Teaching & Learning with Technology

“Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.”

“Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.”

Check out Scratch here:  http://scratch.mit.edu/

For ideas on how to use Scratch in the classroom, the getting-started guide, and demo video clips: http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Educators

“Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, cite, and share your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself.” Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies using Microsoft Word. History and English teachers are LOVING this tool.

To read more and view a demo video clip: http://www.zotero.org/

Zotero quickstart guide: http://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide

(Click on the picture above to see a bigger version)

Poll Everywhere is a simple text message voting application that works well for live audiences. People vote by sending text messages to options displayed on-screen. The poll that is embedded within the PowerPoint presentation or web page will update in real time. Advanced uses include texting comments to a presentation, texting questions to a presenter, web voting, and SMS interactivity in print, radio, and TV. To read more about it and check out a demo video clip, check out:  http://www.polleverywhere.com/