How about learning chemical symbols while helping to end world hunger? Need to brush up on your favorite classic painters? Improve your vocabulary? You can do all these things on Free Rice, a site run by the United Nations World Food Bank.
You select a topic area and the degree of […]

Missed the webinar presentation on middle school math and science resources? You can watch the archive
In partnership with the National Middle School Association (NMSA), this presentation highlighted resources and strategies for finding quality resources and connecting to other middle school educators through the NSDL Middle School Portal for Math and Science.
The […]

Educational podcasts allow educators an easy way to keep current on research and materials to use in their teaching. The podcast series developed for Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears has teaching tips, interviews with scientists, and other ideas for bringing polar science into the classroom.
Check out this month’s podcast, The Lowdown […]

The recent ACT Report, The Forgotten Middle, states that “fewer than two in ten eighth graders are on target to be ready for college-level work by the time they graduate from high school.”
Such statements speak to the need for greater attention to middle school students and support for teachers of these grades. For our […]

Will Richardson, author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms and his popular blog recently presented at the National Middle School Association conference in Denver. The session was packed with information and thought-provoking ideas, some of which I have captured here:
Our ability to form groups through the use of […]

An image from “Candles at Halloween–Periodic Table of Videos.”
Have you ever wondered what was happening in the burning flame of a candle? The University of Nottingham invites viewers to find out in a seasonal video that details the chemistry of candles here–just in time for Halloween!
The University of Nottingham hosts a series of 118 videos that […]

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is a free, online magazine dedicated to integrating science and literacy! With the polar regions as a context, each issue of the magazine contains professional development articles, lesson plans, downloadable assessment probes and nonfiction stories for students, stories of polar researchers, and much more.
The magazine is aimed at K-5 educators, […]

In the past year, a greater interest in online learning has brought forth a flurry of discussion on what schools should offer their students and teachers in terms of training and course development suited for an online medium. The 2007 Speak Up Survey conducted by Project Tomorrow polled students, teachers, parents, and school leaders […]