Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Power Searching With Google

from Tech for Teachers
Today, Google announced the launch of a new MOOC - Massive Open Online Course - titled Power Searching With Google. The course will contain six 50 minute sessions and activities to try out the things that are taught in the course. Upon completion of the course you will be able to get a certificate of completion (presumably suitable for printing at home and putting on your refrigerator). The course begins on July 10. Registration is open now. 

Applications for Education
If you're familiar with advanced Google search tools, you can handle all of Dan Russell's search challenges, and you're ready to take the next step toward being a power searcher, take this new courseAnd even if you're not up to speed with all of the advanced search tools in Google, this MOOC could help you too. Take the course this summer and pass on your new search skills to your students in the fall. 

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Need a Floor Plan?

A Create site to design you ideal home!
http://floorplanner.com

This site is online and you do have to log in.
It would be great for individual users.
If used in a classroom, you would have to be creative with the email log ins.

Enjoy the Longest Day of the Year!

Friday, June 15, 2012

Blast from the Past-Screencasting

http://mashable.com/2008/02/21/screencasting-video-tutorials/

One of my technology friends posted this site on his FB page.
Great post to bookmark for when you need a screencasting tool

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Free Downloadable Poster: All Children Are Gifted


Free Downloadable Poster:  
All Children Are Gifted
All Children are Gifted PosterRemind the world that every child matters with this beautiful new poster by Peter H. Reynolds, available to download for free until July 6, 2012! This new art is also available in our store as a t-shirt and aprofessionally printed poster.

Find out about our otherlearning tools that are great for inclusive classrooms.
Today I am presenting at the Martin Institute at PDS!
Wish me luck around lunchtime.
Here is my presentation site!
https://sites.google.com/site/lgbraddock/martin-institute-2012-1

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

VolunteerSpot

Today, I was sent to this site, VolunteerSpot.com to sign up for an upcoming Volunteer Event with a non profit. I had not seen this site previously. I think this would be great for the team mom to have parents sign up for Healthy Snacks for ball teams, or for Room Moms to get help for a school event or party. How about Simple Scheduling for Parent-Teacher Conferences! Great idea to bookmark to try!

Monday, March 26, 2012

Use Water Wisely

The Project WET Foundation’s new DiscoverWater website is a free online resource for students and teachers about water and water-related topics, including water on Earth, the water cycle, oceans, fresh water, watersheds, water conservation and protection, direct and indirect water use, and water and health.
Click Here to Visit Website

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Discover Who’s Doing What in STEM

The new STEMconnector website serves as a one-stop national gateway for “who’s doing what” in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. The site features detailed profiles and uses the latest technology to connect massive amounts of data found within the STEM Pipeline for users. STEMconnector profile categories include National STEM Organizations; Corporations, Professional Organizations, Associations and Professional Societies; Diversity Groups; Women & Girls; Think Tanks; Foundations; Federal Government; National Laboratories; Education; International Organizations and more. Numerous categories and subcategories are included, and extensive information about STEM programs, missions and linkages are cross-indexed. In 2012 the site will be adding more content, including research reports, information on internships and scholarships. Users will also have the ability to update profiles.
Click Here to Visit Website

Friday, March 16, 2012

Project Yourself into the Future

Project Yourself into the Future
Imagining tomorrow’s America today, FutureStates is a series of independent mini-features—short narrative films created by established filmmakers and emerging talents transforming today’s complex social issues into visions about what life in America will be like in decades to come. Forecast future events and explore the predictions left by others in the Predict-o-Meter, an immersive timeline.
Click Here to Visit Website

Friday, March 2, 2012

Another goodie from Aunt Lee

http://www.auntlee.com/ebooks/morefree.html

Is a great list from Aunt Lee of Free Ebooks. Use it for yourself professionally, for fun or for your students.
Enjoy!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

...email from Aunt Lee

"Thought I'd let you know that I have put up a custom Google search engine that searches for free e-books:


I've gotten a bit obsessed with building a digital library for my household; I built the thing to save myself time but thought others might find it useful.  I also put up a couple of tutorials on the whole e-book process."
~~Lee

Friday, February 24, 2012

innovatEd

We hope all Memphis area educators will join us for this FREE professional development event:

What: A time for educators from the Memphis area to gather and share technology-focused lessons that include 21st Century skills to enhance and encourage innovative education in our classrooms.

Who: Teachers, Administrators, Assistants, College Education Majors, Home School educators, or anyone interested in education
When: Thursday, April 19th from 4:30-8:00pm Sessions begin at 5pm.
Pizza will be provided by MAIS-TEC from 4:30-4:55.
Where: Presbyterian Day School
4025 Poplar Ave.
Memphis, TN 38111
Time: 4:30-8:00pm CST
Cost: FREE

Presentations will be 20 minutes in length. You can sign up to attend and present on our website.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Discover Innovative Ways to Use Technology in Education

Blackboard and NBC Learn have launched Solutions in Action, an online video seriesfocusing on innovative and successful examples of technology in education. Hosted by NBC News’ Chief Education Correspondent Rehema Ellis, the videos explore topics that range from new systems to better measure student progress, to virtual platforms that expand access to new and unique subjects in the classroom and project-based design technologies. The series highlights some of education’s top influencers and their contributions inside and outside the classroom. The first three episodes feature the following innovators: Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, President of University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Julie Young, President and CEO of Florida Virtual Schools; and Marc Ecko, Fashion Designer and Founder, Sweat Equity Education.
Click Here to View Video Episodes

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Video - How to Find Creative Commons Images

Video - How to Find Creative Commons Images

I generally don't get too bothered or inconvenienced by changes that Google makes to its free products and services. After all, they're free. One change that did inconvenience me and I'm sure plenty of others is the change Google made a few months ago to their image search interface. The change took the advanced search options off of the front page. Since that change was made I've had a few people email me with requests for help finding Creative Commons images through Google. Therefore, I put together the short screencast that you should see embedded below. Consider this as a video update to my Google for Teachers ebooks.

Click here if you cannot see the video. 
This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers. Follow on Google+Facebook, or Twitter. 

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Explore Ancient and Modern Calendars

Calendars Through the Ages is a website sponsored by the Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement (IDEA), a nonprofit organization committed to enhancing the public’s knowledge of science and culture. The site begins with an in-depth look at the astronomical basis of calendars. Significant historical calendars (such as the Roman and Mayan) and currently used international calendars (Jewish, Chinese and Islamic) are covered in Various Calendars. In the Do It Yourself section, students can make a calendar page by watching the moon everyday for a month and learning about the phases of the moon. To find out how their observations of the real sky match up with predictions, students can see a simulation of the whole month or a single day at a time.
Click Here to Visit Website 
Click Here to Visit Do It Yourself Page

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Share Stories Honoring Military Families

Inspired by the film The Way We Get By, the Returning Home website allows families and friends to become troop greeters by sending encouraging messages to American soldiers through user-generated content and virtual care packages.
Click Here to Visit Website

Monday, February 6, 2012

Six Week Rule-Plannig for Spring Break?

It is a beautiful day in West Tennessee. It doesn't seem like winter at all. This makes me long for Spring Break..Florida.... Cardinal Baseball. Here are some sites from Budget Travel to help you with your dreams.
"In a press release, a spokesperson for ARC clarified that, “We’re not advising people to purchase tickets only at this time during the cycle as there is no guarantee they will receive the lowest price of the year.”
In other words, airline sale alerts from sites like AirfareWatchdog and ticket price monitors, such as Yapta, continue to be useful. For a specific route, you can also check out the predictions of whether fares may go up or down within the next week by using Bing Travel. If your dates are flexible, you may benefit from using a fare calendar, such as the one on metasearch sites Kayak and Google Flights.

Is the study meaningful? Critics will point out that, if a large number of travelers find out about the six-week rule and start buying at that time, the pattern will change for everyone. The retort to this is that most people aren't reading websites like this and won't change their behavior even if they hear about the rule."

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Newt Knows (not a Political opinion)

Don't worry, this is not a political editorial.  

By now you've probably heard Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich's comments last week that by the end of his second term in office (provided he's elected and re-elected) there will be an American base on the moon. If you didn't hear Newt's comments last week, The Atlantic has a piece on it right now. 

Newt Gingrich's comments and the aforementioned article in The Atlantic made me think about NASA's role-playing game Moonbase Alpha. Moonbase Alpha is an online game developed by NASA to be played on the Steam online gaming platformMoonbase Alpha a simulation game in which players assume the role of an astronaut working to repair equipment in order to restore oxygen delivery to a settlement on the moon. The game can be played by up to six players at a time who communicate using voice over communication. 

See the trailer for Moonbase Alpha in the video below. 
 

Applications for Education 
Put a classroom discussion of Newt Gingrich's comments together with Moonbase Alpha and you might have a nice little lesson covering both Civics and Space Science.
This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Doodle 4 Google

In case you missed it, I wanted to let everyone know that Doodle 4 Google
2012 <http://www.doodle4google.com/> is off to the races so be sure to
spread the word!

As in past years, we invite student artists in grades K-12 to use their
creative imagination to redesign our logo. This year's theme is "If I could
travel in time, I'd visit..." The lucky D4G winner will not only see their
artwork on Google's homepage for one day, but they will also receive $30,000
for college and $50,000 for their school--and as an added bonus, the winning
artwork will also appear on a special edition of Crayola's iconic 64 box!

But we need your help getting the word out about this year's contest so be
sure encourage all the student artists in your life to get involved!

Cheers,

Monday, January 23, 2012

Observe the Night Skies

Curious what’s in your night sky? Check the resources from the Chicago Adler Planetariumfor some tips for sky watching. You can also share your night sky photos with Adler’s Night Sky Observation Flickr group.
Click Here to Visit Website 
Click Here to Visit Photo Gallery

NASA's Orion

NASA's Orion Spacecraft to Land in Oklahoma, Texas and Alabama

A test version of NASA's Orion spacecraft soon will make a cross-country journey, giving residents in three states the chance to see a full-scale test version of the vehicle that will take humans into deep space. 

The crew module will make stops during a trip from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The planned stops include Jan. 24-25 at Science Museum Oklahoma in Oklahoma CityJan. 27-29 at Victory Park and the American Airlines Center in Dallas; and, Feb. 1-2 at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. Engineers, program officials, astronauts and NASA spokespeople will be available to speak with the media and the public. 

The full-scale test vehicle was used by ground crews in advance of the launch abort system flight test that took place in New Mexico in 2010. Orion will serve as the vehicle that takes astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, and the first orbital flight test is scheduled for 2014. 

To see photos of the pad abort test, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/mpcv/gallery/abort_test/index.htm . 

For more information on the each of the sites, visit

Science Museum Oklahoma:http://www.sciencemuseumok.org

American Airlines Center: http://www.americanairlinescenter.com.

U.S. Space and Rocket Center: http://www.ussrc.com.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Watch Freedom Riders Online for Free

Watch Freedom Riders Online for Free

The American Experience documentary Freedom Riders recently popped-up in my Netflix suggestions. That suggestion made me wonder if Freedom Riders is available for full-length viewing on the American Experience website. It turns out that it is. You can watch the nearly two-hour story of civil rights activists who in 1961 banded together to challenge segregation laws and practices in the south. 

Watch Freedom Riders on PBS. See more fromAmerican Experience.

Applications for Education 
If you do not have the time to show the entire documentary in your classroom, the American Experience/ Freedom Riderswebsite has many excerpts that you can watch. American Experience offers an extensive viewing guide for teachers to use with their students.
This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers. Follow on Google+Facebook, or Twitter. 

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

continuing the conversation

My professional friend 
Bryan M. Berretta
posted this information also,

"Great video that sums it up:

We have to be mindful of the Doomsday approach to this but at the same time not dismiss it as insignificant.  I find it amusing how there have been very different approaches to it in the media.  I found it increasingly amusing that an article posted on Reuters this morning about how the Blackout was a failure because so few websites had become involved has now changed its tone:

(at 9am the article was titled: Internet blackout against U.S. law fails to enlist big sites and it is now titled Pockets of Internet go dark to protest piracy bills)"

Wednesday, January 18th

If you haven’t noticed, check out the Google logo and websites like Wikipedia and Mozilla which have gone into “Blackout Mode” for today.  It would be a great teachable moment to explain what SOPA and PIPA are and why copyright protection is so important. 

Interestingly enough, if you’re looking for information on SOPA, you can reach the Wikipedia page even though they are on Blackout (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act).

Make it Mental

PBS Kids’ first augmented-reality mobile app for iPhone and iPod Touch is a game calledFETCH! Launch Rush that aims to take the sting out of learning to do addition and subtraction mentally. In the game, the pooch Ruff Ruffman, the game-show host in the animated PBS program FETCH!, is a legendary movie director trying to make sure there’s enough sushi for his movie crew. The challenge is keeping track of how many pieces of sushi everyone wants, using augmented reality “markers” (printable handouts) that prompt activity within the app. Using 3-D imagery, the app reinforces early algebraic concepts, helping youngsters to make the connection between real objects and corresponding numeric symbols.
Click Here to Visit App Store

Monday, January 16, 2012

Present the Human Past As a Connected Story

World History for Us All is an innovative model curriculum for teaching world history in middle and high schools. World History for Us All offers a treasury of teaching unitslesson plans and resources that present the human past as a single story rather than unconnected stories of many civilizations. The curriculum enables teachers to survey world history without excluding major peoples, regions or time periods. It helps students understand the past by connecting specific subject matter to larger historical patterns. Drawing on up-to-date historical research and readily adaptable to a variety of world history programs, World History for Us All is a national collaboration of K–12 teachers, collegiate instructors and educational technology specialists. It is a project of San Diego State University in cooperation with the National Center for History in the Schools at University of California Los Angeles.
Click Here to Access Free Teaching Resources

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Take a Look at What War Has Meant for Afghans

Modern Afghanistan: Making Meaning in the Aftermath of Conflict, a new resource guidefrom Primary Source, presents activities that provide students with a deeper look at what war has meant for Afghans—how they have lived, represented events and attempted to rebuild their country. The monument of a tank in Herat with triumphant local soldiers offers a glimpse of both anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban feeling in one region of Afghanistan and calls upon us to consider what messages monuments send. The excerpts from the film Afghan Stories illustrate the political and physical challenges of building a road to ease drought and hunger in another province. The inclusion of weaponry and war motifs in women’s traditional Afghan carpets shows how violence has permeated the society and even gained its own market niche. These sources bring us closer to Afghan perspectives on events than textbooks and news stories tend to do.
Click Here to Access Free Resource Guide

Monday, January 9, 2012

Bring History into the 21st Century!

Pearson’s Games Apps for American and World History make learning history fun, quick and easy. The American History Games App includes more than 100 different games on dozens of topics, such as Roots of the American People, The American Revolution, The Civil War, Industry and Urban Growth, World War II, The Civil Rights Era and Challenges for a New Century. The World History Games App also offers students more than 100 different games covering a wide range of global history topics, including Ancient Rome and the Rise of Christianity, The Muslim World, Spread of Civilizations in East Asia, Kingdoms and Trading States of Africa, The Industrial Revolution, and World War II and Its Aftermath. With Pearson’sTest Prep Apps for both American and World History, students have access to hundreds of flashcards and quizzes designed to help them review and understand essential questions and knowledge of a lesson or chapter. Personalized feedback and remediation prepare students to succeed on their chapter, unit or end-of-course tests. For a limited time (through January 5, 2012), Pearson is offering educators promotional gift codes to preview up to four of the social studies apps. For details, visit the Pearson website and click on “Free Apps!”
Click Here to Visit Website
Plus: Pearson’s myFlashcard Maker App, for iPadiPhone and iPod Touch, lets students create their own flashcards or access hundreds of ready-made cards. With text and audio in both English and Spanish, students learn in their own way at their own pace. Activity modes include Study, Review and Quiz with immediate, personalized feedback. myFlashcard Maker Apps are available for high school (U.S. History, World History, American Government, Economics), middle school (American History, Civics, World Geography, World History) and elementary school (American History, Regions of America, Florida Social Studies). Visit the website for more information.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Bring the Bard to Life

Shakespeare In Bits, from MindConnex, brings the bard’s most popular plays to life throughanimation and audio soundtrack, presented side by side with complete, unabridged play textin a single, integrated package. In-line translations are accompanied by full study notes for every section (analyses, plot summaries, cast biographies and relationships) to help students understand and appreciate Shakespeare’s works. Presently three titles are available for downloading to an iPhoneiPadMac or PCRomeo & JulietMacbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Hamlet coming soon. Each of the Shakespeare In Bits plays has a Lite ortrial version, which contains a few scenes from the play of your choice and delivers all the rich functionality you can expect from the full play. Shakespeare In Bits Lite can be freelydownloaded, with no purchase necessary.
Click Here for Free Trials

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Incorporate International New Year’s Traditions into the Curriculum

Based in Australia, Father Time’s Net provides links to information about New Year’straditionsrecipessongspoetrygames and more in many different countries around the world.
Click Here to Access Free Resources

Happy New Year 2012!