Useful sites (weekly)

  by  vanhookc 

• Cleopatra – Map: Cleopatra’s Alexandria – Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine This month’s National Geographic cover story is all about Cleopatra. NGM.com also had some nice resources to support the print article. Cleopatra’s Alexandria is an interactive map recreating what Alexandria may have looked like during Cleopatra’s reign. 

• Dialogue New Literacies 2011: How to Use New Media to Teach Writing, Research and Analytical Skills   

• Infographic: Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench | Our Amazing Planet A great graphic of earth topography!  

• Education Article :: How to Guide Online Student Discussion ”Blended learning is a teaching model that weaves together traditional in-class instruction with an online component. As class sizes increase and resources disappear, teachers need to maximize their effectiveness and efficiency while being innovative. Free online learning platforms have the potential to engage students and increase participation. Transitioning students into an online space can be daunting for a teacher who is acclimating to the role of online facilitator. You can choose to be a silent facilitator or an involved facilitator depending on your objectives..” 

• 17 Signs Your Classroom is Behind the Times – SimpleK12 

• Patrick Ness slams library cuts | Children’s books | guardian.co.uk Patrick Ness was presented with the 2011 Carnegie Medal for Monsters of Men – and gave an excoriating acceptance speech, in which he lambasted the government’s policy on libraries. Here is an edited version of it.  

• Softlink: Softlink Australian Schools Survey In March 2011, Softlink conducted a follow-up survey to the 2010 Australian School Library Survey, which looked into Australian school library budgets, qualified staffing levels and NAPLAN literacy results. This follow-up survey has allowed Softlink to compare and report the findings from both surveys. Softlink’s position on conducting this study is, school libraries should be more adequately and consistently funded and given greater access to appropriately trained teacher librarians.  

• Global-Map-of-Social-Networking-GlobalWebIndex-June-20112.pdf (application/pdf Object) Map of social networking uptake (global)   

• ALA Annual 2011: New Ebook Service Launched, Takes Its Inspiration from Freegal    

• Harry Potter E-Books Plan Worries Bookstore Owners – Techland – TIME.com    

• The Flipped Classroom Model: A Full Picture « User Generated Education ”Flip your instruction so that students watch and listen to your lectures… for homework, and then use your precious class-time for what previously, often, was done in homework: tackling difficult problems, working in groups, researching, collaborating, crafting and creating. Classrooms become laboratories or studios, and yet content delivery is preserved. “   

• OverDrive update to boost Amazon’s Kindle library lending Post by Anne Weaver. “Softlink has gained a distribution license with Overdrive to facilitate schools lending ebooks. This means that the Overdrive ebooks appear seemlessly in the Oliver catalogue.” includes examples of schools involved     

• Dynamic Duo – Overdrive and Oliver « READINGPOWER Post by Anne Weaver. “Softlink has gained a distribution license with Overdrive to facilitate schools lending ebooks. This means that the Overdrive ebooks appear seemlessly in the Oliver catalogue.” includes examples of schools involved 

• Education Technology – theory and practice: Flickr for Teachers and ClassroomsThis post presents basic use of Flickr and some practical ideas for use of Flickr in classroom  

• Copyright complaint kills Peanutweeter – Boing Boing    

• The Art of Education: Upholding a Student-Centered Culture – The Prezi!  

• 10 Awesome Free Tools To Make Infographics A source of tips and links to other infographic sources. A great site to find interesting ways to show data    

• An Interview Without Words: Illustrator Shaun Tan Draws Conclusions – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International Australian author and illustrator Shaun Tan recently won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, described as the Nobel Prize of children’s literature. He granted an interview to SPIEGEL — and answered the questions by drawing pictures. 

• How to Maximize Your Lessons Using Online Media – WeAreTeachers  

• Search Results | MakeUseOf Geeky Fun  

• Eight Tech Trends for Librarians (and Teachers too!)Eight Tech Trends for Librarians (and Teachers too!)Harvard Education Letter ”Today, a major mission of the librarian, aka media specialist, is to teach students digital literacy by showing them how to use the Internet to efficiently find, organize, and share information with peers. Here are some of the tools librarians are using to make their jobs easier and more relevant to students as they address this expansion of their role.”  

• 20 must know features and tricks on Youtube that you simply have to know ”The list also provides tips and tricks for publishers who are the people who make the site what it is today. Over the coming years we can expect Youtube to continue it’s growth especially on mobile and possibly even on to our smart TVs in the future to form a core part of our daily entertainment experience. Here is how you can get much more out of Youtube”  

• Test Your Literature IQ…How Well Do You Really Know Books? « PWxyz  

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

From the highest mountain to the deepest ocean and across the deserts – Google Earth

 I really liked this great (and long) infographic.

It was published by Our Amazing Planet . This large infographic features the highest and lowest places above sea level. It shows the heights at which airliners fly to the depths of the deepest parts of the ocean (Mariana Trench).

It was discussed on the Google Earth Blog in a post ”The Tallest Mountain to the Deepest Ocean Trench” (June 23, 2011) where they linked to the Google Earth locations for all of the places in the infographic.

If you have not been to the Google Earth Blog it is well worth visiting. There is information about google earth but also a lot of interesting and useful information can be found on all topics to do with our earth.

Another good recent post is Exploring the deserts with Google Earth.

Google Sightseeing is in the middle of “Desert Week 2011″, uncovering interesting tidbits from various deserts around the world.

There are some amazing images and they show that the deserts are not just flat sand.

Infographic Source: OurAmazingPlanet.com, Exploring the wonder and beauty of planet Earth through exclusive news, features and images.

Pottermore – The Harry Potter story continues

The new movie is out soon and many of my students are eagerly awaiting the final movie installment.

Now J.K. Rowling has announced that there will be more to the Harry Potter story.  There will be an on-line interactive way to connect to experience the phenomenon that is Harry Potter. Once J. K. Rowling said she preferred that the stories were in hardcopy, that the real reading experience was to be had in holding and reading a (paper) book. She seems to have had a change of heart and this looks to be a very good addition to the Harry Potter stable.

You should have a look at her website.  

Pottermore is a free website that builds an exciting online experience around the reading of the Harry Potter books.

If you know some avid Harry Potter fans get them to register now for the chance to enter Pottermore early. Be warned however this site has been so popular is has already crashed once due to the heavy traffic. It has been mentioned on the National morning tv shows so the publicity is only just beginning.

Creating Character Profiles

After reading about this type of activity a few years ago I finally got to introduce it to a class.

Yesterday an English class of year 7 boys worked on this task that required them to consider the characters in their novels. This approach worked very well as an English class activity.  It  focussed our Year 7 boys on the characters in their novels. The boys had been working in literature circle groups for almost a term. Each student had to create a profile for one of the characters in the books they have been reading. Some of the data in the profile was told to them by the author and other aspects they had to infer from events in the story.

This character profile will help them later when the have to create an interview podcast as the final task on the book
This year I also had them create a facebook-like page for their character as well.
I used a template that I saved from Dale Basler’s site. It was created in Publisher.
I then adapted it and created an example using Sherlock Holmes as my character.

On the “facebook page” the boys had to:

• Include basic profile data – age, education, family info, make up networks the character may belong to, education, etc. including an image of or avatar representing the character.
• Add “friends” – other characters from the book and put in how they “fit” into the story.
• Add posts from these friends.
• Put at least 2 stories in “What’s on my mind” about incidents in the book.
• Create or find 3 images representing events, people or places in the story.

This activity worked very well with the boys. They enjoyed doing the task, both those who had facebook accounts and those who did not. Without realising it, the boys did a lot of thinking and inferring and displayed their understanding of the books without realising how much work they had actually done.

Useful sites (weekly)

  by  ransomtech 

• Books, artifactually and anecdotally speaking … – Lorcan Dempsey’s Weblog @Lorcan Dempsey “it seems to me that the artifactual and design elements of print books are coming more to the fore, albeit in different ways. As the use of ebooks grows this is not really surprising, as this change creates niche opportunities for experiences focused specifically on the possibilities of the print medium. Some related trends are interesting”

• 10 Technology Enhanced Alternatives to Book Reports – TheApple.com The post offers alternatives to the more traditional book reports. “Writing book reports are often dreaded by students after reading a book. They can kill a book or kill a love of reading. Alternative include: creating a cartoon, creating a short video clip about the book, or advertising the book in their own way.

• Green Eggs & Facebook: 15 Social Media Tips from Dr. Seuss | Social Media Today These tips are adapted from from Dr. Seuss’ writning

• Historic Sites | Historic Holidays | Historvius This is part search engine, part map, and part reference source. The purpose of Historvius is to help people locate historically important sites associated with people and events from 4000BCE through today. Visitors to Historvius can search for places by selecting range of dates, choosing a historic period, selecting a person, or by entering a combination of search terms. Search results are displayed on a Google Map. You can then click on a placemark on the map to find more information about that historic site.

• WhatWasThere – Put history in its place! A good example of using Google Maps to show the way places used to look. What Was There allows registered users to upload old images of buildings and landmarks and have them displayed in the place where they were taken. Anyone can explore the map and view the historical images on the map. Enter a city name in the search box or browse the map’s placemarks to find images.

• FBI — The Vault The Vault is our new electronic reading room, containing more than 3,000 documents that have been scanned from paper into digital copies so you can read them in the comfort of your home or office. Included here are more than 25 new files that have been released to the public but never added to this website; dozens of records previously posted on our site but removed as requests diminished; and files from our previous electronic reading room. Since the launch of the Vault in April 2011, we have also added more than 30 new, previously unreleased files.

• E-Reader Radio | Good E-Reader Blog – ebook Reader and Tablet PC News

• GridCalc – Grid calculator and generator | Problem AB GridCalc is a easy to use grid calculator. Just enter the desired width of your page and an aproximate range for your column and gutter width and the calculator will give you all the possible combinations within the limits you entered. You get a nice visual representation of the results, click preview on a result and you get a better presentation of how the grid can be used. When you have decided which grid configuration you want to use you can download the configuration as a css file to use in your project.

• Challenge of focusing education reform | The Australian

  Article on 7 Jun 2011 by John Hattie (Director of the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education) He was formerly a Professor of Education at Auckland University where he produced the high influential book ‘visible learning’ “Finally we need to consider alternative ways of teacher education. The current teacher training model is bankrupt and a disruptive model is needed to show a better way. Maybe it is the Melbourne MTeach model, but whatever the new model there is a need for more exciting and effective ways to educate teachers across their teaching life. After school sessions, warm tea, and cold seats are a poor basis for learning. Perhaps those claiming to be involved are funded only if they can show, with the teachers, that they have demonstrable gains on the students’ learning from the professional development provided. John Hattie is the Director of the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education he was formerly a Professor of Education at Auckland University where he produced the high influential book ‘visible learning’.

• Ten ideas for interactive teaching | Curriculum | eSchoolNews.com ” While lecturing tends to be the easiest form of instruction, studies show that students absorb the least amount of information that way. Interactive teaching methods are an effective way to connect with a generation of students used to consistent stimulation—and education professor Kevin Yee has some advice for how teachers can make their lessons more interactive.” eSchoolNews

• What iCloud means for Education – You can “iCloud it” from Apps in Education: @AppsForEducation. “Steve Jobs announced iCloud along with Lion OS and iOS5 the other day at the WWDC. What is the iCloud and how will it effect the Education sector. iCloud can be explained as the new Digital Hub of our ever increasing digital lives; Photos, Video and Music”

• Gartner Identifies Five Collaboration Myths Collaboration initiatives fail because IT leaders hold mistaken assumptions about basic issues

• 5 Tips For Assessing What Students Know – Articles – Educational Technology – ICT in Education ”It is not enough to teach students how to understand information and communications technology. At some point you are going to have to assess their knowledge and understanding. “

• Has young adult fiction become too dark? – Teenagers – Salon.com

• a3office_witrand.pdf (application/pdf Object) ”Read” poster in different languages  tags:

• New Report: “‘If It Is Too Inconvenient, I’m Not Going After It’ [OCLC] ”New Report: “‘If It Is Too Inconvenient, I’m Not Going After It:’ Convenience as a Critical Factor in Information-seeking Behaviors”

• A dictionary of e-learning jargon – A dictionary of e-learning jargon This is a dictionary of e-learning jargon. It aims to explain the jargon associated with e-learning in increasingly simple terms. It is still very early in its development, and people who are interested adding to it are invited to fill in the contact form at http://philhart.edublogs.org/about/.

• Apps in Education: Apps 4 Teachers ”Most of what we do is for the students. The focus of this and many other blogs and websites is about learning, and rightly so, but there are also apps that will make our jobs easier too. I am talking about that catergory of apps that are designed specifically for the classroom teacher. There are plenty and I am sure as more and more teachers gain the confidence to design their own apps, there will be more suitable one to come. Here is a list of apps that you can use to make your job easier.”

• How Social Media & Game Mechanics Can Motivate Students ”Social media and online games have the potential to convey 21st century skills that aren’t necessarily part of school curricula — things like time management, leadership, teamwork and creative problem solving that will prepare teens for success in college and beyond. Making the transition between a highly structured environment in high school to a self-driven, unstructured environment in college can prove a huge challenge for many kids.”

• Is It Worth It? Student Created Tutorials | Langwitches Blog @langwitch Her post in the series “The Digital Learning Farm” based on Alan November’s work of “The Digital Learning Farm”, which he also outlines in his chapter of Heidi Hayes Jacobs’ book “Curriculum 21″.

• 250 best iPad apps: education – Telegraph  list of some of the best learning apps for iPad users of all ages

• 7 Reasons To Leverage Social Networking Tools in the Classroom | Emerging Education Technology Instructional uses of social networking software can provide opportunities for learning, connecting, and engagement.

• We asked, you answered! 15 more brilliant ways to use Edmodo Some of the innovative ways teachers are using Edmodo in the classroom to engage students

• How To Embed Practically Anything On Your Blog or Website A post from Mashable. People want the hands-down, easiest way to embed practically things onto their blog or website. nThere are many7 tools to help you do that. “The nature of the web is such that sharing and republishing content is common – and often even encouraged. The problem is, we increasingly store bits of our data on various services scattered across the web. Aggregating that content into one centralized personal hub can be time consuming – requiring user to manually copy text and links or upload files and photos – or fiddling with RSS feeds trying to make content automagically appear”

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