Kathy Dorr, one of NCCE’s Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Trainers, has put together a great resource list for teachers looking to find quality teaching resources around Presidents’ Day. Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln: Three Great Presidents http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets/presidents/pdf/teacher_guide.pdf This primary source set includes four documents for each of these great presidents. These documents can help students explore various aspects of these presidents’ lives. One document shows something about the president’s home or family life, the next one represents one of his great achievements, a third item is a portrait of the president, and the fourth is a photograph of the monument or memorial dedicated to his memory. Presidents of the United States: Image Collection http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/057_intr.html Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/portraits/file.html Presidential Inaugurations http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/inaugurations/file.html The Path to the Presidency: Political Speeches http://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2012/08/the-path-to-the-presidency-political-speeches-2/ The Person Behind the Presidency: Humanizing History http://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2012/05/the-person-behind-the-presidency-humanizing-history/ Abraham Lincoln: Rise to National Prominence http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets/lincoln/ Inaugurations http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/inaug/ Themed Resources: Abraham Lincoln http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/themes/lincoln/ Elections http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/themes/elections/ Voices, Votes, Victory: Presidential Campaign Songs http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/presidential-songs/issues-and-slogans.html Herblock’s History - Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/herblocks-history/presidents.html The post Library of Congress: Presidents’ Day Resources appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

This week in Keep Kids Coding, Kiki turns her attention back to a more elementary site from CSisFun, Magic Pen. That said, you will find that 5 through 125 year olds will enjoy the challenge set forth on this site. Your task is simple: Move the red ball to the flag. In playing this game your students will interact with geometric shapes, fulcrums, pins, hinges, and mass. In Kiki’s overview video she makes an important point that Magic Pen does a great job of being fun while forcing students to persevere:   Have you used Magic Pen with your students? Share your experiences below and remember: Keep kids Coding!   The post Keep Kids Coding! Magic Pen appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Tech-savvy teacher friend Rob "Rocket Rob" Reynolds from the Eureka Public Schools has announced that Eureka, Montana will once again host a GoogleFest on March, 27, 2015, in beautiful Eureka, Montana! For those that have been past readers of our blog, I presented last year at GoogleFest (see here for details of my presentations) and I can say two things for sure. First, there is no more beautiful place on Earth to attend any event!  I loved my time there last year and would encourage you to come for the conference, stay for the natural beauty! Second, there are excellent presenters from in and around the Pacific Northwest that will be attending this year, including  Michael Jabber and Dan Sitter, and Beyond the Chalk‘s Jeff Crews and Dean Phillips. And… if course, I will be there!  I will be presenting two sessions: "Screencasting in GoogleLand" and "Podcasting: Join a Revolution!" Registration is limited.  For more information, click here! NCCE can also provide Google-related training, personalized for you and teachers in your district!  Contact NCCE to find our more how we can help provide personalized professional development, year round! The post GoogleFest heading back to Eureka, Montana! appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Are you into listening and consuming podcasts?  If the answer is no, it is not surprising.  While podcasting has had a steady audience over the past few years, Pew Research estimates that the number of those that have listened to a podcast actually decreased in 2013. The landscape changed in 2014, due to the release of Serial, from the makers of the popular public radio show This American Life.  By all metrics, the series that chronicled a true crime story of a convicted murderer that claimed he was wrongly accused was an absolute hit, engaging millions of listeners each week during its run. The popularity of Serial has spawn what some are calling the "Serial effect:" many other podcasts experienced significant bumps in their overall downloads and listeners as podcast consumers were hungry for more content. NCCE’s Tech-Savvy Teachers are interested in this story, and believe that podcasting could impact classrooms more now then when podcasting first grew in popularity over a decade ago.  We presented a workshop this month in Bozeman, Montana on the issue and are working on a more extensive half-day and full-day workshop for teachers and school districts looking to take on this media creation challenge. In the meantime, this weekend, you should listen to this two-part episode from the Tim Ferriss podcast.  Part 1 in an excellent interview with Alex Blumberg, who started his own podcast company in 2014 and released a podcast chronicling his adventures.  There is excellent information on professional-level podcast production, the art of the story and the advantages and disadvantages of expecting perfection.  Part 2 is excerpts of a master class taught by Alex on the art of the interview. Both episodes are excellent and very much worth your time! Are you interested in more information about podcasting in the classroom, either as a media resource or an excellent project for engaging kids in making their own media?  Contact NCCE for details on bringing the Tech-Savvy Teachers to your district! The post Weekend Listen-and-Learn: Alex Blumberg on Making Podcasts appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

In this weeks addition of Keep Kids Coding! Kiki looks at an intermediate site from CSisFun.com called Manufactoria. Manufactoria is a puzzle game about putting robots in their proper place. Using conveyor-belts, ‘pullers’ and ‘pushers’ students get to build a machine that will work no matter what gets thrown at it! Have a question for Kiki? Want to share a student experience? Drop us a line in the comment section below! The post Keep Kids Coding! Manufactoria appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Teachers often hear the refrain that education will never be the same because of Google: the massively powerful search engine offers its users access to mindbogglingly huge archives with just a few short clicks.  While there is certainly a debate of how much this changes the need to teach students certain content (meet me at the NCCE tweetup in Portland and I’ll talk your ear off about this ), it IS true that schools should be helping students harness this powerful tool by teaching some Google and other search engine basics. In my own classroom, I have successfully used the Google "Search Education" curriculum.  Especially if you are in a 1:1 classroom environment, you owe it to students to give them a powerful toolset of excellent search skills.  Learning to search a search engine is somewhat akin to learning coding: excellent searchers have to use a systematic pattern of good search terms to find the best information about a given subject. If you don’t have time for that in your classroom, I like this infographic from eLearning Infographics.  It is short and to the point, and provides some powerful advanced search strategies: Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics What’s your trick for helping students become search-savvy in your classroom?  Hit us up in the comments below! The post Infographic: 13 Google Search Tricks appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Great news!  Microsoft has announced a Microsoft Train the Trainer event on March 17-18 in Portland, Oregon.  Although registration to the NCCE conference is not required, you could easily couple this with your with our Portland conference to created a great technology 2-for-1 experience! Details include: Program Title: Microsoft 2-Day Teacher Trainer Workshop Date: March 17-18, 2015 Location: DoubleTree Portland, the conference hotel! Description: The Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) program is Microsoft’s flagship teacher professional development program designed for trainers responsible for delivering professional learning in their districts.  This free workshop delivered in conjunction with NCCE 2015 is a train the trainer model, providing in-depth training across a range of Microsoft tools including Office 365, OneNote, Office Mix, and a number of free tools Microsoft makes available for teachers and students.  Attendees who complete the program have the opportunity to become Microsoft Innovative Educator Trainers and are empowered to deliver the program with free use of the training materials in their schools and districts. The MIE program was designed by teachers and teacher trainers for K-12 educators across all subjects. The training is aligned to 21st Century Skills, as well as ISTE NET-S and Common Core Standards.  It increases the knowledge and integration of technology tools to enhance teaching and learning in the classroom, enabling teachers to get more out of the Microsoft products. By completing the training you will receive a certificate for your participation and become a Microsoft Innovative Educator. This event is designed for school district and building trainers who have responsibility for training educators on the integration of technology in the classroom and have a willingness to commit to training 75 or more educators annually. For more information and to register, click here to get to the Microsoft event page! The post Microsoft Train the Trainer Event Announced for NCCE Week in Portland! appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

This week we are going to look at a much more robust programing environment called Alice. Alice was created at Carnegie Mellon University in the late 90’s as a way to inspire a generation of programers. The platform has evolved over time and is currently in its third version to be able to take advantage of the latest 3D object creation. So what is Alice specifically? Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student’s first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects. In Alice’s interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course. Alice is definitely in the intermediate to advanced category, but an advantage of working with Alice is that there are many guides to help you along the way. For instance, Alice 3 has a site dedicated to instructional resources for the program. In prepping this post, I found a wealth of resources by a teacher, Ms. Distler, from North Broward Preparatory School in Florida. She has compiled an amazing site of resources that can be found here. Here is one of her students from a few years ago using Alice to tell a story about two snowmen: In addition to these resources, Duke University has a site called Adventures in Alice Programming where they have lessons plans that range from 4th to 12th grade. Their site also lists workshops and tutorials to help you become comfortable using Alice in your classroom. Please Share: If you are using or try using Alice with your students, please add a link or video in our comments below. The post Keep Kids Coding! Alice appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Grants, Competitions and Other "Winning" Opportunities Achieve Blended Learning Success The Waggle Blended Learning Grant will award up to $5 million to districts and charter school organizations to recognize outstanding blended learning models withWaggle, Personalized Smart Practice. Waggle is an online, adaptive program developed by Triumph Learning for English language arts and mathematics for students in grades 2-8. Waggle champions productive struggle by creating a safe and engaging environment for students to explore, grow in confidence and accelerate learning. Grant winners will receive up to $50,000 for Waggle, professional development and implementation. Deadline: Applications accepted through September 30, 2015 Click Here for More Information About Grant Opportunity Click Here for More Information About Waggle Make a Mark on the World Every year Kohl’s recognizes and rewards young volunteers across the country for their amazing contributions to their communities with up to $10,000 in scholarships. Students can find out how to get started by visiting generationOn, where they will find project inspiration, instructions and in-depth toolkits that they can download for free. They can choose projects that are just for children or perfect for teens. To be eligible, students between the ages of six and 15 must be legal US residents of a state in which a Kohl’s store is located. Deadline: Nominations accepted through March 13, 2015 Click Here for More Information Shine a Spotlight on a Music Educator The GRAMMY Foundation creates opportunities for high school students to work with music professionals to get real-world experience and advice about how to have a career in music. The GRAMMY Music EducatorAward was created to shine a spotlight on the excellent and impactful work that thousands of music teachers across the US are doing. The nominee will be evaluated based on having made a measurable difference in the lives of students and a significant and lasting contribution to the field of music education. In addition, the nominee should have shown a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in the schools and have made a significant impact on his or her school and community. To be eligible, teachers must teach music in public or private schools, kindergarten through college. Teachers in after-school, private studios or other educational settings are not eligible. A custom award will be given as well as a monetary award ranging from $1,000 to $10,000. Deadline: Nominations due by March 15, 2015 Click Here for More Information Inspire Safe Teen Driving Toyota and Discovery Education have launched the 2014-2015 TeenDrive365 Video Challenge (formerly known as the Toyota Teen Driver Video Challenge). Now in its fourth year, the Video Challenge invites teens across the country to create short videos to inspire their friends to drive safely and avoid distractions. Ten finalists will be chosen, and their entries will be posted online for public vote. The winner of the public vote will receive the People’s Choice Award along with a $5,000 cash prize and a trip to see a taping of a Velocitynetwork show. In addition, a panel of judges from Discovery Education and Toyota, as well as educators and community leaders, will select a first-, second- and third-place winner. The winners will be chosen based on the creativity, content and presentation of their videos. The grand-prize winner will receive a $15,000 cash prize and work with a Discovery film crew to reshoot his or her video as a professional, TV-ready PSA. The second-place winner will be awarded a $10,000 cash prize along with a trip to attend a taping of a Velocitynetwork show, and the third-place winner will receive a $7,500 cash prize. Deadline: Entries due by March 16, 2015 Click Here for More Information Improve Learning Through Community Funding Anyone involved in education (teacher, administrator, parent, student) can start a crowd-source campaign on PledgeCents. The goal should be the amount needed to fund a project. Educators receive the money raised, with the check sent to the school. They can close their campaigns and receive whatever funds are raised even if the goal wasn’t reached. Posting campaigns on PledgeCents has no cost. Deadline: Ongoing until goal reached or campaign closed Click Here for More Information Supplement Your Stretched Budget GetEdFunding is a free website sponsored by CDW•G to help educators and institutions find the funds they need in order to supplement their already stretched budgets. GetEdFunding hosts a collection of thousands of grants and other funding opportunities culled from federal, state, regional and community sources and available to public and private, preK-12 educators, schools and districts, higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations that work with them. GetEdFunding offers customized searches by six criteria, including 43 areas of focus, eight content areas and any of the 21st century themes and skills that support your curriculum. After registering on the site, you can save the grant opportunities of greatest interest and then return to them at any time. This rich resource of funding opportunities is expanded, updated and monitored daily. Click Here to Visit Website   The post Grant opportunities March 2015 appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

This week in Keep Kids Coding! Kiki takes a look at a unique site called Auditorium. Auditorium is listed as a beginner level site at CSisFun. As Kiki explains in her video breakdown, Auditorium is great at teaching your students persistence and how to find clues within a puzzle. These are the types of characteristics programmers need to be successful. Below, Kiki gives a breakdown of the game and some assistance in thinking through a few of the first levels:   Developed by two indie game developers, Dain Saint and William Stallwood: Auditorium is really all about the experience, both visually and aurally. Take a deep breath, relax, and start playing. As Kiki said, share a video or screenshot of your students working with Auditorium in the comments section below. Enjoy the experience with your students and remember to Keep Kids Coding!   The post Keep Kids Coding! Auditorium appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Good morning from Helena, Montana, the Queen City of the Rockies!  The Tech-Savvy Teachers are at our alma mater, Carroll College, the host of the Extended Learning Institute.  XLI is an annual event aimed at K-12 and higher education teachers, professors, instructional designers and others that support digital learning in and around Montana and the Pacific Northwest. Today, we are presenting a new session, "Building Better Online and Blended Classroom Discussions by Design," a topic they we have been working on over the last 12 months as we work with Montana Digital Academy’s faculty on pushing students to be better online discussion participants.  We strongly believe that better design and high expectations can bring much better discussion forums to online and blended learning classes everywhere! Here are our slides: We will be presenting an extended and enhanced version of this presentation next week at NCCE in Portland!  It is not too late to join the fun!  Also, if you are interested in bringing the Tech-Savvy Teachers to your district, region or state to discuss and design better online and blended discussions, contact our friendly professional development staff to discuss and book! The post Slides: Building Better Online and Blended Classroom Discussions by Design appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

This week in Keep Kids Coding, Kiki features Code Maven, a visual coding platform that gives immediate feedback to student coding commands. Code Maven is: Code Maven from Crunchzilla is an interactive tutorial that focuses on action. Code changes immediately yield visible results. Projects start with simple boxes and colors, rapidly progressing into exciting experiments with simple animation and fractals. Important programming concepts like variables, loops, conditionals, expressions, and functions are introduced by example. Code Maven is a gentle and fun introduction to programming concepts. It is a first step in learning to program. It is not intended to teach all of computer science and programming. CSisFun lists Code Maven as an intermediate level program as students are using real Javascript within this program. Code Maven does a great job of giving step by step directions to quickly teach the basics of Javascript as Kiki shows us: Kiki will be at the 2015 NCCE conference in Portland, Oregon March 18-20! Kiki will be at the Gaming/Coding Summit, one of the Make your Future Summits at NCCE 2015!           The post Keep Kids Coding! Code Maven appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

With less a week away until NCCE 2015 in the City of Roses, we are happy to announce the many opportunities to engage with Microsoft at NCCE where Microsoft is an exclusive tier 1 sponsor this year! Free Two-Day Teacher Training Workshop As previously announced, before the conference begins, NCCE and Microsoft will team up to offer an excellent free, two-day Microsoft Teacher Trainer Workshop event March 17-18, at the Doubletree Portland. There, you can learn more about the expansive toolset offered to teachers and schools from Microsoft with a focus on taking your professional learning back to your school, district and state. Get registered today. All attendees will walk away with a Microsoft Innovative Educator badge and completion certificate. Microsoft at NCCE 2015 At our conference`, we have over 20 sessions and workshops dedicated to Microsoft tools, including offerings from both Microsoft and NCCE trainers: 30 Free Microsoft Tools in 50 Minutes 30 Windows 8.1 Apps in 50 Minutes Blended Learning with Office 365 Blended Learning: Setting the Stage for 21st Century Classrooms Coding Across the Curriculum Empower Yourself with Office! Flip Over Office Mix Fostering Tech Talent in Schools Free Tools Exploration Free Tools for Flipped Learning Game-Based Learning with Project Spark In the Mix Keeping Track of Student Data with Excel Let’s Get Connected — Learn, Grow, Contribute Office 365 for Education Office Sway — Create an Interactive Canvas OneNote and Presenting the Class Notebook Tool OneNote-The Ultimate Tool Re-Invent Your Student Interactivity and Productivity at Your Campus with Office 365 The Making Flipped Classroom Videos Windows Walkabout Also this year, NCCE will use OneNote as a platform to publish conference workshop information and allow attendees to access notes, slides and other materials after the conference. Of course, Microsoft will also be on the vendor floor to answer your questions, experience a Windows device, or get a sampling of how OneNote, Skype and several education apps can help build your classroom learning! Microsoft and NCCE throughout the Year! Just like NCCE’s year-round commitment to delivering high quality professional development to teachers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, Microsoft partners with NCCE in delivering workshops, ranging from brief introductions for you and your staff on the Microsoft toolset for schools, to extensive two-day workshops on building innovative learning environments to inspire your students and teachers to collaborate and create. Contact NCCE for more information on bringing Microsoft trainers to your district! The post NCCE <3s Microsoft! appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

It. is. go. time. NCCE 2015 in Portland, Oregon is here!  We hope to see you this week for collaboration, learning and FUN! Click on the link below if you want to start planning now by downloading the conference program NCCE 2015 Conference Program The post NCCE week is here! Download the conference program now! appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

NCCE 2015 is here and whether you are a long time attendee or new to this great conference, your Tech Savvy Teachers have some destination recommendations for your free time in Portland. By no means is the a comprehensive list, but rather a list of destinations Jason and I are sure to hit this week. Voodoo Doughnut One of a kind doughnuts you will not find anywhere else. For those of you who have never been to Portland, this is a must stop! The Voodoo Doughnut story Locations   Ground Kontrol Ground Kontrol is a classic arcade mixed with a full service bar, one of the greatest Tech Savvy combinations of all time! It has a great atmosphere and the mix of retro and modern games that will keep you busy for hours. At some point we will be getting our nerd on at this classic joint! More Info on Ground Kontrol Conveyor Belt Sushi If you want a unique dinning experience on the cheap, look no further then a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. We have been to two in the Portland area, one that is close to the convention center and one that is not. For those of you that are new to this marvel of modern dining, there is food (sushi) moving on a conveyor belt in front of you the whole time you are dining. You grab what you want and eat. There are usually 3-4 different colored plates ranging from $1 - $3 each. At the end you stack up your plates and that is how much you owe. Expect around $10 - $15 total. Sushi Ichiban is close to the convention center (24 NW Broadway) or if you want to get out of downtown check out Sushi Track in Wilsonville, OR. Fry’s Speaking of Wilsonville, OR, our fourth destination is Fry’s electronics. For you big city folk this might be something you take for granted, but for us Tech Savvy Montanians this is a must stop (Fry’s has neglected to build a store in Montana). Gadgets, circuit boards, computers, and other electronics span the endless rows of this mecca for the tech savvy. More info and location     So there it is! Now you know the hot spots of the Tech-Savvy Teachers when we are not at the conference. Post a picture on the comments section below of your destinations away from the conference! We look forward to connecting with everyone! Enjoy #NCCE2015 The post 4 Tech Savvy destinations at #NCCE2015 appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Below are slides from our presentation "Building Better Online and Blended Learning Discussions by Design" by the Tech-Savvy Teachers, Jason Neiffer and Mike Agostinelli at NCCE 2015 in Portland, Oregon!   We’d love to connect with you on this topic!  Ping us on Twitter, @techsavvyteach and @mikegusto. The post Slides for "Building Better Online and Blended Learning Discussions by Design" for NCCE 2015 appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Below are my slides for my NCCE presentation, "Tracking the Blended Learning Trend" for NCCE 2015 in Portland, Oregon!   Connect with me on Twitter to discuss my presentation! The post Slides for "Tracking the Blended Learning Trend" @ #NCCE2015 appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Click below for our 2015 "30 in 50: Tools for Tech-Savvy Teachers," presented by the Tech-Savvy Teachers at NCCE 2015 in Portland, Oregon 30 in 50: 2015 Tech Savvy Tools for Tech Savvy Teachers The post LiveBinder for: "30 in 50: Tools for Tech-Savvy Teachers" appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Below are the slides to support my presentation, "Google Classroom: Simplicity in Execution" from NCCE 2015 in Portland, Oregon! If you want to engage with me on this amazing tool, find me on Twitter at @techsavvyteach.  I am also available for this or a customized training in your school, district, region or conference! The post Slides for "Google Classroom: Simplicity in Execution" from #NCCE2015 appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Here are my slides to support my presentation on using Google Classroom for professional development at NCCE 2015 in Portland, Oregon! The post Slides: "Google classroom: Elegant, Simple Professional Development?" for #NCCE2015 appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

If you have ever attended one of our 30 in 50 presentations, you know we are fans of the work at GlassLab Games. After multiple years of being an invitation only beta, GlassLab Games is open to everyone. GlassLab Games philosophy: Deep Learning Matters - Games are ideal environments for engaging students in complexity, giving them the power to figure things out at their pace, in their way, and through a medium that they enjoy. Fail Forward - Our games are an ideal way to learn from mistakes because they offer multiple opportunities to persist through challenge in an environment that is designed to reward multiple attempts and novel solutions. Immediate Feedback to Learners - With games, learning is continuous. When students are in the moment playing, there is no better time to give them insights into their learning. Not-so-standardized Assessment - Our reports reflect exactly what is happening as the child is learning. We capture evidence of student learning through our back-end and then make that learning visible through streamlined reporting that is real-time, personalized, and actionable. Transformative Learning - Our games are unique in their ability to create an immersive context for learning that sparks curiosity, fosters persistence, and opens students’ minds to new possibilities. Current Featured Games: Argument Wars Argument Wars is an online game that lets players argue landmark Supreme Court cases. By finding and using the strongest support, students recreate historic legal cases while evaluating arguments and distinguishing between valid and invalid reasoning. Argument Wars brings gaming to the social studies classroom and lets students have fun while they learn about landmark cases and hone fundamental skills that are critical to success in meeting Common Core standards. Game Over Gopher Game Over Gopher is an exciting tower defense game built around the coordinate grid. To defend a prize carrot, the player selects various tools to "feed" the space gophers marching hungrily toward it. Game Over Gopher guides students in plotting coordinate pairs, differentiating negative coordinates from positive coordinates, and identifying the four quadrants. It helps establish the fundamentals of plotting functions on a grid. We recommend it for students who are struggling to understand the coordinate grid or those who just want to become more comfortable with graphing. Funded by the National Science Foundation and developed by the Learning Games Lab at New Mexico State University, Game Over Gopher is a game in the Math Snacks suite of interactive educational learning modules, and prepares students to better understand mathematics concepts crucial for 6th-grade math. Aligned to Common Core standards, it has been used effectively with students in 2nd through 7th grades learning to graph coordinates and track locations on a grid. Slice Fractions: School Edition Slice Fractions: School Edition is a fun problem solving game that guides students to intuitively and effectively learn fractions through critical concepts. In this puzzling world, players must slice the right amount of ice and lava to clear the mammoth’s path. The game is the fruit of multiple years of research and development by Ululab with the help of math learning experts from the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). It has a smooth progression designed for kids who are new to fractions or who have not yet understood its basic concepts. The environment is free of written instructions, which lets students dive into math reasoning without being obstructed by their literacy level. Wuzzit Trouble Wuzzit Trouble is a seemingly simple game that will challenge and engage your students - and even you - like never before! While saving the trapped Wuzzits, your students will engage in completing complex performance tasks that aren’t just aligned to the Common Core, but that develop number sense and the ability to use mathematics as a problem-solving language. Featuring a casual game look and feel, don’t be surprised if your students start playing at home, too! Water Bears EDU Water Bears EDU is a 3D puzzle game that requires students to use spatial reasoning and color-mixing skills to redirect water through pipes in a grid-based environment. The end goal of each puzzle is to fill each water bear’s bubble with the correct color water. Each puzzle has been designed to give students hands-on experience with different Systems Thinking concepts, such as identifying interconnections, using leverage points, and managing limited resources. Some puzzles introduce game mechanics or Systems Thinking concepts, while others provide engaging challenges that help students develop deeper problem-solving skills. After working with systems in the game, students have the tools to participate in meaningful classroom discussions about Systems Thinking concepts that can be difficult to grasp without concrete experience. This guide includes lesson plans that give an introduction to Systems Thinking in the context of Next Generation Science Standards, as well as provides a framework to customize lesson plans to suit the needs of different classrooms and students. SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! With SimCityEDU, educators have more than a just digital game. They have the tools and content they need to make learning come alive for their students. In the game, students play the role of mayor, doing the challenging work of addressing environmental impact while balancing the employment needs and the happiness of the city’s residents. Designed in partnership with the assessment experts from ETS and Pearson, SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! not only teaches students about the factors affecting the environment in a modern city, but the game also provides formative assessment information about students’ ability to problem solve and explain the relationships in complex systems. Lesson plans, teacher and student dashboards—along with student data reporting—complete the SimCityEDU experience, delivering personalized learning to every student. Mars Generation One: Argubot Academy EDU Mars Generation One: Argubot Academy EDU is an engaging futuristic adventure game for iOS tablets. Aligned to the Common Core State Standards, the game brings STEM content into the English Language Arts classroom, and helps middle schoolers develop persuasion and reasoning skills. In Argubot Academy EDU, players take on the persona of a new student at Argubot Academy, the city’s middle school. There, each player will have to make very adult decisions about the building and governance of the city, for example: What type of food should the citizens cultivate? Players have to build sound arguments for every choice they make - but in this city on Mars, people settle their differences by equipping their robot assistants, called argubots, with claims and evidence, culminating in a robot battle of wits! The post GlassLab Games out of beta! appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

Just as in the adult world, data privacy and data sharing are big topics in and around the students we serve in the classroom.  As we are using an increasing number of apps and website to track data, from student behavior to the hot lunch count, privacy advocates are asking good questions about what happens to that data and how it is used. I love the podcast New Tech City from WNYC, where host Manoush Zomorodi promises to make digital personal.  She is concluding an excellent series about technology and kids and this week tackled sticky questions about student data and the proliferation of apps in the K-12 classroom. What I find particularly interesting is that she frames the discussion around Class Dojo, a tool that appeared on many "best of" in trainings around the NCCE conference as well as in other professional development events across the nation. This is worth your listen! WNYC: ClassDojo: Do I Want it in My Kid’s Class? The post New Tech City discusses student privacy and educational technology appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

After a few week hiatus, Keep Kids Coding is back and this week we have a special treat from Kiki! The featured site from CSisFun.com this week is Thinking Myself, which was created by none other then Kiki herself. As you can imagine Kiki not only shows how to use the site, but also gives us some background to some of her decisions in the creation process. The theme of site is, "You can figure out anything if you are willing to think for yourself!" Have a look at Thinking Myself: We would love to hear you feedback on Thinking Myself. Share with us your experience with your students in the comments section below!   The post Keep Kids Coding! Thinking Myself appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

FREE two-day workshops coming to an area near you! Introduction to Teaching with Primary Sources Serving Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington These 2-day workshops, designed for K-12 Educators and Teacher Librarians, will introduce you to the vast collections of the Library of Congress’s rich reservoir of over 19 million digital resources and explore how you can use them to engage students in the classroom. Two-day workshops will include information on: Certificate of Attendance is awarded at conclusion of workshop. While the workshop is free, meals, lodging, and travel are at the attendee’s expense. Navigating the Library of Congress website Searching digitized materials and lessons Analyzing primary sources and discussing lesson implementation strategies Exploring copyright information Designing lessons utilizing Library of Congress materials and meeting Common Core standards Engaging and challenging students using primary sources Addressing Common Core standards REGISTRATION IS OPEN Apply at http://www.ncce.org/index.php/tps WORKSHOP LOCATIONS IDAHO AUGUST 3-4 Meridian, ID AUGUST 11-12 Kendrick, ID MONTANA JUNE 22-23 Missoula, MT JUNE 25-26 Billings, MT OREGON JULY 21-22 Ontario, OR JULY 27-28 Eugene, OR AUGUST 16-17 Ashland, OR WASHINGTON JULY 29-30 Yakima, WA AUGUST 12-13 Auburn, WA Clock hours/renewal credits and college credit will be available The post The NCCE Teaching with Primary Sources program announces its FREE 2015 Summer Workshops appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.