Google Gadgets For Vocab

Google Docs' official blog just announced Gadgets that are perfect for classroom use. You can read all about it on the blog, but here is a quick rundown:

• Flash Cards: Put your vocab words into the spreadsheet, add the gadget, and voila! You can play a little game to check out your vocab skills.

• Word Study: Play vocab games, and you can type in your own clues or have them fetched from the internet!

• Interactive Word Search: Great way to help with spelling, and you can play in the browser.

What a great way to get kids excited about vocabulary. I can see some of my students even working on these outside of school!

Online Science Demos

Part of my current position is integrating technology into the pre-existing Science curriculum. The extra challenge is justifying it to the teachers who have taught (exceedingly well) for years without computers. I think that University of Colorado's Physics site is a great example of a worthy investment, time-wise for the students. My favorite part is that is simulates lots of concepts, and lets you play with variables to really get a good idea of how things work.

You can employ this site in a few ways:

• show it on an LCD projector with the whole class, while discussing/asking for hypotheses as to what will happen next
• You can let the kids loose on computers in groups to play around with it.
• There are also lesson plans for certain demos, if you want to use those as well.

Please feel free to look at the lesson plan I made for the 4th grade Electricity and Magnetism unit.

Need some words translated?

I speak pretty decent Spanish, but there are times when I need to make a phone call home to a Spanish speaking family, and I get really nervous about saying the wrong thing. Of course, I write out a script, but I also keep my web browser open to Google Translate in case I need some support on the fly.

Of course, it's not perfect, but I think translating has come a long way since Babelfish, and it's quick and easy to go back and forth (there is a "swap" button at the bottom, to switch translations quickly). It also came in handy during my French course!

Bonus: It can also translate web pages - useful for sending home to parents in-class blogs or textbooks resources. Check out this blog in French!