Online program for Math and Science
I’ve observed Gizmos at various NSTA conferences, yet I never had to time to complete a lesson. I signed up for the 30-day free trial as a teacher (6-8 grade) to see what Gizmos fully offered.  Gizmos offers interactive simulations allowing students to manipulate the lesson, plus experiment and extend the lesson to develop a better, intuitive understanding of math and science material.

Gizmos offers over 450 interactive simuations teaching students the following subject matter:

MATH SUBJECT MATTER
Grade 3-5
o Number & Operations
o Algebra
o Geometry
o Measurement
o Data Analysis & Probability

Grade 6-8
o Number & operations
o Algebra
o Geometry
o Measurement
o Data analysis & probability

Grade 9-12
o Number & operations
o Algebra
o Geometry
o Measurement
o Data analysis & probability

College
o Developmental math
o College Alg / Precalculus

SCIENCE SUBJECT MATTER
Grade 3-5
o Earth and space science
o Life science
o Physical science
o Measurement skills
o Scientific method

Grade 6-8
o Earth and space science
o Life science
o Physical science

Grade 9-12
o Earth and space science
o Biology
o Chemistry
o Physics

What Gizmos Offers
Home schooling groups, teachers and administrators can create a class, include students or have students include themselves, identify topics, state standards, and can correlate to over 200 textbooks on different strand topics. When a topic is chosen, various lesson simulations can be selected.

Select a Gizmo on one subtopic, and if unsure how to proceed, click on the tutorial video in the left hand column. Lessons provide learning objectives, lesson material, teacher guide, vocabulary and/or assessment questions (both in PDF and Word doc).

The lessons teach students visually, and in written format. For instance, in a fractions simulation students can see why 2/3 is bigger than 3/5, not only with the problem worked out but visually. Extend the problem to see visually, written out and by number line why 2/3 is bigger with a least common denominator (LCD) problem. Students and teachers can also take a snapshot of their work.

Gets the Lesson Across
I jumped around, and tested a number of lessons (Astronomy: Reasons For the Seasons), Cell Biology, Fractions, and Geometry.

Gizmos gives students and teachers immediate feedback, provides hands-on lessons through the computer, and is inquiry based. Labs are data driven, and allows students to see direct results manipulating the lesson. Once a teacher has established a class, students can sign in to work on an assignment, review, or work ahead. Special education students and ESOL students benefit from working at their own pace, or with the video tutorial to guide them.

Online training is available, and from the various lessons I reviewed, provides tutorial videos. Try the free 30-day trial, and see if your school, or home schooling program would benefit.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 9.2; Windows 98; Web based browser (Internet Explorer 6, Safari 1.2, Firefox 1.5); Shockwave 8.5 (free @ Adobe Shockwave), Adobe Flash 9.0 (free @ Adobe Flash), 56 K dial-up or Broadband width
Contact: www.ExploreLearning.com
Cost: No pricing online; contact Explore Learning @ Purchasing Info

Colorful Phonetic Learning
For a free program to learn how to read, www.starfall.com is pretty sophisticated, colorful and fun. This free online program only requires internet access, a computer, and a web browser.

Click onto the site and select:

• ABCs – ready to read
• Learn to Read – Zat the rat and other tales
• It’s Fun to Read – categories include About Me, Art Gallery, Magic and more
• I’m Reading – includes plays, nonfiction, comics and more

Learning to Read
Click on the ABC’s and a colorful alphabet picture pops up.  Choose a letter, and the letter is written in capital and lower case, and sounded out.  Choose the “starry arrow”, and short words are presented, with pictures. Visual, audio and written cues help in all the categories.

On the right side of the screen, select various activities, like Make A Valentine for “connecting words” (conjunction), or Flower for “First, next, last” (order, or placement). These are nice activities.

Teachers, parents, students and home schoolers can download various lessons and activities.  Reading with phonetics is fun with this program.  Starfall.com reinforces vocabulary, comprehension and fluency.

System Requirements: Windows 95, Macintosh OS X 8, or Linux; Internet connection; 64 MB Ram, 200 MHz processor; Internet Explorer 4 or Netscape 4; Flash Player 4 (can be downloaded for free at Adobe Flash Player)
Contact: www.Starfall.com
Cost: Free; check online store for board games,etc

Adobe just updated their Digital School Collection for K-12 Classrooms.

The Digital School Collection bundle  “includes the new Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 8 and Adobe Premiere® Elements 8 for Windows® which offer new photo, video and podcasting capabilities that enable students to creatively express ideas through classroom projects. Along with other tools in the collection – Adobe Contribute® CS4, Adobe Acrobat® 9 Pro and Adobe Soundbooth® CS4 – educators can inspire students to develop the problem solving, critical thinking, digital literacy and collaboration skills needed to succeed beyond the classroom and in the future workforce. Additionally, for the first time, Adobe takes advantage of new technologies used in 21st century classrooms by offering netbook compatibility support for Photoshop Elements 8 (Windows) and Adobe Photoshop Elements for the Mac platform.”

Bob Regan, director of worldwide K-12 for Adobe, points out that Adobe’s goals are to ensure K-12 students graduate with competitive skills in the global workforce. Adobe understands the challenges budget-constraint districts face each day.

“We think it’s imperative to deliver affordable solutions like the Digital School Collection that not only inspire students to stay connected to their classroom, but also encourage 21st century and project-based learning.”

Keeping Students And Teachers Equipped With The Right Tools
Free Teacher Resource DVDs are provided incorporating K-12 lesson plans, creative ideas and quick tutorials for implement projects. Find these free teaching resources online at www.adobe.com/education/instruction/adsc .

“Additionally, Adobe and Knowledge Network Solutions Inc. (KNS) together offer professional development courses that help teachers use the new version of Adobe Digital School Collection across academic disciplines.”

PodBean – Free Podcasting Site
Adobe offers Podbean, a free podcasting site on the Adobe website that allows 21st century classrooms to provide syndication publishing for audio/video content distribution.

“With Acrobat 9 Pro, Contribute CS4 and Soundbooth CS4, students have the the ability to integrate multimedia design, video, audio, animation and Web design into projects and ePortfolios that build necessary technology and critical thinking skills for future success.”

Education Pricing Information (US$)
The Adobe Digital School Collection will be available on Oct. 1, 2009.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (Win): $69
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (Mac): $69
Adobe Premiere Elements 8 (Win): $69
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8 (Win): $119
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8 (Win) K-12 Student Licensing: $99
Adobe Digital School Collection (Win) Volume Licensing only: $149

Individual pricing information can be found at: Adobe Education Pricing.

Volume licensing information is available at: Adobe Education Licensing.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4; Windows XP; Intel or 1.6 GHz processor; 1 GB RAM; 2 GB Hard drive space; 1024 X 576 Monitor; DVD-ROM drive; Internet connection (Firefox 1.5, Explorer 6)
Contact: Adobe.com

Subject Matter: Science

Grades: Kindergarten through Fifth Grade

Well Designed Online Curriculum
Learning.com offers Aha!Science and Aha!Math.  For grades K-5, Aha!Science provides good science coverage on:

• Earth and Space
• Physical
• Life

For many elementary teachers, science isn’t something they’ve been required to teach in classrooms.  Many states now require science testing in 5th grade, with teachers scrambling for science content.

Learning.com offers an online well organized, conceptual program for teachers and students.  With a modular design, teachers have multiple choices how to present material to the whole class, or in small groups.  Or students can go online, and learn self-paced.

What’s Offered
Learning.com organizes its science modules into:

• Instruction
• Lessons
• Games
• Simulations
• Activities
• Journals
• Quizzes

The short videos are colorful, with good detail helping to reinforce various topics.  Journaling offers a cross-curriculum tool, helping students to understand the scientific method.

There are many different programs to explore and incorporate, but take a look at Aha!Science.  It’s obvious the material was well thought out, and easy to incorporate into the classroom.

System Requirements: Mac OS X; Windows 98/2000; web browser (Internet Explorer 6.0, Safari 2.0, Mozilla Firefox 1.0); Adobe Flash 7.0; Adobe Reader 7.0, Bandwidth of 64 kb/s per student
Contact: Learning.com
Cost: $120 for Starter Kits w/Teacher Account (1-10 Students); $60 for Expanson Pack (5 Extra Students, includes Starter Kits); Adaptive Curriculum for Aha!Math (6-8th grade) and EasyTech (K-5th and 6-8th grades) link to Learning.com Store.

Money’s Tight Out There
Well, we just dropped our daughter off to college, and thank goodness she has a scholarship.  Can’t find scholarships, or don’t know where to look? Before searching for scholarships, think about a checklist to help in your endeavors.

The website www.TheApple.com has great resources for advancing teaching careers. Yet if you aren’t interested in teaching, check out the Scholarship Checklist. It has good information for any scholarship. Here’s the direct link: Scholarship Checklist.

Offering Visual Quizzes Online
Many elementary schools will be winding up to start teaching students different topics in science. President Obama wants our nation to improve math and science scores. If we, as parents, teachers, administrative and relatives don’t encourage their interest in science before the 4th grade, we’re sunk (or almost). After 4th grade, puberty hits in, and our daughters and sons almost become different species. Biology, however, becomes a very interesting topic, especially with the opposite sex…and their symbiotic relationships with friends, clothes, sports, etc.

ScienceScore.com offers visual quizzes on a wide variety of topics to help teach and encourage students.  If students correctly answer the questions, they earn points which can be exchanged to clothes to dress their avatar, decorate their cave, etc. We live in a digital world, and angling for a student’s interest with their nose in a computer game is no easy task.

What Is Offered
ScienceScore.com offers these quizzes online for free. No CDs, DVDs, or membership required.  They also provide Did You Know? questions with interesting information.  However, they do offer a membership fee for Chat, to receive thousands of different quizzes and new weekly questions, access to interactive games, dressing up the mascot “Poskey”, decorating their own caves, and purchasing new virtual animals.   “Edutainment” is starting to achieve higher levels.

Demos and information links are offered, so check those out, and try a few quizzes. If students don’t know the answers, there is educational material to help out.

Standards
Quizzes cover 100% material for standards in the Singapore school system, plus 70% for U.S. and English science standards. Material is written in English, however, being online ScienceScore.com is available for young minds all over the globe.

Runs On Windows Operating System
Right now ScienceScore.com quizzes are accessible on Windows. I couldn’t open any quizzes on my Mac, but that’s suppose to change. The system does operate on Firefox and Safari.

What I observed from the demos were simple, colorful answers providing creative quizzes to both visual and tactile learners the capability to understand, and enjoy science. Hey, sometimes we just have to show students a new site, let themselves get hooked and off they go. With science, it’s pretty easy to find interesting material!

System Requirements: Web based browser, Quizzes on Windows, hopefully soon it will be available for Macs
Contact: ScienceScore.com
Cost: Free, extra quizzes must sign up for Membership: $20/month; $96 for six months; $144 for one year

Subject Matter: Digital Media Education for Students, Teachers, Administrative Personnel, Digital Technicians
Grades: Elementary to College, Businesses, Marketing, NonProfit Organizations

Learn From These Teachers
I’ve enjoyed interviewing four different teachers who use different Adobe curricula in their elementary to college marketing classrooms. Adobe offers two curriculum levels: K-12 and Upper Education for College & Technical Training. Adobe’s education portals are at K-12 Education Solutions, and Adobe Higher Education. Both students and teachers learn and lead from each other as they surf the digital media wave of technology.

All four teachers tell different stories how they use Adobe products, yet they clearly tell the same message. All the material offered follows various state standards for various cross-curriculum programs.  Today, it’s not important to be an expert in one Adobe software product, but to know how to find the tools within different applications to complete a project, tell a story, or communicate with clients. Let me introduce these teachers.

Linda Ferguson: Whiz Elementary Teacher
Linda Ferguson is a teacher and Tech Site Coordinator for the San Juan Unified School District, California. Since 1985, Linda has been using Adobe products (when it was Macromedia). In 2000, she helped found the GeoLiteracy Foundation (American River Watershed). And from 2004, her education programs have been winning various awards and competitions (ISTE, Edutopia). In 2005, Linda developed the district wide program “Healthy Watershed, Healthy Community”. This program guides students to better understand the environmental issues impacting California’s watershed. The overreaching question applied is “In what ways do our rivers effect, or shape the communities that rely on them?”

Linda usese Acrobat Pro, Connect, Dreamweaver, Flash, Premier Element and InDesign with her 4th-6th grade students.  Through field studies, the students journey through the water cycle investigating and understanding factors affecting watersheds, water quality and habitat protection. From 4th grade and on, students brainstorm together learning to investigate, and apply the inquiry method. They collect data, field notes of their observations and analysis, photos and then the digital fun begins. Using Connect they facilitate and present data online sharing with other classes and schools. With Premier Elements, pictures are uploaded onto the website built with Dreamweaver. Remember, these are 4th-6th grade students doing all the work. InDesign also allows the students to create digital journals and portfolios, which Flash transforms into digital stories.

Linda recommends Joe Dockery’s Tutorials. And she’s used Lucy Calkin’s Writing Workshops. Throughout this program, Linda sees students become more self-motivated, and providing their own incentive to complete their work.  To students, this is “brain candy”, and they thrive on the digital challenges.

Laurie Burruss: Expert in Marketing
Laurie Burruss is the Director for the Pasadena College Digital Media Center (Pasadena College Digital Media Center). With Adobe, Laurie explained “It’s not the tool that pops up, but the creation that’s revealed”. Laurie is able to teach her students how to become creative, communication problem solvers utilizing different features in Adobe software. Laurie incorporates many Adobe applications (Acrobat, After Effects, DreamWeaver, Flash, Illustrator, PhotoShop, etc.) to teach her students Interactive Design – interweaving different features and functions to tell a digital story, without the hassle of writing code.

Digital communication requires a mix of digital media, writing, problem solving and creative thinking skills to tell a client’s story. Across the world, communication now involves interactive digital media that incorporates digital illustration, video, print, web design, podcasting, blogs, sharing information online, and virtual conferencing. Today, digital communication specialists must learn how to tell their story to a diversified audience with different computer platforms, languages, levels of expertise and varying viewpoints. Laurie recommends Adobe Development Center for training and tutorials. And she has used Adobe TV, and additional lessons from Lynda.com.

T.J. Fletcher – Stretching Science
T.J. Fletcher taught Honors Chemistry at Eagan High School in St. Paul, Minnesota. Students used Flash 7 and Acrobat 9 developing a Calorimetry simulation, and then in the last trimester, produced a video clip on a chemistry subject. Check out the video clips at Multimedia Showcase.

Here are Mr. Fletcher’s comments, the Calorimetry Simulator and video tutorials: Using Adobe Flash in Chemistry. Students not only learned how to incorporate technology with chemistry and math, they applied trouble shooting skills, working together, and problem based analysis. He is now an Education Technology Coordinator for the TIES consortium of 38 Minnesota school districts, teaching teachers, media specialists, technical coordinators and administrative staff how to utilize different applications.

Sara Martin – Media & English Together
Sara Martin is a middle school teacher (5th-8th grade) at the Hart-Ransom School in Modesto, CA. She asks the students to stretch their potential, by using media projects in history, literature, science, and English. Sara taught computer literacy and worked with core teachers to incorporate their subject matter into different projects. Some of her student projects involved digital storytelling, creating a news magazine and advertising pamphlets, making historical subject video clips, and producing slide show of still photos.

Sara provides teaching tutorials at Photoshop Elements & Tutorials. Besides learning about chemistry, language arts and history, all these different projects teach the students important skills in planning, narration, speaking, preparation, listening, working in groups, oral and visual communications.

Beyond The Basics
These teachers offer a wide variety of experience and resources not only for students and teachers, but parents, administrative personnel, technology training, and marketing. The beauty of Adobe is all their products work well together to complete a storytelling masterpiece.

For additional links to teacher resources, link to: Adobe Curriculum K-12, Part A and Adobe Curriculum Higher Education, Part B.

System Requirements: Mac OS X, Windows, Universal, Web based browser
Contact: Adobe.com
Cost: Adobe Curriculum is free.