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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

11-30-2011 All Things Wolfam


Wolfram Alpha is more than a statistical search engine - http://www.wolframalpha.com/
It also has resources for educators on how to use this tool in the classroom - http://www.wolframalpha.com/educators/.
Students can create their own Wolfram Alpha query using the Widget Builder http://developer.wolframalpha.com/widgetbuilder/
Music teachers can have students tap into the Wolfram Tones page http://tones.wolfram.com/ where they can create their own tones.
Goofram is a combination search where results are drawn from Wolfram and Goggle and can be found here - http://www.goofram.com/
They even have apps students and teachers can use on the go - http://products.wolframalpha.com/mobile/

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

11-29-2011 Interactive Blooms

This is a link to a Bloom's Taxonomy pyramid full of Web 2.0 tools organized according to their place on the pyramid.  Each tool is linked to the application's site.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

11-23-2011 Bookmarking for MY Brain!

I am so excited about Pearltrees.  I have a Diigo account and a Delicious account and rarely do I go there to find resources.  To me they are another place to search.  This is handy when searching other peoples' great finds, but I don't find it useful for storing my own information.
Pearltrees has changed all that!  Now I can organize my bookmarks into a web of related categories and subcategories.  

Under Web 2.0 Applications I have a tree titled Publishing.  From the publishing tree I can select any one of the branches that contain specific categories, depending on the project I am supporting.  If a teacher is having her students write short stories, I can view my publishing tree and look for interesting ways students might produce their completed work.  Under Publishing I have a branch called Comic Strips.  Students might enjoy creating strips of their completed stories.  If I select Comic Strips, I can view all of the sites that might help accomplish this goal.
Using other bookmarking sites, I would have searched publishing and books and perhaps stories and may never have thought to use comics to publish our stories.  By being able to see all of my categories and options in a clear graphic display, I can make better use of my resources.  

Another way to grow resources is to team with other Pearltree owners, and join their tree.  I was looking for a site for one of our math teachers and came across a tree called Great Maths Sites which was full of interesting and useful links.  Rather than adding all of the pearls to my own tree, I can request to join this tree and when approved, add this tree to my own.
I have actually enjoyed building my tree and am sure I will be making great use of it.  Finally a social bookmarking site that works the way I think!

11-23-2011 Reasons to be Thankful: The Somali Drought


1.       Somali Drought
a.       CBBC: Children of the Drought - http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/14313437
b.      ABC News: Somalia Famine: How to Help - http://abcnews.go.com/International/somalia-famine/story?id=14088327
c.       Somalia Famine Refugees Tell Their Stories - http://abcnews.go.com/International/somalia-famine/story?id=14088327
g.       Breaking News English Activities - http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/1107/110721-somalia_food_crisis.html
h.      AP: East Africa Famine - http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2011/east-africa-famine/
j.        BBC: East Africa Hunger Crisis - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14248278  
k.       Battling Hunger in the Horn of Africa - http://horn.wfp.org/main.html

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

11-22-2011 - Primary and Secondary Sources


Maps, Timelines, Documents, and Movies for students to peruse and use.
a.      Compare Skeletons throughout evolution - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/compare-skeletons.html
b.      David Rumsey Map Collection - http://www.davidrumsey.com/
c.       Life Photo Timelines - http://www.life.com/timeline
d.      http://www.timemaps.com/home/time-map/ - The big picture of world History.
e.      http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/index.html - Timeline - Sources from History
f.        http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/explorerflash/#/object_li6X6vc1SMSJfJ2BhOdB0A - A History of the World Interactive Timeline
g.      The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy - http://avalon.law.yale.edu/default.asp
h.      The Travel Film Archive - http://www.travelfilmarchive.com/home.php
i.        Digital Library of Congress - http://www.loc.gov/index.html
j.        Fed Flix: Internet Archive - http://www.archive.org/details/FedFlix
k.       Teaching Tolerance - http://www.splcenter.org/what-we-do/teaching-tolerance

Monday, November 21, 2011

11-21-2011 The Great Debate


The following 5 sites are ways to get the class discussing topics related to your study within the room, between schools, or across borders.

a.      Find out the Pros and Cons of controversial issues - http://www.procon.org/
b.      Debate online with UFeud – http://www.ufeud.com/
c.       Create Debate is an online discussion community - http://www.createdebate.com/ 
d.      Heads Up - HeadsUp is a moderated, online space for under 18s to debate the political issues important to them. http://www.headsup.org.uk/content/
e.      Post and respond without signing up but content may not be filtered - http://www.wedebate.it/
f.    Debate online using aMap, a tool that helps you map your arguement - http://www.amap.org.uk/create/

Friday, November 18, 2011

11-18-2011 Not the Same Old Social Studies Text


SS Text Book Sites that offer 
a plethora of information and activities!


a.      Pearson Ancient Civilizations Home Page - http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?wcprefix=mwk&wcsuffix=9999&area=view
e.      http://www.kidspast.com/world-history/index.php - Kids Past - Prehistory to French Revolution
g.      http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/ - BBC Primary History
h.      http://www.glencoe.com/sites/ss_modules/videos/tavmt_08/tavmt_08.html - American Vision, Modern Times
j.        http://www.phschool.com/social_studies/ - Pearson Textbook resources
k.       http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Ancient_Civilizations – Links to info on ancient peoples, writing on a lower reading level.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

11-17-2011 Prompts and Punctuation


1.      Language Arts:  Prompts and Punctuation - The first site is an amazing list of writing prompts.  The prompts are thought provoking and interesting and may just keep your middle schoolers' attention!  The rest are games to help learn about proper punctuation in a fun way.  Enjoy!

a.      300 Writing Prompts - http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/
b.      Lesson worth reading about Punctuation Inquiry - http://rethinkingschools.org/archive/26_01/26_01_schlessman.shtml
e.      Apostrophes for contraction and possession activity - http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/apostrophes_con_poss/eng/Introduction/Plenary.htm
f.        Test Your Comma IQ - http://www.savethecomma.com/game/
g.    Punctuation is Important - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlBfnqgnhzw&feature=player_embedded
h.   14 Punctuation Marks You Never Knew Existed - http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/13-punctuation-marks-that-you-never-knew-existed

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

11-16-2011 Instant Survey Data for Student Projects


1.      Math: Surveys
a.      Survey Monkey – instant sign-up, allows for the insertion of pictures, nice options for question types, easy to use, allows you to e-mail, embed, or share. https://www.surveymonkey.com
b.      Kwik Surveys – start instantly following account creation, gives a link to your survey to be placed on a webpage or in Edmodo.  Nice Dashboard organization and allows for multiple questions - http://www.kwiksurveys.com
c.       Free Online Surveys – Instant sign up and nice question features.  Allows for adding a question before or after.  Easy to use. http://freeonlinesurveys.com
d.      Survey Pirate – free survey tool available for student use – initial log in password is sent to an e-mail account.  http://www.surveypirate.com/
e.   Larry Ferlazzo's Best of Online Test-makers - http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/05/22/the-best-ways-to-create-online-tests/
f.    edmodo.com has a built in polling tool that can also be used with students in a group.


Tuesday, November 15, 2011

11-15-2011 Science Music, Motion, Trips, and Quests


a.      Natural History Museum Webquests - http://www.nhm.ac.uk/education/online-resources/webquests/
b.      How Things Fly: Forces of Flight interactive - http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/gal109/htf/activities/forcesofflight/web/index.html
c.       Virtual Field Trips from Simple K-12 - http://www.simplek12.com/virtualfieldtrips
d.      Galapagos Rap – great intro to evolution, Darwinism, and trait inheritance - http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/10/galapagos-rap.html

Monday, November 14, 2011

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

11-8-2011 SS Virtual Field Trips and More


1.      Social Studies:
a.      Lewis and Clark’s Journey - http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/journey_intro.html
c.       CyArk Heritage sites - http://archive.cyark.org/project-world 
d.      Resources on protests through history from Larry Ferlazzo - http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/02/06/the-bests-for-learning-about-protests-in-history/
e.      Hunt for the Noor Stone - http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/wham-bam-islam/game.html
f.        UNESCO places map – discover more than 900 beautiful places to see. - http://unescoplaces.org/features
g.      Sail aboard the Titanic as one of 5 passengers on that fateful trip - http://www.discovery.com/guides/history/titanic/Titanic/titanic.html
h.      Practice world geography with Geosense - http://www.geosense.net/
i.        Explore Europe’s cultural collections - http://www.europeana.eu/portal/

Thursday, November 3, 2011

11-3-2011 Science Sites worth Seeing


1.      Science:
a.      Smithsonian: Dinosaurs - http://www.paleobiology.si.edu/dinosaurs/
b.      Smithsonian Natural History Tour - http://www.mnh.si.edu/panoramas/#
c.       National Park Service - http://www.nps.gov/index.htm
d.      The Why Files explains the science behind the news - http://whyfiles.org/
e.      NBC Learn – Chemistry Now - http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/learn/chemistry-now
f.        NBC Learn - Changing Planet - http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/learn/changing-planet
g.      NBC Learn – Science of NFL Football - http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/learn/science-of-nfl-football

11-2-2011 More Cool Tools


Cool Finds


  1. http://ahead.com/#edit/lilaspaces/main/welcome?scene=HOME – Ahead may be the perfect under 13 replacement for Prezi
  2. http://www.onetruemedia.com/otm_site/register Must be 13
  3. http://www.myplick.com/ - upload PPT and add audio, publish to web
  4. http://www.voisse.com/register/ 13 or older – Create a video of audio put to photo slide show
  5. Webquest tools and creator - http://www.zunal.com/
  6. http://popplet.com/ - collaborative graphic organizer site.
  7. http://passwordbird.com/ - original password creator based on your preferences
  8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4s9V8aQu4c – The Tell Tale Heart animated video