Ed Tech 4 Science

I remember fondly the early Tom Snyder Production materials where they supplied good learning experiences for classrooms with only one computer. In fact, I still use Rainforest Researchers (first published in 1996) with my biology methods students (students who will one day be high school or middle school biology teachers).

It seemed to me in the mid 1990s, that the Tom Snyder materials helped fill a temporary need—clearly computers were important in education but clearly access to computer labs was still not always easy for most science classes. How nice to provide high quality learning experiences for classrooms with one computer (and hopefully a TV screen or projector). The solution was to have books and worksheets for students to work in jigsaw cooperative learning groups. Conversations and decisions were made prior to the different groups coming to the computer to enter their decisions.

Fast forward to 2008 and the situation has not improved as much as I would have predicted. Sure there are now laptop carts that many schools have, so entering the computer lab isn’t the only way to get students on the computer. But still, the goal of students working on computers during class time can be difficult. Plus with interactive white boards (such as Smart and Promethean Boards), there is a greater need for the “one computer” software.

So lets hear from you. What one computer software have you used to teach science that worked well?

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Classroom Best Practices, Great Science Software, High School Science, Instructional Leadership, Middle School Science.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.