Useful sites

  by  César Poyatos 

• Curation, the musical! « NeverEndingSearch Joyce Valenza has done it again. “To explain our very new efforts in teaching curation. Usually game for anything Glee-ish, our singer/actors brilliantly and generously created an introduction I can use for instruction and in upcoming workshops”

• Using QR codes to create educational posters | Teacher Tech  

• List of Microsoft Office Online File Converters and Document Viewers | The Windows Club ”With the help of these converters and viewers from Office Online, you can share your Microsoft Office files with people who have different versions of Office programs, or even with people who don’t have Office installed.”  

• Down For Everyone Or Just Me -> Check if your website is down or up? A tool that allows you to check whether a website is down for everyone or just your computer.  

• How to load ebooks on the Kindle 4 e-reader | Good E-Reader – ebook Reader and Tablet PC News   

• Glassboard. Private group sharing done right. Glassboard is an app for Android, Windows, and iOS phones that enables you to create and participate in private groups. Using the app you can create and participate in as many groups as you like. You can specify which groups can see the content you share and you can share notes, links, pictures, and videos. The content you share and the content others share with you is displayed in a news feed on your mobile device.

• SoapBox – Transform your lecture in real-time Soap Box is a service that enables teachers to gather instant feedback from students through their cell phones, tablets, or laptops. Soap Box offers nine useful functions for teachers and students.   

• Oops. This latest Google development provides the opportunity to explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.     

• commonsExplorer A new way of exploring the Flickr collections is commonsExplorer, from Creative Canberra. It is an experimental interactive browser for the Flickr Commons. It provides a “big picture” view of these collections – a rich, single screen interface that reveals structures and patterns and encourages exploration. It’s a quickly downloaded browsing interface that gives you, and students, a more visual view of the collections and the images. You can scroll through the list of all the participating institutions, then either search through the tag cloud or window shop through the pop-ups for images.  

• BurningWell.Org – Free Public Domain Images and Photos Allows you to browse or search a large collection (how large is not stated on the site) of images donated by photographers from around the world. All images are in the public domain, so you are allowed to use them freely for any purpose, commercial or private   

• Curation is the new search tool « NeverEndingSearch ”The new curation tools present an exciting new genre of search tool, a tool for scanning the real-time environment, as well as opportunities for evaluating quality and relevance in emerging information landscapes.” . Students and teachers can also exploit the curation efforts already out there   

• Using Tech to Engage Library Users Sparks ITHAKA Conference  

• Welcome to The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick 

• Amazon’s Kindle to Make Library E-Books Available – NYTimes.com  

• Survey shows division over reform agenda – Education Review  “Principals would be more positive towards the national professional standard if it was managed and accredited by the profession, a new survey shows. Ruth Callaghan reports”  

• Which is the best format for ebooks? | Ask Jack | Technology | guardian.co.uk ”An ebook format should offer a good reading experience, be an open standard format (or at least openly licensed), have the support of both publishers and hardware vendors, and be guaranteed to work for the foreseeable future, if not forever. Unfortunately, there isn’t one. Buying ebooks requires compromises and an act of faith. Always assume your ebooks will not last very long, so you won’t be disappointed if they don’t.” 

• Getting teacher evaluation right – The Answer Sheet – The Washington Post  Briefing on the right way to evaluate teachers given by Stanford University Professor Linda Darling-Hammond and other leading education research experts to US policymakers 

• Which is the best format for ebooks? | Ask Jack | Technology | guardian.co.uk uk 

• The post-reading generation talks about the future of books Article that looks at a study that shows it is not al “doom and gloom” for books    

• Will · “We Prepare Children to Learn How to Learn” Post that discusses learning and standardized testing. Like the US we too are becoming very dependent on “the test” to tell us about our students and their learning. This may lead ti the situation that we know less and less about who they really are as individuals. philosophy  

• Getting It Wrong: Surprising Tips on How to Learn: Scientific American New research makes the case for hard tests, and suggests an unusual technique that anyone can use to learn. Trying to figure out the answer to a question and getting it wrong, studying the material, then answering the question again teaches slightly better (about 10%) than just studying and answering. 

• Online Brainstorming and Voting. Amazingly Easy and Free | tricider Very simple to use, but very versatile polling tool. You just create a question and add some options then share it with the people you want answers from. The great thing is that they can add extra options and add various pros and cons of each option as well as voting on the ones they like. This makes the whole process of polling much more open, social and interactive. Here’s a quick video showing how it works  

• SimplyBox – Think Inside the Box This is a simple to use tool which uses boxes in place of folders and enables you to grab an image from the site as a link back to it, rather than a title. The other great advantage of this tool is that you can share boxes and work on them collaboratively and anyone accessing the box can leave notes on each of the tools. I introduced this tool about halfway through the course by putting links to all the tools we had used in one box, and using this as a revision task, I got the teachers to leave teaching suggestions and notes about how to use each tool and what its strengths were on each of the bookmarks.   

• Amazon Digital Content: a Library at Your Fingertips | Search Engine Journal An interesting debate on this topic esp. reading the comments     

• Why the idea of a Netflix for e-books makes sense – Tech News and Analysis A great list of things you can learn from Twitter, and reasons why you should be on Twitter yourself  

• Ebook Search Engine, Free Ebooks, Ebook Price Comparison | Inkmesh Ebook search engine to find free ebooks and compare ebook prices for the Kindle, iPhone, Nook, Sony Reader etc. 

• http://learningfundamentals.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Focus-mindmap-for-web.jpg A great mindmap that focuses on the age of distraction and shows how to deal with technology overload 

• 9 New Skills You Need To be a 21st Century Educator | Online Universities Some of these skills, are not new but have become more refined or essential as the times have changed. Education professionals still tout them as desirable and/or necessary as components in contemporary classrooms.  

• Teaching Media Literacy through Critical Thinking with “The Help” « Pop Goes the Classroom Two key concepts in media literacy are: that all media construct versions of reality and that media is interpreted through individual lenses. These concepts are at the core of the recent controversy over the new movie “The Help”. To be accurate, the controversy began with the release of the book but has been brought to the forefront with the release of the book. Critics claim the story is so “ahistoric” that is “inaccurate”. Use this to create discussion about the topic; The Civil Rights Movement. 

• http://langwitches.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Bloom-iPads-Apps.jpg Adapted from Kathy Schrock’s Blooming iPad @Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano    

• Four Ways QR Codes Could Revolutionize Education – Education – GOOD This article, from GOOD, talks about the potential of using Quick Response (QR) codes in the education. It discusses how they would be a great way for teachers to interact with students and with parents. They could also be used to help students get involved with their school.   

• Kidlit Book Trailers – Kids Books… in Action! This is a blog devoted to watching and discussing book trailers in every kidlit genre: picture books, non fiction, middle grades and young adults  

• Book Trailers – Movies for Literacy! This page represents the beginning of a website of short movies (generally 30 to 45 seconds) designed to increase student motivation to READ! Click for Late Elementary Book Trailers and Adolescent Book Trailers to see those listings.books  

• Bookscreening – Book Trailers The site has la lot of trailers, for all ages and interest levels, including children and young adult. They are available for viewing and embedding/sharing.    

• Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value – NYTimes.com A long article that discusses the benefits of using technology in the classroom. “In a nutshell: schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning. Advocates for giving schools a major technological upgrade say digital devices let students learn at their own pace, teach skills needed in a modern economy and hold the attention of a generation weaned on gadgets. Some backers of this idea say standardized tests, the most widely used measure of student performance, don’t capture the breadth of skills that computers can help develop. But they also concede that for now there is no better way to gauge the educational value of expensive technology investments. “ 

• Kids read 64 million minutes in the 2011 Scholastic Summer Challenge. ”Kids read 64,213,141 minutes in the 2011 Scholastic Summer Challenge. The summer reading program, which ended last night at midnight, gave kids a chance to read books they want to read, log their reading minutes, complete weekly reading challenges, and win all kinds of prizes like sample book chapters, audio chapters, and even virtual badges of their favorite book series.”  

• Teaching “Search” | Hack Education A researcher asked people about their search strategies, giving them a series of hypothetical scenarios in which they’d need to look something up and asked how they’d proceed with finding the right information. The results show a lack of skills   

• Response: Several Ways To Help Students Become Better Listeners – Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo – Education Week Teacher How to help students develop better listening skills  iLibrarian » 25+ Resources to Create Library Videos  Offers “How To’s”, tools, library videos, branding on YouTube etc.     

• Something to Shout About: New research shows that more librarians means higher reading scores A piece about how librarians and library programs do make an impact on reading scores.   

• The Anatomy Of An Infographic: 5 Steps To Create A Powerful Visual | SpyreStudios A good post about infographics. Information is very powerful but can also be presented in a way that is bland and unimaginative. Infographics impart information in a visually pleasing and sometimes a more understandable manner, making it more powerful. Infographics have now permeated all aspects of the modern information world.   

• 45+ Free Online Tools To Create Charts, Diagrams And Flowcharts | Free and Useful Online Resources for Designers and Developers A guide to online tools for helping with data visualization   

• Create unique websites without writing code | Muse (code name) This is an impressive free tool for developing unique websites. It’s quite intuitive to use with a very logical workflow and drag and drop design features. Great for developing your own unique site 

• Bundlr – Bundle and share web content easily A very handy tool for collecting together web content for study or presentations. Create collections of the best media you find on the web and share them with everyone. 

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

Useful Links (Weekly)

  by  mikefisher821 

• Ebook Search Engine, Free Ebooks, Ebook Price Comparison | Inkmesh Ebook search engine to find free ebooks and compare ebook prices for the Kindle, iPhone, Nook, Sony Reader etc.    

• http://learningfundamentals.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Focus-mindmap-for-web.jpg A great mindmap that focuses on the age of distraction and shows how to deal with technology overload    

• 9 New Skills You Need To be a 21st Century Educator | Online Universities Some of these skills, are not new but have become more refined or essential as the times have changed. Education professionals still tout them as desirable and/or necessary as components in contemporary classrooms.    

• Teaching Media Literacy through Critical Thinking with “The Help” « Pop Goes the Classroom Two key concepts in media literacy are: that all media construct versions of reality and that media is interpreted through individual lenses. These concepts are at the core of the recent controversy over the new movie “The Help”. To be accurate, the controversy began with the release of the book but has been brought to the forefront with the release of the book. Critics claim the story is so “ahistoric” that is “inaccurate”. Use this to create discussion about the topic; The Civil Rights Movement.   

• Blooming Orange: Bloom’s Taxonomy Helpful Verbs Poster From Tips, Tools and Technology for Educators blog. A nice Blooms poster in a different format – “Bloom’s Taxonomy Helpful Verbs Poster. “This poster to helps get you thinking about how you can apply Bloom’s higher-order thinking skills in your classroom. This poster shows the segments of an orange with each segment relating to a thinking skill and some helpful verbs to serve as prompts.”           

• http://langwitches.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Bloom-iPads-Apps.jpg Adapted from Kathy Schrock’s Blooming iPad @Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano    

• Four Ways QR Codes Could Revolutionize Education – Education – GOOD This article, from GOOD, talks about the potential of using Quick Response (QR) codes in the education. It discusses how they would be a great way for teachers to interact with students and with parents. They could also be used to help students get involved with their school.    

• Kidlit Book Trailers – Kids Books… in Action! This is a blog devoted to watching and discussing book trailers in every kidlit genre: picture books, non fiction, middle grades and young adult    

• Book Trailers – Movies for Literacy! This page represents the beginning of a website of short movies (generally 30 to 45 seconds) designed to increase student motivation to READ! Click for Late Elementary BookTrailers and Adolescent BookTrailers to see those listings. 

• Bookscreening – Book Trailers The site has has la lot of trailers, for all ages and interest levels, including children and young adult. They are available for viewing and embedding/sharing.

• Stella vs Miles: Women Writers and Literary Value in Australia · Meanjin Julieanne Lamond looks at Australian literary values and whether they place women as outsiders. 

• Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value – NYTimes.com A long article that discusses the benefits of using technology in the classroom. “In a nutshell: schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning. Advocates for giving schools a major technological upgrade say digital devices let students learn at their own pace, teach skills needed in a modern economy and hold the attention of a generation weaned on gadgets. Some backers of this idea say standardized tests, the most widely used measure of student performance, don’t capture the breadth of skills that computers can help develop. But they also concede that for now there is no better way to gauge the educational value of expensive technology investments. “   

• Kids read 64 million minutes in the 2011 Scholastic Summer Challenge. ”Kids read 64,213,141 minutes in the 2011 Scholastic Summer Challenge. The summer reading program, which ended last night at midnight, gave kids a chance to read books they want to read, log their reading minutes, complete weekly reading challenges, and win all kinds of prizes like sample book chapters, audio chapters, and even virtual badges of their favorite book series.”   

• Teaching “Search” | Hack Education A researcher asked people about their search strategies, giving them a series of hypothetical scenarios in which they’d need to look something up and asked how they’d proceed with finding the right information. The results show a lack of skills 

• Response: Several Ways To Help Students Become Better Listeners – Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo – Education Week Teacher How to help students develop better listening skills   

• iLibrarian » 25+ Resources to Create Library Videos Offers “How To’s”, tools, library videos, branding on YouTube etc.  

• Something to Shout About: New research shows that more librarians means higher reading scores A piece about how librarians and library programs do make an impact on reading scores.  

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

Some sites for learning about environmental issues

We are celebrating our environment next week and our year 8 students are one week into researching global issues in Geography. I was pleased to find and use these sites when helping prepare students for their research.

The site of the United Nations Environment Program has an interactive map that displays 100+ examples of environmental change from around the world. You can choose to use the side index to find sites under lists with headings such as country, theme, biodiversity and protected, deserts & drylands, pollution etc.

There are icons/placemarks on the map that offer close-up views of the land with a story about the environmental change at that location. It indicates the major theme and other related themes for the site.

An example using the map: By clicking on the placemark for Wyperfield National Park, Australia you went to a page that had two close-up images of the site and some brief but reasonably detailed information about the environmental changes taking place there. The major theme for Wyperfield was Ecosystems and the related themes were Biodiversity & Protected areas, Extreme Events and Grasslands. 

This would be a good place for students to start their research into an environmental issue as there is enough information to pique their interest and clues about where to go onto next.

Another good site is Global Warming Facts and Our Future from the National Academy of Sciences. It’s a very engaging and extensive site, and includes audio support for the text. This assists some of our international students as well as those who are need extra learning support as the vocabulary may be a bit challenging.

Finally from one of my favourites, National Geographic, there is the  Global Warming Effects Map.

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.

Rapping 18 years of news

It is the end of the current school year in the US. I have occasionally had a look at the  The Week in Rap. It has often had an interesting take on the (US) news but it is going have a respite over the US summer holidays.

In their last offering before the end of this educational year they did something a little different. Instead of covering the week’s news they ran with the idea of covering all of the big stories from the last 18 years. This was an homage to the students who were about to graduate from high school and sought to remind them of all the major events in the world during their lifetimes. If you need help with what the stories are there is a list here.

I wonder what our Australian students would come up with for the end of their first eighteen years? It would be a good discussion topic. I wonder if I could interest some of our students in creating their own  18 years as rap?