What's Your Blood Type?

The Blood Typing Game is an interactive activity where students try to detect the blood type of various patients. After choosing a patient, you are asked to use a syringe and take blood which you then put into three vials. Guessing the patient's blood type is the final step. The Blood Typing Game was the 2012 Winner of the Best Game Category by Swedish Learning Awards. Students will really enjoy this game, which was recommended to me by my colleague Pat, who teaches biology.

A Trusted Online Source: Encyclopedia of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life is a terrific online resource with "information and pictures of all species known to science". Search an animal's name and several tabs are made available, including the overview, details, outside resources on that topic, classifications and names for the animal and so much more. If you are a biology teacher, this is a site you should bookmark for your students.

Refraction: A Math Game About Fractions

With support from University of Washington Center for Game Science, DARPA, Gates Foundation, NSF, Adobe, Microsoft and Intel, Refraction was created to teach fractions. According to the website, "In Refraction, the player must partition lasers in order to power spaceships containing various animals who have gotten stuck in space, as shown in the picture. These animal spaceships all require different fractions of the lasers, and the player is given several pieces that split and bend the lasers to reach the animals and satisfy these requirements".  Refraction won the Best in Show Award in the 2010 Learning Challenge, which was sponsored by Disney Research. Below is a description of the program.

 

10 Websites to Create Monsters and Creatures

With Halloween arriving next week, I thought it would be great to share some sites where students could create their own monsters and creatures. Teachers can turn the project into a creative writing experience by having the kids write stories about their monsters. You can find a huge listing of other holidays from September to June here on this blog. 

Thank you to my colleague Norma for telling me about the resources!

Alien: Assembly Required- for younger kids; part of the Arthur site

Goosebumps Monster Maker- based on the R.L. Stine series Goosebumps, students drag and drop body parts to create their own monsters.

Make a Monster- simple interface for younger kids

Me Make Monster- easy to use; share or save the monster created or print it on a tee shirt, mug, bag or baseball hat

Me Make Zombie- students upload a photo and make it into a zombie

Monster Maker- select various body parts for your monster and control the width, height, texture and background

Playnormous Monster Gallery- choose eyes, nose, ears etc. and have your monster rated on the site; gallery currently has over 5400 monsters.

Tinkatolli- create a "Tinka"

Toonix- create a "toonix" on this colorful site; many choices to create

The Troop: Monster Creator- the premise is simple: students recreate the monster they saw by clicking and scaling body parts

Have You Seen the Google Cultural Institute?

Currently showcasing 42 different exhibits online,  Google's Cultural Institute  is a treasure-trove of photos and videos which cover events over the last 100 years. The current list of exhibitions includes:

World Wonders Project
Bringing to life the wonders of the modern and ancient world  

Art Project
The world’s art at your fingertips  

Yad Vashem
Remembering the Holocaust

Dead Sea Scrolls
Digitizing the biblical manuscripts  

Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory
Presenting Nelson Mandela’s legacy online

Versailles 3D
Discover the Palace of Versailles in 3D throughout the ages  

Le Pavillon de l’Arsenal
A Liquid Galaxy digital display of Paris in 2020  

La France en relief
17th century France in Google Earth  

Here's an overview of Google's Cultural Institute:

Read Books For Free Online

We Give Books is a wonderful site which offers children the chance to read books online for free. Created by the Penguin Group and the Pearson Foundation, the books are divided into the following sections: Classics, Editor's Picks, Featured and New. Every Penguin or DK book read online helps a child receive a book through one of the literacy programs supported by the Pearson Foundation.

22 Great Places If You Teach Research Skills

If you are a teacher-librarian or media specialist, you are the one responsible for making sure students have learned the proper research skills. Since all students need to how to do research, why are school districts still cutting jobs for our position? Once kids get to middle and high school, they need to know how to do certain things tied to research, including a bibliography, website evaluation, searching techniques and so much more. Below you will find sites to assist you in teaching research skills for all ages.Use the Teacher-Librarians tab at the top to find a megalist of stuff for you.

The 6 Online Research Skills Your Students Need- from Scholastic

Copyright, Fair Use and Research Skills for Elementary Students- LiveBinder

Doing Research at the Elementary Level- written by technology teacher Mary Beth Hertz

Evaluating Information Sources Worksheet- for older students

The Future of Research- written by middle school librarian Jennifer LaGarde

Google Scholar- advanced scholarly searches

Infomine- scholarly Internet searches

iResearch: Information Skills for Life- 10 modules (covers plagiarism and searching databases) each include a PDF download

The Free Library- over 20 million articles and books

K-4 Research Materials- LiveBinder

Kentucky Virtual Library's How to Do Research- excellent interactive poster designed like a game board

Research it Right- from Acadia University's Library; animated interactive

Research Skills Lesson Plans- from Lesson Planet

Research Skills Worksheets- from TeAchnology; covers various topic areas 

Research Skills Worksheets- teacher-reviewed; grades listed

Research Skills Unit- for 8th grade students

Rutgers University's R.I.O.T.- wonderful interactive modules include: Selecting a Topic, Finding Sources, Selecting Keywords, Identifying Citations, Evaluating Sources.

State Library of Victoria- research skills for grades 5-9

Teaching Research Skills to Young Students- the role of the media specialist is explained

Teaching the Ten Steps to Better Web Research from SweetSearch


Using Critical Thinking to find Trustworthy Websites-video lesson by N.Y. middle school teacher Emily Koch (Grades 6-8)

Wading Through the Web: Teaching Internet Research Strategies- Three complete 45-minute lessons for grades 6-8

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