Explore Learning

 This site comes with a fee for its use (which our county graciously pays for, for each math and science teacher in the middle and high schools).  The nice aspect is that each of your students gets their own individual username and password that allows you to track their progress on the assessments that are given after each “Gizmo” is completed.  The gizmos allow students to complete science labs that would otherwise be impossible and/or too time consuming to perform in the classroom.  It gives the students an interactive visualization of both simple and abstract science concepts which helps them to understand those concepts better.  Each gizmo comes with pre-made “exploration” worksheet that guides them through the “lab”.  One of the problems with this site is that the gizmos are programmed to work in particular way and cannot be “tweaked”.  Neither can the exploration guides.  While the students can manipulate certain variables in the experiments, there are limitations.  However, answer keys and vocabulary pages are provided, cutting down on the classroom teachers’ work.  At the end of each Gizmo there is an online assessment that the teacher can use to track how well each student grasped the concept in that particular lab.  Check it out at http://www.explorelearning.com/