On Saturday, my colleague and I went to edSurge's Tech for Schools Summit (Silicon Valley 2015). Though there were numerous companies presenting their applications and devices, I just wanted to focus on a couple that we felt would be of most benefit to you. (If you follow the link above you will be able to see a list of all the companies that were involved.)
curates public radio stories to be used in the classroom. There are pre-made lessons available, and they are highly customizable so you can delete questions or add your own. Questions can even pause the program to check for student's comprehension. Though accounts are free, to get the full experience and be able to create lessons online the premium service may be required. Unfortunately, there is no prices that can be easily seen on the website and you would need to contact them to find out current pricing. [Update: in July 2016 this company rebranded themselves from Listen Current to Listenwise.]
, SE3D, has developed a 3D Bioprinter that is inexpensive enough to be used in the classroom (in other words, less than hundreds of thousands of dollars). Although this is still outside the price range of most classes, unless you have an angel donor! I just put it here because it is really cool and speaks to my geek side! I could see this being used in middle school science classes in numerous ways.
- PocketLab was one of the best items we saw. As the name implies, it is a miniature lab that can fit in your pocket. The device is very small, 2.65 inches long, 1.15 inches wide and 0.65 inch tall. Within the PocketLab are multiple sensors, including an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, thermometer, and pressure gauge. It connects through Bluetooth to a device and allows you to detect a lot of information. They cost $98 (discounts available for bulk purchases).
looks like a great grading program that allows you to scan or photograph work (or students can do their own), you then grade it online and you can then view the statistics. One of the cool features was that if you decide to change how much a question is worth because you realize halfway through grading everything that it was harder than you anticipated, then the gradebook will change the previous papers you had already graded to reflect that change! This keeps all scoring standard across all student work for that assignment. Though originally designed for universities, this can be used in any classroom setting. You can request an account for free on their website.
provides free, easy-to-use computer science (programming or coding) resources to help teachers of 4th through 8th grades create clubs for their students to learn programming. There are multiple themes to choose from, each theme has about 10 hours of materials available. Though it is designed for an afterschool club, it could be incorporated into a classroom as well. And the best part, it is free!
