Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Portable North Pole

One Tech teacher in my PLN posted this website. Thank you, Cindy!

The site is Portable North Pole. Basically, this site allows you to create a video message from Santa to a toddler, child, or adult. It allows you to customize it with 3 pictures of the recipient as well as a picture of a gift they want for Christmas.

Here is a link to the video I made for my son this year.


Again, if you are a teacher and don't have time to create a video for each student, email this site to the parents. To create the video, you simply fill in the child's name and some personal info such as what they have been good at this year, what they need to keep working on, and age, eye color, etc.  Such a fun, easy, FREE way to get a message from Santa to a special child in your life. Enjoy! 

Monday, November 29, 2010

Learn Chinese from Real Teachers in China

myChinese360 is a K–12-approved language learning program offering for-credit online Mandarin classes. The program’s U.S.- and China-based teachers use innovative educational technologies to connect with American students in real-time, creating a virtual classroom experience. All of the standards-based courses for middle school and high school (elementary coming soon) are built around curricular materials following the five Cs (National Standards in Foreign Language Education) from ACTFL. From whiteboards to role-playing, the Web-based, teacher-led virtual classrooms have all the features found in traditional settings. Partners include the College Board for Advanced Placement and the National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE) Mandarin Initiative.
Click Here for More Information

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Websites I found interesting (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Create Multimedia Presentations

Adobe has launched a new multimedia authoring tool for education. Project Rome for Education allows students and educators to create multimedia presentations that include text, video, audio, images, animation and interactivity. Its layout engine, which resembles the one found in Adobe’s professional page layout tool, InDesign, provides a full range of typeface and formatting controls, as well as paragraph controls, text flow from one text box to another and text wrap for automatically wrapping copy around images and other page elements. It also offers drawing tools and a Flash-like timeline for animating elements based on various parameters, such as opacity, position, rotation and other transformations. Adobe is looking for schools to participate in pilot programs using the software, especially those schools that have adopted Google’s Apps for Education or the open-source learning management system Moodle.
Click Here for More Information

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Develop 21st Century Skills with Real-World Applications

Saddleback’s 21st Century Coach attempts to bridge the gap between coursework and real work by focusing on real-world skills and applications. Each resource book in this three-book series focuses on one of three categories listed in the framework of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The reproducible activities and lessons will prepare students for success in the 21st century by giving them the skills and knowledge they will need as citizens, workers and leaders after high school.
Click Here for More Information

Monday, November 22, 2010

Students Contest- Open-Source Software Development

Introduce Students to Open-Source Software Development
Google’s new Code-In competition, which gets under way November 22, presents 13- to 18-year-olds with eight tasks, ranging from refactoring code and interface design to such not-so-techie jobs as writing and editing software documentation and developing marketing materials. For every three tasks they complete, students earn $100, up to a maximum of $500. Ten grand-prize winners will get an all-expenses-paid trip with a family member to Google’s Mountain View, California headquarters. The trip includes a tour of the Googleplex facility and meetings with some of the company’s engineers.
Deadline: Contest ends January 10, 2011; winners announced February 14, 2011
Click Here for More Information and Contest Updates

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Websites I found interesting (weekly)

  • Desktop sticky note applications are very handy for creating reminders for yourself and recording quick thoughts. But if you frequently work from more than one computer, a desktop sticky note application might not suit your needs. That's where a service like Noterr can be helpful. Noterr is a free web-based sticky note service. Noterr provides a blank canvas for posting sticky notes to yourself. Individual notes, but not an entire canvas, can be shared with others via the link provided by Noterr. Learn more about Noterr in the video below.

    tags: notes stickynotes

  • The Chemical Education Digital Library is a large collection of resources for teaching and learning chemistry. The ChemEd DL contains tutorials for students, 3D models, lesson plans, and more. The tutorials include 3D chemical models and explanations of what each part of the models does and how those parts work together. In the lesson plans section you will find downloadable lesson plans organized by subject. ChemEd DL also features a periodic table that links each element to data and explanations about that element.

    tags: Chemistry science periodic_table

  • tags: groupme Texting messaging collaboration sms

  • a fun interactive game that allows students to learn fractions in a engaging and interactive way.

    As an adult playing a student’s game, Motion Math made me think. It truly tested my understanding of how fractions, decimals, pictorial representations of fractions and how number lines actually work. The way it works is simple. A ball, looking like the sun, falls from the sky and you as the player have to lean your device to one side or the other to have that ball, with it’s fraction, fall on the correct location on the number line.

    A student will have to have a basic understanding of fractions and decimals in order to play this game. Although I think early learners of fractions could get a lot out of this App, I personally think this is an App that would help solidify understanding. I can see teachers doing a high score challenge and or having students try to to beat their own high scores for class cash.

    I look forward to any updates that allow students to start from where they left off. I played several times and had to start from the beginning each time. The game went on for quite sometime and I never got to an ending point. I really liked that it was tiered in difficulty. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any harder they changed the number line so that zero was not the beginning, it was actually a negative number. It made you think even more because then the fractions where coming across as negative and positive fractions, so as to confuse your mind a little more.

    Overall, I love this app. I actually think it is one of the better math Apps I have played with over the past few years. I do think it has some room to improve, but as a teacher and a parent, 99 cents for this App is definitely worth the money. My 4th grader thought it was really cool and it definitely challenged him to clear the cobwebs and put all of his learning into motion in a fun way. If you are a teacher or parent in the need for a good fractions app, this would be a great edition to your math tools.

    tags: math fractions ipodtouch

  • Crocodoc – markup and edit files on line
    Crocodoc is a free, online service that allows you to upload and markup documents, including PDF files. You can not actually edit the PDF file, but can add text, highlight, draw, and even strikeout text. When you strikeout text, it opens a new text box above the strikeout for you to edit.

    I used it recently to make a change to a physics lab I use with my students. It is a PDF file and I just wanted to make some small changes to the procedure. I uploaded the file, make the markups, and downloaded it. No account is necessary.

    You can create an account and store files on the system. It even allows multiple people to markup and collaborate on work. Crocodoc works with PDF files, Word Documents, images, and PowerPoint presentations. You can view and mark up your files online. The documents can be shared with others who can all mark the files up collaboratively. You can make revisions, highlight or strikeout text, add notes and comments. Files are stored on their servers and can be password protected.
    This is a great tool for educators and students to use for sharing work, working collaboratively, and providing feedback on work.

    tags: pdf annotation Word images ppt

  • Google Launches Interactive Book to Teach Everyone About the Web

    tags: google book web 20things

  • tags: software

  • http://www.kristenswanson.org/2010/11/science-for-smartboard.html

    tags: Science smartboard iwb plants insects bugs oil birds crystals

  • Researchers at Stanford and Vanderbilt universities have developed a number of computer programs in which students customize a virtual agent and teach it mathematics or science concepts. The agent questions, misunderstands and otherwise learns realistically. For example, in the Betty’s Brain program, students customize and teach a virtual character by relating concepts in a graphic map of Betty’s thoughts. Showing how garbage contributes to global warming, for example, requires connecting eight separate causal inferences. Students can test their agent’s knowledge, ask it to explain its answers and correct misunderstandings by adding new information to the map.

    tags: learning brain science study

  • Teach Reading While Preserving the Environment
    I Save a Tree is offering $80,000,000.00 worth of free interactive books and Virtual Library software to all public schools in the United States. The Virtual Library 2.0 software and interactive books can be installed on a district server, and all students and teachers within the district can access the interactive books. I Save a Tree iBooks can be viewed on Windows and Macintosh computers as well as on smartphones that include Adobe Flash. School districts interested in taking advantage of this offer should send an email to customerservice@isaveatree.com.

    tags: isaveatree library ebook free

  • Encourage Inclusive Communities
    Facing History and Ourselves has partnered with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) to develop a special poster set based on Facing History’s national initiative Choosing to Participate. The posters are designed to encourage dialogue, engagement, respect and participation in the classroom and beyond. These full-color posters (11 in total) are being distributed through various partnerships, including the American Library Association and Boys & Girls Clubs of America. The poster sets, available online for free download, highlight the four stories featured in the traveling exhibition currently on national tour. This exhibition examines the impact and history of racism and injustice, and looks at the courageous choices people have made to build strong and inclusive communities.

    tags: poster History democracy socialstudies

  • Let Freedom Swing is a unique curriculum that explores the relationships between jazz and democracy. Two iconic Americans are at the heart of Let Freedom Swing: retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and musician, composer, educator and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center Wynton Marsalis. Supported by an array of other artistic luminaries, O’Connor and Marsalis teamed up for a concert at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 2009. The Rockefeller Foundation sponsored the concert, Jazz at Lincoln Center produced it and The Documentary Group created short films for it that were part of the concert. These institutions invited Teachers College, Columbia University to create a study guide to accompany the short films produced from the concert. The videos and study guide are designed for use in social studies, humanities and music classes in grades 6–12. Three key themes structure the videos and study guide: “We the People,” “E Pluribus Unum” (From Many, One), and “A More Perfect Union.” Each video is about six minutes in length. The study guide contains questions for discussion, teaching activities and additional resources. The Web site contains the three videos, the study guide, information about the project and additional print, digital and video resources—all available free of charge.

    tags: History music democracy socialstudies

  • Investigate the Lifecycle of Products
    Students are surrounded by “stuff”—from blue jeans to the latest cell phones—in their everyday lives. “Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy” is a comprehensive unit on consumption that is aligned with educational standards in all 50 U.S. states. During the course of the unit, students will investigate the lifecycle of products as they gain math and science skills while determining the carbon footprint of shipping blue jeans. The discussion is intended to engage them in civic discourse on how people dispose of consumer waste. They will also develop corporate policies to protect workers and consumers, and gain media literacy skills while analyzing ads. This resource is available to download at no charge from Facing the Future. The 10 lessons, designed for grades 9–12, lead students through an exploration of the “materials economy” (the production and consumption of goods). Students critically analyze the sustainability of the steps of this system, determining how consumption can benefit people, economics and environments. The lessons were inspired, researched, designed, reviewed and pilot-tested by educators.

    tags: science STEM economics financialliteracy

  • tags: science STEM chemistry


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

U Games National Scholarship Tournament

Tabula Digita, maker of the DimensionU Learning System and its DimensionM math-based action video game, has issued a challenge to the best gamers (and math students) in grades 3 through 8 in the land. From Nov. 15, 2010, through May 1, 2011, the company is sponsoring the U Games National Scholarship Tournament, an online contest with a top prize of a $50,000 college scholarship.
Registration is formally open for the competition, which will consist of 12 rounds lasting two weeks each. Participants will compete online against their fellow students at the equivalent level (elementary or middle school) throughout the United States, honing their gaming skills while mastering mathematical concepts and applications in prime numbers, fractions, and complex equations. Scores will be based on strategy, academic performance, and "need to know the math" outcome, as well as basic game play skills, which means players are rewarded regardless of their individual strengths, and they are encouraged to improve in all areas as the tournament progresses in order to continually improve their scores.
The top 10 finishers nationwide at each level of play will be invited to the live U Games Tournament final event in New York May 21, 2011. The prize for the highest score in the middle school level competition is a $50,000Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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0college scholarship and an additional $1,000 cash. The elementary school level winner will receive a $10,000 scholarship and a family vacation for four to Disney World. Among the more than 1,000 other prizes for top finishers include Apple iPods and iPads, gaming consoles, LCD TVs, razor electric bikes, and retail gift cards. Co-sponsoring the competition with Tabula Digita are Intel and Dell.
"Over the past few years, more and more educators have embraced our game-based, pedagogical framework because they have seen firsthand how it improves student comprehension and mastery of math concepts," said Ntiedo Etuk, founder and chief executive officer of Tabula Digita, adding that incorporating the practice of these concepts into video games makes "fun" the foundation for the learning process.
Students wishing to register must have a computer that meets the minimum system requirements, as well as parental permission, and they can download a tournament version of the learning system and video game here. New entrants are welcome at any point in the tournament prior to the final online round.
Tabula Digita, maker of the DimensionU Learning System and its DimensionM math-based action video game, has issued a challenge to the best gamers (and math students) in grades 3 through 8 in the land. From Nov. 15, 2010, through May 1, 2011, the company is sponsoring the U Games National Scholarship Tournament, an online contest with a top prize of a $50,000 college scholarship.
Registration is formally open for the competition, which will consist of 12 rounds lasting two weeks each. Participants will compete online against their fellow students at the equivalent level (elementary or middle school) throughout the United States, honing their gaming skills while mastering mathematical concepts and applications in prime numbers, fractions, and complex equations. Scores will be based on strategy, academic performance, and "need to know the math" outcome, as well as basic game play skills, which means players are rewarded regardless of their individual strengths, and they are encouraged to improve in all areas as the tournament progresses in order to continually improve their scores.
The top 10 finishers nationwide at each level of play will be invited to the live U Games Tournament final event in New York May 21, 2011. The prize for the highest score in the middle school level competition is a $50,000 college scholarship and an additionaProxy-Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0

20$1,000 cash. The elementary school level winner will receive a $10,000 scholarship and a family vacation for four to Disney World. Among the more than 1,000 other prizes for top finishers include Apple iPods and iPads, gaming consoles, LCD TVs, razor electric bikes, and retail gift cards. Co-sponsoring the competition with Tabula Digita are Intel and Dell.
"Over the past few years, more and more educators have embraced our game-based, pedagogical framework because they have seen firsthand how it improves student comprehension and mastery of math concepts," said Ntiedo Etuk, founder and chief executive officer of Tabula Digita, adding that incorporating the practice of these concepts into video games makes "fun" the foundation for the learning process.
Students wishing to register must have a computer that meets the minimum system requirements, as well as parental permission, and they can download a tournament version of the learning system and video game here. New entrants are welcome at any point in the tournament prior to the final online round.

Managing Access For Your Twitter Apps

-------------

With a recent change in how Twitter authorizes login credentials, even if you change your Twitter password, all your existing apps will still have access to your account.

To view the apps that you have authorized,
  • first login into your Twitter account, 
  • then go to Settings, and Connections. 
  • From this screen you will see all apps you have authorized, 
  • and have the opportunity to revoke access for any of them.
Hope this helps!

Monday, November 15, 2010

The First Thanksgiving

from The Education Technology Blog - Home

PictureScholastic has a great interactive mini-site on the first Thanksgiving. You can sign up for a video webcast, take a virtual tour of a plantation, go for a trip on the Mayflower, and more. Teacher resources are included to help show you how to integrate these great interactives. Bonus content includes a reader's theater, a vocabulary quiz, and printable door signs. Grade specific activities are featured here, as are free historical fiction letters that are emailed to you from Thanksgiving characters. You can check out The First Thanksgiving here.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Websites I found interesting (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

SiftLinks

Too busy to be on Twitter all day?
Afraid you will miss something good.
Well, if you feel like you are missing out on great educational links and resources, then you should try SiftLinks. SiftLinks takes all the links from your twitter feed and puts it into an RSS feed. Then you can peruse the links at your leisure without going through extraneous conversations.

 from the website:

Things to bear in mind

SiftLinks checks your twitter stream every 30 minutes and stores the last 50 links that it finds. If your feed reader doesn't update too often it might miss some links. If your twitter stream has hundreds of links running through it every hour then SiftLinks might not be for you.
If you'd like to contact me about SiftLinks then find me on Twitter. You can also follow my personal account if you'd like to here about the other stuff i'm working on.

About

SiftLinks was created because I was tired of missing out on all the great links that people posted on Twitter that I never got the time to properly check out. I don't have a massive follow list but quite often, if I was away from the computer for a couple of days and only accessing Twitter via my iPhone, I'd miss out on reading some really interesting articles. I figured it would be easier if I could dash through those articles in my feed reader when I got the chance. I also figured that if I wanted this then someone else might too, so I went ahead and put it together.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Alternative to Web 2.0

Do you have a favorite Web 2.0 site that is blocked by your school? You might want to try Alternative To, a website that finds similar services. For example, I searched for Animoto, and the site returned other favorites like Stupeflix and PhotoPeach. This could be a helpful tool when seeking out the perfect tool that can be accessed through the district filters. Thanks for Kevin Jarrett for sharing this resource. Enjoy!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Sight Words

http://www.sightwordswithsamson.com/sw/sight_words.asp

This is a great Sight Words site.
Sight Words with Samson.
I can see it be a activity that is used during center time and children keep their own records of what they have accomplished. It is set up for 1st and 2nd graders, but I know that Kindergarten students could use it also!
Enjoy!
~~GB

Friday, November 5, 2010

Another Veterans Day Resource

My friends at Watch Know sent me this idea for videos.
This is a great site. You are encourage to sign in and create your own videos.

Veterans Day is November 11th. Here are some good resources to
commemorate the day and turn it into a teachable moment.

Free videos

http://www.watchknow.org/SearchResults.aspx?SearchText=veterans+day

Free lessons

http://www.reacheverychild.com/feature/veterans_day.html

How to use teachable moments

http://www.reacheverychild.com/feature/teachable-moments.html

Hope this helps! 

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Memoralizing Veterans: Teaching with Place

Photo, New York Korean 
War Veterans Memorial, July 24, 2007, afagen, FlickrVeterans Day approaches! Last year, Teachinghistory.org introduced you to resources for collecting oral histories from veterans. Most of these resources still hold good—if you're interested in inviting a veteran into your classroom or leading your class in an oral history project, try History.com's Take a Veteran to School Day or the Library of Congress's Veterans History Project.
But what if you don't have the time or resources to arrange a speaker or manage oral history collection? What if your students are too young to appreciate a veteran's stories and their context? How can you honor the holiday and draw your students in?
How about teaching with monuments and memorials?
http://teachinghistory.org/node/24307/

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Great Middle School Simulation: Civics

Great Middle School Simulation: Civics

Nov 02 from http://www.kristenswanson.org/2010/11/great-middle-school-simulation-civics.html 
I am a huge fan of simulations. I recently discovered Arugment Wars, a simulation from iCivics, and I think it is perfect for middle school students. Students can argue their case, learn about their rights as students, and earn points for valid arguments. I think it would be a fantastic complement to any middle school social studies class! Enjoy!

Great Middle School Simulation: Civics

Great Middle School Simulation: Civics

Nov 02 from http://www.kristenswanson.org/2010/11/great-middle-school-simulation-civics.html 
I am a huge fan of simulations. I recently discovered Arugment Wars, a simulation from iCivics, and I think it is perfect for middle school students. Students can argue their case, learn about their rights as students, and earn points for valid arguments. I think it would be a fantastic complement to any middle school social studies class! Enjoy!

Great Middle School Simulation: Civics

Great Middle School Simulation: Civics

Nov 02
I am a huge fan of simulations. I recently discovered Arugment Wars, a simulation from iCivics, and I think it is perfect for middle school students. Students can argue their case, learn about their rights as students, and earn points for valid arguments. I think it would be a fantastic complement to any middle school social studies class! Enjoy!

Great Middle School Simulation: Civics

Nov 02
I am a huge fan of simulations. I recently discovered Arugment Wars, a simulation from iCivics, and I think it is perfect for middle school students. Students can argue their case, learn about their rights as students, and earn points for valid arguments. I think it would be a fantastic complement to any middle school social studies class! Enjoy!