Current: GBH launches U.S. History Collection as resource for educators. “GBH in Boston is rolling out a new collection of free-to-use digital multimedia resources to help middle and high school educators teach American history. The U.S. History Collection, accessible through PBS LearningMedia, spans pre-colonial history to the present and draws on public television’s extensive archive of documentaries.”
Rice University: See nature like (and with) a biologist in new online courses. “Solomon’s Introduction to Biology is the latest offering from Rice’s Wiess School of Natural Sciences through Rice Online and Coursera. The three-course series allows learners to see nature the way a biologist does, with virtual field trips to help understand and appreciate the incredible diversity of life on Earth.” The class is free to audit but if you want a certificate you’ll have to pay a fee.
The Tech Edvocate: Product Review Of Teachingbooks.net. “TeachingBooks.net is an online book database, assisting educators, parents, and librarians with finding multimedia resources, lesson plans, and links to extend curriculum in the classroom around books. The database features a huge number of fiction and nonfiction books and associated resources, with a heavy focus on materials useful for author studies and introductory lessons as well as supporting the diversification of what books and authors are taught.”
NASA: Explore the Solar System With NASA’s New-and-Improved 3D ‘Eyes’. “NASA has revamped its ‘Eyes on the Solar System’ 3D visualization tool, making interplanetary travel easier and more interactive than ever. More than two years in the making, the update delivers better controls, improved navigation, and a host of new opportunities to learn about our incredible corner of the cosmos – no spacesuit required. All you need is a device with an internet connection.”
Wolfram: Wolfram|Alpha Pro Teaches Step-by-Step Arithmetic for All Grade Levels. “Now, Wolfram|Alpha Pro returns step-by-step solutions for long addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems, including ones involving decimals or negative numbers. We have also developed detailed step-by-step solutions for long division of whole numbers and negative numbers as well as—for the high-school level—multiplication and division of polynomials.”
NASA: New Aeronautics Activities for the Back-to-School Season. “Kids are going back to school across the country – and NASA Aeronautics is here to help educators engage them with educational Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) activities related to our flight research. Part of NASA’s agency-wide Back to School campaign for the 2022-2023 school year, this updated aeronautics-focused STEM engagement portfolio includes topics that span the breadth of the agency’s work in aeronautics for students of all ages.”
KnowTechie: Duolingo will now teach you elementary-level math. “Duolingo is expected to launch its flagship math (or maths, depending on what side of the Atlantic you live on) course today. Duolingo Math is a dedicated app for iOS and iPadOS. It re-uses the company’s gamification mechanics to teach third-grade maths.”
The Canadian Encyclopedia: How to Make an Oral History Podcast. “This toolkit has been created to help you through the steps of creating an oral history podcast: how to conduct research, how to interview subjects, and how to incorporate an interview into a script that tells a story. It introduces activities, in-person or virtual, that guide students in planning their own podcast episodes.” A 12-page resource presented as a digital booklet. Looks like it would be useful for teachers, but also for genealogists; it provides lots of ideas about interviewing people for their oral histories.
Larry Ferlazzo: Kapwing Just Made Their “Pro” Plan Free For Educators And Students. “Kapwing, a cool multimedia tool that includes video-editing features and easy ways to produce memes, just announced that their ‘Pro’ plan would now be free to educators and students.”
New-to-me, from NOAA: Back to school: Find NOAA resources with our new online database . “With a new school year just around the corner, teachers and educators are gearing up to create lesson plans and find engaging activities for their students. We have a tool to make it easier than ever to include NOAA resources in your classroom: NOAA Sea to Sky, a new education resource database that houses over 1,200 educational resources created by NOAA and our partners.”
Newswise: New Course Helps Awaken Curiosity About Nature. “Adults who want to connect kids with nature now have some expert guidance, thanks to a new online course from Bird Academy, the e-learning arm of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. ‘Let’s Go Outside: How to Connect Kids with Birds and Nature,’ contains six lessons with dozens of field-tested activities to reduce screen time for kids and boost their curiosity about the natural world.”
New-to-me, from University of Wisconsin-Madison: Great Lakes shipwreck game from UW–Madison wins gold in international competition. “The free game invites young students to ‘step into the shoes of Jules,’ a maritime archaeologist character working to recover the stories behind shipwrecks inspired by real Great Lakes history.”
Also New-to-me, from Penn State: Mont Alto professor creates open educational resources textbook online. “Called the Mechanics Map Digital Textbook, [Professor Jacob] Moore’s site contains written explanations, video lectures, worked examples and homework problems. The licensed materials are free for online visitors to use, share or rework. They include a table of contents with links to all the available topics, plus information for those who want to learn more about the project in general.”
Larry Ferlazzo: New Resources On Race & Racism. “I’m adding these new resources to various ‘Best’ lists. You can find links to all of those many lists that relate to race and racism at ‘Best’ Lists Of The Week: Resources For Teaching & Learning About Race & Racism.”
The Olive Press: Giant database for learning Spanish created by researchers at University of Granada. “THE world’s largest database for learning Spanish as a second language has been created by researchers at the University of Granada. The Granada-based team has also created a free web application called ´CEDEL2´ that responds to international research and teaching needs of Spanish.”
