Sylvan Technology Leadership Blog

http://www.spongelab.com/

Spongelab is a group of scientists, teachers, animators, artists, and programmers passionate about science education and with a desire to help foster learning through gaming. To get started we discussed education issues, learner and educator needs, and concerns about using technology in classroom around the world.

The site is set up like a game and teachers can submit resources, search for resources, and purchase with available points. Points are earned by sharing, and completing tasks on the site.

Using Google Docs Forms and the scripting language embed in GoogleDocs, learn how to create a quiz that self corrects and emails results back to the student. Can you think of any other good uses for a form that evaluates and emails students feedback?

Here is the public read-only link to the self-grading and emailing quiz/form with apps script already embedded:

http://goo.gl/gPbAH

With these tools your teachers can create self-grading quizzes with Google forms that will also e-mail the student back with their scores, incorrect answers and content for reviewing.

Here is the HOW-TO video on setting this up.  The first part of the video just walks our teachers through finding the template in our repository, so you can skip that…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bthOHxeymG0

http://www.mathpickle.com/K-12/Videos.html

Video resources revolving around math concepts. MathPickle is for K-12 teahers. Here you will find curricular games, puzzles and mini-competitions for the classroom.

http://vihart.com/doodling/

This is a creative series of videos spotlighting the doodling of a student and how their drawings relate to mathematics.  Must check it out to get the “picture”

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sketchpad-explorer/id452811793?mt=8

Based on the award winning software The Geometer’s Sketchpad, Sketchpad Explorer allows you to interact with, manipulate, and animate visual mathematics to develop and generalize your understanding of fundamental math concepts.

It is currently free for a limited time.

http://www.scholastic.com/myispy/create.htm

Celebrating 20 Years of “I Spy” books, scholastic put together this site with teacher guides and the ability to create your own mini I Spy creation.

Teacher guides available here: http://www.scholastic.com/ispy/

http://zmathgames.com/

Play cool math games on your computer and have fun while using your math skills. Our selection of math games is updated periodically so check back for new games!

http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/free-tools.aspx?qstr=CR_CC=&CR_ID=

Information regarding many free tools from Microsoft and guides for how to use them in the classroom.

Get information and download a copy of the latest Microsoft version of Live Movie Maker. Easily create slide shows and videos from images and video clips. (Windows 7 or Windows Vista Required)

The Sylvan Foundation Mini Grant applications for the 2011 school year are now available. Have a great idea for a lesson you’d like to implement in your classroom that involves the use of technology? The Foundation Mini Grant may enable to you to aquire what you need!

More information and grant application available here: http://is.gd/SYQa0h

http://e.ggtimer.com/

If you ever need a timer for a particular class lesson, this computer tool might just be the ticket!

http://www.dropitto.me/

Ever wish you could easily receive big files from anyone? Now you can!
Together with Dropbox (http://www.dropbox.com) you can setup an unique upload address with password protection.

Nice tool for creating an electronic assignment submittable system, and it’s free to boot!

http://www.mybigcampus.com/

MyBigCampus is one of the latest educational online content management systems. It has been developed by Lightstream, the same company who make the Lightstream network filter and utilities product. Though not required, it does obviously have hooks tied to their network application/appliance.

Though not OpenSource, such as Moodle, it currently is running in beta and trial accounts are currently free.