"Mocomi is a nice website featuring educational and entertaining content for elementary and middle school students."
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Eclectic Technology
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Tech tools that assist all students to be independent learners & teachers to become better teachers
Curated by
Beth Dichter
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Quoting from the post: I mean, when was the last time you stumbled across a middle schooler who LOVED -- all caps on purpose -- ANY handout that had to do with school? But it's true: My students -- who I surveyed last week in an attempt to gather some feedback about the unit overview sheets that my learning team developed together -- really dig the tool that we're using to give them opportunities to reflect on what they're learning.
Beth Dichter's insight:
Bill Ferriter suggests a different way to share objectives with students through the use of an Overview Sheet. What is an Overview Sheet. Ferriter states it is a "one-page handout that includes a list of every objective that students need to master written in student-friendly language. The handout also includes unit vocabulary and a few essential questions designed to spark thinking and start conversations." An example of one is provided in the post (which you may download and you see part of in the image) as is a download where he shares students thoughts on self assessments. This may be something you would like to try with your students. 
Sue Ann's curator insight,
May 29, 2013 4:13 PM
I loved the Unit Overview sheets, and how students rate their mastery of the objectives. 
LeeAnn LaSota's curator insight,
July 20, 2014 9:06 PM
This may not be tech, but it fits perfectly for the new interactive text books!
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"...the best of public media’s interactive resources and educational projects for use with middle school and high school students, multimedia productions created by youth, and professional development videos for educators. The 800+ resources featured here are designed to bring educational content to life in engaging and innovative ways, and include games, activities, quizzes, quests, and other interactive experiences."
Beth Dichter's insight:
Great resources brought to you by the Public Broadcasting Corporation! Sections include the arts, careers, ELL, health and sport, language arts, math, media production, science and engineering and social studies.
Pegi Flynt, Ed.D.'s curator insight,
October 12, 2014 6:25 PM
Review for inservice Language Arts Methods 
Rebecca Wilkins's curator insight,
July 31, 2015 9:33 AM
When educators think PBS, they think early childhood education. There are tons of resources, however, geared toward secondary students.
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"What your kids look for in a snack might be different than what you look for as a parent. While they focus on taste, you focus on nutrition. Same goes for games. Glitzy, big-name games can be enticing, just like junk food. Some are flashy and addictive but do little to feed kids' curiosity or help them develop. But truly great video games can help your kids grow in ways you never thought possible -- just like delicious, healthful food. So how can you avoid the sugar-cereal equivalents in the game world? Read these 10 tips to find out." The first tip, draw your kids in, is followed by a brief explanation and two video games that would tend to draw your kids in. In this case the games are for ages 10+ and 12+, but other tips have suggestions for younger and/or older kids.
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Raytheon's MathMovesU program is an innovative initiative designed to engage middle school students in math by illustrating the connection between math, their passions and interests and 'cool' careers.
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"Common Sense Media partnered with Teaching Channel to produce this series of nine videos spotlighting how our lessons meet critical ELA Common Core standards for middle school. Check them out for inspiration from teachers and students in New York City and San Francisco Bay Area public schools. See how our lessons align and view the standards on the Common Core State Standards website." Video titles: Creating a Snapshop of Digital Media Use; Using Critical Thinking to Find Trustworthy Websites; Understanding "Fair Use" in a Digital World; Cyberbullying: What’s Crossing the Line?; Improving Research Skills with Effective Keywords; Online Talk: What’s Safe and What’s Risky?; Exploring the Concept of Online Privacy; Understanding the Impact of Digital Footprints; and The Good and Bad of Using Different Online Personas. The video lessons are geared to middle school students and if you are a registered educator with Common Sense Media you may acess a free online training.
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"Spark curiosity in the classroom. Discovery Education and Intel have teamed up to create Curiosity in the Classroom, a website designed to bring teachers, students and families on a journey through life's biggest questions." This site has resources for teachers, parents and students. The teacher area has resources to help students explore careers at the forefront of featured topics such as Communications, Computers, Nanotechnology, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence for Grades 6-8 and 9- 12, including videos, webinars, pdf files. There is also an area called Profiles in Curiosity with the tag line 'Stimulate insightful conversation with your students about these modern day visionaries.'"
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Lure of the Labyrinth is a digital game for middle-school pre-algebra students. It includes a wealth of intriguing math-based puzzles wrapped into an exciting narrative game in which students work to find their lost pet - and save the world from monsters! Linked to both national and state mathematics standards, the game gives students a chance to actually think like mathematicians.
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"Try Engineering is a site that hosts lesson plans and games designed to get students interested in engineering. The lesson plans, 114 in all, are arranged according age and engineering topic. The lesson plans can be downloaded as PDFs."
Beth Dichter's insight:
This site has great information on engineering, including 29 games that students may play. The majority of games are geared to students in elementary and middle school (although some would work in high school). With STEM becoming a push in many schools it is great to find sites like this that provide a range of resources.
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"A new study conducted by TRU provides a body of research which supports the idea that students use cell phones to learn, and also that schools are not acknowledging or supporting them fully, yet... Rather than banning, the study highlights the fact that if we meet children where they are we can leverage their use of mobile devices for powerful learning."
Beth Dichter's insight:
The study was a survey of 1000 students in Grades 6 - 8 and came out with some surprising data. Key findings include: * More than one out of three middle school students report they are using smartphones (39%) and tablets (31%) to do homework. * More than 1 in 4 students (26 %) are using smartphones for their homework, weekly or more. * Hispanic and African American middle school students are using the smartphones for homework more than Caucasian students. Nearly one half of all Hispanic middle school students (49%) report using smartphones for homework. Smartphone use for homework also crosses income levels with nearly one in three (29%) of students from the lowest income households reporting smartphone usage to do their homework assignments. (Note - 25% of students surveyed were from households of $25,000 or less income.) The report has additional key findings as well as areas of significan opportunity, statistics on students interest in STEM, mobile device usage, benefits of mobile devices in the classroom, and the opportunity to increase mobile device usage in the classroom. You may also download a pdf of this report at http://www.thinkfinity.org/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/10549-102-2-18289/Research%20on%20Mobile%20Technology.pdf.
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Judy Willis, a neurologist & middle grades teacher, says adolescent brains learn more through interactive, interdependent group work. Did you know that "peer group influence plays an important developmental role in the psychosocial process of separation from parents"? What does this mean to teachers of middle school students? That "interactive, interdependent group work" helps middle school students "build happy, learning brains." This post will help you learn more about brain science, successful group work, how to plan for success, provides some researched-based guidelines and more.
Devon Clarke's curator insight,
October 22, 2014 4:44 PM
When it comes to adolescents brain development in our western society today we can rely on school systems to play a large role in this. In this article is talks about how cooperative work groups in middle schools are the best ways for children to learn (Willis, 2012). I found this article to relate very closely to an academic journal I read comparing social development in pre schoolers in a values education program (Dereli-Iman, E, 2014, p.263). In the experiment of the academic journal researches found that children put into the values education program had better social development and less behavioural issues (Dereli-Iman, E, 2014, p.263). Even though this article of cooperative groups deals with middle schools students, it proves to say that cooperative learning groups gets all children involved, and forms for the greatest levels of conceptual learning (Dereli-Iman, E, 2014, p.263). In the text book Exploring Psychology in Modules, they state that day care is an area that has a huge impact on a child's development (Myers & Myers, 2008, p. 148). As Whetten stated, good quality child care is a warm and stimulations place for children, and poor child care is boring for this children making them unresponsive (Myers & Myers, 2008, p. 149). From these three articles you can see that schooling for children plays a huge role in brain development, and it is important to make sure they are in a good environment. Thought the author of this article, Judy Willis did not use a lot of scientific reasoning and proof in her article I found her findings and background to be very impressive. It would have made the article a little bit better if she would have added in some statistics to back up her reasoning about cooperative groups (Willis, 2012). A possible diverse group that would be effected through cooperative learning are kids from other countries who do not speak the foreign language. If a child was put into a cooperative group and was not able to converse with the other children it could possibly lead to negative outcomes for that student. Sources: Myers, D. G., & Myers, D. G. (2008). Exploring psychology in modules. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Willis, J. (2012, September 14). Brain Research: Adolescents Learn More in Cooperative Groups | MiddleWeb. Retrieved from http://www.middleweb.com/2847/how-to-build-happy-brains/ Dereli-İman, E. (2014). The Effect of the Values Education Programme on 5.5-6 year old children’s social development: social skills, psycho-social development and social problem solving skills. Kuram Ve Uygulamada Eğitim Bilimleri, 14(1), 262-268. 
Ruth Virginia Barton's curator insight,
February 13, 2015 11:08 AM
Supportive middle school teaching strategies like cooperative learning, class celebrations, and community-school collaborations lower stress and increase resilience in students and create HAPPY MIDDLE-SCHOOL BRAINS, neuro-imaging shows.
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StudyJams is a free resource from Scholastic that helps reinforce key concepts and ideas. StudyJams provides over 200 lessons in math and science. Using short videos (and possibly slide shows), key vocabulary and concepts are reviewed. There is a quiz for each topic, and some topics include a song where one could sing along. Math topics include: Numbers; Multiplication and Division; Decimals and Percents; Geometry; Data Analysis; Problem Solving; Addition and Subtraction; Fractions; Algebra; Measurement; and Probability.
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Have you heard about Common Sense Media's posters on digital citizenship? This one is geared to middle and high school students and asks students to think before they share, and provides questions to ask so that they "self-reflect before they self-reveal." You may download copies at the site.
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As always, Ira Socol make me think. He begins this post "We tend to do everything wrong for kids between 12 and 15. We pretend they are "adults" in terms of care needs and responsibilities, which they are not. We pretend they are children intellectually and physically, and in terms of rights, which they are not. We dismiss their capabilities and hype their potential as threats. We are cruel to them, and we send every possible message that we don't care about them." If you teach in middle school this article is worth reading as is the National Geographic article that was published on the teenage brain (which I recommend you read as does he...he has included the link and it was scooped here on March 11th).
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Kidblog.org is designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each student with an individual blog...simple, yet powerful tools allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community.
Nadia Ratta's curator insight,
March 31, 2015 10:04 PM
Simple blogging to help engage students in writing, great for teachers parents and students
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An online tutorial to teach how to do research, with sections on planning, searching, taking notes, using information, writing a report and evaluating.
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Mocomi is a website geared to elementary and middle school students. Along with videos they have a wide variety of activities in areas including the arts, civics, culture, English, environment, geography, history, science, and math. They also have an online magazine with a specific theme. The current one is called Under Water, and you can access 19 additional magazines online.
This might be a site you use with students, or one that they might explore during free time. Richard Byrne suggests that the videos "are a model of animated informational videos" and students in middle school and high school "could follow the model to create their own short videos to demonstrate their understanding of a topic."