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This blog is a series of technology tips for educators. These tips provide ideas for learning, teaching, and using digital skills. The content varies so that the tips can be designed for you ... new teacher or experienced, technophobe or “cutting edge”… or somewhere in the middle. I hope you enjoy reading these tips and, especially, that you find some new, useful ideas. I would love to hear your ideas!
I remember a certain weather reporter who would talk about a “mixed bag” of weather conditions that were heading in our direction. Well, today’s tech tip is a mixed bag of mathematics, science, and general interest web sites that are interesting and even fun.
Having spent many years teaching mathematics to students in grades six through twelve, I could not resist a list of the Hundred Greatest Theorems. The chart includes links to many of the theorems and the mathematicians associated with them. Dates are also included in the chart.
I have taught some of these theorems, but certainly not all of them. The inclusion of the theorems in the list is based on "the place the theorem holds in the literature, the quality of the proof, and the unexpectedness of the result." Archimedes’ Area of a Circle, the Pythagorean Theorem, and Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem are a few of those included in the list.
Two origami sites provide instructions for folding many interesting creations. The instructions for the first site are a combination of words and sketches. The instructions for the second site are contained in videos.
Science 2.0 http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=science-2-point-0&sc=rss The April 2008 Scientific American has an interesting article about Science 2.0. M. Mitchell Waldrop writes about a new practice by some researchers of posting raw results online. How will this practice affect science discoveries and the scientists who make those discoveries?
Adobe has published a free, web-based, image-editing application. Adobe’s Photoshop Express joins several other image-editors already online. As soon as it became available, I examined it to determine how it compares with the online image-editor that I currently use… and to determine which Photoshop-like procedures I would be able to use with this new application.
I chose not to share my experiences as a tech tip at that point due to the Terms of Service. I was not the one to initially discover that the Terms gave Adobe more control over users’ content than many users would like; however, when I reviewed the Terms, I agreed that they were not what I wanted to accept. Adobe has since modified the Terms and, consequently, I can now recommend the application.
My first reaction was one of disappointment. Since this application is Photoshop Express, I figured I would be able to use layers. However, there are no layers.
As I tried various editing functions, I was surprisedto see preview thumbnails of my image. I can click on the different thumbnails to see which result I like best. With some of the editing functions a slider is also available to help me choose my preferred result. The thumbnails help me make my choices.
Another good feature is the ability to undo choices I make… and not necessarily in the order that I originally make those choices! That, too, was a surprise.
Two pages of FAQs provide helpful information when you’re first learning the application. Some of what I learned from the FAQs includes…
I can play without an account, but I can’t work with my own photos without an account.
When I upload a photo from my computer, I can select it in My Photos, and then choose to edit it.
In order to download my edited and saved photo to my computer, I mouse over the photo. That makes the options menu visible and then I can choose to download the photo to my computer.
Functions that are available include: crop and rotate, resize, auto correct, exposure, red-eye removal, touchup, saturation, white balance, highlight, fill light, sharpen, soft focus, hue, black and white, tint, sketch, distort, and pop color.
Photoshop Express is easy to use. Although some features that I would like are missing—layers, tools for drawing shapes, the ability to add text—some nice features that are included are storage space for photos, the ability to share photos, and slideshow settings for albums. What delighted me was that I can pop color! I can’t do that with my current image-editing application. My purple water lily looks great in blue!
HyperHistory Online summarizes 3,000 years of world history using lifelines, timelines, and maps. The online version complements a world history chart that is available in hard copy.
Topics available are science (including mathematics), culture (artists, music, and writers), religion, and politics. A section on climate change is the current feature.
General information is linked to specific information in a sidebar and to additional links at the bottom of the page. Another sidebar provides easy access to people, history, events, and maps.
Lifelines are available for over 1000 individuals. Timelines cover the major civilizations. Events provide more detail on a year-to-year basis. And links to many regional maps are also available.
This site is interesting for browsing and is useful for teachers and students in many disciplines. Check out the information in the areas of your interest to see how you or your students could use the information. Be sure to follow the links provided… this site contains more than 2,000 files of data.
A colleague asked me for some good sites about inventors and inventions. As I gathered the resources I realized that this topic could be used effectively to help teach science, history, writing, mathematics, and language arts. Students can invent musical instruments, conduct experiments or demonstrations that illustrate inventions, produce plays about inventions and their effects on society, write biographies of inventors, create and trade inventor trading cards, create videos to tell the stories of inventors and their inventions, conduct oral interviews of living inventors, produce podcasts of those interviews, or write stories about how an invention could change the future. The following list of resources (with comments) could help with those projects.
Inventor Biography http://www.ideafinder.com/history/of_inventors.htm “showcase for innovation… mission is to provide inspiration to the ‘inventor’ in all of us” inventor biographies, photographs, quotations, and additional resources
Inventors Digest: The Magazine for Idea Peoplehttp://www.inventorsdigest.com/ what’s going on in inventions nowadays designed to “educate and inspire independent and professional innovators”\ 23rd year for the magazine
Inventors/Inventions http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/inventor.html links to information about inventions and inventors, lesson plans, activities put together by an educator for other educators some links don’t work
National Inventors Hall of Fame http://www.invent.org/ can find information sorted by inventor or invention or decade
The Black Inventor Online Museum http://www.blackinventor.com/ “The Black Inventor Online Museum™, is a look at the great and often unrecognized pioneers in the field of invention and innovation.” very short biographies, timeline
inventor archive: accessible by inventor’s name or invention, inventions in the categories of medicine and healthcare, consumer products, transportation, energy and environment, and computing and telecommunications
inventor’s handbook: helpful information on patents and commercializing patents
games and trivia section: brain drain, invention connection, and which came first?
links and resources: interesting sites
The New Inventors http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/ “They say Australia has more inventors, innovators and designers per head of population than anywhere else in the world. So join The New Inventors in a fascinating search for Australia's most amazing inventions and trend-setting designs.” television show
Would you like a quick way to list all the web sites that are mentioned on a web page that you’re reading? The Webmaster Toolkit’s Link Extractor does exactly that.
I tested it with the 1-800-GOOG-411 web site. I entered the URL of the site…
… and it found nine HREF links.
Then I checked for SRC links…
… and it found twelve more links.
That’s certainly faster and more accurate than going through the web site manually. And it’s a lot easier!
[I read about this tool in an edublog, but —unfortunately— neglected to note which one. I think it was one of Vicki Davis’ links in her Cool Cat Teacher Blog.]
I check some web sites on a regular basis to read or learn about the news, teaching ideas, and even recipes. I enjoy going to each site to find out what new options are available and to read any new postings. The only difficulty is that it takes quite a bit of time to check a relatively small number of sites daily or even every other day. If I visit less frequently than that, there’s just too much reading to do!
I have known for some time that I could use a feed reader (or aggregator) to organize and manage this process of checking web sites. I just didn’t want to do it because I enjoy seeing the changes on the sites I visit and—although I don’t like admitting this—because I was in a comfortable habit. I’ve used iTunes as an aggregator for podcasts for a long time. I just hadn’t moved to using a feed reader for other web sites.
The challenge that I recently found myself facing is that there are many really good edublogs that I would like to read and share. However, if I read all the interesting and helpful edublogs, I would never have time to share them with anyone! So, I knew it was time to look at a feed reader. I like most of the Google products that I’ve tried, so I decided that the first feed reader I would use is Google Reader (http://www.google.com/reader), a web-based RSS feed reader.
In case you have forgotten how RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summaries, take your choice!) works, check out this video from Common Craft…
Some of Google Reader’s features include a home page on which you can quickly see new items, keyboard shortcuts for many functions, list or expanded views of items, items marked as read automatically, and search capabilities. You can subscribe to feeds in a variety of ways: Google Reader recommendations, feed bundles, keyword searches, and others.
You can also organize items into folders or star items to which you may want to refer later.
Google Reader can be accessed on mobile devices or on iGoogle (Google’s personalized homepage). If you use the Firefox browser, its feed recognition will automatically redirect you to Google Reader's Add Subscription screen to add a feed. (I use that most of the time.) There is even a version of Google Reader specifically formatted for the Wii web browser.
In order to use Google Reader, you must have a (free) Google account, JavaScript must be enabled, and you need to use one of the following web browsers:
Once I started using Google Reader, I found that I scan the incoming feeds, read some of them, and bookmark a portion of those. And I don’t lose time going to one web site after another!
I also find that I’m now on the lookout for that RSS feed symbol! Do you know that there are feeds for finance, weather, eBay, package tracking, shopping, and saved searches? I have developed the habit of looking for the RSS feed symbol so I can save time and keep track of whatever interests me. I am keeping track of the blogs I read more efficiently by using Google Reader. That means that now I can add those other sites that I would like to also follow. In fact, with its personalized recommendations, Google helps me check out additional sites so I can decide if I would like to follow them. I have found some interesting sites that way.
Using Google Reader was a good decision. I should have done it sooner!
NOTE: I have added below a list of videos from YouTube and TeacherTube that provide tutorials on various aspects of using Google Reader.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihbh1HguIUk How to Use Google Reader: How to View Feeds with Google Reader Viewing feeds in Google Reader, including keyboard shortcuts, views, and starred items
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK-S_eMGSGQ How to Use Google Reader: How to Change Google Reader Settings Changing Google Reader settings (after you have some familiarity with how Google Reader works)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65iL0Q97RCg Google Reader: Getting Started An overview which includes an introduction to feed readers (including Google Reader, of course), subscribing to and removing feeds, and a variety of other features including some that you might want to use if you publish your own blog
The two sites that I am sharing today both have multimedia presentations that could be useful in the classroom. Actually, both sites are so well done that their content is interesting to view even if you don’t teach the content that they illustrate!
The Maps of War web site is a collection of some of the best multimedia war maps on the web. The topics listed include Iraq, World War I, World War II, Darfur, Israel, terrorism, crime, and migration. I also found maps on some other topics (e.g., democracy and strength—or lack thereof—of other countries). These maps have been created by MSNBC, the BBC, and other producers.
What is amazing when viewing these maps is watching in just a few minutes the effects of years of human activities on countries, lands, and peoples.
The maps available at this web site include:
Iraq War Coalition Fatalities,
The Fight for Iraq: A Regional Powerplay,
Baghdad: Mapping the Violence,
The Western Front, 1914 – 1918,
World War II in Europe,
World War II in the Pacific,
The Darfur Tragedy,
Eyes on Darfur,
Strategic Israel,
Failed States Index,
War on Crime : The Homicide Map, and
Snapshot: Global Migration.
I have embedded the March of Democracy map to show an example of these multimedia maps. Watch 4,000 years of the history of democracy in 90 seconds!
John Kyrk is “a biologist by education and an artist by disposition.” He has created and posted on this web site animations of biological processes. The animations are a combination of graphics and text that together explain the process being described. They are very well done.
The cell biology animations include:
amino acids and protein,
cell function overview,
cell anatomy,
cell membranes,
chromosome structure,
diffusion,
DNA: structure, replication, transcription, and translation,
evolution,
glycolysis,
golgi apparatus,
krebs citric acid cycle,
meiosis,
mitochondria/electron transport,
mitosis,
pH,
photosynthesis: light reactions and dark reactions, and
water.
Additional multimedia presentations are also available at the web site. One in particular, the golden ratio presentation, could supplement mathematics or art instruction.
Do you have certain sites that you visit often when you’re looking for an idea or some information? Wouldn’t it be convenient to search all of them in one shot?
When I’m creating or modifying a teaching unit, there are a few sites that I like to check to see what they have to say about my topic. With Rollyo (http://rollyo.com/) I can create a personal search engine (a.k.a. a Searchroll) that checks my list of sites. Although I can list up to 25 sites in a Searchroll, Rollyo recommends a list of 5 to 15 sites to work the most efficiently. Rollyo uses Yahoo as their search engine and Feedster to work with RSS results.
I have created two Searchrolls so far… one, a list of some favorite edublogs and the second, a list of some favorite teaching idea sites. If you go to Rollyo, you can find my Searchrolls—Teaching Ideas and My Edublog Search—in the Education category. At the Rollyo home page, click on Explore. Then type schiffbauer as the search keyword and click Go. The two Searchrolls that I have created will be listed. You can click on either one to use it or to edit it for your own use.
If you use the Firefox browser, you can add your Rollyo Searchroll to the Firefox toolbar with just a single click. I did that with mine. (See the diagram below.) I can also explore, save, and personalize Searchrolls created by others. Once I change a Searchroll, the modified version is saved to my list of Searchrolls.
I can allow my students or colleagues to use a Searchroll I have created. Rollyo can provide a web address by which others can access my Searchroll.
What else can I do with Rollyo? The web site suggests the following…
add Rollyo to your Firefox toolbar
put a Rollyo Searchbox on your site
create Searchrolls with your bookmarks
send or directly link to a Searchroll
email a Searchroll to a friend or directly link to a Searchroll for bookmarking or use on your site or blog
search from any browser with their RollBar Bookmarklet
This is an easy-to-use tool that can help me be more efficient more quickly. How could you use Rollyo to make your searching go better?
I have long enjoyed libraries. Part of the joy of summer vacations was when the library’s bookmobile came to the playground of my elementary school and I could choose the books I wanted to read. I was amazed when I learned that you could phone the public library to ask the librarian a question which you needed answered… and she would tell you what you needed to know. The librarians were so smart! My favorite volunteer activities at both my elementary school and my high school were helping in the school libraries. And while in college, one of my jobs was working in the college library. Not as a volunteer that time, though!
So what brought back these good memories? A web site! LibrarySpot.com (http://www.libraryspot.com/) is a virtual library with posted sites that have been selected and reviewed by an editorial team. You can search for books, read full-text articles, and inquire about interlibrary loans as you access more than 5,000 libraries around the world. You can use law libraries, medical libraries, national libraries, presidential libraries, public libraries, and state libraries.
The Reference Desk lists sites for “business and government information, encyclopedias, dictionaries, calculators, maps, phone books, quotations, statistics and more.” From here you can research companies, look up definitions, find map directions, and even download income tax forms. You can find acronyms, almanacs, associations, experts, biographies, businesses, calculators, calendars, countries, current events, dictionaries, directories, encyclopedias, genealogy, government, grammar/style, historical documents, how to information, images, legal information, maps, medical, music, people, public records, quotations, states, statistics, thesauri, time, white pages, yellow pages, and ZIP codes.
In the Reading Room you can read more than 50,000 book reviews, 3,500 newspapers, and journals. You can look for books, headlines, journals, literary criticism, newspapers, newswires, magazines, podcasts, poetry, and speeches. The Librarian’s Shelf has information of interest to the professional librarian, including publications, associations, and relevant issues.
You Asked for It, Do You Know, and Lists provide answers to questions that librarians have helped us answer for years… "Why the sky is blue?" to "What famous men started out their career as newspaper delivery boys?" Find Answers—which takes you to You Asked for It—lists oft-asked questions such as “Where can I translate phrases and sites?” The answer, by the way, is Alta Vista World. Do You Know—or Did You Know, depending on where you access it on the site—lists more questions. Wanting to check the timeliness of the information provided, I followed the query, “What is the world population?” The answer, according to the CIA World Factbook as of July 2007, is 6,602,224,175. In Lists I found the top 100 children’s books that the New York Library’s patrons love, including one of my favorites, Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends.
Exhibits highlight online exhibits from libraries and organizations around the world. I enjoyed touring a variety of virtual exhibits, including photographs of some baseball players from many decades ago. Articles provide access to additional sites. Do you know that “the bottom edge of a book, on which it rests when shelved in an upright position” is called the tail? I learned that while looking through the In the Spotlight archive.
Must-See sites include Infoplease where I found this 2008 chart (based on data from 2005-2007) of the top fifteen Internet-using countries: Top 15 Countries in Internet Usage, 2008 Internet users (thousands)
1. European Union ... 247,000 2. U.S. .................. 208,000 3. China ................ 162,000 4. Japan ................. 87,540 5. India .................. 60,000 6. Brazil ................. 42,600 7. Germany ............ 38,600 8. South Korea ........ 34,120 9. UK .................... 33,534 10. France ............. 31,295 11. Italy ................ 28,855 12. Russia ............. 25,689 13. Canada ............ 22,000 14. Mexico ............ 22,000 15. Spain .............. 18,578
The only negative I found was that the ads can be annoying. But—just as in a bricks-and-mortar library—I enjoyed exploring. I learned some new things. And I spent more time there than I should have!
It’s funny how we remember some details from events. One incident that stays in my mind from my first year of teaching is the day that I gave a particular spelling test. I said each word and then followed with a sentence using the word. The students wrote the word—hopefully spelled correctly—on their papers. Circus. We saw elephants at the circus. Circus. C-i-r-c-u-s. Oops! The students—not the teacher—were supposed to spell the word! I managed to read the remainder of the spelling words that day without spelling the words for the students. But, my slip guaranteed that everyone had at least one of the words spelled correctly!
Well, it’s still important for our students to spell words correctly. And not just in spelling class. Every subject—at every grade level—has its own vocabulary. Teaching our students how to use and spell each discipline’s vocabulary is necessary. Technology can help that process.
Teachers can post their spelling words on the SpellingCity.com web site. Students can then hear the words spoken one-by-one. They can listen to sentences that use the words. They can play games using the words. And they can take practice tests.
I learned about this site on a Tech Chicks podcast. When they’re excited about a spelling site, I know I should check it out. And I am impressed!
Students…
can take practice tests
can play games (online or on paper) to help learn the words
do not need to register to use the site
can type in their own words and practice and play with them
can practice with existing spelling lists
can find their teachers’ lists and practice them
can print a certificate with their name and test results after they complete a practice test
Teachers…
can post their spelling lists
can register for free
can put a link on their web sites for their students
can sign up for a newsletter
can suggest words to be included in the SpellingCity database
can access SpellingCity’s forum
can import lists
SpellingCity.com lists these features…
"... contains over 25,000 words, including plurals, contractions, future and past tenses ... uses a REAL human voice that says both the word and the word in a sentence ... a 'Teach Me' function that spells out the word using both visual and auditory input to improve retention ... teachers and parents can enter and save their own spelling lists for their students/children ... students can play games with their words or any saved lists ... teachers and parents can save and share their lists ... the forum allows teachers and parents to share lists and ideas"
Sample lists include…
grades K through 8
big numbers
dinosaurs
Dolch - sight words – PreK through 3
Harry Potter words
state capitals
states
words of Arabic, Dutch, French, or Greek origin
middle school US political terms
Interesting notes…
obscene words are not permitted
the site might be very useful for special education and ESL in addition to other classes
this site would work well with interactive whiteboards
SpellingCity knows blog but not wiki
it’s free
SpellingCity.com is fun and useful and would work well with an interactive white board. That's quite a combination!
I certainly appreciate the convenience of finding word definitions online. However, I have found that images can frequently add to understanding new terms. Merriam-Webster has an online dictionary which provides both definitions and images.
The Merriam-Webster Visual Dictionary Online provides images, text, and even audio to pronounce the term being defined. You can search for an individual word or work your way to the term you want by clicking on one of the categories (called themes).
Fifteen themes are available: astronomy, earth, plants and gardening, animal kingdom, human being, food and kitchen, house, clothing and articles, arts and architecture, communications, transport and machinery, energy, science, society, and sports and games. Within these themes there are 20,000 terms and 6,000 full-color images. The terminology is accurate in up to six languages.
My search for cat yielded these subtopics: cat breeds, cat’s head, and morphology of a cat, all with images.
Here's the information about tectonic plates... (click to see the whole image) This image is from http://www.visualdictionaryonline.com. Paul Hamilton (Free Resources from the Net for (Special) Education) comments that this visual dictionary is "especially valuable for individuals who are primarily visual learners" and the fact that he includes it on his blog indicates that he thinks it’s good for special education students.
A weekly game is available. I played a game in which I matched terms with images around the idea of Mardi Gras costumes. I answered 8 of 10 correctly… I never heard of most of the terms!
A blog tools area is “under construction."
If you want to use the dictionary in other languages, you can purchase them and a CD version of the dictionary. With the additional languages, that would make the dictionary useful for foreign languages, too.
With Super Tuesday (just around the corner!) and other primaries leading to the general election in November, some information about the individuals campaigning for the office of president of the United States of America may be useful for lesson plans or for personal inspection at this point.
Due to current technology, resources available today include videos, podcasts, interviews, and other information from the Internet. LearnOutLoud.com has a collection of audio and video resources about the presidential candidates… and the resources are free. In addition, LearnOutLoud.com has lesson plans that we may use with these resources.
You will find resources for the candidates still remaining in the race and some, also, for a few of the candidates who have already dropped out.
Information for the following Republican candidates is included: Rudolph Giuliani Mike Huckabee John McCain Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.
Information for the following Democratic candidates is included: Hillary Rodham Clinton John Edwards Dennis Kucinich and Barack Obama.
LearnOutLoud.com is a site that specializes in audio and video learning. They have more than 15,000 educational audio books, mp3 downloads, podcasts, and videos. They sell audio books on CD, cassette, and by download. They also have more than 500 free audio and video titles. Their directory includes audio books, lectures, speeches, sermons, and interviews.
I have found another high quality, web-based, free educational software application. I believe that Kerpoof! (http://www.kerpoof.com/) fits that definition. Kerpoof! is a web-based application that has some capabilities similar to those of KidPix.
With Kerpoof! you can make pictures, stories, and movies. Select a background. Drag clip art onto the scene. Move, rotate, and change the size of the clip art. Even let the clip art automatically change size based on whether you’re positioning it in the front of the scene or farther back.
I read about this product at Steve Dembo’s Digital Passports web site. Steve, a former kindergarten teacher, calls Kerpoof! one of his "new fave’s for lower elementary/early childhood."Kerpoof! works well in grades K-5, although it would probably be used the most in grades K-3.
M. C. Escher used to help me teach geometry. Well, at least his drawings and woodcuts helped me. I found a lesson plan for introducing his work and the concept of perspective with Kerpoof! For the Escher introduction, the lesson plan begins by sharing some information about Escher and his work. Then you use the multiple perspectives scene as your background and place clip art on it so that three different perspectives are represented. The lesson plan then continues with some other activities. It provides a good hands-on introduction. And it was fun!
At Amy Boehman’s web site I saw a suggestion for creating number sentences with different background scenes or creating patterns using the pictures. It also works well with IEPs.
The Kerpoof! web site provides lesson plans, ideas, and a teacher’s page. Training is available through text instructions, a PDF, and short movies. Students can save, print, or email their products. They can share their projects through the web site and they can email them to other students in a Kerpoof! community. Students can create “chat groups” and then work collaboratively with a member of their group to build a scene together. Scenes can be printed for coloring.
Chris Harris at the School Library Journal calls Kerpoof! “one of the most powerful online resources [he has] seen in quite a while.” Chris adds that Kerpoof! has aspects of Storybook Weaver as well as Kid Pix.
Kerpoof! is both kid- and teacher-friendly. It can be used in a variety of ways to help students learn the curriculum. Kerpoof! is accessed through a browser rather than installed on your computer. And it’s free!
My only complaint is that there aren’t both boy and girl clip art people for each scene. I could place a girl from the Nutcracker Suite scene in my Backpack and then pull her out to use in the Starry Night scene, but her clothing (a nightgown) just didn’t fit!
Kerpoof! is intended to be both fun and educational. Suggested uses for the classroom include studying traditional Japanese culture, the life cycle of a caterpillar, food chains, elementary mathematics, writing starters, reading comprehension, impressionist art, metaphors, and cubism art.
You can sign up for an educator’s electronic newsletter. Do be sure to read the Terms and Conditions for using Kerpoof! so you know the rules for displaying Kerpoof! products.
The photos chosen for this project are from two popular collections, the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (photos chosen are from 1930s to 1940s) and the George Grantham Bain News Service (photos chosen are from 1910s). Some photos are in color; some, in black-and-white. The Library has two goals for this project: (1) to create better access to their collections and (2) to learn more about their photos.
They would like people who view the photos to tag them, to comment, and to make notes on the images. That could increase the information known about these photos. You do not need a Flickr account to view the photos; however, you do if you plan to tag or comment on them.
Images were chosen only if no copyright restrictions are known. See the Library’s FAQ page for more information about copyrights and reusing these photos. The photos can be downloaded and printed.
Flickr has created The Commons as a model for other institutions to participate in projects such as this one with the Library of Congress.
These photos are excellent… and fascinating. It’s well worth taking the time to view them!
FIRST PHOTO... Women are trained to do precise and vital engine installation detail in Douglas Aircraft Company plants, Long Beach, Calif. 1942 Oct. Palmer, Alfred T.,, photographer. 1 transparency: color. No known copyright restrictions... This photo is public http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2179925802/
SECOND PHOTO... School children singing, Pie Town, New Mexico 1940 Oct. Lee, Russell,, 1903-, photographer. 1 slide: color. Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication. No known copyright restrictions This photo is public http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2178353269/
I’ve been looking for a free, online tool to create timelines. So, I’ve been experimenting with Xtimeline. I created a (very) simple timeline (History of Computers) with text, photos, and a YouTube video. You can share the URL for your timeline with others or embed it in your web site. (I embedded mine at a smaller size than the original in order to fit it in the width of my blog, so you have to play with it a bit to see the event descriptions, photos, and video. If I were embedding it on a wiki or other web site, I would use a larger size to make it easier to use.)
The site has a social aspect to it, too. You can view others’ timelines in addition to creating your own. You can also discuss, rate, and comment on timelines. You can collaborate with others to create a timeline together and you can be notified of changes on shared timelines. I haven’t tried that yet.
Xtimeline provides a tour of their application which does a good job of teaching. There also is a help section which answers the basic questions about using Xtimeline.
Xtimeline is a good, basic, easy-to-use application… and it’s free!
I am pleased with the results of using wikis in my classroom this past semester for the students’ electronic portfolios. For this next semester I will use wikis for the electronic portfolios and also as a collaborative tool for the students. I have included in this blog entry some wiki resources that I am using and that I think you may find helpful. The first resource is a list of sites that help me learn more about Wikispaces; the second, ideas for classroom uses of wikis; and the third, examples of some excellent classroom wikis.
Learning More About Wikispaces If you’re planning to try Wikispaces… or if you’re currently using it and want to know more about what it can do… check out this list of resources.
Here’s some of the suggested uses I found at these sites.
from TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through… book reviews collaborative project with other students… another district, state, country course hub debate explanations of challenging procedures field site observations field trip summary glossary lab reports problems the class is working to solve research projects (instead of a PowerPoint) student project products student-created FAQs study guides created by student groups vocabulary lists local history
from WikEd Wiki in a K-12 classroom… collaborative textbooksliterature circles organization tool science fair project preparations student portfolios teacher collaboration
from The Science of Spectroscopy… data collection group authoring peer review of projects presentations (rather than PowerPoint) tracking group projects web sites
Examples of Excellent Classroom Wikis Would you like to see some outstanding educational wikis? Be sure to visit the best educational wiki 2007 finalists for the 2007 Edublog Awards.
GoAPES wiki for Advanced Placement Environmental Science teachers Horizon Project 2007 a “collaborative global project between classrooms in diverse geographical locations” Mr. Lee’s Math 12 Advanced Class an “outcomes portfolio” Salute to Seuss student pages about Dr. Seuss’s books Welker’s Wikinomics a “collaborative tool for understanding concepts in Advanced Placement Economics”
I remember a certain weather reporter who would talk about a “mixed bag” of weather conditions that were heading in our direction. Well, today’s tech tip is a mixed bag of mathematics, science, and general interest web sites that are interesting and even fun.
