and about the arts by providing the tools to develop interdisciplinary curricula that fully integrate the arts with other academic subjects.” These are the neccessary ingredients to qualify as an outstanding resource for any 21st Century Classroom intent on student centered learning.

Artsedge offers free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, as well as professional development resources, student materials, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment.Check out a powerful searchable data base of lessons, standards, weblinks , and how-to’s. All of  this content is searchable by art curriculum, other core curricular content, and grade bands. The lessons under the Art Curriculum include Dance, Music, Theater, and Visual Arts. The Other Subjects include Foreign Language, Language Arts, Math, Physical Education, Science,  Social Studies, and Technology. I invite you to click on your content area in the preceding sentence and guarantee you will be amazed at the creativity found in the lessons. Lessons are also searchable under grade bands that  include elementary, middle, and high school. All lessons are linked to the Arts Standards. Educators must also investigate the over 200 web links of resources divided into the categories of Instructional, Multi-media, and Research. There is also an amazing collection of Teacher How-To’s including such content as Classical Music across the Curriculum, Coaching Youth Storytellers, The Language of Photography, and Filmmaking: Creating and Organizing the Story.

There is an area of Artsedge that allows educators to Connect with Articles/Reports that give valuable information about Arts Education. The Contacts Section can put teachers in contact and provide resources covering over 60 Art related organizations. Advocacy Essentials gives talking points articles on Art promotion for education. A third area allows educators to Explore Artsedge. From here close to fifty activies are available including such titles as, Abraham Lincoln and Music, Corridos, Art/Space, and Art of the Explosion. You may want your students to check out Art Days in history, meet the Artist,  or discover over 250 Art Quotes from various people. There is a small, but growing collection of podcast also available. Be sure to take a look at the Spotlight area and the section entitled Looking Back. Here you will find a collection of their most requested lessons, resources, and activities. Artsedge  is truly a site devoted to Art appreciation and integration and will make all curricular areas  rich in purpose, meaning, and ready to engage your 21st century students.

Thus, my focus, to share with you vast resources such as ARTSedge this summer! Take some time to investigate and possibly implement in the school year,  or tomorrow! I will continue to bring thought, reflection, and amazing web apps along with this summer series. Please share with others, visit the21centuryedtech Wiki, follow on me twitter (mjgormans), and subscribe to this blog by RSS or email . If you have resources that you feel need to be included please leave a reply!  Enjoy, relax, play, and smile…. also take a moment to transform education toward 21st Century Learning! – Mike

Pondering Podcasts? : Free First Class PD Videos On Podcasting!

Another mid week blog highlighting some of the best of the web. This week I focus on a fantastic site put out by Learning and Teaching Scotland. Learning and Teaching Scotland is sponsored by the Scottish Government and emphasizes information, guidance, and resources to promote learning in Scotland. While I have not explored the entire site, there is a portion at this site on Podcasts. It is certain to be an asset to any educator interested in producing their own podcats or engaging students by assisting them in producing their own podcasts. As always thanks for stopping by, please feel free to comment, and join me at my 21centuryedtech Wiki  filled with resources. You can follow me on twitter at @mjgormans, I will be sure to follow you back and we can learn from each other! – Mike 

How about a site that has 15 podcasts devoted to teaching teachers how to podcast? Or, how about over two hours of free professional development broken into 15 segments guaranteed to assist teachers towards integrating podcasts in the curriculum? Better yet , how about  podcasts that can be streamed to a computer or downloaded as quicktime movies in two different file sizes. It should also be mentioned that these tutorials are filled with outstanding  information, colorful graphics, and a mix of enjoyable music with wonderful narration. If this all sounds interesting then it is time for you to check out Podcasting from About Learning and Teaching in Scotland. While the series is designed for using podcasts in the modern foriegn languge classroom, most tutorials cover podcasting in general. The few geared toward foriegn language could make a case for adaptation in any subject area. Explore topics in five different series, many with multiple podcasts. Series one includes Why Podcast?, while series two includes reasons for students, teachers, curriculum, and classrooms to use podcasts. Series three provides ideas for podcasts intyegrated for a  foriegn language emphasis. In the fourth series, six different podcasts introduce teachers to equipment needed, Audacity as a pod production tool, integration with  a blog (Typepad), and the use of Podomatic to host and produce a podcast. Last, series five has three videos dedicated to producing podcasts with out a computer, pod safe music sounds, Voicethread (always use the educational servce), and Voki  (make avitars speak on a vodcast). Stop pondering and take a virtual trip to Scotland in order to perpetuate the use of podcasts in 21st century education.

Thanks for stopping by my 21centuryedtech Blog once. Please return or subscribe to an RSS feed. Remember to follow me on twitter at @mjgormans, I will be sure to follow you back and we can learn from each other! – Mike (mgorman@sacs.k12.in.us)

 

Free Math Video Game & Curriculum From MIT: Engages Students And Facilitates 21st Century Learning!

A great MIT math game for middle school students incorporating problem solving, higher order thinking skills, national standards, and 21st century skills is available for free!  Includes lesson plans, graphic organizers, a library of material, evaluation strategies, and a  teacher administrative tool set. You have just entered the world of Lure of the Labyrinth, one of my web catches of the week!  While it has been around for a few years, it deserves mention every so often. For more great resources visit my 21centuryedtech Wiki – Mike  email (mgorman@sacs.k12.in.us) Twitter @mjgormans

MIT has created another great learning experience, this time for middle school pre-algebra and algebra students. This is not the typical game that involves solving math problems with the reward of playing a game as a reward in the end.  Lure of the Labyrinth isn’t that kind of game. In fact, teachers and students report that math is one of the most fun parts of this game that incorporates a style found in popular graphic novels. It is embedded in a strong story line that engages students in a far off world where they must stop the  monsters from dominating the world.  This is accomplished by solving puzzles through the use of logic and the understanding of  number relationships. The mathematics embedded in Lure of the Labyrinth is the central part of any pre-algebra curriculum, and is based on key standards that guide national and state mathematics curriculum. Lure of the Labyrinth’s exploration of number relationships is complex, intriguing, and it is accessible to all mathematical thinkers. Take a moment to read more about all of the math, scientific method, problem solving,  and hypothesizing found in this unique game.
There are two basic ways that teachers can use Lure of the Labyrinth. Students can play it as a full-fledged game or they can  play its puzzles as separate, standalone activities that compliment specific math lessons. There is a large resource area available for teachers that cover standards, sixteen different lesson plans, and graphic organizers that can be used with each lesson.  The game also allows for student cooperation and collaboration while giving teachers an administrative tool to monitor online activity and student progress. The graphics are fun and the story line is interesting! Take a moment to view various video segments produced for professional development of Maryland teachers  involving  game play, testimonials, and planning! Be sure to read this complete page written for educators and be sure to listen to the audio by Scott Osterweil  who is Creative Director at the Education Arcade at MIT . In fact, the MIT link will bring you several other games for education that I will include in future write ups. More research is supporting the use of games to faciltate  this generation of digital natives in their aquisition of  those all important 21st century skills!

Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to send on any comments or replies and catch all updates on both sites at twitter – Mike