Spotlight

This story has been around for a few months, but resurfaced again today in the New York Times. A student teacher was denied her education degree from Millersvile University because of a photo she posted on myspace.com and she captioned the photo "drunken pirate". The photo can be viewed on this New York Times page.

Another source of the article: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2029

Stacey comments to Lancaster newspaper

You decide? What would your school do? How would your parents respond to this article? Is it something to be concerned about, or a big deal over nothing?

I hope you all had a great Christmas Day. Being a tech geek, my family has been enabling my habit! They have generously contributed to a GPS device and XMSatellite Radio. Both of which I have adapted to quickly. The GPS was a very confusing process, to narrow down to one device. It talks to me and I can answer my cell phone through it with the BlueTooth connection. I still have not figured out how to play photos on it, but I will. The XM took a while to get going, but once it connected...WoW! Crystal clear connections and a great variety of music, talk and shows. After reading the manual (which most geeks do after a while), I found that I can program some specific stock quotes to stream over the screen.

I can' t remember where I first saw this post, but I came across it again today, so I must share it! If you carry your digital camera different places, here are a few tips of how to use your camera, or cell phone camera to help you along the way. Click HERE.

In a New York Times article by David Progue, he writes about how the youngest generation views copying others material as just fine. There seems to be a strong feeling that anything that is produced, audio, video, written or otherwise is fair game if you can figure out how to beat the copyright schemes on the media. He offers several examples during a talk to college students about copyright infringement, but they don't see it that way! For the full article, click HERE.

I have received this from two different people (thanks MOM). This is fantastic artwork, but WHO did it? After a long search on the internet, I can't find the artist and I would like to cite them for this outstanding work!
If you know who it is, please comment here or send me an email: rmom@mac.com

This is directly from David Warlick's blog -2 Cents Worth

"North Carolina Science Blogging Conference

Dave, Dec 14, 2007 13:50:44 GMT

There are free word processing programs, astronomy, math, mapping, a tetris-like game, and many educational programs to use. Click HERE.

It's hard to tell who decided these were the BEST green gadgets, but none the less, we should all re-examine how green we are!

According to a report done by The Pew Research and American Life Project:

"Think that user generated content is still only the domain of a relatively small few? Well a new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that the next generation at least is switched on and producing content.

According to the study, 59% of all American teenagers engage in at least one form of online content creation. Of those 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys however like their video, with 19% of boys posting video online vs. 10% of girls.

Other figures from the study:

• 39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos
• 33% create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments
• 28% have created their own online journal or blog, up from 19% in 2004.
• 27% maintain their own personal webpage
• 26% remix content they find online into their own creations

Interestingly the presumed dominance of social networking sites (such as Facebook and MySpace) amongst teens was not reflected in the study, which found that only 55% of teens online use a social networking site. The flip side to that is that the presumption that sites such as MySpace may have peaked may be untrue if 45% of teens aren’t using one of these sites already.

The full study is available here (pdf)."

Citation: Lenheart, Amanda, et al. "Teens and Social Media: The use of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media." Pew Internet and American Life Project. 19 Dec. 2007. Pew Charitable Trusts, Pew Research. 20 Dec. 2007 .

1. Visit this page and select an activity for your class! The tried and true Lemonade Stand is here and updated! Make a poster with high scores for your room.

2. World Geography - How well do you know your locations? Find out here. This challenge has taken off in our school. One teacher is going to have a sweet sixteen bracket and everything! The finals may be run on a classroom with a SmartBoard for all to see!

Office Max has created one of the most fun digital Christmas cards this year. If you have not received an elf message from someone....enjoy this one!
Watch this and then Elf Yourself.

Parsons New School of Design launched research that will make serious games more mainstream. PETLab is their project that addresses social issues while gaming. This research is funded with a $450,000 grant from the MacAuthor Foundation. some of the projects they are involved with include:

PETLab
Ayiti: The Cost of Life

Watch for more research and development for social gaming and educational connections from many different research teams across the country.

From the eSchool News story: "Recently the U.S. Department of Education launched a new and improved version of the much acclaimed web site, Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE). The new site makes it easier for users to find teaching and learning resources by offering, for the first time, a list of 500 educational topics and a redesigned home page."

I love changing the icons, folder icons and backgrounds on my Mac. Some of the best icons are produced by Pixie Girl. She uses great color, contemporary ideas and are easy to use, oh yeah and FREE! I just explored this site a bit more and found some really creative background as well.

MacDesktops.com is another location to find some photographs to use as backgrounds.

I know there are more sites out there that do the same thing, I just wanted to share these two good ones for the Mac.

There are many sites where you can get information about green products and here are a few I heard about on FoxNews on Saturday:

• http://www.ecoist.com/
• My FoxPhilly green resource page
• MIT Recycling Facts
  

Last evening, December 12, 2007, I had the pleasure to attend a program sponsored by my local school district about Internet Safety. The speaker was nationally recognized, Katie Koestner from Campus Outreach Services. Her talk not only educated the audience about the pitfalls of today's technology abuses, but scared many of them to go home and toss out all electronic devices!! Only kidding there, but it made me take a serious look at several things and you should too!

• Where is your computer located?
• Does your student have a cell phone with a camera? can it take video? Why?
  
• Where is the cell phone when they go to bed? Where does it charge?
• Have you ever seen the photos on your child's phone? the movies?
• Do you have filtering and monitoring software for your home computer?
• Do you have a laptop that your student uses? Where do they use it?
• Have you ever sat and watched YouTube with your kids? Have them show you their favorite videos.
• You should "Google Yourself and your kids" to see what information is out there on the web.
• Teenagers listen to over 10,500 hours of music by the time they are 16. What is influencing them?

I found out that information your child posts on myspace.com or facebook.com or many of the other social networking sites actually 'becomes the property of the site"! That is why Rupert Murdoch has paid over $550 million for myspace.com - content! If you have a budding artist, songwriter, actor, or writer, and they post their material on their own blog, the company then owns it! There is no payout for their intellectual property, myspace.com just keeps it and can publish it for their own profit.

If you want to send something fun to your family, try this new Christmas card at:
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1316950409
Here is mine.

If you just can't decide which blog to begin reading, start with this post stating the finalists for the Edublog Awards - 2007. There are educational blogs from pre-school science to high school library resources! I feel so inadequate writing this since I only read about 5 from the entire list of recommended blogs. Perhaps I will find a new one to read on this list.

If you want to be sure to see the overall trend in educational technology, get a free subscription to eSchool News. I always learn something new from this weekly publication. Often they have stories of best practice across the country. Enjoy!

Not out just yet, but:

From the web site: "Never miss a word – One of the key applications at launch for the Livescribe platform is called “Paper Replay,” which allows total recall from lectures, meetings or conversations by simply tapping on your notes. When used to take notes during a discussion or lecture, the smartpen records the conversation and digitizes the handwriting, automatically synchronizing the ink and audio. By later tapping the ink, the user can replay the conversation from the exact moment the note was written. Notes and audio can also be uploaded to a PC where they can be replayed, saved, searched or sent."

These two are making BIG waves on YouTube. They have several songs posted. I didn't know someone could play that fast! They also do an interesting version of Stairway to Heaven!

This website allows you to create and save a nice looking newsletter. You can distribute it by email, webpage, .pdf download, or send it to yourself to print in color. It is fun and easy to create a professional newsletter with your own graphics or photos. Here is a sample we created for our teachers web2.0 workshop. This would be easy enough for kids to do.

Here is a great lesson plan you can adapt to be a video or podcast, or speech to the class! Visit the Tech4Learning website and you will find many free resources for lessons, photographs to use in your classroom and other tips. They have a number of software packages which are simple to use for teachers as well as students. There is also a video library you can subscribe to for many of the mainstream programs, Word, PowerPoint, iMovie, etc for a small fee. They produce a monthly magazine, which I received yesterday, that is filled with great tutorials and stories about using technology in your classroom. The above biography lesson was highlighted this month. Get on their mailing list for this magazine of tips. You can download the back issues too. In addition, you can use 15 graphic organizers, 18 rubrics, or the simple citation maker for a quick bibliography.

Are you looking for a different idea for storytelling time in your classroom? Well this free online web2.0 tool may be the answer. You should be able to find something to use in this list. Click here for the link. Look around here, he has many good links for you to share and tag to come back to later.

I can't tell you enough to join any professional organization that relates to what you teach. I have learned to much by reading blogs of people in the field of educational technology the past year. Every time I feel caught up with the latest edtech concept or project idea, BOOM, someone on the web suggests "try this program with your class". I am running out of time to do this kitchen dishes! This past week I jumped in to Twitter. For a long time I didn't get it, but as I follow some of the "tweets" from some of the "gurus" in edtech, I am starting to find a new way to collaborate with peers. I have found many exciting projects that can be done at our school, and am lucky enough to have some teachers willing to go to the edge an try them with their students.

Today's student has a different view of learning. Many are taking charge of learning in their own modalities and lecture doesn't work on a daily basis any more. Just watch kids when they get together to update their myspace accounts. They try all the new tools, upload music they create on GarageBand or FruityLoops, while they are talking or texting on the phone! Their capability to multitask is amazing. They can play the same game on any platform, Mac, PC, XBox, PSP, PS3, PS2, GameCube and know the different commands for each one! I, on the other hand, am just trying to learn Twitter for 3 days!

Some of the blogs I would recommend for anyone are on this list at the SupportBlogging wiki. Once you get hooked on a few, you will realize that there is a place for YOUR voice in the blogosphere! Just jump in and begin to learn more about your subject, elementary ed, writing, geometry, or geography. It doesn't matter what subject you teach, there is a new world of information for you to engage in and incorporate into making your teaching more interesting.

This is a simple way to create a 30 second spot! "The main reason we charge for long movies, has to do with the intensity of our video production process. In order to be able to offer something different from what's out there on the web, namely the type of "high-end" motion design and effects used in TV & film, we actually have to produce from scratch EACH new frame of your Animoto video... and there are 24 frames in each second of video! As you can imagine, this takes massive amounts of processor power, so we unfortunately can't afford to give everything away for free, particularly full-length videos, which really have intense demands on our render system. Fun fact: did you know it takes Pixar Studios 408 hours to render each second of their films using 3000 computers? Makes what we're doing here at Animoto seem pretty whimpy."(from the web site)

"A federal jury on Oct. 4 ordered a 30-year-old Minnesota woman to pay $222,000 for sharing copyrighted music online, marking the first time one of the industry's lawsuits against an individual downloader had gone to trial. The defendant, Jammie Tomas, a single mother of two sons, says she is still deciding whether to file an appeal.

October 8, 2007—Students and other internet users who download or share songs and movies without paying for them have a new reason to reconsider their actions: In the first such case to go to trial, a federal jury on Oct. 4 ordered a Minnesota woman to pay $222,000 for sharing copyrighted music online. " quoted from eSchool News Online

Be careful where you get your music from and always do it legally and pay for it. It is important that we teach this to our students as well.

"Historical footage. The latest events. Primary sources. NBC News brings you all this and more, now available for your school!

And right now, the NBC News Archive is available FREE until January 31, 2008 through the HotChalk Learning Community.
Click here to sign up for your FREE trial now!*

The NBC News Archive provides:
• More than 5,000 searchable resources, including historical footage, current events, mini-documentaries, primary sources, images, and other materials for use across all curriculum areas

• Specific digital content aligned to Advanced Placement courses and general classroom instruction in U.S. History, U.S. Government and Politics, and English Language and Composition

• Nearly 100 Writing Prompts supported by a selection of related NBC News stories and commentaries


In addition, the HotChalk Learning Community will allow you to create customized assignments and lesson plans, collaborate with peers and experts, post class messages, manage grade books, and search for quality resources in an easy-to-use, secure environment built with teachers in mind.

Sign up now to start using the NBC News Archive in your school. And be sure to forward this to your teachers so they can register to experience this unique offering in their classrooms. Hurry - the free trial ends January 31, 2008!

* If the link does not work, please copy and paste this url into the address bar in your browser to sign up for your free trial: [ http://www.hotchalk.com/nbc.html ]http://www.hotchalk.com/nbc.html "

This is just another sample by Vuvox.com. Add some photos of your own and select the format. Just click on the photos and they will zoom in.

"When it comes to philanthropy, everyone’s got something different to give – some people have money, others have time, and bloggers have devoted readers. The creative folks at DonorsChoose have a few ideas about how bloggers can help students and teachers.

In case you’re not familiar with DonorsChoose, it’s a site where teachers post needs they have for their classrooms, and donors fund those projects directly. If you’ve got a blog, a website, or even an email account, you can help by creating what’s called a challenge. Just pick some of your favorite projects and challenge your family, friends, and readers to fund them. If you’ve got a Blogger account, it’s easy to add your challenge to your blog in just a few clicks."

Carnegie Mellon University researchers in Pittsburgh, have developed an online game to help people learn about phishing schemes. It features a fish named Anti-Phishing Phil. "The game was developed to help raise awareness about phishing attacks, in which spam e-mails that appear to come from a legitimate bank or retail organization try to lure the recipient into entering personal or financial information into a fraudulent Web site, where it can be stolen and used in identity theft." There are prizes such as $100 gift cards to Amazon.com.

From eschool.news.com - "September 27, 2007—The Smithsonian Institution's new museum dedicated to black history and culture launched Sept. 26 with an interactive web site--long before its building opens for visitors on the National Mall.

Social-networking technology donated by IBM Corp. will allow visitors to help produce content for future exhibits at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Almost anything is fair game--long essays, short vignettes of memories, or recorded oral histories. The museum plans to add video capabilities in the future.

"The culture of the African American experience ... is too important to wait five or 10 years until the building is open," said Lonnie Bunch, the museum's founding director. "I wanted people to know that from the day I was hired, this museum exists."

If you have not seen these speed painting clips on YouTube.com, then here is a sample. This too the artist 4hours in real time. There are more from this artist, Martin Missfeldt online. Enjoy!!

Amazon.com launched it's music downloading center today. It is expected to directly compete with iTunes. The mp3 format is DRM free, so it can be played on PC, Macintosh, iPods, Zune, or any device that can play mp3 format music. More information at the Amazon link.

K12 Online Memo
EduBlog Insights by Anne Davis on 9/25/07

Help us spread the word about the upcoming K12Online07 conference. Here's the memo:

Please share either three (3) reasons to participate based on your experience from last year or (if you didn't attend last year) three (3) things you hope to gain from the experience this year.
Now this is an easy memo. I could go on and on but this time I'll follow the rules!

My three reasons(Anne Davis):

1. I can attend this conference and even wear my pajamas if I desire! Total comfort! Not only that but I can pick the time and the place and it's FREE!

2. I learn from colleagues who are top-notch and dedicated. The conveners are truly the best and the connections we get to make and continue to make are incredible!

3. I can enjoy it forever! I still go back to a lot of the ones from last year. I rank this conference as one of the best ever!

"And anyone else who would like to help us spread the word... tag you are it."

Things you can do from here:

• Visit the original item


Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab, has been in hot persuit of a $100 laptop for years. Today he announced that in the US and Canada, consumers can purchase the new discovery for $399. Pricey you say? Well you get one laptop and one laptop will be donated to a child in a developing country. They are solar powered and hand crank, to keep the costs down. This new initiative is called "Give 1 Get 1". For more information click on the title of this article or visit this link.

If you know NO Spanish, but need to help a student in your class, go to this page for some helpers. The page gives English phrases, the Spanish written form, and if you click on the phrase, you can hear the correct pronouncation.

If you want to put a personal touch on your website, try this! The video bubble will follow your cursor around the page as you move it. Quite creative addition!

Thanks to Kathy Schrock's site for suggesting this online tool for teachers who don't want to create a whole web page just for homework. Just assign different students to record the homework on this online calendar and you not only have up to date information, but an easy way to look back on past assignments if a day is missed!

If you need a very quick way to resize one or a batch of photos, then try this program. You can set the intended size easily. Try Resize 'Em All. It is a shareware program with donations through PayPal.

Vuvox - upload some photos and music and have an instant slideshow or movie! Great effects are available and you can easily change your mind in the middle of production. Make a small 10 photo movie first to learn how it works. Here is my sample:

If you have not created a Google account, then you should. Here are the top reasons why:

1. GDisk - free hard drive space
2. iGoogle - start page with a ton of widgets you can set up.
3. GoogleReader -a plact to collect and read blogs
4. Google Labs - get to see and test the new products
5. GoogleEarth - not only to see the world, but to explore
6. Blogger - free account for anyone
7. When you sign in to one of these, you don't have to sign in to another
8. Calendar -create a group calendar or a family calendar
9. Documents - create word processed documents, notes or other collections
10. Photos - Picasa is the application that collects and shares your personal photos
11. Groups -join a group that you are interested in such as googleeducators
12. Video - YouTube is not the only game in town.
13. All this and a few more - FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE

If you are a web2.0 user, you get it! If not then you must explore the web tool Jott. You can set your cell phone to send a voice message to your Jott account. In turn, it will turn it into text and email you what you said. Email also includes the voice Jott. Now, when Jott asks you who you want to Jott, you can say Twitter! It will turn your voice Jott into a Twitter message. Not sure what all this means? Go to each of the websites to get with the program!

This is a simple way to make a movie for web posting. Just upload your images, up to 15 for a 30 second movie, and let Animoto do the work!

Here is a wiki by Michael Horton, a science coordinator for California’s Riverside County Office of Education, filled with resources for science teachers. This includes everything from lesson plans, to links to free movies you can use in class.

As I posted earlier, the K-12Online Conference 2007 is next month. If you are even considering attending this wonderful experience, be sure to visit the site and watch the short videos prepared by the presenters. This is a very clever way to introduce the topics and the speakers to the general audience. There are several workshops I will attend now that I have been introduced to the presenter and their topic. If you don't use any of these tools for yourself or professionally, this is a good place to start learning!

This appears to be a new magazine created by the folks at Eduction Week. The first issue came out in the summer and this second issue has some very thought provoking concepts for using technology. How about kids using IM to discuss a book? Read more at this link. There is also some information about whiteboards, wikis and email.

This site from the ReadWriteThink provides a TON of lesson plan ideas, forms, charts, a calendar of professional events and much more. This is worth the visit especially if you teach a literacy class

This new high speed camera (2000 frames per second) is demonstrated here. Imagine what could be done with this type of capture for science, sports analysis, motion analysis etc. I think we will see more fun videos from this guy.

Sometimes you can find something that will be part of a great lesson and you adjust the lesson to use what you find. This may be one of those visuals. There are implications for using this in math, science(recycling), creative writing, or pop culture. You chose what fits your style and standards! Thanks to Chris Jordan for this series of images.

The Best Buy teacher grant is closing applicatons on September 30, 2007. There is a wide variety of grants which will be awarded in February 2008.

If you do some creative arts activities in your room, you will find some excellent resources at this site. Thanks to Donna S. in my graduate class for suggesting this site for our class.

If you have never attended an online event, then this is the one to try out. This k-12 Conference has all kinds of online workshops you can enjoy from the comfort of your pj's in a big sofa! This is where I actually leaned about how to use a wiki and was part of a collaborative group project/discussion. It was quite valuable and helped me to learn it well enough to show my colleagues how to get started. In any event, look around the website and if you decide to sign up, you should check out this link too at attendr.com. It is a "mashup" for those attending the k-12 Online Conference. If you wish to see what was done in 2006, you can view all the sessions and some of the notes and podcasts created.

We are trying a voicethread experiment. Please bare with me on this one. To comment on this voicethread, you need to create a user account(FREE) at the site. We are going to try this technology with a few teachers this year. We will keep you posted and publish them as they are completed.

"Remember to check out StudentEducationalExchange.org. It is ready for
students to use! Great articles from diverse news sources - higher
order discussion questions - categorized by social studies subject
area."

Isn't that a great combination? There is a coupon for Office Max free laminating for teachers on Thursdays until September 13. In addition, you can click on lesson plans for various topics, and find some links about global warming. Looks like a goldmine of information including Constitution Day suggestions.

TeacherTube is a direct link to some so-so to some excellent videos for your use in the classroom or assign as homework. Just type in your topic, such as Gettysburg and a list of videos with that tag will come up. See if there is something you can use for your curriculum.

If you do not subscribe to Jim Gates Tipline, you should, his blog is filled with great tips for educators and general Internet users. This latest tip is about PowerPoint and how to print notes along with the slides. Here is the embedded slide show:
If you want to see more of his slideshare shows, click here.

Smile, you're on Candid Camera. What a fun show. Most of this was innocent funny circumstances and most of the people were good sports, but with YouTube and the social networking sites like myspace, your video can turn up anywhere, anytime. You may not even know that you are being filmed or that it is posted online. So many kids have digital phones capable of making a movie. Still not convinced? Read this alarming article from ABC.com/news.

This article is from an ezine for IT business leaders. They were surveyed and asked which web2.0 tools they use most often and the results are about the same as they would be for educators who use web2.0 tools. Interesting..... we must be on the right track.

Top 100 Classic websites and top 100 undiscovered websites as described by PCMagazine. They have also included the 100 most undiscovered sites.

There are several sources of free books on this site from hardcover books to electronic books to download. Try a few of the websites to find one that suits your needs.

This article from Teacher Magazine offers some good specific ideas to help you get off to a good start to the year. Much is gained from good classroom management says the author, so heed this advice.

If you have not played with GoogleEarth yet, what are you waiting for? If you like GE, you must get the upgade to the stars. Really, now you can view constellations from anywhere with GoogleEarth/Sky. There are lesson plans, ideas and pre-planed locations to explore. The short video will explain how it works.

This story in USAToday addresses a long time problem of how to hold a pencil properly. A retired teacher has developed a new triangular pencil for early elementary students to get a better grip on their skills. No photo was included in the story. I'm so visual, I wish I could see it!

This resource is full of links for all topics from k-12. Be sure to look at the Jeopardy games that are prepared for you.

Follow this website to elementary, intermediate and advanced lessons for speaking Spanish. You can listen to the instructor, assign it for homework, or model your own lessons after this page.

I came across this while Stumbling on the internet. Quick lesson plans to go
Fun activities for students, teachers, homeschoolers and parents.

I read about this VoiceThread on someone's blog and thought I would give it a try. This may be a fantastic forum for another type of student project! My example is from a stop on our summer trip to Edison's Home in Ft.Myers, Florida.

OK everyone is starting to become more environmentally correct (is that EC?). Well if you have been to as many conferences as I have you probably have a closet full of canvas bags. Why not put them in to the largest of your bags, drop them in the trunk and be prepared to take them into the grocery store or WAWA to pick up your goods! It may not seem like much, but you may inspire someone else to do this too. I think I will pack them with the greener light bulbs. Add your tip to the comments.

From worksheets to lessons, this page offers a lot of free ideas and activities for teachers of all levels. Be sure to look at the bottom of the page for two additional links.

Looking for a different way to talk about book characters, or famous Americans, First Ladies, or historical places? Try creating a trading card at this website, BigHugeLabs.Com. Choose from a variety of backgrouds, choose an image, write a description, then publish! Students can create a whole series of cards for your bulletin board. I created this one for a unit on Symbols of Freedom.

Want to add a nice looking sign to a document or web page? Try AddingLetters.com for a variety of signs and images that you can put your own phrase in the image. Bart is just one of the examples!

This is a new toy I found for creating some fun images for your blog or web page. You can put your own words into the animation too. Visit ImageChef for some fun.

From your classroom, you can circle the globe in hundreds of ways. Steve Burt had this on his Web 2. Education blog. Just put in the airport locations and it will plot a route for you! Might be a fun activity for a geography class or a math lesson.

The American Film Institute has a program of training for teachers, through Discovery/United Streaming. But in the mean time, there are some interesting resources for teachers and students at the AFI site. Look around and then fill out the form requesting information to be considered for their training program.

There are several good FREE things for teachers on this site. If you are or know a first year teacher, there is a good survival guide. This site has a lot of free things for other categories as well. The site is mysavings.com. Enjoy!

After taking this quiz....well look below...

64%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

--² - --

Not sure where I can get help for this, but you should try it and see if you are in worse shape than I am!

I am not a big YouTube watcher, but once in a while a great one gets sent to me. Here Taylor Mall has a great answer. Keep a pencil handy to get some of this quotes!
Click here for his movie.

After swimming with manatees, we headed South to Fort Myers and to Thomas Edison's home. I felt compelled to make my kids have at least one educational day during our vacation! This was the spot. The estate is located on the Coloosahatchee River and is filled with beautiful trees and flowers. Edison did so much research on botanicals, that a visit here covers many interests. Aside from inventing the light bulb and phonograph, Edison held over 1300 patents. He set a record still held today with a patent a year for 65 years in a row! If you want a great biography for your class to study, he is the man!

One of the most unique moments of my vacation was a visit to Crystal Springs, Florida. It is the only place in the USA where you can actually swim with manatees! This is something my 13 year old daughter has wanted to do.....forever. We found Captian Mike's Tour and for $10 you can ride on the boat and watch, but for $50 you can don a wet suit an snorkel gear and get in. After 3 different stops, we found some manatees that wanted to play. They swam all around us and rolled on their back for us to scratch their belly! If you ever get a chance to do this, jump in.

More Information
Save the Manatee
Manatee-Kid's Planet
Manatee Watchers
Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park
Crystal River Manatee

More links coming next week after July 4th. I am on a family vacation. Found some great manatee sites I will share later.

The University of Virginia, in coordination with several international archeology organizations, have recreated Rome in 320 AD. Using the research, they created a model of the city and turned that model into a virtual tour. Experience the "lion's den" without the lions!

There is a new reality show that gets my attention. Fox has launched "On The Lot" which features people trying to make it in the movie making business. The past videos are on the web page.

How can you tell if someone has taken words from your website? go to Copyscape.com and you and find out! Directions are on the page and very simple.

In a recent eSchool News Online article, there is a story about museums, historical locations and others are creating a virtual look back at land formations, structures and lifestyles. This is done through modeling the dimensions of the ancient structure and animating the changes over time. It could be done by way of kiosk, or large movie screens or a virtual tour of an old village uncovered during an excavation.

As described from the site: "StudySphere provides fast, easy and free access to a wide variety of research-quality child-safe websites organized for education online from home, school, study abroad and home school. StudySphere’s goal is to help students, teachers, librarians, and other researchers find both highly targeted and closely related information quickly."

At this site you can review other teacher's ideas, or submit one of your own. They are free and look pretty good. As always, read the whole description before printing for your students.

This looks interesting, but I am not sure if there is or is not a cost involved. Here is the description from the site: "Over the last decade, the emphasis placed on global education has significantly increased in primary and secondary education. Students and educators are no longer limited by the geographic locations of their places of learning; new technologies can literally bring the world to the classroom. Through the Internet, ProjectExplorer provides students with access to peoples and places around the world."

I was watching tv last night and StumblingUpon different websites, I came across this site which has reviews of many FREE book sites, including digital resources. The comments from other readers are interesting too. If you are looking to start a digital book collection, but don't want to spend a lot of cash, try this site first.

Stanford University, Penn State, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT have all become part of iTunes U. That means hat you can listen to programs produced by these and other universities for free. The content includes sports highlights, campus tours, language lessons, lab demonstrations, class lectures and special programs. Be sure to click on the faculty and student tabs to see how schools are using ipods and podcasting in education. With this channel available for universities, can a K-12 public school channel be far behind?

Senior pole vaulter Allison Stokke has had her photo hijacked. Read this article by Eli Saslow in the Washington Post to see how a simple sports photo has caused this 18-year old her privacy. She has maintained her dignity through it all and has set many high school records in California. You Rock Allison, don't let them get you down.

Schools all over the country are under attack to find extra graduation tickets for those unexpected out of town guests. But now you can offer from the comfort of your own air conditioned home "Gradcast". Several districts have teamed up with their local cable company to offer a live feed of the ceremony. In addition, some schools go as far as to stream it through the internet. Remember, federal law requires that cable companies offer free services to public education, so take advantage of this offer.
To read the rest of this article from the Houston Chronicle click here.

Need a quick graphic organizer for tomorrow? Then look at this site: Freeology and find organizers, posters, journal topics and award certificates.

There are 190 fun math problems you can use as a classroom opener. Put one on the board while the class is arriving and getting settled. Here is a sample: "One hundred ants are dropped on a meter stick. Each ant is traveling either to the left or the right with constant speed 1 meter per minute. When two ants meet, they bounce off each other and reverse direction. When an ant reaches an end of the stick, it falls off." You have to visit the page for the answer!

"The ZebraMap^TM time zone map is a free, customizable map that you can use on its own or as part of a blog or web site. You can pick from twenty color schemes, add locations and position the labels. The map initially comes with ads at the bottom. If you would like to remove the ads from your map you can do so at a small fee."
This would be great for geography lessons, current events, history, or calculating distances in math! You could also create writing prompts for different locations around the world. Create a story based on the points you have chosen for your class. In September, create a map for locations that your students have traveled during the summer.

Eduhound works very hard to find good resources for teachers. This site is filled with advertisements, but don't let that get in your way. The dead center of the page includes many links to creative lessons plans. It is worth the time to wade through the information to find a great nugget you could use in your classroom.
By the way the CFPMS website was voted "Site of the Month" a while ago. Go Hawks!!

If you need to fill a small slot of time in your lesson, or need a writing prompt, plug in to the Smithsonian's Animal Web Cams. You can view tigers, kiwi(not the fruit), Asian Elephants and many more. In addition to the web cam, there is a page of links and information about the creature you are watching.

We would be RICH! He may be on to something. This is quite amusing from Mister Teacher.

If you do not have time to develop presentations for your classroom because you don't know the software, check in on ths page, "Powerpoint in the Classroom" for some starter tips an a good guide. I found this on the United Streaming website for DEN educators. There are hundreds of lesson plans, powerpoints and great resources available when you join DEN. Just create a new user and you are ready to search.

Having trouble getting your students to enjoy poetry? The University of Pennsylvania has started a website with audio files of poets reading their work. For a detailed list of authors and more visit PennSound, a project of contemporary writing.

I found this great tip on my Gmail account. If you would like visitors to your site or blog to have the ability to click on any word and get the definition, you can add AnswerTips to your html code. Not being a programmer, or a devotee of html, I found this quite easy to edit my template to add this option to my blog. This code can also be inserted into your Opera or Firefox browsers for any site! Unfortunately, at this time it does not work with Safari.

It must be difficult to grasp the idea of the size of our solar system when you are a youngster. This website has some good visuals for comparison of Earth to other planets. Then Jupiter to other stars! Visit How Big is the World to see for yourself.

Actually it is an acronym for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching. If you wish to take an online course or teach one, this could be a good resource.
"Find peer reviewed online teaching and learning materials. Share advice and expertise about education with expert colleagues. Be recognized for your contributions to quality education."

There is an endless supply of educational science websites. This one, ScienceDaily, seems to cover a lot of topics in one compact location. Hopefully it will suit your needs for a science lesson or reference for students!

In a recent Denver Post article, several scholars were asked to critique information on China, global warming, President Clinton, Islam and evolution that was listed in Wikipedia. Their responses are listed in this article. Overall, they agreed with the entries in Wikipedia.

There are many good resources for teachers to use for the Holocaust and here is another for your records.

Teachers get the best excuses for being absent, forgetting homework and now some words from student essays. Perhaps you have seen these before today. Here are the 30 Dumbest things from school essays.

Would you like to have 2 home pages open at the same time? This can be done easily in Firefox preferences. Just follow this:
Just put a link, the pipe symbol "|" and the other URL - handy! The | symbol is shift and the key just above the return key.
Like this:
http://cfpms.ucfsd.org|http://apple.com
or whichever pages you wish to open in two tabs in Firefox.
This from Jim Gates Tipline and Make Magazine Blog.

Read this new report from Apple about how they are trying to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals from manufacture of their products. Did you know that you could order recycle boxes for old computers as well? How are you planning on recycling your old home computers?

Image from http://www.apple.com/, May 2, 2007.

Many pundits projected that the computer would lead us to more of a paperless society. I know at our school we use more paper than ever! The recycle box is filled much too often. Here is a post from Rebecca Carter's blog: Green Options. Some food for thought...
"Today we're going to ask you to think twice, or even thrice before clicking that little print button. When you see a good Tip o' the Day, is your first instinct to print it so that you can look at it later? And when later comes, just how long do you look at that paper before you toss it, file it, or start doodling on it?

There are very few things in this life that we need to print, and they are: contracts that require an original signature and airline / travel e-tickets. Yes, that's all we can come up with. Really!

What about driving directions? If you decide to write it on paper, instead of storing it into your PDA, we guarantee it will take up just a tiny corner of scrap paper. How does it get there? Here's the old-school part: you jot down by hand.

Plus, you'll find that the moment you stop printing, your life will suddenly become more paperless. This leads to a simplified life, and we all like that! So go on, pretend that printer is broken and see how it feels to be liberated! The trees win, energy conservation wins, and your wallet wins (never buy toner again).

Rebecca says: I used to be a printaholic. Emails, maps, tips, recipes and articles. Then the best thing happened to me (for many reasons): I met my husband. He taught me to ease up on the printing drastically. Then another blessing happened, my printer stopped printing. That was almost two years ago. You'd be amazed what you don't need to print once your printer breaks (or you pretend it did)."

There are more hints on the rest of the site Green Options.

If you are looking for information of the internet and are tired of the way Google, Mamma or Yahoo gives you a "hit list", then try Grokker. You will get your information returned in a categorical circular view as shown here. This is the same word as searched for in VisuWords in a previous link, below ubiquitious.

Quoted directly from Jim Gates Tipline:
"This article talks about the college entrance exam for perspective science undergrads at a Chinese university. It specifically shows two math questions that.. scare me! Ok, not really, but they do make me wonder how many students actually get them right. Then I wonder how many American kids would get them right. Check them out. Especially you math teachers."

If you like to see connections between words, then try this visual dictionary called VisuWords. It will show the connections between words and identify the part of speech by color. By passing your cursor over one of the circles, a word box appears with more information.


This is another great resource from JimGatesTipline.
For a visual word thesaurus, try Visual Thesaurus. This site offers a home version- $39.95 or an online subscription for $19.99 per year.

Do you need to find a map of Oceania or the population density of Asia? Try JustMaps website for some quick answers and visuals for lessons. What is really shocking is the Literacy Map. There are flags of the world for you to use too.

If you re trying to show your students quantity vs. quality of food choices, try this web page for nutritional values. Not only does it show the size of a 200-calorie pile of doritos, or kiwi, but the photos are colorful as well.

Another good web2.0 tool is Blinklist. It is a website that will collect any web pages you designate by clicking on a button you install in your browser. OK that sounds like a lot of information right there, but once set up, you may find it easy to keep track of certain links. I have installed my blinklist on the left sidebar so you can see some of the sites I use weekly.
So far I have 37 sites I would consider my important resources for integrating technology into education. My del.icio.us account has ALL the links I find that I want to return to for further reading. That account is up to 437 links, but it contains information for school, home, my kids, family vacation links and other fun things people send me. Click on my del.icio.us account or blinklist on the left and search around.

I was using StumbleUpon.com to search the web this weekend. I was really in a daze if I was doing this! Anyway I stumbled upon this photo of cloud formations and I couldn't decide if it is real or a PhotoShop enhanced photo. You decide.

I didn't even know there was such a thing! Apparantly this is equal to the Oscar Awards, but for educational programing. So the envelope please......and the winners are:

Go HERE for the answers!

Thanks to Jim Gates Tipline for this and the following post.

This link takes you to some breathtaking photos by some of NASA's recent astronauts. I can't believe the clarity of the detail from so far away! I have a hard time keeping my kids in focus from 10 feet! When you arrive at this page, click on photo gallery to view the slide show, it's awesome.

We use Keynote as our instructional tool to teach students how to create presentations. Here is a great website, ETC to find that perfect background or theme for your presentation. There are hundreds of FREE colorful themes from which to choose. You could spend hours downloading and viewing these. I usually make one presentation and take a sample from each theme, so I have a complete library of the themes available on my computer. It's a quick way to search for something special. I also make a notation of how many templates or master slides are included. Presentations ETC is a part of the Educational Technology Clearinghouse and is funded by a grant from the Florida Department of Education, Office of Instructional Technology. Produced by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida.
To see a short slide show of the themes I collected from this website click here and look for the New FREE Themes Preview link.

If you want your students to test their knowledge of world locations, try this Geography Knowledge Test.

If you can't catch a plane, try this 360 tour of Eiffel Tower. Be sure to look up and down too.
There are links on this page to other 360 tours.

You can see how educators are using Google Education tools by visiting GoogleEducation. Google is looking for educators to share lessons with others using some of their tools. The obvious one is Google Earth, but I am sure there are others of equal importance.

Now on Creative Commons the Academy Award Film: A Story of Healing. It is a 1997 international film about the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. To see it and read the rest of this story, visit BoingBoing.

If you want students to do real time analysis of world events, visit RSOE EDIS to see what is happening around the globe. This organization is located in Budapest Hungary and in cooperation with other scientific groups produces this interesting animated map. You can follow disasters, and natural events from all over the place. Currently there is a flood in Ethiopia wiping out homes, a power outage in Maine, an active volcano in the Atlantic, and a biohazzard emergency in Vietnam. This could be used in geography, math, science and language arts classes. Be creative!