NWLSD Technology Links
Project Based Learning, Research, and Investigation
Proejct based learning holds the key to incorporating critical skills into your science curriculum, including information and computer technology, collaboration, writing skills, and critical thinking. What's more, project based learning can help you incorporate these skills seemlessly. Examine technology-rich Unit Plans from Intel Education by clicking here. You can use most of these plans right away, or as models for your own planning. There are resources on the Intel site for grades K-12.
Want more ideas? Try these sites below.
Investigation and Research:
Search Engines:
Sweet Search4ME is a search engine to resources on the web for elementary students. For older students, try Sweet Search. Every site has been reviewed by educators.
Yahoo! Kids This site is filled with educational games and fun activities. Don't discredit the "search" feature at the top of the page...it is a simple web search tool for elementary students.
Kids Click This search engine is designed especially for younger students by librarians. All results returned in a search will be "kid-friendly."
Yippy Yippy Search is a whole new way to search the web.
Yippy queries several top search engines, combines the results, and generates an ordered list based on comparative ranking. This "metasearch" approach helps raise the best results to the top and push search engine spam to the bottom.
But what really makes Yippy unique is what happens after you search. Instead of delivering millions of search results in one long list, our search engine groups similar results together into “clouds.” Clouds help you see your search results by topic so you can zero in on exactly what you’re looking for or discover unexpected relationships between items. When was the last time you went to the third or fourth page of the search results? Rather than scrolling through page after page, the clouds help you find results you may have missed or that were buried deep in the ranked list.
Design a project, writing assignment, etc. with a unique twist! Check out the RAFT technique!
21st Century Information Wizards 21cif Wizards provide on-demand help using Google's search engine, evaluating online information and properly citing information.
Quiki Do you like to watch? Search for information on any topic, and watch a beautifully illustrated explanation. You'll be able to create your own quikis fairly soon...sign up to participate in the Alpha version of quiki.
Project Based Learning Student choice and voice, need to know, feedback and revision: here are the seven major elements you need to make any project successful. Project based learning (or PBL) can engage students fully by immersing them in their learning. If you aren't using it, well...there's no other way to say it. YOU SHOULD BE. Check it out! 
Filamentality Filamentality is a fill-in-the-blank tool that guides you through picking a topic, searching the Internet, gathering good Internet links, and turning them into online learning activities. Support is built-in along the way through Mentality Tips. In the end, you'll create a web-based activity you can share with others even if you don't know anything about HTML or serving web pages.
The El Paso Public Library Kids Zone
American Library Association's Great Sites for Kids
Knowledge Construction Kit Wow! Great resource for students beginning a research project, especially at the Middle or High School levels.
CHECK YOUR FACTS! www.factcheckED.org, a collaboration between The Annenberg Center and the non-partisan organization, FactCheck.org. I've been exploring the site, and they have a lesson plans called "Wikiality" which explores WHY Wikipedia is an unreliable source for a research paper! Check it out: http://factchecked.org/2007/lesson-plans/wikiality/ Shared by Linda Paist, NWLHS Language Arts Teacher
Bubble Create mind maps and knowledge webs online for free!
Springnote allows you to create pages, to work on them together with your friends, and to share files. Springnote is also a great tool for group projects as it allows group members to easily collaborate. Advanced search, numerous templates, and 2GB of FREE File Storage are only few examples of how Springnote can help you.
