EDheads- Activate your mind

Let's talk about Edheads. A site that provides various interactive activities that would be perfect on a SMARTBoard or AirSlate. Edheads has created unique, educational web experiences designed to make the featured concepts understandable using the power and interactivity of the Internet. Adding these activities to a SMARTboard or AirSlate adds an extra dimension.

Currently these high quality activities are free. Note that there are ads on the site(They are trying to remain free!) "Edheads helps students learn through educational games and activities designed to meet state and national standards. We partner with various school systems in the United States, which help us research, design and test our activities every step of the way!"

The front page features activities the likes of: Design a Cellphone, Virtual Hip Replacement surgery, Simple Machines, Weather and Crash Scene Investigation. Teacher guides are available for each activity. All of the activities include some additional work-research, reviewing research, interviews as well as an evaluation of results.

While some of it looks a bit elementary, I can assure you that viewing the photos of an actual hip replacement is not for the faint of heart!

It is worth your time to take a look at the activities-Enjoy!

Using Google Docs for creating quizzes

I continue to be of the opinion that someday Google will rule the world- That said, following is just another way that Google makes something else simple:

You can use Google Forms for giving short multiple choice quizzes. You create the quizzes in Google Forms, post them on a blog or web page, students take the quiz , and their answers appear in an easy-to-grade spreadsheet. Attached is a slideshow with directions for creating and embedding quizzes using Google Forms.

Most importantly, you need a Google account- If you don't have one--Get one!! It may be the most useful thing that you do today!

Math Fun Facts

The Harvey Mudd College Mathematics Department has created a Math Fun Facts resource site that I have to admit is WAY over my head! They explain: "This archive is designed as a resource for enriching your math courses and nurturing your interest and talent in mathematics! Each Math Fun Fact is a math puzzle or short article that contains a cool mathematics idea. You can learn about the mathematics of things like card shuffling to poker to computer vision to fractals to music, just to name a few. This makes great enrichment material for gifted math students or problem-solving groups."

They list ALGEBRA, CALCULUS, GEOMETRY. NUMBER THEORY, and PROBABILITY among the areas of "fun facts". You can also search by "Easy, Medium and Advanced" difficulty.

I have to admit that I have been fascinated by how many everyday examples they bring to fun facts-- Here are great responses to the age old retort: "When am I ever going to use this stuff?"

Harvey Mudd College is a member of The Claremont Colleges in Claremont, California

September 11th Remembered

Tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. History.com has some videos that should help your students understand what happened on that day and the longer term ramifications of the events.
There are also some interactive activities and maps available. Finally, there is a nice summary page that categorizes the day into: People and Groups, Themes, and Events.

Many of our students were too young in 2001 to fully understand what was happening on September 11. The videos and maps from History.com provide some good background information that you can build on for classroom discussion.

LANGUAGE GRAPHICS

With kudos to the Cool Infographics blog, linked are two interesting graphics produced by PS Translation Services.


The first is titled The Most Widely Spoken Languages in the World, a train or subway map of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Each track on the map represents one of twelve languages. Each station on each track indicates a country in which that language is widely spoken. Seems a cool representation of language throughout the world.


Scrolling down from the subway map gives you the second, entitled the Language Olympics. The Language Olympics features the iconic five rings. The rings represent Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania. Each of the rings is comprised of the languages spoken there. The graphic is a precursor to the London 2012 Olympics and includes some additional information about the number of potential languages spoken at the Olympics and the demographics of visitors expected at those Olympic Games.



Both graphics provide the opportunity for discussion about language and understanding.

ART BABBLE

Quality online art resources have traditionally been difficult to find.
Enter ART BABBLE

"ArtBabble was conceived, initiated, designed, built, sculpted, programmed, shot, edited, painted and launched by a cross-departmental collection of individuals at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA). It is intended to showcase video art content in high quality format from a variety of sources and perspectives.ArtBabble was created so others will join in spreading the world of art through video."

I have to admit that they hooked me with their slogan: "Play Art Loud".

The site is a catalog of videos related to many forms of and formats for art.
Check "channels" and you'll find videos covering a wide array of topics ranging from abstract art to video art, mediums used and cultural art.
The "artist" tab compiles past and present artists and their works.

You can use the site with or without an account. It appears that creating account allows for saving of videos and email updates from the site.

Play Art Loud!

5 Techy things

Welcome to the 2010-2011 School Year!


If you have set a goal of trying something new in your classroom this year- Here are 5 Techy Things that you might want to think about.

1. Create a Blog-Everyone has something to say-Blogs can serve many purposes. You can use a blog to communicate information to parents and students, create a running journal of classroom activities and lessons throughout the year, or share information with colleagues-Writing is cathartic-Right?! My favorite sites for blogging are: Blogger and Edublogs. Both are very easy to start as they don't require any technical knowledge on your part.

2. Build a web page/site-For those of you @ PSHS- We have several tools available via our network of programs. Additionally, there are many free website creation and hosting services available on the web-take a look at Weebly and Yola.

3. Create Videos-Video is a powerful form of communication. Not too long ago classroom video projects required expensive editing software and video equipment. This is no longer the case. The flip video camera(we have a classroom set @ PSHS) allows for quick and easy videotaping. Web based programs allow for simple creation and editing. My favorite web-based video creation service is Animoto - It is simple, a lot of fun to use and the results are great.

4. Get Your Students Searching More Than Just Google-this one is included for my comrade Lil. Data bases and online tools are available here @PSHS(sorry to our readers in other places)-find out what is available and USE LIL (this is the last year to do so-She's retiring-LUCKY DOG)-the references she is able to find are amazing.


5. Get interactive-Try the interactivity of a SMARTboard or an AirSlate. Having students engaged in learning is every teacher's goal-Putting the learning in students' hands is possible with either of these pieces of hardware. Ask about them and get engaged.

There you have it- Your goals for the year- Never stop learning.

Visual Representation of the News- NEWSMAP

The internet generally presents a disorganized collage of information. We are working in an information-soaked world -There is too much of everything. Along comes NEWSMAP

Newsmap is a web application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the news - Specifically GOOGLE's news aggregator.

Known as a treemap visualization, the site displays the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator in block form. In Newsmap, the size of each cell is determined by the amount of related articles that exist inside each news cluster that the Google News Aggregator presents. In that way users can quickly identify which news stories have been given the most coverage, viewing the map by region, topic or time. Clicking on the headline takes you to a complete story.

Newsmap also allows you to compare the news landscape by country, or content area by checking the boxes at top and bottom of the map.

Very cool representation of news!

Thanks to PSHS Media Center Director Lil Mazur for this find!

Daylight Savings Time

My favorite comment from the week-end regarding Daylight Savings Time was: Why can't DST start at 2:00 pm Friday?--We can "spring forward" and start the week-end early!"

If you are talking about Daylight Savings Time- Here are some resources:

The guys at CBS Fast Draw always have an interesting take on things.

An ABC Station in Texas has nice information

As does an ABC Station in NewYork

A CBS Evening News video

An ABC News "Reasoning Behind Daylight Savings" video

Dry out your stuff!

I'm not entirely sure that this has ANY relevance to school or classroom use-but admit it- It has happened to you!

"It's bound to happen at some point. You bend over a body of water (be it a lake, a pond, the tub or the toilet), forgetting that your valuable gadget was sitting in your pocket. We say "was sitting" because it's since slipped out and is now taking a swim with the fishes (or worse, in the case of the toilet example).

First things first, fish the offending gadget out of the water, cry for a little while then go to the store and drop few hundred on a replacement. Or, you could just drop it into a
Bheestie Bag to dry outand hope for the best."

I can't say that I have personally tested this--but will admit that I wish I had know about this when I was caught in a driving rain storm at Great America and every kid on the field trip was calling to try to find our bus-Safe kids--dead phone

Winter Olympics

I admit it- I am an Olympics Geek. I will plan the next two weeks of my life around the Winter Games schedule. If you are interested in any of what will be taking place in Vancouver, following are ways to bring the Games into the classroom

• NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBC News, has teamed up with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to produce a 16-part video series focusing on the science behind the games. Scientific principles are explored in the new video series, called "The Science of the Olympic Winter Games." The videos illustrate how scientific principles apply to competitive sports. In each video segment, an NSF-supported scientist explains a particular scientific principle, while Olympic athletes describe how these principles apply to their respective sports. The science is explained by capturing the athletes’ movements with a state-of-the-art, high-speed camera which has the ability to capture movement at rates of up to 1,500 frames per second. This allows frame-by-frame illustrations of Newton’s Three Laws of Motion, the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum, friction, drag, speed, velocity, and other scientific concepts
  
  
• Canadian Olympic School Program has been providing teachers with free classroom resources since 1988.



• The New York Times has two sites that are pretty cool:
  

One takes a look at the Olympic torch over time
The other takes a look at venues of the Games

• The Associated Press has/will have a great highlight/recap site
  
  
• Winter Olympics: Sport By Sport” is a feature from ESPN. It provides a short, accessible slideshow and description for each sport played at the Olympic games.
  
  

(Thanks to Linda Casey and Larry Ferlazzo)

Fake facebook profiles

The web site READ WRITE THINK states that their mission is to "provide educators, parents, and afterschool professionals with access to the highest quality practices in reading and language arts instruction by offering the very best in free materials." The site is a wealth of resources-for Classroom Activities, Professional Development, Afterschool activities.

What I discovered while sorting through all of the resources is a free program called the Profile Publisher. Profile Publisher allows students to create and print mock-ups of social network profiles. Students can create profiles for themselves or for fictional characters. Profile Publisher includes fields for "about me," "blog posts," "interests," and all of the other profile fields typically found on a social network. Completed profiles can be printed-but not saved.

The Profile Publisher could also be used by history teachers to have students create profiles of historical characters, by English teachers to create profiles of book characters, by PE teachers to create profiles of athletes-past and present, by science teachers to create profiles of scientists... get the picture?

I created a profile for Harry Potter-You can find it here

Let's talk FACEBOOK

"Facebook.com exploded out of a Harvard dorm room and hit the mainstream stage. It has grown exponentially since its launch and the number of people using the service has consistently doubled every six months.Chances are the majority of your real-world friends have a Facebook account." Here are two options for getting to know the internet phenomenon :

"Facebook for grownups" is a practical guide to getting started with Facebook and unlocking some of its more powerful features for those who are just getting started.

For those of you who are already users, the Finer Points of Facebook demonstrates everything from untagging yourself from unflattering photos, super charging your privacy settings, creating your own Facebook family page, adding a Facebook badge to your site or blog and even hiding parts of your profile from certain people, like your boss, your co-workers... or your Mom

Martin Luther King Resources

Enclosed are resources the might be useful as we approach Martin Luther King day.

* Here is the I Have a Dream Speech from a resource other than YouTube.

* A short King biography, this time from the Library of Congress.
* The Seattle Times has an exceptional special report on King.
* There’s a good CNN Special Report on King.
* A short video of King from the Biography Channel.
* Scholastic has information and a slideshow at The Legacy Of A Leader.
* Time Magazine has a slideshow on King’s life.
* The Atlanta Journal Constitution has online videos, a timeline and other good resources.
* National Geographic has an online video about King.
* EL Civics has a online lesson on King.
* The Associated Press has a number of multimedia resources on King.
* The Atlanta Constitution has an interactive reviewing King’s life.
* Enchanted Learning has some very simple resources on King.
* The Orange County Register has an interactive graphic about King.
* The King Center has a site that provides audio of King’s famous “The Drum Major Instinct” speech. In addition to the audio, it shows the text (in an artistic sort of way) on the screen.
* Here’s a nice color slideshow of King’s life.
* The Do’s And Don’ts of Celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr’s Legacy from Teaching Tolerance. It has some excellent guidelines for teachers.
* CBS has an interactive of famous quotes from King and other information.
* MSNBC has a slideshow on King’s life.
* The New York Times has another slideshow.
* Here’s another good interactive timeline of his life.
* Honoring Dr. King is a slideshow from CBS showing celebrations of his birthday throughout the country in 2009

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo a teacher @Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California.

Great clip art site

We all know about google images and/or other sites that allow searches for images or clip art. We also know about the pit falls of this kind of search and some of the inappropriate photos or images that may find their way into a search. If you are into clip art, here is a really nice alternative.

Free Clip Art by Phillip Martin is a pretty impressive site for clip art that’s free for non-profit use. The art seems a cut above many other clip art sites I’ve seen, and is categorized by content area- there are some very interesting representations of concepts- Ever wanted to demonstrate "humidity" - there's clip for that on this site!

Check it out-it's worth a look

Acer and Intel K-12 School Library Makeover Contest

In a completely self service promotion, Acer and Intel are currently accepting nominations for a K-12 school library "makeover." The winning school will receive ten Acer Timeline laptops and two desktops. I'm not sure if twelve computers constitutes a full "makeover," but it's certainly better than no computers. To enter you must submit an essay describing what makes your school great and why your school should be chosen. You can also submit videos and images to supplement your entry. The entry deadline is January 17th. You can read all of the contest details and enter here.

How 'bout a little love for your "not so ordinary media center"

Sounds of the Season

I'm not really one for ratings or making recommendations but thought I would share some of my favorite sounds of the season. As you can probably imagine, my musical taste is all over the place--So here are a few tidbits that I am willing to share:

 First, my new favorite-an internet sensation in the late 90's - A group from Indiana U - Straight No Chaser does a great version of the 12 days of Christmas. 
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Second, Handel's Young Messiah- released in 1991: This is one of several 're-workings' of Handel's immortal 'Messiah'. It is likely not for "purists"-but if you have an open mind and enjoy the beauty of music in all  forms it is an enjoyable album even if many of the tracks sound like they're stuck in the 80s.

Finally- what I think is a new classic: Barenaked for the Holidays from the Barenaked Ladies. This is one of the few holiday albums that is pretty evenly divided between Christmas and Hanukkah songs. This isn't just nicely PC, but gives the album both musical and topical variety, making it a little more interesting and distinctive than the average holiday record. With that patented blend of jokiness and sentiment that's been the group's stock-in-trade, it has become a standard in our house.

 That's it as we close 2009. It has been a year filled with surprises, good and bad. Here's hoping that the joy of the season finds you and yours safe and loved. Hug those you hold dear. Dance. Sing. Laugh. Enjoy.

 Smiles and Grins,


The Queen

WORD GEEKS

Let's take a look at WORDs again.

Today's post comes from the Florida Department of Education. The page, entitled simply "VOCABULARY" is largely a series of resources dealing with words and vocabulary-running the gambit from elementary to high school resources. There is lots here for those who are interested in looking at a variety of ideas.

The coolest idea is from "Surfing the Net with kids- 100 most common SAT words - It is a quick game that you could add to the beginning or end of a class period. The game is to match words and definitions-Drag one over the other and they disappear--until you have completed the challenge. The game is timed. I could see "class records", period records, classes challenging classes. We have embedded the game into the PSHS WORDPLAY blog-It is at the bottom of the page.

Thanks to Anastasia Allen-PSHS Reading Specialist

GOOGLE does it again!!

Once again, I am convinced that GOOGLE will some day rule the world!
The search giant has quietly rolled out Google Dictionary, which presents definitions and synonyms. Exactly what you'd expect from a dictionary.
In addition to Google's own database of definitions, looking up a word on the Dictionary website provides a list of definitions pulled from a variety of academically authoritative sources as well as Wikipedia.
It has a few cool features. You can mark words with the star button and come back to them later, see a list of recent searches and switch to translator resources or dictionaries for other languages.
We have added this to today's WORD of the DAY post @ http://pshswordplay.blogspot.com/ and will make it a regular feature.

Talk to the WORLD!!

ipadio allows you to broadcast from any phone to the Internet-LIVE!  IPadio is created in by a British commuication company and works globally! It allows anyone to use their phone to record "phlogs"-Which are really just audio files posted to the Internet and given an RSS feed. Too technical??- Bottom line- you can created an audio file via phone that is automatically posted on the web-- your web page, your blog, your facebook page, etc.    This means that you can call in to the iPadio number (any phone will work), record an audio post, and have it immediately show up on your blog, wiki, or website -- Very cool and very simple!  I taught Anastasia how to do this in 5 minutes- and you will see/hear her efforts as now, the WORD of the day will be spoken on the Literacy blog(pshswordplay.blogspot.com) as well as the rest of the usual postings--The beauty of this is that she is able to update that posting via her phone here at school or her cell phone.  This is podcasting at it's simplest and easiest!  Join the fun!