Tech Tips & Timely Tidbits

The Periodic Table of Videos - Thanks to Cali Lewis over at GeekBrief.TV for sharing this cool site. What makes this periodic table great is that there are short videos describing each element and/or showing an experiment using the element.

National Geographic: Wildlife Filmmaker - “Make a custom nature film with animal clips, sounds, and more. Then share your masterpiece with friends.”

ThinkQuest: Math Movies: Math for Everyone - “Have you ever wondered how mathematics is actually applied in everyday life? Do you like games and movies? Are you looking for ideas for your science project? … Are you a teacher looking for lesson plans and fresh teaching idea? Welcome to Math Movies.”

Tony Vincent over at the Learning in Hand blog posted the following: “How to Cheat” - he provides examples of YouTube videos that show students methods on how to cheat. As Tony says, we don’t want our kids to see these videos, but they are out there nonetheless. As teachers, we need to be familiar with them, too, so we can prevent the use of them in our classrooms.

Another great post by Tony Vincents is “Video Podcasts Free Up Class Time” - “… video podcasts to remove lecture from class. Viewing podcasts made by teachers is given as homework so teachers and students can focus on hands-on activities and direct problem solving during class time. For students without Internet, they can copy episodes to a flash drive. Those without computers can take home DVDs to play on their televisions.”

BibMe - a free online bibliography maker in MLA, APA, Chicago, or Turabian formats.

Great TeacherTube video brought to my attention by Vicki Davis via Twitter a while back with teachers who tell how they are going to use Web 2.0 tools in the classroom: Today

Odds & Ends is back! I took a little time off and my RSS Reader is slam full of articles for me to read. I’m slowly getting through them. I’m not ready to declare RSS bankruptcy as I would hate to miss something good! Anyhoo, here are some nuggets of information, technology, or news I’ve found so far…

Pat Hensley over at the Successful Teaching Blog posted “Just Doing What’s Right” that brought me to tears over the compassion of those teens! Boy, I’m sure getting emotional in my old age. Be sure to read the comments and follow the link to another example of kids doing what’s right! Now if news reports had more of these types of stories to share, I might just watch the news again!

Edutopia: “Young Minds, Fast Times: The Twenty-First-Century Digital Learner” by Mark Prensky

A little math humor “I Will Derive” video from College Humor brought to my attention by FrancyLibrarian at the Gargoyles Loose in the Library blog. Too funny!

CNN.com: “School defends drunken driving hoax” - Okay, I find this disturbing. I can see where the authorities were coming from to want to “scare kids straight,” but I think this went overboard. This probably did more damage to the kids than deterred teens from driving drunk.

And lastly, a few news articles I found interesting from BBC.com:

• “Spain treats child phone addicts” - Guess it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I figured it would start with computer games before phones! My question, what do 12 & 13 year olds need with cell phones? Shouldn’t the parents have been monitoring their usage BEFORE things got so out of hand?
• “‘Non-planet’ Pluto gets new class” - “Sorry, Pluto, you’ve been demoted, but to sooth your feelings, we’re going to call all masses like you “plutoids,” what do you think?” Come on, couldn’t they come up with a better name than that?
• “The changing face of Africa” - visual proof that man is destroying the planet faster than nature ever could.
• “Sudoku-playing jurors halt trial” - What! How could the jurors be so rude! This is life and future you’re going to be deciding! I realize lawyers tend to love the sound of their own voice, and you may have been a bit bored, but please, show some respect!

Sorry this is a little late. Edublogs was down for maintenance and then I forgot to finish the post. Forgive me!

The Futures Channel: Connecting learning to the real world - one of my math teachers (thanks Mrs. Thomas) brought this web site to my attention. Their other tag line is “Real Math, Real Science, Real Careers.” The site offers short movies in Shockwave/Flash format that introduce students to fun, interesting, and sometimes unusual careers. Each movie has a corresponding pdf classroom activity file.

European Space Operations Center: “Space debris: evolution in pictures” - VWB over at the A Library By Any Other Name blog posted this awesome picture from the European Space Operations Center . Not only are we littering up our own planet but space, too! VWB provides links to other great online resources on the topic of space junk.

Books for Teen Readers - Betsy Clem posted this over on The Georgia Library Media Association blog. Some great opportunities for teens to provide their input on books, as well as be “in the know” by receiving advanced readers copies of new books!

TheBestNotes.com - Similar to Sparknotes and Cliffs Notes, The Best Notes contain explanations of literary elements and chapter summaries/analysis. Not only does it offer them for the classics, some contemporary novels are dissected, too, such as Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.

Now one just for fun. Thanks Sue Waters for sharing this one on Twitter: Animator vs. Animation by Alan Becker. Too funny!

Lifehacker (which is unfortunately blocked at school) recently posted Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks. Here are three I thought would be useful for you and our students:

• What time is it in __________ (fill in the blank with the city/county to find the current time)

• Converter calculator, not just for money, but things like: “Find out how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup (quarter cup in teaspoons) or how many seconds there are in a year (seconds in a year) or how many euros there are to five dollars (5 USD in Euro).”

• Use Google image search to show you foreign language words and phrases. For example type in “jicama” which is a Mexican potato and you will see what one looks like.

CopyrightWatch recently posted a listing of works that have now passed into the Public Domain, includes such authors as Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie); Jean de Brunhoff (Babar); J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan); and lots, lots more!

World Maths Day - “Join us in a celebration of numbers as children from across the globe unite in their quest to set a world record in answering mental arithmetic questions.” For ages 5 – 18.

And finally, here is the Commoncraft tutorial for RSS that I mentioned in the last Tech Tuesday newsletter.