Friday, December 31, 2010

Playing History

Playing History        http://playinghistory.org/

I haven't been paying as much attention as I should to resource collection, This collection of games appropriate for many social studies classes. Plus, I am happy to find an online Oregon Trail.

Classroom idea: Use these as a opener for study or a review.   Students could use these as basis for creating their own game.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Simplebooklet

simplebooklet http://simplebooklet.com/index.php#
I like to consider new ways of presenting student information.  I like this tool for two reasons :
  1. The clean lines.  The ability to  create multiple pages allows for lots of information to be presented, but not overwhelmed.
  2. The booklet ( one of  multiple options for presenting) allows for "story" or narrative.
Classroom idea: Create a catalog of  items for sale from the time period of the novel being studied.

Monday, December 27, 2010

ZooBurst

ZooBurst http://www.zooburst.com/index.php is an online pop up book creator. This tool  lets the creator of a story  present images  and text in a timed and spatial manner.  The basic free license allows  speech bubbles as well as story text.

Classroom idea - Students create books that present a tour through history, or a tour of a every day life in a country, using native language.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

A Holiday Card From Google





 http://www.google.com/logos/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704774604576035500936272100.html

Google celebration logos always are of interest. The one on December 23, 2010 was a loose recreation of "Google"  with a number of interactive  images that approximated the standard Google colors of each letter. The images also led to a search  on the theme of that image.

Classroom idea : Easier version of this idea : Using Glogster ( would work best I think), Moodle , wikis or Prezi,  gathers a collection  of images to  create a collage of a word or concept, with the images somehow relating to  the word.. ,  The magic of linking or "pathing" would allow the image to be linked to a presentation about that aspect.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Disunion

Disunion  http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/
From the New York Times, "One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, Americans went to war with themselves. Disunion revisits and reconsiders America’s most perilous period — using contemporary accounts, diaries, images and historical assessments to follow the Civil War as it unfolded."


Classroom idea: Have students peruse these sources, and then do research to presenting primary source  with explanation.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Mapping America: Every City, Every Block



Mapping America: Every City, Every Block http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer


The New York Times offer these maps, based on 2005-2009 Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

Classroom idea:  These would be great for Civics and Economics classes, discussing voting patterns as related to other factors.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Brain Games

 http://www.proprofs.com/games  Easily created embeddable crosswords, etc

Classroom Idea.  These are easily embedded into Moodle or another website and could be used as vocabulary refresher. A language class could build multiple crosswords based on theme - weather, home life, etc.

WolframAlpha widgets


WolframAlpha widgets. Fun and interesting. I love the historical weather ones, too.

Trulia Hindsight


  Here is a site that allows visualization of how cities actually developed.  

Classroom ideas -  I can see using this in history and literature classes. How developed was Long Island in Jay Gatsby’s day? What was pre-war Los Angeles like?

Tubechop

Tubechop  http://www.tubechop.com lets you select start and end points on youtubes so you don’t have to show entire video.