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.

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.

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.

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.

http://developer.wolframalpha.com/widgets/gallery/featured/ Widgets

Trulia Hindsight

Trulia Hindsight http://hindsight.trulia.com/map/#lat=38.342&lon=-95.273&zoom=4&mix=0.500

  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.