Last week I was invited to tour Edgerton’s new STEAM Space by high school science teacher Tracy Rendleman who has with the assistance of the district administration and fellow science teachers Olivia Schaffner and Seth Schroeder, built a new learning space in the space formerly occupied by the library.

We started with a visit to her Biology class who were busy turning a pile of random lego bricks into something. These students are experiencing their introduction to form and function via STEAM  by trying to make something using their imagination. I asked the students if they liked playing with Legos again. There was a mixed response. One student noted that “I don’t know what to make. ” This highlighted for me the importance of trying these types of activities to re-engage the students using their imagination and to solve problems. read more

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Last week’s Tech Tuesday’s article introduced Mote, a Chrome extension that lets you easily add voice comments and audio clips to shared documents, assignments, forms, and emails.  During a recent MoteCon, Stephanie Howell from Pickerington Local School District graciously shared a B-I-N-G-O template she designed to work with Mote. Who doesn’t love B-I-N-G-O, right?! 

The Mote B-I-N-G-O cards could be used as choice boards. Click here to make a copy of the B-I-N-G-O Google Slides template. The template includes six completely editable sample boards. You could revise the template to create a “This or That” activity, an assessment, a book review, just to name a few. The following example shows how you can edit the template. read more

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Mote is a Google Chrome extension that allows you to add voice comments and audio to shared documents, assignments, emails, forms, and websites. After installing the extension, Mote integrates into Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Gmail, and Classroom’s Stream and Private Comments views. The free version provides 30-seconds of recording time.

An example of a teacher providing a comment in a Google Doc:

After installing the extension, the Mote button will appear on the comments card in Google Workspace apps. The free version edit mode lets you download the recording if desired and translate the top message in a different language, not the actual recording. read more

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Have you ever dreamt of stepping onto stage ready to perform your own masterpiece?  Or maybe you hope to hear that song you’ve been humming to yourself on Spotify or YouTube Music.  Perhaps you are working with young musicians in a classroom.  If you find yourself in any of these situations, especially the one involving young musicians, Chrome Music Lab has something for you.  

Chrome experiments is a great place to find new opportunities in technology. One that provides some interesting uses in music is the Chrome experiment called “Song Maker”.   read more

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Google has added a few new “experimental’ websites to its list of cool tools and I wanted to share a couple of them, while they are still “hot off the presses”.

The first is an Interactive Periodic Table which you may have stumbled upon when doing a regular google search. If you search for “Periodic Table” one of the results in the right sidebar looks like this.

Click the Explore Elements button and you will be taken to the the 3D Interactive Periodic Table.

Google’s Interactive Periodic Table

Each element is featured with a 3D animated model. You can turn the element around and see the orbiting electrons. Notice the spelling of Aluminium! As a former science teacher from Australia, it is good to see the 13th element is spelled correctly! read more

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