Google can be our best friend when we are trying to find something. We can search just about anything, and good old Google will find it for us. Unfortunately, sometimes what it finds can be overwhelming, especially for the younger ones out there. Luckily, Google has a really neat Search Tool that will let a student or educator change the reading level of the search results.
Students and/or educators can select a: Basic, Intermediate, or Advanced reading level. This can be beneficial by allowing students to only find websites they can understand and/or read. CLARIFICATION EDIT: There was a great question in the comments about what does Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced means. So after a little searching, I found this blog post, Search by Reading Level - SearchReSearch, that explains how Google determines the reading levels and what they mean. But, the TL:DR version would be "Basic" is elementary level, "Intermediate" is anything above that level up to technical and scholarly articles which would be "Advanced".
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As more and more Chromebooks make their way into the classroom, many teachers are finding they have to find new resources to replace their old. Educators find that some of the good old websites simply do not work on newer technology. One of the areas hit pretty heavy is Science. I had a staff member looking for some resources to replace material they had that simply would no longer work on a Chromebook. So here are some great Science interactives & activities that have been tested and approved for Chromebooks.
Molecular Workbench is a amazing website that offers both educational & fun interactives and STEM activities. These are all HTML5 based, which means they can run on pretty much all devices. One of the other really neat features, is that the interactives can be embedded on your website. You can see an example of this below. This site offers some great resources that every Science teacher really needs to know about, especially since it is free! Another science website, which I have covered before, you may enjoy is SpongeLab. You can set up classes and assign interactives, activities, and material directly to students for free. SpongeLab has everything from virtual dissections (frog, trout, worm) to building your very own nuclear power plant. In fact in contains 895 graphics & images, 251 games & simulations, 111 animations & video, 623 linked animations & video, 87 lessons plans, and 17 e-textbooks. Here is one more bonus website, PhET Interactive Simulations from the University of Colorado. They have almost turned all their old downloadable simulations into HTML5 based ones. They have activities ranging from Elementary through College age.
There are few things that annoy me more than finding the perfect picture for a presentation, but to only find out the image is too small. Save yourself the hassle and learn to use the 'Search Tools' within Google Images. This can help you filter the pictures available to just those that meet your certain criteria, please, it is really easy to do! Watch the tutorial below to see the the tools available under 'Search Tools.' Anytime an educator assigns a research paper to students, it can be pretty entertaining to see the websites they cite. Students often have a tough time deciphering credible websites from non-credible. Well, Google Scholar is here to help them with this issue. Google Scholar searches educational and academic journals, theses, and publications. It can also help students keep tracks of citations with amazing ease, which I am sure will come to the delight of many a teacher. So the next time you give out a research project, be sure to introduce students to Google Scholar. Many of us tend to be creatures of habit and have a certain of websites we use constantly throughout the day. In fact, some of us may never leave these websites. Well, time to make your life easier by learning how you can use Google Chrome to automatically open a certain set of websites every time it starts up. One word of warning, on a iMac, Macbook Pro, or Macbook Air, this only works if Google Chrome has been fully closed by using 'Quit.' Even though many of us would not like to admit it, once in a while we could use the font size on websites a tad (or alot) bigger. Using Google Chrome this can be done quickly and without messing up the webpage. Watch the tutorial below to see how you can adjust font sizes for many websites to make your web browsing just a tad easier for not only yourself, but also for students with vision impairments. It isn't too often that I find a Chrome Extension and think, "where have you been all my life," but ruul. Screen ruler is one of those. This extension is a must for anyone who has moved themselves into a all cloud based computing solution. I find that I do the majority of my graphic design and document creation online now and often have to eyeball align items. Well, no more using ruul! As an added bonus it also lets me quickly find the perfect size for a font. Check out the tutorial below to see this nifty extension in action. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, an animated picture with text must be worth like, um, 2,750 words!PowToon makes creating animated videos unbelievably easy and makes them look good. We are talking like high quality designer good. PowToon can help you or your students create videos that allow them to share their ideas with their classmates and peers. Getting students into PowToon is made easy by its integration into Google Drive. Students can manage their PowToons and log into the website using the Google Apps accounts. Oh, did I mention it is also free! Check out the video below for an example I made describing the Greek Gods. PowToon can also be used as a great creative writing assignment. In the end this is a great tool to add to your presentation arsenal and can allow students to show off some amazing ingenuity! In this week's blog we will look at some helpful hints and tips on using the Omnibox in Google Chrome. Did you know that you can search directly from the omnibox? Did you know you can restrict searches to certain domains, e.g. .gov? Check out the video below to see how to do both of these plus find out the weather for the weekend! |
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