Whether you are wanting to target high school, middle school, or the k-3 crowd, Brainpop offers a variety of animated content to interact with students. Each animation comes supplied with quizzes, lessons, and exercises that stimulate the senses that students are most used to using in their daily lives.

I had a chance run in with Brainpop’s Paul Kuhne. And while I didn’t have much time to really dig into the specifics behind the company, he did mention that they do offer a free 30 day trial of their content. So if you are wanting to test drive their full arsenal of animation you can check it out here. If you are interested in working this into your K-3 classroom, you can also check out Brainpop Jr. Spanish speaking students? They have that too.

They have a lot to offer. I plan to continue talking with members of their team to bring you some more of what they have, but until then check out their site and try out the free trial.

Nearly a decade ago E-Pals had a vision for connecting educators and classrooms that were literally a world apart. They provided a way for teachers to sign their classroom up and connect, allowing students to discuss real life cultural values and happenings with students that lived in areas that most would never even have the chance to visit. Valuable. Case studies began to confirm their beliefs that giving students this real world opportunity was priceless to their development, both as global citizens and writers. And if this were the only feature that the modern day version of E-Pals had to offer, it would be worth mentioning. But they have grown to offer quite a bit more.

The company no longer only supports just a means of connection. They now provide the tools to do it at no cost to the school. Recently they have incorporated a blogging and email platform that boasts some incredible security features. With these tools, classroom can connect in a safe way that provides a teacher a way to monitor every activity that happens. Emails and blogs can be filtered through the teacher before being sent or published, and blogs can be set to a number of security settings. These settings insure that only the appropriate people see the information and keep students protected like few programs that we have covered. And they do it for free.

These days security is high on any school’s agenda. Since most are wanting to equip their students with the appropriate 21st century skills in a safe environment, this would definitely be something worth checking out.

Assessment
Lessons
Assignments
Grade Books
Content Sharing

The service is backed with an exceptional level of customer service. Something which is not found with most free online course management solutions. With the latest update it even includes tools to prevent plagiarism, and a feature for bookmarking and sharing content in a del.icio.us fashion.

More detailed information on the features of Blackboard can be found in their product brochure here.

What Blackboard clients might not have yet realized is that Blackboard now seamlessly incorporates a streamlined version of WImba which strongly enhances the product’s usefulness and impact on student learning at no extra cost. If you are already a Blackboard user, upgrading to add WImba functionality is as simple as downloading the upgrade. More info can be found here.

WImba functionality means that you can add voice, controlled chat, and an interactive whiteboard setting to your current tools available on Blackboard. This means that you can now assign students to post voice recorded answers, have students message each other in a controlled environment, and interact with your lessons as if they were being taught on an interactive whiteboard. Video conferencing is also available as an add-on.

More information about the features that are included free for all Blackboard users can be found in their brochure here.

If you’re not a Blackboard user and you would like to try it out, Blackboard is extending a special offer to all TTB readers that consider themselves to be “technology evangelists”. This offers gives you access to a Blackboard CourseSite free for a year(a $495 value) by using the coupon code “teachertechblog” at k12.blackboard.com.Their hope is that individual teachers will try it, and encourage their IT administrators to implement a school wide distribution. The trial does not include the Wimba features, but does include all of the bells and whistles of a regular BB CourseSite with nothing to install on a school’s server. All that is required is to sign up using the coupon code. From there you would, of course, need to work with your school on developing the online class.

Few people can do any sort of presenting for a sustained amount of time without visuals. Doing such a task demands painting vivid pictures strategically with every word you utter. Which Jeff did. His words captured moments of inspiration from his childhood, and the connections that rest between humans and the wild. Stories that do a fine job of conveying the importance of being responsible stewards of our planet.

With such powerful content, how does Discovery get this out to teachers? I’ll be meeting with members of Discovery tomorrow to find out. Until then, consider checking out the Discovery’s Animal Planet web site.

Tabula Digita: Dimension M – Interactive learning of Algebra and Pre-Algebra through a multi-player, “Halo-like” game.

Hit up the Read More link to find out more about each of the highlights.

Tabula Digita: DimensionM

It seems that Educational Games can be hit or miss these days. Several of which leave me feeling “Where is the learning?” or “Where is the game play?”. It seems they usually only get one or the other. This is not the case in Tabula Digita’s DimensionM.

I had a chance to sit down and play around with the game for a few minutes today. Impressive. You get the action, and graphics that thrill most students, and points are solely based on the math(which thrills most teachers). The game play basics go like this:

Each player navigates their character around the interactive world collecting “Orbs”. These Orbs  allow them to enter one of the zones where they have a shot at scoring points by solving a problem. When you consider that it’s all being done as  race against the clock as they maneuver to avoid being immobilized by their opponents, you can understand why it would easily get students excited and motivated about doing something that forces them to do their math.

Other than the fact that students can only score points by doing their math, DimensionM has several other educational features which are equally impressive.

Student Progress Tracking
Play from home ability
Lesson Modules that teach the skills required in the game.

With it’s impressive features, it’s sad that full support is only available in a few states(Florida, Texas, and New York). However, some options are available for states outside of those regions. They do plan to Include more in the coming year. It is also good to know that the software is PC and Mac compatible.

Check out their site here. They have videos and product details linked from their main page.