Category Archives: #edtech #scitech
HHMI Biointeractive: teach ahead of the textbook
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has produced some great, interactive resources for medicine and genetics, including a virtual ELISA test and a transgenic fly virtual lab. Go and have a look – there’re also plenty of animations, though even Flashcatcher can’t save them.
Download a worksheet for the ELISA here.
For a simple mock HIV test (using potassium iodide, lead nitrate and a bit of imaginitive labeling), visit the IB Biology Lab Bank
3D Body Models from Global 3B Scientific
Models you can manipulate – and the labels come in a range of languages, so ideal fo
r international students trying to learn the content in a foreign language.
You can zoom in and out, highlight different sections and turn it around.
eChalk.com – got any spare e-learning credits?
There are a few good resources here – you can get a 3-day trial for nowt, though resources can’t be saved. There’s a fun Periodic Table Tetris on the site, which can be played without a membership.
If it’s in the budget, might be worth a spend – especially if you have some spare e-learning credits weighing down your e-wallet.
Oxford Scientific Videos – another great big archive of good clips
Some great short clips here, and a searchable database. Clips can be saved by right-clicking on the ‘download’ button below each frame. Have a hunt about – plenty to see.
Thanks to fannafanna from the TES Boards for posting the link.
PhET Simulations
PhET have some good simulations on their website (Physics and Chem):
Well worth trawling through to find some good ideas (like this skate-ramp) for the SMART board.
EDIT: this site’s helpfulness rating is boosted by the ‘run offline’ button next to each sim – they actually want us to download these and use them for free. Rock on. Needs Java.
Multimedia Resource Site: teachersdomain.org
This site has some good resources, including savable flash videos.
http://www.teachersdomain.org/sci/index.html
You’ll need to register yourself and your school, but it’s worth the odd email in the inbox.
Saving Videos
Firefox Users:
Just get one of the FlashVideo add-ons for your browser. I use Fast Video Download 1.3.1.4 and it’s great for YouTube and GoogleVideo.
Everyone else:
Simple steps to saving videos to use on a SMART board.
1. Download an .flv player programme. This one does the trick:
http://www.download.com/FLV-Player/3000-2139_4-10467081.html
2. For some videos on this blog, you can click on the ‘Download Video’ option beneath the screen. It will save the video to your hard drive as a .flv file. Your brand-new .flv player will play this, as will a SMART Board with updated drivers.
3. For other videos (directly taken from YouTube or GoogleVideo), you will need to go round the houses a bit:
a. Find the video and copy the full URL
b. Open KeepV.com in a new window
c. Paste the video URL into the input box and press ‘Download Video’
d. You will end up with a file called ‘get_video’ saved on your hard disk. To make it work, rename the file as ‘videoname.flv’
e. It should now work on your computer.
Flashcatcher is another product that can be used to save Flash files. It is a bit fickle, but for some Flash animations you just hover the cursor over the top-left corner and it will give you an option to save.
Remember – many video resources are copyright, and keeping them may be counted as breach of this copyright. However, in many schools internet access is so slow or restricted, the only chance you may have to show a class a decent video is to save it this way. Just be wise about spreading these copied files around.
i-Biology 