World Book Online has recently added World Book Advanced to the lineup of products available at Iowa AEA Online. World Book now has three separate encyclopedias available to meet the needs of a wide range of students. For more information about each of the three products, click here.


World Book Advanced is a powerful reference tool that includes encyclopedic, multimedia, e-book and primary source databases, fully integrated in a single search.
Features include:
• More than 25,000 encyclopedia articles, 270,000 primary source documents1 5,500 e-books and 10,000 images
• Correlations to national curriculum and achievement standards
• Individual accounts that allow users to create and save their work
• Powerful search engine for maximum efficiency and relevancy
• Timelines and citation builders
• Lesson plans for primary sources with classroom activities, questions and discussion guides

For a basic PowerPoint introduction to World Book Advanced, click here. For more information about World Book Online or any of the other products available at Iowa AEA Online, please contact Deanna Etherington at detherington@aea13.org

Deanna Etherington

Inspiration Launches New InspireData Software

Inspiration Launches New InspireData Software

InspireData is a tool for students in grades 4-12, designed to help them apply visual learning to data analysis in science, math and social studies. It will help develop content knowledge, critical thinking skills and develop data literacy.

InspireData was developed by TERC (an educational research and development lab dedicated to improving math and science teaching and learning) and originally funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

This software lets students collect, explore, and interact with data. They can ask questions, solve problems, and draw conclusions in science, math, and social studies. Data is displayed both in a table view and plot view (Venn, stack, pie and axis). Students can show how data changes over time with an animated time series and show what they know with the slide show tool.

InspireData comes with a “Classroom Projects” book to help teachers integrate the software into their instruction with lesson plans, projects, and experiments. It also provides 50 curriculum-based databases and plot examples.

To preview InspireData, you can download a free, 30-day trial from www.inspiration.com/freetrial. It is available on the IEC but pricing depends upon how many licenses/CDs that you order. For example, if you want 35 licenses, the cost is @ $20/license.

Judy Griffin

Gaming, Cognition, and Education Article Review

“Gaming, Cognition, and Education” by Dr. Scott McLeod

Education-oriented simulations or virtual simulations will be “key components of classrooms of the future,” says Dr. Scott McLeod from UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education. He thinks that these virtual simulations will allow for self-paced learning, freeing up teachers to spend more time with students who need extra help. Educational gaming easily allows for differentiating instruction for students. “We will begin to see complex, realistic, accurate simulations of ancient civilizations, historical events, scientific and mathematical processes, etc.,” states Dr. McLeod. This very interesting and thought-provoking article is based on a book by Dr. Jim Gee (University of Wisconsin-Madison) What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy.
Dr. Gee says powerful learning principles are inherent in video games, especially role-playing games – Dr. McLeod’s article lists many of the learning principles (from Gee’s book) that are present in most video games, especially role-playing games. Some of these include:
1. Video games encourage active learning
2. Participants can safely take risks
3. Gaming environments are compelling, gamers are willing to play the game over and over to be successful
4. Games give lots of output for little input
5. Learners get rewards from the beginning
6. Learners get lots of non-boring practice
7. Participants are always learning, unlearning, and relearning
8. Learning is multimodal
9. Video games start with basic skills and allow learners to gradually learn more complex actions
10. video games allow learners to be producers, not just consumers of content

To read the Dr. McLeod’s entire article go to www.scottmcleod.net/storage/Gaming_Cognition_and_Education.pdf

Marc Prensky, author, CEO of Games2train, speaker, writer, and game designer has written several popular articles that speak to the same thoughts about using video games to help students learn. He wrote “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”, “Do They Really Think Differently?”, and “Engage Them or Enrage Them,” in addition to many more articles about learning and thinking today.
All three articles conclude that digital natives’ brains really are wired differently (physically) than digital immigrants and therefore they think differently from the rest of us. He too concludes that students’ will have great benefit from educational simulations that are engaging and interesting to them. All of Prensky’s articles are interesting. Enjoy reading them! http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/

Judy Griffin

Imbee

Imbee http://www.imbee.com/

Social Networking seems to be getting a lot of press these days. The mainstream media continues to cover the evolution of “MySpace”. Just last night there was another story about efforts the folks at “MySpace” are taking to keep this cyberspace network safe.

“MySpace” is not the only game in town. Last summer another resource was launched aimed at the 8-14 or the tween crowd. It is called Imbee. Imbee is betting parents of this group want a safer alternative to the more liberal MySpace. With Imbee, parents get to set the rules about who is allowed to connect with their kids. It is a closed site, not accessible from the wider Web. It has space for students, parents and teachers. I set up a teacher account today. It didn’t take very long but it did ask for a credit card to verify my identity. I chose not to give them the number so I used the alternative method. They will call me to verify my identity.

The site allows account holders to set up blogs, share music and photos and set up email. The only way to interact is via an invitation. The invitation comes in with a request to talk to a child. The parent or guardian can see it and decide if it is accepted or not. It is important for parents or teachers to sign up with their children or students because their account can be linked to the kid’s account. This is how control is maintained.

It will be interesting to follow the progression of this resource. Will the creators be successful in their efforts to keep young adolescents safe? It seems to be a step in the right direction.

Maryann Angeroth