Prompted by a note from a teacher, we have made changes to the Phase Changes Gizmo. In the original Gizmo, we assumed a "no stirring" scenario in which heat applied to the bottom of the beaker was transferred to the ice through natural convection -- the water heated by the burner naturally rose to melt the ice. This scenario resulted in an average water temperature above zero, even while some ice was still present.
We decided to switch the model in the Gizmo to assume "constant stirring." In this scenario, used in many textbooks, lessons, and labs, heat from the burner is instantly transferred to the ice. Noo heat is transferred to the water until all of the ice has melted. As you can see in the revised Gizmo, this results in a heating curve that is perfectly flat during melting, just as in freezing and boiling.
We hope that this change will make this Gizmo easier to understand and use. If you have comments or suggestions about any of our Gizmos, please send them in!
Apple released OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) this morning. Many software companies are working to update their products to work well with this new technology.
Here at ExploreLearning our Gizmos make use of the Shockwave plug-in. If you have already installed 10.6 you may have noticed that you can't see the Gizmos. We don't like that at all! We investigated the issue and wanted to let you know that there is a way for you to start viewing the Gizmos!
The developer of this plug-in is Adobe, and they have stated that they are working on updating the plug-in to work with the new operating system natively, but currently you will have to run in "32-bit" mode. In the future the plug-in will be updated and you will no longer need to follow these steps.
If you have already installed Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6) and previously had Shockwave installed (see further below if you don't have Shockwave installed) follow these steps to view the Gizmos:
Print this page (so you can quit your web browser and continue).
Quit the Safari browser (in menu choose Safari > Quit Safari)
In the dock click and hold on the Safari icon
Select "Options > Show in Finder"
You will now see the main Safari application
With Safari selected choose File > Get Info from the menu, or use Apple-i keyboard combination
You will see a checkbox labeled "Open in 32-bit mode" on the Safari Info panel
Select that option
Be sure that Open using Rosetta is NOT selected
Close the "Safari Info" window
Restart your computer. After the restart please check once again that Safari is still properly set to 32-bit mode by following steps 3 through 10 again.
Start Safari by clicking on the icon in the dock
You should now be able to view Gizmos!
If you have any problems following these steps you may have to talk with your technology coordinator or teacher. If you are still having any problems be sure to drop a line to customer support on our contact page and we will work with you to solve the problem.
As the software and technology associated with our content changes we will continue to keep you updated.
Note: To be sure you have the most recent version of Shockwave you can click here: Shockwave download link.
Update: Jan. 20, 2010
If you try to view a Gizmo and see an error similar to the one below it indicates you have not yet set Safari to run in 32-bit mode. You should try to follow the steps shown above one more time.
Good news - our correlations pages (correlating Gizmos with existing state standards of learning) have been updated! The correlations for the following states now include our new elementary science Gizmos.
Last month Apple began selling new computers that make use of an Intel chip. Many software companies are working to update their products to work well with this new technology.
Here at ExploreLearning our Gizmos make use of the Shockwave for Director plug-in. If you have one of these brand new Mac's you may have noticed that you can't see the Gizmos. We don't like that at all! We got our hands on a new iMac last week and wanted to let you know that there is a way for you to start viewing the Gizmos!
The developer of this plug-in is Adobe (formerly Macromedia), and they have stated that they are working on updating the plug-in to work "natively" on the new Apple computers, but currently you will have to run in "Rosetta" mode which may slow down your computer a bit. In the future the plug-in will be updated and you will no longer need to follow these steps.
If you have a new Intel-based Macintosh follow these steps to view the Gizmos:
Print this page (so you can quit your web browser and continue).
Quit the Safari browser
In the dock click and hold on the Safari icon
Select "Show in Finder"
You will now see the main Safari application
With Safari selected choose File > Get Info from the menu, or use Apple-i keyboard combination
You will see a checkbox labeled "Open using Rosetta" on the Safari Info panel
Select that option
Close that window and start Safari by clicking on the icon in the dock
You should now be able to view Gizmos!
If you have any problems following these steps you may have to talk with your technology coordinator or teacher. If you are still having any problems be sure to drop a line to customer support and we will work with you to solve the problem.
As the software and technology associated with our content changes we will continue to keep you updated.
I
presented Gizmos to a group of about 25 algebra teachers in Spring
ISD, Texas (just north of Houston), a couple weeks ago. They were
a fun and lively group!
We talked Gizmos and how they fit into an inquiry-based classroom. Inquiry
is a term that keeps coming up for us. It is gaining more and more attention
as an effective and research-proven teaching method, and Gizmos are a perfect
tool for students to use to investigate questions raised in an inquiry lesson.
From a teaching perspective, the teachers were fans of our algebra-tiles-based
Gizmos such as the Modeling
One-Step Equations Gizmo. They liked how zero pairs are represented,
and also how the Gizmo illustrates adding one to both sides of an equation.
From
a fun/challenge perspective, the Spring teachers got hooked on the 3D
and Orthographic Views Gizmo! This Gizmo is a one-of-a-kind, and is
terrific practice for students in visualizing three-dimensional figures.
The fun and addictive challenge is this: Can you build the given figures in
the fewest blocks possible? It's easy at first … until you get 3
or 4 questions in! (Tip: Be sure to read through the Exploration Guide.
It contains many tips about how to use the Gizmo that you probably wouldn't
figure out on your own.)
Anyway, I had a great time with a fun group in Spring, Texas, and it felt like
a well-used staff-development day. Good math teaching is alive and well
in Spring… and we hope Gizmos can become a bigger and bigger part of it!
ExploreLearning Gizmos are great learning tools, but how you get the most out of them? How do you make time spent with a Gizmo effective learning time for your students? These are questions we've heard a lot from teachers, and they are crucial questions. No tool automatically causes students to learn.What approaches seem to work for a lesson using Gizmos?
We've put together three documents that we hope will help answer those questions.
But even if you're an ExploreLearning Gizmo pro, it's worth taking a look at the Teaching with Gizmos series, as you may get some new teaching ideas or uncover a previously unknown feature of the Gizmo.
The introduction movie is perfect for first-time visitors to ExploreLearning.com. It answers the question, "What is a Gizmo?" and also shows how Gizmos can help improve teaching and learning. (All that in under 8 minutes -- not bad, huh?)
The four Teaching with Gizmos movies show how you might teach a specific lesson using Gizmos. Each of these movies focuses on one Gizmo and highlights what that Gizmo helps you do to enhance student learning. (These movies are about 4-to-6 minutes each.)
We hope these movies are helpful to you. Maybe they can even help you take your teaching with Gizmos to another level. Let us know what you think!
Links to the movies are on the front page of ExploreLearning.com, and also in our new-and-improved Help Center (click on the small gray '?' at the top right corner of the screen).
By the way, these movies are large files (anywhere from 2 MB to 6 MB). They take some time to download -- depending on the speed of your internet connection, of course -- so be patient. They're well worth the wait!
For all of you teachers out there that use our site, now is your chance to speak up. The developers here at ExploreLearning are getting ready to start building lots of new Gizmos, and we want your ideas! As you use the site have you ever had the thought, "I wish there was a Gizmo that does yada yada yada." If you could drop us a line about your yada, the Gizmo idea might make it on to our list, and you could be using it in the upcoming year.
Don't miss out on this opportunity! We always want to make Gizmos that teachers want and will help students learn concepts in state standards.
You can send your Gizmo ideas to . Remember, the more details you include in the idea, the greater the chance of getting that idea turned in to a Gizmo. If possible, be sure to include your name in the message.
To get you started, here is how the idea for the Fan Cart Physics Gizmo could have been written.
I have an idea for a Gizmo that would help me when teaching about Newton's Laws. In the Gizmo, there would be a cart that has a certain mass. On the cart you could place one or more fans (which have a mass) that would cause the cart to accelerate. Fans could be switched on and off, and be placed on the cart in either a forward or backward direction. Students would be able to get data about the position, velocity, and acceleration of the cart.
If I was really a friendly teacher, I might have included a sketch of what the Gizmo would look like :) That is definitely not required though, since we know how busy teachers are every day.
One of the things we've been trying to do at ExploreLearning is get our Gizmos
in the hands of student teachers so that they can begin incorporating Gizmos
into their math and science teaching from the moment they start their professional
careers.
One such student teacher, Diana Chau, in the bachelors/masters program for
future classroom teachers at the Curry
School of Education at the University of Virginia, studying secondary mathematics
education recently wrote of her experience with ExploreLearning:
My teaching with technology went well this semester. At the beginning
when I was teaching matrices, I predominantly used the overhead graphic calculator
projector to show students how to use their calculators to solve matrices.
I used TI-connect to take screenshots of matrices to use in class worksheets
and in guided notes. Because the students are extremely calculator dependent,
it helped them to know what to expect when they entered information correctly
into a calculator.
Once we started the quadratic functions chapter, our main source of technology
was using ExploreLearning.com [view
the Quadratic functions and inequalities Gizmos]. I used the graph screenshots
from the factored, vertex, and polynomial form quadratic function Gizmos to
create a sort and match graphs and their equations activity. [Note: We'll
be making this worksheet available for download shortly -- ed.] Students rotated
from a graphing packet station, sort and match station, and to an ExploreLearning.com
station where they used the above mentioned Gizmos.
I created a worksheet that provided step-by-step directions. After using
each gizmo and finishing its assessment, students using the ExploreLearning.com
explanations would explain why they got a questions right or wrong and briefly
state whether or not the gizmo was helpful. This was a great chance for them
to explore information in pairs. … [The students] seemed to gain a deeper
understanding of the topic. Many of them were able to infer patterns and rules
from playing with the Gizmos. Since most of the students had been exposed
to algeblocks in Algebra I, we used the Gizmo version as a class for discussing
factoring. The kids seemed to enjoy it, and it reviewed the use of manipulatives
for the SOL [The Virginia Standards of Learning test].
Overall, the use of technology was a great experience for me, Erik Gauss
[the cooperating teacher], and the students. While the use of the graphing
calculator had already been incorporated into the classroom, it did not impact
the students as much as using Explorelearning.com. Using the Gizmos allowed
students to discover mathematical relationship and develop their own understanding.
Since it was interactive, it truly held their attention.
What I found is that even though technology is exciting to incorporate
into the classroom, it presents a number of problems, including its reliability
for working and students ability to understand how to use the technology.
I also learned that technology cannot just be thrown into a lesson; the connection
to the curriculum must be extremely obvious to the students.…
Excellent work, Diana. Thanks for the report. We all were impressed with the
clever use of the Gizmo
screen capture feature in the cut up/matching activity. That's a great way
to make use of a built in Gizmo feature to follow up and reinforce the hands
on, interactive work the students can do with Gizmos.
Did you know that all the ExploreLearning Gizmos have a nifty screen-capture feature, built in? With only a couple clicks, you can place a custom, professional-looking image, taken from a Gizmo, into your worksheets, quizzes, and tests!
Here are some sample quizzes we created, with help from the Gizmo snapshot feature:
Any snapshot you take of a Gizmo will capture the current state of the Gizmo. So, anything you can set up in a Gizmo can also become a snapshot!
Step 2 – Take the "snapshot"
fig. 1
To take a snapshot of the entire Gizmo, click the "Copy Screen" [fig. 1] button at the bottom of the Gizmo.
fig. 2
Many Gizmos also give you the option of taking a snapshot of just a portion of the Gizmo, like a graph, bar chart, etc. To copy the snapshot area, click on the camera icon (fig. 2).
fig. 3
(Note: In our older Gizmos, click the icon shown in Figure 3 to take a snapshot of the entire Gizmo, or click the clipboard icon [Figure 4] to capture the snapshot area of the Gizmo.)
Now the snapshot is stored on your computer's clipboard.
fig. 4
Step 3 – Paste the snapshot
Open a word processing document, such as a Microsoft Word file, place your cursor where you'd like the snapshot to go, and paste it.
Step 4 (optional) – Edit the snapshot
As with any other image, you can use the graphics tools in your word processor to resize, position, crop, etc. the Gizmo snapshot.
fig. 5
Resizing tip: To resize the image, first click on the image once to select it. You will see some "handles" along the edges of the snapshot. Clicking and dragging those handles resizes the image. If you drag a handle on a corner of the image (the cursor will become a double-headed arror, e.g., fig 5), it will retain its correct proportions. If you drag a handle on the middle of one of the sides of the image, it will become distorted.
The best thing about the screen capture feature is how easy it makes it to merge the virtual manipulative world of Gizmos with the traditional, paper-based world of handouts, worksheets, and quizzes that are part of every teacher's repertoire. Students, too, can make use of the screen-capture feature as part of homework or reports that they turn in.
We seek to hire an experienced Teacher Training and Professional Development
professional to develop, manage and coordinate a program that ensures broad
and enthusiastic usage of ExploreLearning Gizmos(tm) by teachers and their students
in customer school districts. More information, including application requirements,
can be found here at our Employment
page.
This position is an important one to our organization as it will involve developing
a program to ensure the retention of existing customers as well as growth in
their schools/districts and expansion into other districts.
If you believe that ExploreLearning Gizmos™ rule, or someone you know
shares that belief or otherwise fits the bill, please contact us pursuant to
the instructions on the web page above or pass this information to the interested
party.
New Math Exploration Guides and Assessment Questions
We are pleased to announce the addition of new Exploration Guides and new sets
of Assessment Questions for 11 of our math Gizmos. We now have Exploration Guides
and Assessment Questions for 99% of our math library!
Here are the 11 math Gizmos that have just received the new materials:
There's an interesting article in the November
2003 issue of The Science Teacher (vol 70, no 8) about students'
misconceptions regarding phases of the Moon. Studies have shown that only about
25-35% of students correctly answer questions about Moon phases at the middle
school and high school level (Sadler, 1987; Baxter, 1989). These misconceptions
seem to persist through college:
Targus
(1987) conducted...research with college students and found that 65% had no
knowledge and 23% had fragmentary knowledge of the phases of the Moon.
The authors of the Science Teacher article describe a lesson plan
for addressing these misconceptions, which I think would work very well with
the Gizmo Moon
Phases. I was also excited to see the authors use a pre-test/post-test 'action
research' approach to see how successful their lesson plan was — if anyone
uses Moon phases (or any other Gizmo for that matter) and collects data on its
effectiveness, we'd love to hear about it!
Accessibility is an important issue in education. As the web has
rapidly expanded in recent years, it becomes more and more integrated with
classroom education. Having content accessible to all students and teachers
is a high priority for us here at ExploreLearning.
When browsing through our Gizmo listings, have you ever noticed the icon with the Accessibility Options text next to it? The image indicates that the Gizmo has full keyboard accessibility, along with a number of other considerations that add to the overall accessibility of the Gizmo.
If you would like more information about the accessibility of our Gizmos you can download either of the two PDF's below. The Gizmo Accessibility PDF discusses the accessibility of the Gizmos in detail, and the Keyboard Accessibility PDF provides information specific to controlling the Gizmo from the keyboard.
We have received numerous requests to publish a single list of all of our Gizmos.
While many find our catalog to be a very useful tool, others - such as Pat West
- simply wish to browse a list of titles.
Does there exist a list of all gizmos for math other than the categorized
one? I do not find the categorized by grade level or course lists helpful
when I want to find a specific gizmo for a topic I am teaching. Specific titles
are more much more helpful. Thanks.
We hear you Pat!
As a result, we have prepared a series of PDF documents that list our Gizmos
in a variety of ways, and include direct links to the Gizmo Details pages.
Around this time of the year many people ask the question, "Have you gotten a flu shot this year?" The flu can be considered a disease, and it is possible to track the spread of the flu.
The flu often begins in Asia and can be tracked around the world. Eventually it ends up here in Charlottesville, Virginia. How exactly does one track a disease? While reading through curriculum standards it is easy to find several key items: observe, classify and sequence, measure, interpret and analyze data, and construct graphs and tables to communicate experimental findings. Those are just a few of the skills that are developed while trying to track a disease.
In the real world investigators have spent considerable time trying to determine the cause of Hepatitis A in over 400 people in western Pennsylvania. The exact cause of the disease is still unknown, but green onions are one potential cause. Across the world the spread of HIV has been a major concern for more than two decades. The BBC News recently did a story that uses many graphs for showing the current status of the disease along with a prediction for the year 2010.
Our Spread of Disease Gizmo will let you explore three ways that disease can spread throughout a group of people in a room. With just a single room controlled environment in the Gizmo students can learn the basic skills of measurement, observing, graphing, and communicating their ideas. We have plans for two other Gizmos that will allow student to track down possible sources of disease on a larger scale than just one room, so stay tuned for those during the next year.
I enjoy using investigative skills to discover the source and cause of disease. I think I might have watched to many mystery movies and read adventure stories when I was growing up. 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?'
ExploreLearning
user and teacher Bill Grezner offers a great suggestion for using the Linear
Regression Gizmo (AKA Least Squares Fit Line Gizmo) with students.
Bill writes,
Here is a spreadsheet in Excel (Download the
.xls file) that I will use along with the gizmo to teach the lesson. The
plan would be to introduce the idea of linear regression using the gizmo.
Then to follow up with the savings problem. I will give the students a handout
of sheet 2 from the spreadsheet and have them estimate a line of best fit
using a ruler. Then using this line predict the savings after 30 months.
Then I will have the students work with sheet 1 of the spreadsheet at a PC.
Here they will use the equation of the line of best fit to predict the savings
after 30 months. I would have them change a few points to see how it would effect
their results. The spreadsheet will calculate the new linear regression equation
and redraw the graph.
Possible discussion would be comparing the two predictions and discussing
why they differ (probably just slightly). How do we interpret the value of the
coefficient of correlation.
From there I would give the students another similar problem to develop. The
spreadsheet can be used by the teacher to generate many similar but different
scenarios.
What a great idea, Bill. Thanks for sharing.
We at EL are continually amazed at the ways those of you on the front lines
of teaching are finding ways to take the Gizmos to another level.
JoAnna Allen, a teacher in our Baltimore County, MD pilot program, emails the following regarding using a Gizmos with a student at a remote location:
At
Home and Hospital (where students are homebound for various reasons) I use
the telephone and computer sharing simultaneously and happen to be working
with a trig student who is nicely computer literate and can data-connect via
cable.
We are about to do graphing (he's been hospitalized so we're way behind)
and I love the Unit
Circle Gizmo -- perfect for tomorrow's class. I'm able to share software
and applications that I open on my computer and give him control so we are
viewing the same screen constantly. This way we can discuss while it's happening.
I'm psyched because he can also go into the site after class time. Up to now,
I could share my software applications only while we were connected.
Since I teach science too (physics and chemistry), I'm eager to explore those
too. The difficulty has always been when only a portion of the class can connect
by computer, but with the after-class capability, Wowee!
We've always believed that one of the greatest strengths of our Gizmo simulations
is that they can be delivered anwhere, anytime, anyplace via a web connection.
It's extremely gratifying to hear confirmation of this from a teacher who is
putting the Gizmos to just such a distance learning type test.
Here at ExploreLearning our Gizmos make use of the Shockwave plug-in. If you have already installed 10.6 you may have noticed that you can't see the Gizmos. We don't like that at all! We investigated the issue and wanted to let you know that there is a way for you to start viewing the Gizmos!
I
presented Gizmos to a group of about 25 algebra teachers in Spring
ISD, Texas (just north of Houston), a couple weeks ago. They were
a fun and lively group!
From
a fun/challenge perspective, the Spring teachers got hooked on the 3D
and Orthographic Views Gizmo! This Gizmo is a one-of-a-kind, and is
terrific practice for students in visualizing three-dimensional figures.
The fun and addictive challenge is this: Can you build the given figures in
the fewest blocks possible? It's easy at first … until you get 3
or 4 questions in! (Tip: Be sure to read through the Exploration Guide.
It contains many tips about how to use the Gizmo that you probably wouldn't
figure out on your own.)
When browsing through our Gizmo listings, have you ever noticed the icon with the Accessibility Options text next to it? The image indicates that the Gizmo has full keyboard accessibility, along with a number of other considerations that add to the overall accessibility of the Gizmo.
