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Students can learn computer programming

4 Tools for Teaching Kids to Code

4 Tools for Teaching Kids to Code
By Audrey Watters / August 18, 2010 6:30 PM / 27 Comments
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scratch1aug10.jpgIn a recent PC Pro article, Professor Steven Furber, developer of the ARM microprocessor, laments the sharp decline in interest in computer science classes in the UK. And although the U.S. hasn't seen that same drop in enrollment, a recent survey of some 14,000 U.S. high school teachers by the Computer Science Teachers Association found that only 65% of respondents taught in a school that offered some sort of introductory computer science course.

As our world becomes more tech-oriented, educators are faced with not just teaching children how to use computers, but how to build and program them as well.

ReadWriteWeb's Back to School Coverage:

* Teachers Pick Their Top 5 Back-To-School Tech Tools

"We need to get students interested in computer science and that has to be done at an early age before they decide (incorrectly) that they can't do computer science or that it is dull and boring," says Alfred Thompson, Microsoft's K-12 Computer Science Academic Relations Manager. "Teaching computer science in an interesting fashion while students are young and impressionable and searching for interesting things they can do with their lives can potentially lead to more diversity in the field. And we need more diversity in the field."

Fortunately, there are a number of great tools to teach programming to K-12 students, along with a lot of resources for computer science teachers:

Brain Honey for Teachers

BrainHoney | Learning To Share | Benefits

What we do...
Now's Your Chance To Leverage Online Learning!
Take a couple of minutes to see how BrainHoney can help any educator immediately benefit from our online suite of learning management resources and then take a couple more minutes to start a free account!
BrainHoney

Track Grades & Manage State Standards Daily
State standards are required, so why not utilize a teaching, learning, and grading system designed around them?

Easily build a scope and sequence in minutes with BrainHoney by dragging and dropping pre-selected state standards onto a schedule. Share it with your colleagues. Then use the same system to track student progress by grades or objective mastery or both.

Teacher News

Alltop - Top Education News

All the top Education news.

Learning Blog

2009 June 24 | Upside Learning Blog

Top 100 Learning Game Resources
Abhijit Kadle | June 24th, 2009 | Game Based Learning, Learning Technology
5

Do You Need Games In Your Elearning Mix?When writing the whitepaper about Casual games, I did a fair bit of research and looked at several hundred web links. While doing so, I documented a few of the better ones. I’d been mulling posting these to the blog. So here they are - a Top 100 Learning Game Resource list. If you are already developing learning games, these links will broaden your horizons, as they did mine. If you are contemplating beginning – it might help to look at links that interest you to get some grounding ideas.

Links for New Teachers

100 Helpful Websites for New Teachers | Teaching Degree.org

You’ve been preparing for teaching for years, and now you finally get your chance to have a class of your own. With so much to learn as you get started, it can be overwhelming keeping it all straight. The following websites are loaded with helpful information that new teachers will appreciate.

Sites Just for New Teachers

Free Technology for Teachers

Free Technology for Teachers: 30+ Alternatives to YouTube

Over the last year I've done a few posts about alternatives to YouTube. This post consolidates all of those resources into one list. If you have a suggestion that should be added to this list, please leave a comment...

Learning Beyond the Classroom

ReadWriteThink: Summer Activities - Learning Beyond the Classroom
  ReadWriteThink, established in April of 2002, is a partnership between the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the Verizon Foundation.

NCTE and IRA are working together to provide educators and students with access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction through free, Internet-based content.

Yenka.com

Yenka is a new generation of educational modelling software from Crocodile Clips, which lets you simulate concepts and create content easily. (More...)

Teachable Moment

Teachable Moment -

The postwar situation in Iraq is the subject of much debate. Decisions being made now will have significant consequences for Iraq, for the Middle East, for U.S. relations with other countries, for the United Nations, and for President Bush's reelection campaign.

The two readings below offer a summary of recent developments in Iraq, Bush administration policies, and domestic and international reactions to them. Following the reading are suggestions for classroom activities. Because this issue is intensely controversial, teachers may find useful "Teaching on Controversial Issues," which is available on this website, as well as other recent sets of lessons on Iraq, especially "A Democratic Iraq?" and "Rebuilding Iraq: Problems and Questions."

Babies Understand Numbers as Abstract Concepts

Babies understand numbers as abstract concepts - life - 08 June 2009 - New Scientist

Our ability to think of numbers as abstract concepts is probably innate and even babies barely a few hours old seem to have the ability, researchers say.

Abstract numerical thought is the ability to perceive numbers as entities, independently of specific things. It can be demonstrated by the humans capacity to link a certain number of objects to the same number of sounds, irrespective of what the specific sounds or objects are. But whether this ability is innate or learned through culture or language wasn't known.

Making Teachers Nerdy

Making Teachers Nerdy

Do you have students who take family vacations or have special opportunities to travel during the school year? What sort of assignments do you require them to do while away? Do they journal their adventures and gather brochures to report back to the class? If so, you’ll be very interested to read how today’s guest writer, Mary Rizzo, a Technology Assistant and Webmaster at Parsley Elementary in Wilmington, North Carolina shares with you her travel buddy project ideas. I was thrilled she contacted me and I hope you’re inspired about this twist to the travel buddy project. Thanks Mary for sharing your story at Making Teachers Nerdy. Hopefully, many schools will be inspired to duplicate the idea and start their own traveling mascot program.

Teacher's Domain -- Media Resources

Teacher's Domain

Free Online Media Resources
The Teachers’ Domain online library offers more than 1,000 free media resources from the best in public television. These classroom resources, featuring media from NOVA, Frontline, Design Squad, American Experience, and other public broadcasting and content partners are easy to use and correlate to New Hampshire and national standards.

Technology for Teachers and Students

20+ Must-Read Education Technology Blogs for Teachers, Students, and e-Learners | Online Schools and Degree Programs

Over the past decade the information technology revolution has drastically changed education. Never before has so much information been available, with new technologies popping up daily to help us make sense of it. The dedicated bloggers featured in this post are your best bet for keeping up with the cutting edge of e-learning.

Best Universities Lectures

100 Free Online Lectures that Will Make You a Better Teacher | Best Universities

Great teachers know that learning doesn’t stop as soon as you graduate from college. Teachers learn from their experience, from their colleagues, from their students, and any number of other resources. If you are a teacher looking for ways to expand your knowledge base, here are 100 free lectures you can watch to help facilitate some of that learning

Excellent Suggestions for Educational Purposes

HELP! Educational Blog

# Should the Government be Paying Students for Good Grades?
# 5 “Warning Signs” of a Gifted Child
# The 32 Most Commonly Misused Words and Phrases
# 13 Mental Fitness Exercises to Keep You Sharp
# How to Manage Your Testing Anxiety

Ideas that Inspire

Ideas to Inspire

'Ideas to Inspire' is a collection of collaborative presentations, which offer a large number of ideas for engaging lesson activities. They are the result of the collaboration of teachers from all around the world.

100 Twitter Apps

100 Tips, Apps, and Resources for Teachers on Twitter | Online College Degree

Twitter can be at first glance a strange phenomenon and many don’t understand its purpose right away. However, Twitter is a powerful tool that is growing in popularity as word spreads of its potential capabilities. The idea of writing small blog posts of 140 characters or less to a group of your followers is actually a revolutionary new way to bring communities together, learn from each other, and keep updated with all that is happening. Busy teachers may feel that taking the time to learn how to use Twitter isn’t worth the return for the students benefit, so that’s why this list of 100 tips, apps, and resources is worth browsing. Find out how to get started with Twitter, ways to use it in an educational setting, and tools to help you use it better with these resources below.

LEARN TWITTER FOR EDUCATORS

Twitter for Teachers: Home - Twitter for Teachers

How would you like to co-author an e-book to teach educators about Twitter?
For information on how you can participate in this project, visit the How to Contribute page.

This e-book is intended for use by teachers from primary, elementary, secondary and post-secondary schools. The contents of the book are made available under an attribution, non-commercial, share-alike Creative Commons license. Any and all contributions to this resource are deemed to be done on a voluntary basis. Edits to this resource may be edited, deleted or otherwise modified by the moderators of the site.

Google Power Searching Tips

Google Power Searching Tips for Students and Universities

Google is the go-to search engine for both students and librarians. But with so much information on the web, it can be difficult to navigate Google and find exactly what you are looking for. The following Google power searching tips are designed to eliminate this common difficulty and lead you to the relevant information you need.

Teachers First

TeachersFirst: The web resource by teachers, for teachers

TeachersFirst is a rich collection of lessons, units, and web resources designed to save teachers time by delivering just what they need in a practical, user-friendly, and ad-free format. We offer our own professional and classroom-ready content along with thousands of reviewed web resources, including practical ideas for classroom use and safe classroom use of Web 2.0. Busy teachers, parents, and students can find resources using our subject/grade level search, keyword search, or extensive menus.

Tools for Educators

Tools for Educators - free worksheet makers, game creators, 100% customizable worksheet generators with images!

FREE worksheets, worksheet creators, printables wizard and on-line teaching materials makers with images
from Tools for Educators.com . Use these
printout generators, game makers, and programs for teachers
to make and print
teaching resources with pictures
or
text
. They are simple, but beautiful, versatile and powerful. I hope your students (and you) enjoy the resources.

Jigsaw Classroom

The Jigsaw Classroom: A Cooperative Learning Technique

Welcome to the official web site of the
jigsaw classroom, a cooperative learning technique that reduces racial conflict among school children, promotes better learning, improves student motivation, and increases enjoyment of the learning experience. The jigsaw technique was first developed in the early 1970s by Elliot Aronson and his students at the University of Texas and the University of California. Since then, hundreds of schools have used the jigsaw classroom with great success. The jigsaw approach is considered to be a particularly valuable tool in averting tragic events such as the Columbine massacre.

Sloodle integrates with moodle!

sloodle - Virtual Environment Learning System

SLOODLE is an Open Source project which integrates the multi-user virtual environment of Second Life® with the Moodle ® learning-management system.
Sloodle provides a range of tools for supporting learning and teaching to the immersive virtual world; tools which are integrated with a tried and tested leading web-based learning management system.