NASA Wavelength

If you use NASA as a STEM resource like I do, then you can breathe a sign of relief that NASA has compiled all of their resources into one easy to use place- NASA Wavelength.

Designed specifically for teachers and students, this easy to use portal allows users to search by Audience or Topic.  To further refine results, users can filter by unique categories such as Instructional Strategies, Learning Time, and Materials Cost (always important to classroom teachers!) among others.

In addition to these features, NASA has added a social media aspect and has provided the ability to share content with sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn (as well as good old fashioned email).   This is a giant step to making these resources accessible to teachers and the K-12 audience.

STEM Essentials- Developing Effective STEM Units

In this series we have learned how to plan and develop an effective STEM unit.  Planning a unit like this is very time-consuming if done right, but the outcomes and student progress will be well worth the effort!

Here are the basic steps in the process:

• Develop a Plan for your STEM unit
• Craft Different Types of Assessments for before, during and after your project
• Create a Rubric (at least one!) for assessing students throughout the project and at the conclusion of it
• Use the Engineering Design Process to plan the remaining lessons that fit with your curriculum objectives
• Communicate Results through written reports as well as oral presentations
• Redesign and Debrief to assess student understanding and any misconceptions

Each step contains a basic explanation...and a free handout to help you plan your own effective STEM unit!

Welcome Back! The Brown Bag STEM Challenge II

For many of us, August is the start of Back to School and what better way to start a new year than with some new STEM challenges to help students learn to work as a team and focus on core content skills.

Back by popular demand is The Brown Bag STEM Challenge, where materials are low-cost, engagement is high, and everything (well, theoretically anyway) fits in a brown bag.  Join me next week for the first of this new series.  Thanks for all the emails to bring this one back!   Definitely one of my favorites!

Stay tuned...and Let the School Year begin!

STEM Essentials- The Assessments

After you have thought about your STEM unit and have developed a plan that contains your idea, related curriculum standards, challenge, and end product, it's time to figure out how to assess successful completion of the challenge/project.

Although we haven't touched on "guts" of the project yet, it's important to know where you want to end up before you fill in the blanks.  This backward mapping will help to ensure that all of the pieces tie together cleanly at the end and remains focused and organized.  Enter: The Assessments.

 On a daily basis, you will want to use different types of formative assessments.  Formative Assessments are designed to give the teacher a qualitative (rather than quantitative) measure of student understanding. Using these strategies daily will give you a good read on student understanding and help you to plan upcoming lessons accordingly.  Most formative assessment strategies are no prep (Thumbs Up/Down) or low-prep (Exit Tickets) which makes them easy to gather useful data.

At the end of the project, you will want to conduct a Summative Assessment that shows what students have learned throughout the duration of the project.  This will most likely take the form of assessing the completion of student products through the use of a rubric.  Teachers can also add a more traditional test for the unit, but STEM units are generally use a rubric so that students may be assessed on a number of different elements.  As you develop this rubric, you will want to choose carefully what criteria to assess.  No matter what kind of summative assessment you choose to implement, students should be made aware of how they will be assessed at the beginning of the project.  When using a rubric, be sure to review the criteria and scale with students focusing on what students should be doing to be successful.

Aside from your daily informal formative assessments and your end-of-unit summative assessments, I also like to set up checkpoints at certain key places in the unit.  This may be as easy as the teacher reviewing the progress of the team and signing off on their progress or it might look as formal a quiz.  Choose the most appropriate method for your students that ensures forward progress.

Now that you have learned about the different types of assessments that take place throughout a typical STEM unit, you can begin to put these in place for your specific unit. Stay tuned for next week's post on creating rubrics.

STEM Essentials Handout: Formative Assessment Strategies , Summative Assessment Strategies

Using Google Earth...on Mars?

In writing curriculum for the University of Houston/NASA Mars Rover Celebration, I had the opportunity to explore a little more in Google Earth...Mars.

What a great way to engage students and take a trip to Mars!  By activating the Google Earth Mars function, students can explore Mars freely on their own by spinning Mars to different locations and clicking icons that display facts and images.  Students can even visit specific locations on Mars by using the "Fly To" feature or chat with Meliza, Mars' resident alien, to learn more about the red planet.  

If free exploration isn't for you, students can take a guided tour of Mars, narrated by Ira Flatow and Bill Nye. Or, if you're feeling creative, record and narrate your own tour of Mars.

For an out-of-this-world experience, download Google Earth at: http://earth.google.com/mars/

STEM Essentials Series

When beginning to implement STEM projects in your classroom, it can be very overwhelming.  Where do I start?  What do I need?  What am I missing?

STEM projects generally take a good deal of planning on the teacher's part and are generally complex by nature.  There are many components that need to be developed and in place prior to students' starting their inquiry.

Whether you have found a great resource from a reputable organization or are creating the materials yourself from scratch, there are some STEM Essentials that you will need in order to plan, execute and assess an effective STEM project.   This series will focus on those STEM essentials that will help make your project organized, engaging and successful!

The Brown Bag STEM Challenge- 10 Project Ideas for Engaging STEM Projects

In the last ten weeks, I've shared some of my favorite "Brown Bag" STEM Challenges- activities and lessons that can easily be incorporated into a formal classroom or an informal learning setting.

All of these activities can be integrated for minimal cost, involve materials that can be found in almost any store and whose supplies are so simple that they fit in a brown bag (well, almost all of them...).

Here's a recap of the project ideas shared in the past weeks:

• Marshmallow Towers
• Pom Pom Cannons
• Paper Helicopters
• Roller Coasters
• Paperclip Sailboats
• Building Windmills
• Hovercrafts
• Zip Lines
• Solar Ovens
• Lunar Landers

INFOhio

If you are in the state of Ohio, you might be interested in this little gem.  INFOhio is a virtual K-12 library that connects educational resources with the  information technology.  It is available to all K-12 teachers and students in the state.  To access, it from a school, users need only to type in the URL.  From home, you'll need to type in your username and password, which is provided by your school media center specialist.

On Thursday, February 17, because of my involvement with AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) I have been asked to give a webinar on "Supporting the STEM Initiative with Secondary Students" on  Thursday afternoon for Ohio teachers. If you work in the K-12 community in Ohio, please consider joining us!

The Four C's in STEM: Communication with TwistedWave

TwistedWave is very similar to Audacity in that it's a free audio editor and recorder, but unlike Audacity, there is no software to install.  Students simply access the site and begin a new document.  Students can also create an optional account that allows students to record for a couple of hours, and keep up to 20 minutes of content.

Once there, students can record their work and easily download the file into common formats like WAV, MP3, or WMA.  Students can even upload the file to Dropbox.

Using TwistedWave as an editor, students can upload a supported file type and use the Audacity-like interface to edit using features like fading, looping and other effects that will assist students in communicating creatively and effectively.

Starfish Education is not affiliated with these companies or organizations and is not compensated in any way for posting about their company or online tools.

The Four C's in STEM: Communication with TitanPad

TitanPad is an online tool that allows students to craft a document simultaneously.  The beauty of this free online app is that each student s assigned a different color, so when each student types or edits, the text reflects their chosen highlight color.

While students work to build a document, they can chat on the right hand side of the screen to discuss possible edits, revisions,etc.  They can export to a text file, a PDF, or even export the file to finish it up in a word processing program like Microsoft Word. If necessary, students can even import a file to continue working.

One unique feature called Time Slider allows students to use a slider bar to playback the changes that were made. Although it is not packed with bells and whistles, it does provide the basics to enable student communication.

Starfish Education is not affiliated with these companies or organizations and is not compensated in any way for posting about their company or online tools.

The Four C's in STEM: Communication with MindMapFree

In discussing online communication tools, it's hard not to include a concept map.  We use them so much in education to help students to brainstorm and think through their ideas, so it seems only natural to include one on our list.

The concept map that I like the best is MindMapFree.  MindMapFree is, as it states, free.  It is also completely online with no login required (or even offered).

This application is easy enough for younger students to grasp quickly and robust enough for older students to add all of the elements they need.

Even though no login capability is provided, users have the option of saving their map into Dropbox, into your browser's local storage, or downloading the file to your desktop in a proprietary file format.  The file can easily be uploaded again so that students can continue from where they left off.

Starfish Education is not affiliated with these companies or organizations and is not compensated in any way for posting about their company or online tools.

The Four C's in STEM: Communication with Padlet

Padlet (formerly Wallwisher) is a dynamic way for students to brainstorm and collect ideas for a project.  Acting like a virtual bulletin board, this online app allows users to create digital sticky notes and arrange them on the canvas.

Part of the beauty of this application is that users don't need to create an account, although opting to create one provides additional features like being able to post to the wall for more than 24 hours and toggle back and forth between different walls.

 Whether an account is created or not, users can share their walls to social media, embed it into another site, or use the provided QR code to access the wall on a phone or tablet. Users can even select a custom URL to make it easier to remember.

Padlet also has a export function, allowing users to export their wall as a PDF, excel file, or a host of other very useful formats that further communication amongst team members.

Starfish Education is not affiliated with these companies or organizations and is not compensated in any way for posting about their company or online tools.

The Four C's in STEM: Creativity with Domo Animate

In this series, we're examining different online resources that can help students explore their creativity when working in a STEM classroom.

So far, we've talked about Infographics, Glogster EDU, Animoto and PowToon.   This week's creativity tool for STEM is Domo Animate.

Domo Animate is a comic strip creator that can be used to extend students' digital literacy skills.  Students can create their own comic strip using stock scenes, characters, props and speech bubbles.  For added effects, students can add extra touches like music and special effects.  Created cartoons can be shared via email, social networks or embedded in another site.

Domo Animate can be a powerful tool to help students be more creative as they work through STEM projects.

Starfish Education is not affiliated with these companies or organizations and is not compensated in any way for posting about their company or online tools.

The Four C's in STEM: Creativity with PowToon

In continuing to examine tools that exercise students' creativity in STEM, another great online tool that comes to mind is PowToon.

PowToon is an online  service that allows students to create animated videos complete with voice overs. With an environment similar to PowerPoint, students can:

• construct slides or animated movies (up to 30 minutes long)
• add graphics from the 8 included libraries (more available with the pay account)
• add music or a voice track
• search and insert images from the internet from within the application
•  upload your own images
• export products to YouTube or your desktop or embed it in your site

Using a tool like this helps students stay engaged, enhance their creativity and  pull together a vision for the project at hand.

Starfish Education is not affiliated with these companies or organizations and is not compensated in any way for posting about their company or online tools.

The Four C's in STEM: Creativity with Animoto

In continuing with this series focusing on the 4 C's (creativity, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking), I'm zeroing in on the Creativity aspect and identifying tools that will help students to do just that- exercise their creativity in STEM.

One of my most favorite tools for being creative is Animoto, an online platform that allows students to mix and create short videos.  Students and teachers can sign up for a free education account (which has added features that a standard user account doesn't have.)  Using an education account, student can:

• create a video up to 20 minutes long
• use a variety of themes to customize their videos
• export or share their videos
• choose from about 20 different frames/themes for videos
• upload their own images or video clips or choose from the image/video clip library
• choose a song from the music library (automatically attributed on the video) or upload their own song

Using an online tool like Animoto allows students to display their knowledge in a creative way while still maintaining rigor in your STEM classroom.

Starfish Education is not affiliated with these companies or organizations and is not compensated in any way for posting about their company or online tools.

The Four C's in STEM: Creativity with Glogster EDU

In examining the 4C's of STEM, another tool that students can hone their creativity is Glogster.  Glogster EDU is similar to infographic tools like Picktochart and Easel.ly in that it has a sort of infographic application, but Glogster is better used as a digital poster.  Think old-fashioned poster presentation meets the digital age.

Creating a free account with Glogster EDU allows the user to be creative with the media and display just about anything, from clipart, images, and charts.  Students can even include audio and video to make their "posters" more appealing.

Because it's so versatile,  Glogster can be used across a number of subjects help students demonstrate knowledge,  write poetry and display experiment results, all with a creative flair.

Starfish Education is not affiliated with these companies or organizations and is not compensated in any way for posting about their company or online tools.

The Four C's in STEM: Creativity with Infographics

Creativity is one of the 4C's and a necessary skill for our 21st century learners.  Using creativity tools that leverage your STEM projects is key to incorporating the skill rather than having to teach it separately.

Infographics are a nice twist for students as they are high-interest, teach the importance of summarizing and synthesizing data and stretch students' creativity skills.  On the surface, infographics just looks like a whole lot of fun.  Looking deeper shows the time and effort that goes into producing a product like this both with it's visual allure and the information that it shares.

I have posted on Picktochart  before, so this time around, I'll focus on  another valuable tool for creativity in STEM: easel.ly 

easel.ly is an easy to use, free, online infographics platform. Creating a free account allows the user:

• access to a decent number of ready-made templates
• the ability to start from scratch if you can't find something you like
• a really nice selection of built-in graphics
• a mechanism to upload your own graphics
•  shapes, backgrounds and fonts for make your infographic unique
• to save their progress/product as a jpg, png, pdf, or svg

By stretching their creativity skills, students can begin to perform at the higher levels of Blooms Taxonomy by designing and constructing infographics.

Starfish Education is not affiliated with these companies or organizations and is not compensated in any way for posting about their company or online tools.

Educational Achievement Badges

In the past month or so, the topic of educational achievement badges has come up... a lot.  It's such an interesting concept.  The former elementary school teacher in me is screaming: it's the 21st century version of a sticker chart!  The child in me is screaming: it's a 21st century scout badge!

So what do you get when you combine the structure and achievement of the sticker chart with the excitement of earning a  Scout badge?  Enter educational achievement badges.  They're digital.  They're cool.  They inspire students to achieve. And they are easy to use.

But which ones are best for students and easiest for teachers?  Here are the candidates:

Classbadges is designed specifically for K-12 education.  Teachers set up an account to award customized badges to their class or entire school.  Teachers can choose from over 100 ready-made badges or customize them to fit their lesson, unit, or theme.  Award badges to track progress, recognize achievement, or assess mastery. And it's all FREE.

For everyone else (over the age of 13), there is Mozilla's Open Badges.  This project aims to acknowledge that learning happens everywhere,  Users must sign up for an account and then can decide to be an issuer, a displayer, or an earner.  Badges earned can be collected (and displayed publicly if the user chooses to) in the Badge Backpack. FREE.

Badge Stack is a customizable badge program that can be integrated into your existing LMS and can even be integrated with Mozilla's Open Badges.  Share badges with other instructors and even generate reports to track progress and measure growth.

Educational achievement badges are a great way to help students  take charge of their own learning and measure progress.  Can't help but think how helpful this would be to use throughout a STEM project....