I'm not saying kids like everything on the internet. They don't. In fact, they don't do much with 99.9% of the internet, because they have zero exposure to it. They don't know how to do research on scientific things online, they don't know about the opportunities to help with ongoing research, and they don't have any real sense of internet literacy outside of youtube and facebook. My goal with this post was to get a good sense of what was out there that could help bring science to them in multiple ways- A textbook based lecture with a cool science simulation I found online is likely far more effective than a textbook lecture alone.

Hey guys, thanks for your comments, I haven't had time to read them all, but will attempt to start sifting through them over the weekend. A few things I wanted to clarify: I appreciate the plethora of worksheets, activities, etc. available online. That's very useful to a beginning teacher, since I don't have a very large library to choose from, and these things can save me the effort of trying to come up with one on my own. However, what I was looking for (and mind you, I haven't had time to sift through everything) is cool stuff that can really help them get involved in science that they can do online. If I'm teaching them a course on galaxies, and I break out galaxy zoo for a day, I think that would have a pretty cool impact. Plus, it's something that they can do on their own time if they want to. I also feel that kids should learn how to use the internet for more than facebook and youtube, but that's a whole new subject. Also, someone called BS on me saying kids were into online stuff, saying that they wouldn't be into school related online stuff. To that, I reply that they were doing a demo of standardized testing software, and the class was silent, eyes glued to the screens. It might have been the novelty of having smartbooks in the classroom, but I felt that if I could perhaps offer some more online resources and additions to their standard fare of worksheets and labs, I could give them a more thorough education. Thank you for everyone for posting. Some of the posts I've clicked on have been very insightful, and I deeply appreciate the time and effort you have put into them. If you have any suggestions, email me or stop by my blog. Thanks.

Not all kids have smartphones, plus, it might be hard to justify to an administrator why students should be taking their cell phones out during school time, even if it is probably the cheapest solution.

Amazing, the Ralph bit at the end is hilarious.

I was the little kid who preferred to draw rather than interact, due to being picked on all the time by kids during recess for being small and geeky. So, I was given time release ritalin, which I chewed due to a gag reflex. I literally have no memory of that chunk of my life, save for the occasional bizarre hallucination, and people yelling at me for having nervous tics. I got off it, and suddenly I had friends, I was social, I was doing great in school, and I could actually recollect what had been happening. I'm a grad student now. I can keep up with the schoolwork just fine, and have no issues with focus. According to my mom, who works in neurology now, the company that made Ritalin went around to schools and started giving heavily skewed presentations on ADD and ADHD to teachers, so that the teachers would tell parents that their kids has ADD/ADHD, parents would tell doctors that, doctors would administer a bullshit battery of tests, and kids would do kiddie meth and get stoned.

I still remember the two locations where you can get a panty shot of Heather from Silent Hill 3 using the unlocked Princess Heart outfit.