Useful Sites (weekly)

• Elements in the Earth’s Crust Periodic table of the elements with the common elements from the Earth’s crust highlighted with white.

• A Periodic Table of the Elements at Los Alamos National Laboratory The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Chemistry Division’s Periodic Table describes the history, properties, resources, uses, isotopes, forms, costs, and other information for each element.

• Chem4Kids.com: Elements & Periodic Table This page provides information on the periodic table and the elements.\nChem4Kids website teaches the basics of chemistry to all ages. It has other sections on atoms, matter, biochemistry, and reactions.

• BBC – KS3 Bitesize: Science – Chemical and material behaviour Physical and chemical properties are discussed here. Find out about the atoms and particles that make up chemical matter, and the experiments that help you analyse elements.

• Periodic table – chart of all chemical elements The interactive periodic table of elements – chemical data, health and environmental effects presented in five languages

• Chemical Elements.com – An Interactive Periodic Table of the Elements Periodic Table with detailed but easy to understand information. Click on an element symbol for more information.

• Visual Elements The Visual Elements Periodic Table is an arts and science collaborative project exploring the chemical elements in a diferent way. Includes information on the elements, images, jigsaw puzzles, atomic orbitals, patterns and alchemical symbols.

• Fair Use: You Be The Judge | Teaching Copyright 

• Transliteracies » Definition of Online Reading From the Transliteracies Project. A full definition of online reading. The final outcome of the project will include -its range, structure, technologies, practices, innovations, and problem areas

• Writing in the 21st Century Report from NCTE – National Council of Teachers of English highlights the change to writing practice through the introduction of texting, blogs and other technology. Quote: “Today, in the 21st century, people write as never before—in print and online. We thus face three challenges that are also opportunities: developing new models of writing.

• toolsforsearch – home This contains links to a large range of search engines and tools. Some of the links have brief annotations attached and many links lead to other wikis and search engine lists. The most useful aspect is the comprehensive nature and categorisation of the list.

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

Sharing sites with Weblist

I am always looking for tools that add to the classroom experience. Over the last 2 weeks I have been investigating Weblist. It is a aggregator that allows you to create a “library” of websites in a visual mode.

You can then share this list with colleagues and students by sending them to a single web address. I like the “clean” feel to the site and the ease with which you can add your links and edit it as well. It is easy to paste in web addresses individually or you can use the multiple sites option. You can also add a title, description and tags here, the last two being optional

The user can click on the thumbnail to open the site. You open onto a single-page view of the site.

Once on one of the sites you can use the navigation bar at the top of the page to continue to look through the pages, hover over the name to see the complete list or use the button to return to the thumbnail view. You can also add to the list via a button here .

It is a useful tool to keep your students at the sites you deem reputable/accurate because they remain always in the Weblist URL.

If the students want to cite the pages in an assignment the can use the button at the bottom of the page to bring up a list that include the sites email address and basic info. Here you can see the information when you put in the title, a description as well as see the address.

I was showing a science teacher I was working on – a list I called Chemical Elements WFC -  and she became very interested by the options for her students. I have given her the edit address to add a few more sites although we believe that too many sites could be confusing for her year 8 students. I have been thinking that maybe 10-12 sites as a maximum.

We then started discussing the idea that the students could create a Weblist as a class and recommend sites (as well as evaluate them) as a class exercise. This would be used for other classes studying the topic.  Many of our boys love the idea of creating a “real” project that will be used by others.

Weblist is a free service and registration is optional. If you choose to register as a user your entire list will be saved under your account and you will be able to edit, delete and add to your lists.

You have the option to have a look at other lists but not all of them are for school use. Two lists that I like were Biomes and  Rainforests.

Last year I wrote a post about sharetabs which is a similar tool. I still use sharetabs but I believe that as I investigate Weblist further it might offer extra option for our students.

Since I began this I have found an article on the School Library Journal by Joyce Valenza Ph.D. She has been playing around with the tool as well and he first list was on Copyright-Friendly Images.

Useful Sites (weekly)

• BBC News – Pupils ‘must manage online risks’ This was an interesting article from the BBC about E-safety. Basically what they are saying that to improve e-safety then give students more freedom on the internet, Ofsted have reported this from their recent findings. 

• 8 Facebook Rules For Parents « Mamamia Good tips for parents about helping their kids if the are on (or planning to go on) facebook 

• Watch Movies Online, Online Movies, Watch Movies, Free Movies, Download Movies This is a website that aggregates links of thousands of movies you can download or stream online. Movski currently has more than 3,000 movies with more than 30,000 streaming links available.

• WebList – The Place To Find The Best List On The Web This is an aggregator application that presents weblists in a visual mode, packaged ideally for student browsing. This app offers students a visually appealing resources (via thumbnail browsing) without the opportunity for getting lost amongst the many sites out on the web. (Still in Beta)

• WordSift – Visualize Text clouds like Wordle with more options to sort words by frequency and alphabetically. Not as visually pleasing.

• Where Social Learning Thrives | Learn at All Levels | Fast Company Excellent post by Marcia Conner about social learning. Love this quote: Social learning .. is inspired by leaders, enabled by technology and ignited by opportunities. 

• TheEngTeacher: 25 places to find instructional videos Post by Jane Hart- offers a good list of places to find instructional videos 

• The 6 Best Tools To Schedule Twitter Updates 

• 14 Ways K-12 Librarians Can Teach Social Media by Joyce Valenza Great integrated ideas for using social media like wikis, blogs, etc.. Good for librarians and any others who would like to be more involved with Social Media.

• twitter4teachers / FrontPage This wiki provides teachers on Twitter and are organized by subject. You can add yourself to the list as well as find others with similar interests as you.

• TwitterNotes Use this tool to make private notes for yourself on Twitter

• 100 Twitter Feeds To Make You a Better Teacher – Online Courses A list of 100 twitter feeds related to education from tools and groups to productivity related tip feeds and individual teachers.

• Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, funded by the Heilbrunn Foundation, New Tamarind Foundation, and Zodiac Fund, is a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art from around the world, as illustrated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection.

• Visual Aids for Learning – Free Downloads The images contained on this site are particularly useful for teachers and aides working with students who experience learning difficulties. The images are gender and age specific and are applicable to charts, timetables and specific learning situations.

• Teacher Resources Teachers can access a variety of classroom resources regarding the various scientific education projects, events and services operated by CSIRO. Links are present to related sites run by the organisation

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

“The real problem is not adding technology to the current organization of the classroom, but changing the culture of teaching and learning”

“The real problem is not adding technology to the current organization of the classroom, but changing the culture of teaching and learning”,
originally uploaded by langwitches.

Useful Sites (weekly)

•  Teaching Resources – Free Printables and Lesson Ideas for Teachers!  Website for general resources and lesson plans for teachers.

• Listorious: Discover the Best Twitter Lists Listerious offers browsing through popular twitter lists   

• Science Oxford Online This online resource from Science Oxford presents science news features with the aims of illustrating connections between different areas of science and demonstrating connections between science and everyday life. Users can submit articles and press releases. A newsletter, tweets and RSS feeds are available.   

•  Intelligent YouTube Channels | Open Culture youTube channels with educational content.    

• Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: Defining the Big Shift The Big Shift. We must master a new set of techniques required to access, attract and accumulate resources to unleash peer based learning in far more flexible ways than conventional push programs permit.   

• Citrify Photo Editor Citrify, is an easy to use photo editor with powerful features.  

• Roman Numerals The big differences between Roman and Arabic numerals (the ones we use today) are that Romans didn’t have a symbol for zero, and that numeral placement within a number can sometimes indicate subtraction rather than addition.    

• Evaluating Websites The Internet contains an immense range of information that is posted by individuals and organisations from around the world. There is no single body or organisation that ensures the quality of this information.    

• Bullying. No way! Bullying. No way! is developed and managed by all Australian education authorities for use by Australia’s Government, Catholic and Independent school communities. 

• Cyberbullying – digizen.org On this area of the Digizen website we outline the three major areas of the advice, Understanding, Preventing and Responding; and provided links to current resources.   

• CyberNetrix – Internet Safety Education for Secondary Schools Australian online safety site CyberNetrix offers computer-based activities that have been designed for secondary students from years seven to nine as a cross-curricula, cross-year level resource. There is a teacher guide and 11 downloadable student activities.      

• BBC – Newsbeat – Pupils ‘bypassing school internet security’ BBC article about the dangers of students using proxy servers.    

• High school: What students take versus what they need – Mind Dump   Interesting post        

• Official Google Blog: Safety Mode: giving you more control on YouTube  ”Diversity of content is one of the great things about YouTube. But we know that some of you want a more controlled experience. That’s why we’re announcing Safety Mode, an opt-in setting that helps screen out potentially objectionable content that you may prefer not to see or don’t want others in your family to stumble across while enjoying YouTube “        

• Twitlonger – When you talk too much for Twitter    Twitlonger is an easy way to post long messages to Twitter without the need to write a blog post. Write what you need here and we post the link to Twitter for you.        

• 20 Essential Tricks Every Skype User Should Know – Page 2 | Maximum PC    This article has tips and ideas on how to more effectively use the features of Skype.        

• The Lovett School: Lovett News    What do you get when you put digital cameras into the hands of Lower School mathematicians? Children who are engaged in the learning process, and students who see the variety of mathematical possibilities in the world around them.        

• Sorry I’m Late    Great example of stop motion animation. Watch through to the credits at the end to see how it was done. Quite brilliant!        

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