Instructional Technology Links for October

Periodically, I share links for teachers to strengthen Digital Age instruction. These Instructional Technology Links, ITL, appear below with short explanations.

General Education
A Collection of Growth Mindset Videos
Curated by the great Larry Ferlazzo, this collection of Mindset videos are based on Carol Dweck's work. They're all great!

All of My All-Time Best Lists in One Place
Since I already mentioned Larry Ferlazzo, here is the link to his website page with all of his lists of the best Web 2.0 tools, apps, etc. for education. Be prepared to lose an hour or two once you fall into this rabbit hole.

Great Graduation Video
If you need a motivational video to get you back into the spirit of back-to-school...

School vs Learning
Eye-opening infographic from George Couros that will help you reframe your daily objectives.

Education Transformation
Great article from iNACOL on moving from traditional educational practices to technology-integrated, personalized learning, and blended learning models.

The Traditional Good Student isn't the same anymore!
Great infographic about past expectations of student behavior and achievement and how that has changed in 21st Century education.

The Kid Should See This
Website chock-full of really cool videos designed to spark wonder and questioning among students.

Wonderopolis
Wonderopolis introduces a new wonder to students each day and offers non-fiction readings to accompany student questions.

18 Education Twitter Chats Worth Your Time
New to Twitter? Ready to take the next step and join Twitter Chats? This article mentions 18 great Twitter chats that will be worth your time.

Standards-Based Grading: The Results from J.S. Morton High School District 201
Article about one school's experience with integrating standards-based grading.

Special Education
15 Assistive Technology Tools and Resources for Students with Disabilities
This article from TeachThought highlights some of the best apps and settings to help students with special needs. Many of these apps and settings are good for all learners—not just those with special needs.

Reading
Close Reading IS Strategic Reading
Great article from Heinemann on the parallels between close reading strategies and strategic reading. There are quotes from Stephanie Harvey's late-June release, Comprehension and Collaboration, Revised Edition.

Level It Books App
An iPad and iPhone app that scans book bar codes and retrieves title, author, dra, lexile, gle, and gr.

Math
Math Games
Common Core-based math games designed to gamify student learning and demonstration of learning. Students play so many games outside of school time, this site offers them the change to play them in school and learn while they do it.

Cue Think
Cue Think makes math practice interactive and draws metacognition from the minds of students.

Science
Periodic Table of Elements from TED
Organized into the Periodic Table and made by TED, these 2-10 minute videos feature explanations about the atomic structure, reactive properties, and prevalence of each element. I found it quite addicting to click on the next element to learn more!

Google Street View Now Takes You Underwater
Google Street View is available for terrestrial Earth, Mars, the Moon, and now underwater on Earth!

Social Studies
Mission US
Interactive game designed to engage students in learning about U.S. History.

Discovery Education Student Sets
Free, downloadable iBooks from Discovery Education. Great resources for non-fiction books for specific events in history.

Instructional Technology Integration
14 Trends We Should Be Thinking About
This blog post from Will Richardson points out some jarring statistics regarding technology use by school-aged children. The information about the amount of time spent online and how students consume information online more and more through live-streaming video piqued my interest.

21st Century Skills and Attributes Checklist
Great list of 21st Century Skills from Gareth Butcher for teachers to consider planning for in their lessons.

Discovering Educational Content
This iPad iBook is designed to help teach teachers how to find educational content for integrating technology in the classroom, in the iPad App Store.

Digital Compass
Discovery Learning online game designed to teach students how to behave responsibly online.  Great tool for teaching digital citizenship.

STEM
Lego Worlds
Lego World Released
Two articles about Lego's announcement of their Lego Worlds program, a first-person builder program with online connectivity like Minecraft.

Girls Into STEM
UK-based site with great ideas, lessons, links about integrating STEM practices into the general classroom, especially for girls.

Google
Very Good Google Forms Tools for Teachers
This blog post from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning features three great Add-ons for Google Forms that benefit teachers. My favorite, AutoCrat, creates a Google Doc with completed Google Form information into a Google Form template as a PDF file.

Multiple Google Forms into One Google Sheet
A great technique shared by Alice Keeler about how to collate the information gleaned from multiple Google Forms into one Google Sheet.

Google Sheets: Splitting Numbers from Text
Another great Alice Keeler explanation on how to extract numbers in a Google Sheet from a cell that also contains text.

Gamify Searching Google Drive
Yet another Alice Keeler find. This one offers a way to make a game out of teaching students to search Google Drive.

iPads
App Guide for Parents and Teachers
This link offers SafeSearch's take on popular iPad apps and their relative safety rating. The ratings also include the proper age restrictions which are particularly helpful for parents and teachers of middle school-aged students.

30 Essential iPad Apps for the Paperless Classroom
An awesome post from ICTEvangelist. These 30 apps can help transform your classroom.  Although our goal in BSD220 isn't necessarily to become paperless, these ideas help to strengthen instructional practices, bring students to deeper curriculum resources, and reach all learners.

How to Visually Record Ideas Using iPad
Great article from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning on capturing student metacognition and using it to drive instruction and personalized learning.

Feel free to share your experiences with these links, or share some of your own in the comments section below!