Some New Middle and High School Resources to Share

Kris Walsh

I know many of you have been suffering from withdrawal since missing Techy Tuesday last week due to our snow-cation. I know many teachers who spent at least part of the time grading, planning and getting caught up on paperwork and other tasks that need to be done. I was able to get caught up on some reading and professional social networking that often gets buried during a typical work week. I found a couple of resources that I thought were worth sharing to the group at large.

These resources that I have are mainly focused on middle and high school classrooms, but they do have applications in other settings, such as the upper elementary. These resources came to me through the DOE Google+ network for Indiana eLearning Coaches.

       (As a quick aside, there are several great Google+ networks for most subject areas and grades. They are a great way to use social networking professionally. Please let any of the e Coaches know if you would like to know more about how to get involved)

The first resource comes courtesy of Jeff Chicki. It is a link to a great mindmap (a great tool on its own) of iOS apps that can be used in the classroom. I cannot say that I have had personal experience with all of the resources that are shown, but I have used many of them and the ones that he has listed and I have used are all good. He does a good job of separating the apps out into subject areas and or tool categories. Even if you do not have access to an iDevice, many of the listed tools can also be found on the web as well. Follow the link below to access the mindmap Jeff has created.

http://www.mindmeister.com/406649297/ios-apps-for-middle-school-education

The other resource I would like to share comes to us from Maria Sellers. She shared a resource for finding free academic articles that students can use for research. The articles are in .pdf format that students can use to markup and highlight. I have messed around with the site a little and it seems to be a great and easy place for students to use for research. The sites and articles that I found were all reliable sources that would be useful in completing a project which required it. One warning is that the first 2 or 3 search results are ads. They are marked as such, but students may not notice that, you may want to let them know this. Ads are often a sad fact of life when looking for free web resources. Follow the link below to access the site.

PDF search engine for free scientific publications - FreeFullPDF