Educational Technology Tools

While pondering this post, I was concerned with what classified an "educational technology tool." Perhaps it's the scientist in me that wants to make sure that my definitions are clear before I embark upon a response. Regardless, I decided that anything that was available for free use on the Internet and enhanced a learning experience for students constituted an educational technology tool. While this may not be a correct definition, it worked for me, and it allowed me the freedom to investigate some of the things that I've used in the past in a bit more detail.

Since I teach high school chemistry, I try to integrate things into my continued learning that can benefit my students as well, so I set out to find stuff that would be good for my day students. There are countless sites out there that I have used in the past to supplement particular lessons and to offer support for specific challenges. So, here are a few of them:

• eChem has an application that allows you to create and manipulate molecular structures. This particular one is from another teacher's personal class site. Very often these (teacher sites) have some AMAZING tried and true resources.
• Mr. Guch (another teacher in the classroom) has compiled an incredible amount of information, tutorials, and resources for chemistry students and teachers.
• Science Spot has resources for all levels and areas of science for mostly teachers.
• There are like 80 billion Periodic Tables online, and they all have a lot of the same information (how many ways can you describe Calcium, really?), but this one is pretty neat and interactive and all that stuff.
• And, if you've got a couple minutes and want to hug your inner science nerd, this is always fun. Click it, you know you want to. Everyone loves it.

So, while my tools may be more specifically geared towards my nerd-tacular world, you may find that there are many tools out there that focus on your specific area(s) of expertise! And, since we should all be teaching all of the areas all of the time, perhaps you can use some of my sites to help you integrate science into your teaching :)