This newsletter is full of great information on the latest Hillsborough happenings at ExploreLearning:

Introducing Corey J. Peloquin

Success with Gizmos in Hillsborough

Hillsborough Educator Spotlight

Opportunities for Training and Professional Development

Get Started with Gizmos

Introducing Corey J. Peloquin

Here is a special message for Hillsborough Gizmo subscribers from your new Hillsborough Project Manager, Corey J. Peloquin.

I hope you are off to a great start with your students in the new school year!

In my role with ExploreLearning, I work with educators in Hillsborough to help you get the most out of Gizmos: the world's largest library of online simulations for math and science.

Over the past seven years I've taught high school and middle school science. I started my career teaching in Pinellas County, and I joined the School District of Hillsborough County in 2007. Last year I served as a New Teacher Mentor for Freedom High School and Wharton High School as part of the Empowering Effective Teacher's initiative.

I am available for initial training before you begin using Gizmos. And once you are up and running with them, I can facilitate better usage with services such as Gizmo lesson modeling. This in-class modeling gives teachers a chance to observe a lesson in action.

If you have any questions about Gizmos or ExploreLearning, please drop me a line at Corey.Peloquin@explorelearning.com.

I wish you and your students the very best in all your academic endeavors, and I look forward to exploring Gizmos with you this school year!

Success with Gizmos in Hillsborough

Gizmos have been gaining momentum in Hillsborough. High schools have added math Gizmos in addition to science, and middle schools now have started using science Gizmos as well. That adds up to more than eighty Hillsborough schools teaching and learning with Gizmos!

Thanks to Hillsborough teachers and students for your tremendous support of Gizmos.

Hillsborough Educator Spotlight

Missy Graham-Allison teaches Biology at Durant High School in Plant City and is one of the sponsors of the school's Science Honor and Competition Club. She has degrees in Biology and Educational Leadership and has been teaching for twelve years, all in Hillsborough.

Mrs. Allison has been using Gizmos for two years, and creates new opportunities for her students to interact with scientific concepts. She turns to such diverse Gizmos as Cell Division, Human Evolution - Skull Analysis, and Rabbit Population by Season to bring these concepts to life. She gives an example:

"The Rabbit Population Gizmo helped students to see how populations can be affected by different factors. Terms like density-dependent and density-independent limiting factors, carry capacity, and population density tend to be hard concepts for them. I use this particular Gizmo to 'show' them what the terms mean. My students feel that it gives them a 'visual' on what is going on instead of just getting the information from the text or lecture notes."

She reports that many students demonstrated a comfortable comprehension of these complex scientific concepts after working with this Gizmo.

Mrs. Allison also makes good use of Gizmos assessment questions. She uses them for formative assessment, but also to drive parental involvement. Parents are made aware when students do poorly on the assessment questions, and this helps motivate them to get involved in their student's learning. Working on a Gizmo can be a fun and engaging way for parents to learn with their children.

Opportunities for Training and Professional Development

To help everyone get the most out of Gizmos, we will be holding frequent professional development workshops to help educators get up and running with Gizmos.

Adams, Burnett, Eisenhower and Wilson Middle Schools have hosted four trainings each, and we are working on scheduling more. Additionally, two more trainings are scheduled at the Instructional Service Center this Saturday, October 15. Those sessions will be from 8:30am to 11:30am and from 12:30pm to 3:30pm.

Sign up for any Gizmos session by logging into your IDEAS email account and double-clicking Staff Development Tools, which you can find in the PDS Staff Development folder. You will find the scheduled sessions in the course catalog.

For more information on these, or to set up a specialized workshop at your school, contact Corey Peloquin at 727-278-3468 or Corey.Peloquin@explorelearning.com.

Get Started with Gizmos

Gizmos are available to all high school math and science teachers and all middle school science teachers in Hillsborough County Public Schools. Math and science teachers who have not yet accessed ExploreLearning Gizmos should contact Corey Peloquin for assistance with getting started.

For information about bringing Gizmos to schools in surrounding areas, please contact your Florida Account Executive, Arlene Fonda, at 904-755-1717 or Arlene.Fonda@explorelearning.com.

Also talk to Arlene about ExploreLearning Reflex, the most advanced (and most fun!) math fact fluency solution ever developed.

As always, if you have a question or comment about Gizmos, please don't hesitate to contact our Customer Support team. We would love to hear from you.