Tag Archives: software

Good morning. I don’t think of myself as someone who promotes or endorses products or services for commercial gain – I’m just a science teacher, after all – but I find myself constantly surprised at the sheer quantity of high-quality, exciting, engaging, and entertaining educational material available online these days. (How’s that for alliteration?)

At the end of the day yesterday I stumbled across Graphite.org, a new website that includes a rating system for different educational apps and programs. According to the Graphite home page, “Graphite is a free service from Common Sense Education that makes it easy to discover the best apps, games, and websites for classroom use.” It’s a pretty intuitive site to navigate, with filters for age groups (K-12), subject areas, platform (iOS, Android, Windows, Linux), and product type (app, online, software). Ratings are based on both content and

Screen capture from the Lawrence Hall of Science.

One of the things I like as an educator AND as a parent of two school-age children is the “Field Notes” section, where people who are actually using the applications describe what they’re doing and evaluate how well it works.

Here’s a quick list of a few things I found through Graphite that may apply to my classes, and which you may find useful as well:

• The Lawrence Hall of Science: Collections of science activities for exploration at home or in the classroom.
• California Academy of Sciences: Search for activities by grade level and topic, all of which are aligned with California standards.
• Science Update: Quick, one-minute podcasts about current science events.
• Science Buddies: Explore science fair project ideas. (Hint: They don’t have to be just for science fairs!)

Screen capture from California Academy of Sciences.