Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Scribblar


Scribblar

Hmm - online whiteboards always seem like a good idea to me, but I have never been able to sell them.
I like this one because
1) it requires no sign -up and
2)it lets you take a snapshot of the page. Maybe this would work with math notes?

Zinn Education Project


Teaching A People's History http://www.zinnedproject.org/

A collection of resources and lesson plans based on teaching history from a passionate place, a nontraditional view, and a social justice view of history.

Classroom idea: Lots of ideas for lessons that could go cross curricular - especially religion and history.

I knew of The People Speak on the History Channel and read about this on Free Technology for Teachers, a blog I read for great ideas

Wednesday, July 22, 2009


Block Posters http://www.blockposters.com

I found this tool, new for me, to enlarge images to poster size. Just upload image , choose size and you get a pdf file you can cut and place as a poster

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Wordnik


Wordnik http://www.wordnik.com/



This is an interesting website. It serves as a dictionary, but I really like the real time aspect of tweets that use the word, as well as images. I also like the statistical use summary.

Classroom ideas. Use this tool to present vocabulary words, both in English and other languages.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

dotSUB

dotSUB http://dotsub.com/ This site offers videos subtitled into different languages. Members can do the transcribing.


Classroom idea.
Have a class take a favorite video and translate it and load it on dotSUB
Use dotSUB original language videos with the original language subtitles as a teaching tool.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Rich Chart Live

Rich Chart Live http://www.richchartlive.com


I like this chart maker. It has a nice variety of displays.

Classroom idea:
  1. Extend an excel lesson by displaying data dynamically.
  2. Add interest to your own blog or moodle unit introduction.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Plagium

Plagium http://www.plagium.com/


Detect plagiarism on the fly. Turnitin costs
our school about 1000 . Could this be a cheaper, less intrusive way to go?

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Read dy/dan


dy/dan's blog
He always makes me think.




Classroom idea: What if someone took the picture each day , tagged it on facebook, delicious, moodle ?

Making Youtubes more educational setting friendly


Youtubes have a customize button that , most importantly , lets you uncheck " Include related videos" , but also determine border color and video size. Look for the little cogwheel

Neok12

Neok12
http://www.neok12.com/ is a search list for educational videos. It seems to be mostly youtubes, and heavy on science.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

WolframAlpha

WolframAlpha
http://www79.wolframalpha.com/

Screencast

This will be great for statistics, comparisons, health data.

I have to really get familiar with this.

youtube video tricks

Linking to a specific spot in youtube video from Jim Gates.

and this from Digital Inspiration
if you want more control over the size of the YouTube video player, here’s a simple hack - just replace the word "watch" in the URL of any YouTube video with "watch_popup" and the video will expand to fit your browser window, not the desktop.

For instance, if the original YouTube video is located at ..

youtube.com/watch?v=2mrRvUNlq50

the same video can be accessed standalone outside the YouTube website at..

youtube.com/watch_popup?v=2mrRvUNlq50

Resizing the browser window will also resize the YouTube player and you can press F11 in Firefox to mimic YouTube’s full screen mode even with this hack.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Google Search options




Classroom idea: Visual way to show keyword searching techniques

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I Need to Read This

I Need to Read This Hmm. Maybe this tool will at least make me feel like I possibly can keep up.
http://ineedtoreadthis.com/

lets you add bookmarklets on your toolbar to add blog posts, articles you want to read. The matching bookmarklet lets you read the articles when you get a chance. I saw this on Demo Girl

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Google Public Data


Create a chart of the unemployment and/or population for Us Counties. Simply type in Google population or unemployment and the county you want to compare.

"unemployment Contra Costa County" gets you a link to an interactive chart you can build one to suit your needs. I hope Google adds more statistics to this search.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

My Ebook

My Ebook http://www.myebook.com
Don't want to forget this

Vocabulary idea

I don't really like Wordahead http://www.wordahead.com/ that much, becasue I am not so interested in the words and producers. But I would be interested in seeing my students work and words. I can see using this idea , and having students throughout the year make small videos on the years vocab words. They could use moviemaker, slideshare, one true media, etc.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Using Google Book section embedding


Sometimes I find bits of information in a Google book I want to use.
Google has an embed feature that lets you take these selections in both image and text form.


Classroom Idea : Use Google books to discover Local Histories and pull out pertinent stories. The book images and their corresponding texts below are for a lesson on how barb wire changed the West.


Frederick Schreyer first Homesteader in Trinmph Tp Settled 1875 Frederick Schreyer was another interesting character He was the first homesteader on the South Loup between Callaway and Arnold He was a very resolute German about fifty years of age and as eccentric as he was resolute He constructed a dugout in which he imagined he would be secure from the depredations of the festive cowboy As we have said before there was a natural antipathy between the cowboys and the settlers and the breach became wider and wider as time passed by and the settlers became more numerous Armed encounters were frequent and bloodshed was often the result Schreyer often had encounters with the cowboys and at one time was wounded in two places He thought he was going to die and had Charles Rockwood draw up his will He had a ford near his house which he called
S.D. Butcher's Pioneer History of Custer County And Short Sketches of Early Days in Nebraska By Solomon Devore Butcher

Frederick Schreyer first Homesteader in Trinmph Tp Settled 1875 Frederick Schreyer was another interesting character He was the first homesteader on the South Loup between Callaway and Arnold He was a very resolute German about fifty years of age and as eccentric as he was resolute He constructed a dugout in which he imagined he would be secure from the depredations of the festive cowboy As we have said before there was a natural antipathy between the cowboys and the settlers and the breach became wider and wider as time passed by and the settlers became more numerous Armed encounters were frequent and bloodshed was often the result Schreyer often had encounters with the cowboys and at one time was wounded in two places He thought he was going to die and had Charles Rockwood draw up his will He had a ford near his house which he called S.D. Butcher's Pioneer History of Custer County And Short Sketches of Early Days in Nebraska By Solomon Devore Butcher

Text not available
S.D. Butcher's Pioneer History of Custer County And Short Sketches of Early Days in Nebraska By Solomon Devore Butcher


his ford and nobody was allowed to cross the river at that place if he could prevent it without his consent He also surrounded his house with a high sod wall which he called his fortifications Ou the morning of April 1 1878 JD Haskell and the writer put some tools in a wagon aud went up the river to repair a corral In going we crossed the river at Schreyer's ford We saw nothing of him at that time but during the day he sent us word that if we attempted to cross there in coming back he would shoot us When we arrived at the ford on the way back and while watering our horses we saw Schreyer and his son running toward the house with guns As soon as we got within range they raised up from behind their fortifications and began firing at us We were unarmed and thinking discretion the better part of valor put the whip to our team and got out of the way In our flight we had to pass pretty close to the house aud one of the shots tore the step from the side of the wagon From that time on there was trouble Young Schreyer was arrested on the Platte but escaped and went to Lincoln where he remained a month He came back to Kearney was again arrested and brought up into Custer county He and his father were taken handcuffed to Custer for preliminary examination and were bound over to appear before the District Court Not giving bonds they were lodged in the Plum Creek jail In July they were tried and sentenced to serve a term in jail bv Judge Gaslin They served out their time and got home the next winter The war between the homesteaders and the cattlemen continued for some years but at last the large herds were compelled to remove farther west where free range was more plentiful and homesteaders scarce After being in possession of this country for twelve years they like the Indian were compelled to give it up to more advanced civilization Stockmen who had traveled over the plains between here and Texas said this was the best country for ranging stock to be found anywhere in the United States No wonder then that thev made such a hard struggle to retain it Where once roamed thousands of buffalo and afterwards thousands of cattle we now see the locomotive steaming along the valleys The country is now dotted over with beautiful farms and the ground that was once used for bedding down cattle in immense herds is now occupied by the village of Callaway Belies of unusual interest have at different times been found in this country In the summer of 1SS0 while riding on the Middle Loup with others we came to a bed of charred wood near where the Milburn bridge now AND SHORT SKETCHES OF EARLY DAYS IN NEBRASKA 16 S.D. Butcher's Pioneer History of Custer County And Short Sketches of Early Days in Nebraska By Solomon Devore Butcher

Friday, February 6, 2009

LoudLit and Librivox

Here are sites with free audio books, some with embedded text.

LoudLit
http://www.loudlit.org/

Librivox
http://librivox.org/

Classroom idea
1) Alternative learning style approach

2) Start a lesson with a snippet of audio

'Aesop's Fables'
Freud, Sigmund. "Dream Psychology"
Darwin, Charles. "Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, the Preservation of..." ·

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Mi vida loca - Spanish course

Mi vida loca - http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/mividaloca/



BBC interactive Spanish course.
Thanks to Jane E learning Pick of the Day

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Will Richardson quote I don't want to forget.

"We have to learn to read not only texts but to edit them as well, not just for accuracy but for bias, agenda and motive. In the online learning world, we have to be full fledged editors, not just readers, because the traditional editors are gone from the process. ... To me, that’s what 21st Century Skills are all about, teaching our kids to navigate the world as they are experiencing it, not the world we experienced."

http://weblogg-ed.com/category/the-shifts/

Monday, January 5, 2009

Instacalc





Instacalc http://instacalc.com/
I am still learning this web app, but I can already see I will like it better than the accessory calculator on my computer, because I don't need to press enter just read the results. Plus the results will stay available in a row.

Classroom idea.
Share formulas in math ( I'll try to get back with an example)