Cognitive Tool Challenge Part 1 - Consumption tools

Tuesday Group
Create a simple review to share with your class. Consider the cost, time commitment, ease of
use and final result. Add to the section and improve if you can. Add a comment if you have a
question. If you know of another resource, add it to the list at the bottom.
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ABC Splash ABC Splash is a free, easy to use website that contains information relating to the
Australian Curriculum. It has online games and interactive activities designed for a range of year
levels and learning areas.This Website is set out in an easy to navigate layout and provides
recent News and articles relevant for Education students. There is a search bar that says I am
in year.. and I want to know about.. which allows for age appropriate research.It is available
for Android which means it is portable and accessible anywhere. It is free which means it is
obtainable for everyone.
Khan Academy Khan Academy is a free, online learning tool website designed for students,
teachers and parents. A student can be of any age or year level, with Khan Academys ethos
of, "free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere". Students are able to access the website
and view educational videos, and complete exercises for a vast range of subjects. Students can
create a personalised dashboard to cater to their learning requirements. To accompany the
dashboard, students can get feedback from tutoring results and work towards goals. Khan
Academy is beneficial for teachers and parents in developing teaching tools to best coach
students in learning. Whilst Khan Academy caters to a broad range of subjects, Science and
Mathematics are a focus. (Shannon Raffaelli)
PhET Interactives - PhET is an initiative of the University of Colorado. It creates free interactive
math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and
engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through
exploration and discovery. The simulations are written in Flash, Java or HTML5, and be
downloaded or used online. (Pervez Mistry)

Cognitive Tool Challenge Part 1 - Consumption tools

Tuesday Group
BrainPop is a website that has resources organised by topics and include information, games,
mind mapping tool, activities and a quiz. The amount is limited if you want to use the site for free
but the information available is very good. The full access to the website requires payment but it
is a good interactive tool for students to be able to learn in their own space and a whole school
licence is available. The site seems to be easy to navigate for both students and teachers and
would make a good resource for use in a classroom. (Rachael Flutter)
TEDTalks
Ted allows for the spreading of ideas through the use of a variety of talks on a variety of topics.
It is an ideal resource for the classroom and allows students to explore the creative ideas on
display. The videos are generated from conferences all around the world and can inspire
students to be creative in the classroom.

A technology, entertainment, design or TED talk, is a great resource for teachers, not only to
learn from other professionals but to show students for inspiration and to convey content
knowledge. A TED talk is a video created from a presentation at the main TED conference or
one of its many satellite events around the world.
TED talks are limited to a maximum length of 18 minutes but may be on any topic. This is why it
is a handy tool for the classroom as it could easily fit into a lesson plan. It is a highly
motivational resources as "TED looks for engaging, charismatic speakers whose talks expose
new ideas that are supported by concrete evidence and are relevant to a broad, international
audience.(http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/TED-talk)
There are countless amounts of Teaching TED talks available:

https://www.ted.com/about/programs-initiatives/ted-talks-education (Nesci Grabe)

Khan academy
Benefits:

Cognitive Tool Challenge Part 1 - Consumption tools

Tuesday Group

Very useful for students understanding of concepts that are particularly important or that
the student is struggling with.

It provides the students with a source other than the teacher.

For visual/spatial learners it provides an extra source of information.

It is useful for students who have low attention spans and struggle to learn using a text
book.

If the teacher doesnt feel confident explaining a topic or is away and there is a relief,
the videos are an alternative method to introduce topics as they explain them in similar detail to
normal classroom teaching.
Khan academy is an extremely useful tool for students understanding more complex issues that
are taught in upper school. The problem with using Khan Academy is that it doesnt provide
students with practice questions or links to extra information. The other and more important
issue is that it isnt linked to the curriculum, meaning it can only be used if there happens to be
information relevant to the students current topic.

Cool Australia
Cool Australia is an award winning not-for-profit dedicated to supporting educators with tools to
foster learning for life. We help integrate topics around sustainability, ethics, economics and
wellbeing across the curriculum. This enables teachers of all age groups and disciplines to
engage young Aussies in real-life learning whilst achieving Australian Curriculum and Early
Years Learning Framework outcomes.

Cool Australia creates units of work and learning activities that can be downloaded from the
Cool Australia website and taken straight into the classroom. The learning activities are year
level specific, from Early Learning to Year 12. All are linked to Australian Curriculum standards
and the Early Years Learning Framework outcomes. They provide an online Digital Library to
support learning and teaching. It contains videos, images, infographics, research and news
articles. Cool Australia delivers online professional development in the form of online courses
and webinars to further support educators. Sometimes they provide keynote addresses to

Cognitive Tool Challenge Part 1 - Consumption tools

Tuesday Group
audiences across the country. They also coordinate Enviroweek a year of action, a week of
celebration. http://www.coolaustralia.org/ (Tina Kokott)

BBC Bitesize is a website evidently run by BBC that provides a vast collection of information
covering anything from Architecture to Spanish. It also covers for kindergarten to year 12
educations. It proves some general information that is needed for the subject but also provides
resources such a lesson plans and lesson activities. Only downside to this website is that it
catered towards the United Kingdom education system and appears somewhat rudimentary in
the information it provides and the availability of lesson plans and etc. (Edward)

Phet Interactive Simulations

Phet (Physics Education Technology) Interactive Simulations is an open educational
resource "To advance science and math literacy and education worldwide through free
interactive simulations." incorporates research-based practices on effective teaching to
enhance the learning of science and mathematics concepts. The simulations are
designed to be flexible so that they can be used as lecture demonstrations, labs, or
homework activities. They use an intuitive, game-like environment where students can
learn through scientist-like exploration within a simplified environment, where dynamic
visual representations make the invisible visible, and where science ideas are
connected to real-world phenomena. These simulations are shared in the education
communtiy.