Lindley Hanson's List: GLS761

Welcome to Your Professional Development
The Learning Center is NSTA's e-professional development portal to help you address your classroom needs and busy schedule. You can gain access to more than 3,300 different resources that cater to your preference for learning. Over 925 resources, such as journal articles, science objects and web seminars are available for free. A suite of practical tools such as My Library, My Transcript, and My Professional Development Plan and Portfolio tool help you organize, personalize, and document your growth over time. If desired, you may review an archived Web Seminar overview of the NSTA Learning Center, or download the "How to Guide" PDF (2.7 MB).

Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks
Current Curriculum Frameworks

Science and Technology/Engineering
Curriculum Framework - Spring 2001

Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Framework (May 2001
Interactive tool for searching frameworks

his module is written to assist faculty who want to start using games to help them teach.

* The big challenge is to make your learning objective integral to game play.
* Once you've done that, you can use games to:
o Make learning fun
o Liven up your classroom
o Motivate your students to learn outside the classroom

Welcome to RubiStar!

Want to make exemplary rubrics in a short amount of time? Try RubiStar out! Registered users can save and edit rubrics online. You can access them from home, school, or on the road. Registration and use of this tool is free, so click the Register link in the l

Free Technology for Teachers

A review of free technology resources and how teachers can use them. Ideas for technology integration in education.

Bubbl.us allows you to easily create a presentation-quality mind map of your thoughts. Here’s a demonstration that I whipped up quickly to show what a backup script would capture.

Bubbl.us allows you to easily create a presentation-quality mind map of your thoughts. Here’s a demonstration that I whipped up quickly to show what a backup script would capture.

Bubbl.us particularly excels at showing how things are organized in a hierarchy. Using Adobe Flash and AJAX, you can easily move entries around to where you want them. The simplicity of bubbl.us is really what sells the product. You can use keyboard shortcuts (Press ‘Enter’ to create something of a lower hierarchy and ‘Tab’ to create something on the same level.) or hover your mouse over any item to find out more information about it from the friendly help section in the bottom right corner of the screen. The site is also conscientious about the value of your screen space and allows you to maximize everything, getting rid of their logo, a space on the right that lists your saved images, and the help in the right corner with the click of a button in the top-right corner of the workspace.

One of the real strengths of this web app is that it allows collaboration. You can share files in read-only or full-access mode which would allow people to see your image on bubbl.us and with the latter, make changes. Getting away from just the application, you can also export your file to HTML, an image, or an XML file. The XML file would be mainly used for importing your data into other sheets on bubbl.us. The HTML page can be used to summarize your hierarchy, it doesn’t look quite as impressive but is still a worth-while function (with optional colors). You can see a screenshot below or the actual file.

Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is a worldwide network of students, teachers, and scientists working together to study and understand the global environment. Opportunities to record and post data, as well as download and map archived numerous data sets. Teacher resources include professional development workshops, teacher guides, "how to" videos, a Help Desk, and ... Full description.
Grade level: Primary (K-2), Intermediate (3-5), Middle (6-8), High (9-12), Graduate / Professional
Resource Type: Classroom activity, Computer activity, Field activity, Lab activity, Case study, Guide for field trip, Map, Photograph, Discussion / Forum, In-situ dataset, Modeled dataset, Remotely sensed dataset
Subject: Atmospheric science, Environmental science, Hydrology, Soil science

Determine your learning style and that of your students. Learning styles are a way to help improve your quality of learning. By understanding your own personal styles, you can adapt the learning process and techniques you use. This site is dedicated to helping you better understand learning styles, as well as providing an easy way to discover your own styles and those of the students you teach.

Simple and easy to using graphing software that allows you to create pie diagrams, scatter and line plots, histographs, etc. Suprisingly easy to use. The major limitation is that you cannot adjust the length of your axes--plots are square.

Geologic Map of Massachusetts from the USGS National Geologic Map Database

Geology and the evolution of engineering in Massachusetts

Make inferences about the geological history of a pebble by observing its characteristics and by utilizing geological principles and concepts. The Every Pebble Tells a Story* activity is an excellent follow-up to the study of mineral and rock identification. However, extensive experience with mineral and rock identification is not required. This activity provides practice in observing and critical thinking and opportunities for sketching and creative writing. Because students select, analyze and write about their own pebble, we have found that the activity is very engaging for students. Additional materials (http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/pebble/pebbleAM.htm) that accompany this activity include resources for the teacher, for helping the student with the interpretation of their rock sample, and for mineral and rock identification.
MS Word and PDF versions of this document are located at:

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/pebble/pebble.doc, and

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/pebble/pebble.pdf.

A PowerPoint file consisting of much of the information contained here and in the pebble additional materials file is located at: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/pebble/pebble.ppt.

Graph Paper Maker is software that lets you create your own custom sheets of graph paper. You have complete control over the graph characteristics:

* X and Y axis can independently be set for linear or log scale, and scaling
* Selection from a dozen standard paper sizes, or custom create your own
* Graphs saved as pdf files, so you can print them whenever you wish
* Choose whatever color you want for the lines
* Specify independent line weights for the X and Y axis lines
* Specify the range and spacing of axis labels
* Trigonometric axis
* Hydraulic scaling (1.85 power)