Kew Gardens teams up with Promethean Planet
The Great Plant Hunt is an exciting project from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, funded and commissioned by the Wellcome Trust. The Great Plant Hunt aims to encourage school children aged 3–11 to explore the natural world around them, have fun and enjoy a rewarding learning experience. And they’ve now teamed up with Promethean Planet to share their resources with teachers around the world. These engaging educational interactive...
Timmy’s Number Tracing pre-school iPad app
Timmy’s Number Tracing app featuring CBeebies favourite Timmy the lamb is aimed at helping pre-school children develop basic maths skills. The app is based on in-depth research into handwriting and the best way of teaching it. It features all the favourite characters from the hit CBeebies show Timmy Time. The app has been created by Aardman, the Oscar-winning creators of Wallace and Gromit in association with Pearson. Using the...
Learning Spot Lessons : Interactive Whiteboard Content for K-5
Carson-Dellsoa has recently launched a product called Learning Spot™ Lessons providing content for teachers to use on their interactive whiteboards. The units cover grades K – 5 with topics range from language arts to math and, science. Each Common Core-based unit includes lesson plans, extension activities, state correlations and more. . The units I looked at were currently matched to the US and Canadian standards and I understand...
Dragon Breeder – Genetic Crossing with Dragons!
Dragon Breeder is a new game from Spongelab where players progress by using the principles of Mendelian Genetics. Players can breed target dragons, or determine the genotypes of the dragons in their den. It’s an interesting game, and will be of interest to KS4 and Ks4 science/biology teachers. It’s definitely a different take on looking at genetic crossing and dragons are far more fun than fruit flies or pea plants!...
Smart Notebook Gallery 2.0 : Beta now available
If you’ve downloaded the newest version of Smart Notebook (v 11) then you might have noticed a link in the regular gallery to the Smart Notebook Gallery 2.0. This wasn’t available at launch. But now it is! And you can download it here. SMART Notebook Gallery 2.0 beta features a new user interface and seamlessly integrates with SMART Exchange to provide access to thousands of gallery items. This beta allows you to search,...
Video Lectures from Backpack TV
Backpack TV is a new website very much in the mould of Khan Academy and O2 Learn, amongst others. Like these sites it contains videos produced by teachers of lectures about particular topic areas. You can search by topic, subject etc. Videos range from 5 to 20 minutes in length. Videos are self-hosted rather than pulled in via YouTube, which some schools will find useful. Videos seem pitched at the KS4/KS5 range. The site is clean,...
Interactive Transit of Venus Model
The folks over at the Sun Aeon website have put together a cool simulation of the 2012 Transit of Venus. which takes place on 5-6 June. It’s a neat way to demonstrate what’s taking place when Venus passes in front of the Sun in ths very rare astronomical event. Take a look at : http://www.sunaeon.com/venustransit/ You can even get an embed code to host the model on your own school website or learning platform....
Integrating Promethean ActivExpression With BrainPOP
If you are a BrainPop user, did you know that you can use the quizzes on their excellent website with your Promethean ActivExpression or ActiVote handsets? If you didn’t know that, and want to find out how, then here’s a guide by teacher Steve Figurelli on how to do this. For additional information – click on either the BrainPop or BrainPop UK links below then click on the Quiz Integration tab. You’ll also find links...
Smart Notebook App for Ipad Announced
Rumours of this app were leaked last week, then it all went quiet, so its good to see that there’s now an official announcement on the EdCompass blog. From this summer, teachers and students will be able to use SMART Notebook software on an iPad using the SMART Notebook app. Using the SMART Notebook app, it will be possible to use many of the tools typically used on the SMART Board. It will be possible to open SMART Notebook...
Using an iPad as an alternative to an interactive whiteboard
With more and more schools (and teachers) getting iPads, I’m increasingly being asked how a teacher can hook up their iPad to their interactive whiteboard. There are several ways to use your iPad. The first is as a way to control your computer, and the other two involve connecting your computer directly to the projector, removing the IWB from the equation. None of these methods let you connect your iPad to your IWB. That’s...