Carolina Biological Launches Remote Learning Add-Ons to Award Winning K-8 Science Curriculum Kits with Teacher Planning Features

Leading school science supplier Carolina Biological launched three new sets of K-8 digital resources for remote teaching this fall: Smithsonian Science for the Classroom™@HOME, Smithsonian Science and Technology Concepts™ Middle School@HOME, and Building Blocks of Science™ 3D@HOME. Carolina updated its award-winning K-8 science programs to support essential remote instruction in elementary and middle schools this fall. All programs are available now and were designed to provide high-quality, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) science instruction. Carolina enhanced Smithsonian curriculum and Building Blocks of Science 3D products with simplified digital teacher-planning features for robust remote science instruction, as well as a variety of live and online on-demand professional development called Get Ready! Professional Learning. Whether educators are teaching students from their classrooms or at home, they can maintain a high-quality science program, engage students online in three-dimensional learning, and continue to support English language arts and math.

Teachers can access these new digital components and share digital resources in English and Spanish with students online from home or anywhere they have Internet access. The new add-ons for remote learning cover all Smithsonian curriculum and Building Blocks of Science™ 3D programs, to complement the classroom teacher’s instruction. These new features are free and live in their accounts on Carolina Science Online®, the online portal where teachers can access digital components of all programs for schools that already own Smithsonian Science for the Classroom, Smithsonian Science Technology Concepts Middle School (STCMS) or Building Blocks of Science 3D. The new digital @HOME and Get Ready! professional development features are included automatically for new customers at no additional charge. The programs include access to a wealth of digital resources, including instructional videos, demonstrations and simulations.

Carolina created a lesson plan for every lesson in the @HOME programs, which includes a one-page summary with five steps to help teachers use it for a remote learning environment, as many will be doing when school begins this fall. Each summary includes a list of the included digital resources they need to share with students for the lesson. Each of the steps can be done in just five or 10 minutes. If teachers are not able to have live class time or video conferences, they can also create their own content through @HOME by recording videos of themselves talking to introduce and personalize the lessons. Being able to see their own teachers will help students to feel better connected with them.…Read More

Lockhart Ed Tech

David Lockhart started teaching high school history in 2004. He had to find that thing that made his lessons stand out, and he saw it with technology. For the last four years, he has been an instructional technologist who coaches, trains, and speaks full time. Today, he teaches students to program, and his blog, Lockhart Ed Tech – The Big Guy in a Bow Tie Blog, covers all the important edtech topics: STEM, coding, makerspaces, G Suite, virtual reality….

If you’re looking for ways to introduce coding into your classroom, Google Docs add-ons, or tips for helping your students make videos, Lockhart has you covered. As a long-time instructor, his posts offer clear advice and helpful how-to details.…Read More

Everything you never knew about using Google in the classroom

Google Certified Teachers share tips and secrets for using Chrome, Docs, and more

google-tipsDid you know you can see all your copy/paste history in Chrome in a click? Bookmark all your browser tabs at once? Create choose your own adventures in Google Slides?

More than half a dozen Google Certified Teachers recently descended on Palm Springs to share their favorite tips, tricks, add-ons, and extensions during a packed session at the Annual CUE 2015 conference. Each presenter shared a micro-presentation honing in on their top ways for teachers and students to make the most out of the Google ecosystem.

The session’s presenters included: Alice Chen, Jen Roberts, Catina Haugen, Lisa Nowakowski, JR Ginex-Orinion, Kevin Fairchild, Scott Moss, Jo-Ann Fox, and Jason Seliskar.…Read More