Techgab1415
Friday, January 16, 2015
20 Ways to Quiet Noisy Students
On www.teachtought.com, Terry Heick wrote an interesting article with an accompanying infographic, on class management. She says that much of what works is about your own personality!
Link: http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/20-ways-quiet-noisy-students/Beyond Mindcraft
Tanner Higgin, from Graphite, writes that Mindcraft is "one of the best examples of learning games because it embraces exploration, discovery, creation, collaboration, and problem-solving..." Below are Higgin's reviews of 6 games similar to Mindcraft.
Gary's Mod
"This is a sandbox game like Minecraft but instead of building and exploring, students use a fun physics engine that simulates things like gravity and mass. The tool is a step up in complexity from the elegant simplicity of Minecraft, but with Garry’s Mod, students are exposed to physics concepts while having madcap fun.
Kerbal Space Program
This is another "robust physics engine where players "purchase rocket parts, put them together, and then see if they can get a ship into orbit, to one of two moons, or even to another planet. These aren’t easy tasks, so play is focused on trial and error testing."
Sound Shapes
This site is a "stunning platform puzzle game set to a rich musical soundscape. Even better: students can create and share their own levels – like interactive sheet music — using sounds and objects unlocked by playing the platform game... It’s an accessible entry point into musical composition as well as game design, and provides an experience that builds on creativity."
DIY
Link: https://diy.org/
STENCYL
Link: http://www.stencyl.com/
Codeacademy
This self-paced site "teaches actual industry-standard languages like PHP, Javascript, Python, Ruby, HTML, and CSS. While students don’t create publishable games like they would in Stencyl, their learning is purpose-driven and contextualized, e.g. JavaScript for web development or Ruby for app development. And students do get to see their code’s output directly onscreen."
Thematic Maps from US Census Bureau
The U.S. Census Bureau records and publishes lots of interesting data about the population of the United States. The Maps & Data section of its website is a good place to find data in a visual format. It also has thematic maps about population to explore.