5 digital resources to inspire curiosity and engage students

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I have had the pleasure of serving as an educator in the Verona Area School District in Wisconsin for over 30 years. During that time, I enjoyed working with staff, students, parents, and community members to thoughtfully integrate technology into classrooms. In 1995, I became the Instructional technology Coach at Verona Area High School.

As an educational technology coach, I support the classroom teachers I serve by modeling innovative technology strategies, co-planning lessons, co-teaching, curating research and resources, analyzing student usage data, and many other strategies. My colleagues often come to me asking for resources to overcome a certain problem in the classroom, and like in many school systems, one of the biggest problems right now is a lack of student engagement.

Following the pandemic, educators in my district and those I engage with as an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Discovery Educator Network STAR report that there has been a decline in student engagement. As educators, it is up to us to spark students' curiosity to engage in instruction. When my colleagues ask me what the best tools are to inspire curiosity and engage students:

POT: NASA's website is an invaluable resource that is gaining attention recently due to the excitement surrounding events like the solar eclipse. Offering a wide range of lesson plans, activities, and educational materials, NASA covers a wide range of STEM topics, including space exploration, earth sciences, and aeronautics. Additionally, it offers a wealth of opportunities to engage and spark students' curiosity. And as an educator, if you love to tweet and share information on social media, you might be interested in the program offered by NASA called “NASA Social Networks” (formerly known as NASA Tweetup), where social media users, including educators, can apply to attend and cover NASA events, including space launches, through various social media platforms such as twitter.

Discovery education: Through Education Discovery Experience product, Discovery Education offers hundreds of ready-to-use lessons, quizzes, activity calendars, and resources using features like closed captioning, immersive reader, and self-paced activities. Teachers love these resources and rely on the activity components to build background knowledge, provide accessible content, and spark curiosity. Students love them because they are interesting and engaging. A standout feature is their virtual tours, where they partner with iconic companies around the world to provide behind-the-scenes access to fascinating locations. He amazon Robotics: Virtual Professional Fulfillment Center Tour it is my favorite. Go behind the scenes to learn how amazon picks, packs and ships orders from its fulfillment centers. I was so impressed with this virtual tour that I scheduled a tour at a local fulfillment center. It was incredible. Another fantastic virtual field trip is “Build the Change – Lego Virtual Field Trip”. After watching this VFT, our third graders joined our high school robotics class to learn, play, and have fun. When classes gathered, third graders were ready to play and be inspired while middle schoolers shared how they build robots, cars, rockets, and more.

Google Art and Culture: I've been a fan of Google Arts and Culture for years. With over 1,600 experiments and counting, what's not to love about this free site? In addition to the extensive collection of artworks and cultural artifacts, it offers quite interesting immersive experiences. Some of my favorites include Blob Opera, a fun and creative tool where you can experiment and create music while learning how ai generates and synthesizes voices. There's also 3D Pottery, where you can virtually recreate pottery from different cultures and eras. With Kandinsky Music, you can explore art while experimenting with colors and emotions. Lastly, with Art Coloring Book, you can choose a famous work of art and color it with the colors of your choice. Coloring can be a really fun, creative and relaxing activity. When you're done, you can download and share your artwork on social media or print it. These are just a few of my favorites. Now, there are over 1,500 more experiments waiting for you and your students to explore, along with a wide variety of other resources.

Canva for education: Canva is a graphic design platform that offers a special version for educators and students. Provides templates and tools to create visually engaging presentations, posters, infographics, and other visual materials for classroom projects and assignments. Canva is hot if you're looking for fun, easy, and creative ways to engage students with digital media. With over 420,000 templates, 75 million stock images, 3,000 fonts, and now access to over half a million popular song tracks, it's easy to get creative with posters, flyers, infographics, presentations, newsletters, videos, and social posts. social, to name a few. Any educator or student can access the full version of Canva for free. After creating your account, you can go to Canva.com/education to verify your account.

Everyone can create: Apple's free curriculum provides inspiration for teachers and students, allowing them to explore creativity in various ways. The downloadable books cover a variety of projects and offer examples and tutorials using apps and tools that allow anyone to explore their creative side. Additionally, there are teacher guides and student guides available to help you get started. Some of the key apps featured in the curriculum include: GarageBand, a music creation app where you can compose, record and edit your own music tracks; iMovie, a video editing app where you can edit movies and trailers using video clips, photos, music and special effects; Clips, a video editing and social media app that lets you create short video clips with animated subtitles, stickers, filters and music; and Swift Playgrounds, an app that teaches the fundamentals of coding through interactive puzzles and challenges. Projects range from recording a podcast, publishing a storybook, and creating green screen effects. One of my favorite projects in the curriculum is creating pop art with the photography app. It's a fun and easy way to encourage students to be creative with the photographs they take. You will be surprised how engaged your students will be when given the opportunities of this curriculum.

These are just a few of the great educational technology resources available to educators today. While there are many more possible resources to consider, the general availability of these resources to educators across the country makes them one of the easiest to integrate into learning. They are easy to use and your students will be really excited to start using them. Try them today!