Wired: “Where Gadgets Go To Die: Facility Strips, Rips and Recycles” – interesting look at how a facility sorts and recycles old electronic equipment.

Library of Congress YouTube Channel – “Timeless treasures and contemporary presentations from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. As the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, we are the steward of millions of recordings dating from the earliest Edison films to the present…”

World Digital Library – looks interesting and will become active on April 21st.  “The World Digital Library will make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials…”

New York Times: “A Story of a Teenager’s Suicide Becomes a Best Seller” – article about the origins of the book TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY by Jay Asher.  This title is on our South Carolina Young Adult Book Award Nominee list this year.  The article also mentioned the YouTube video campaign that shows someone listening to Hannah Baker’s tapes.

Chicago Tribune: “Annoying ‘mosquito’ noise keeps students moving” – the article shares how an Indiana high school uses the mosquito machine to deter students from socializing in an area of the hallway between classes and instead get to classes on time.  I’ve written previously about this machine here and the mosquito ringtone here.  I am opposed to this device being used, especially INSIDE a school, and not just because I can still hear the tone.  There are other ways to ensure students keep it moving in the hallways – HELLO, teachers, stand at your doors and don’t let the kids stop to chat.  When I stand at the library doors, the students don’t loiter between classes.  When I’m not there, the do – doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.

Education Jargon Maker – Angela Maiers shared this one via Twitter.  Sure wish we’d known about it while we were still writing our ERT documentation!  Have some fun typing in a phrase and seeing how it is converted, ex: math skills translates as “deliver visionary critical thinking.”

If you don’t already follow her blog or twitter feeds, you NEED TO ADD HER RIGHT NOW!

Go on.

I’ll wait.

Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm.

Done?

Good.

Once you follow her you’ll find she shares a bunch of excellent educational resources as well as thought provoking posts.  While I was over on her page just now, I happened to see the following YouTube video “Goomoodleikiog” (Google, Moodle, Wikis, Blogs), which is a great introduction to an ideal virtual classroom ala CommonCraft style.  I SOOOOO, would love to develop something like this with one or more of my teachers (ahem! Mr. Forston, you reading this???)  I’ve attempted to embed the video below, but it is YouTube, meaning it is blocked by our district and you’ll have to watch from home.  Sorry, it hasn’t been posted in TeacherTube yet.

There is also a “sequel” for students “Goomoodleikiog 4 students” that is just as good, if not better, with two sock puppet students discussing the classes virtual classroom.

I hope you enjoyed the videos and have taken a moment to subscribe to Angela Maiers blog and twitter.  You won’t regret it!  I’ve got a bunch more resources to share, but I’ll pass them along in another Odds & Ends post later.  I was just too excited to share these to do a “proper” odds & ends piece!

PatriotLedger.com: “Need help with class? YouTube video await” – YouTube video tutorials, specifically in math via Khan Academy.  Each video is about 10 minutes long and covers one specific topic.  Students can watch the video over and over until they grasp the concept.

Lifehacker: “WhichBook Will Help Fill Your Reading Lists” – With WhichBook, use slide rule to select characteristics you enjoy in your books, such as happy/sad or funny/serious.  Also mentioned in the article are What Should I Read Next and BookLamp which also help you find other reading selections.

LitWeb: The Norton Introduction to Literature Website – I was looking for the text for a short story and found this site.  It has stories, poetry, and some drama/plays, as well as quizzes and flashcards for literary terms.

Elona Hartjes – Teachers At Risk: Improve a child’s reading skills by having him read to a dog – Honest! – explains the Paws to Read program of having kids read to a non-judgmental audience – a dog!

Coraline: Explore a Hand-Made World - very engaging website to correspond with the movie release.  Be sure to check out the The Other Mother’s Workshop: Button Your Eyes page (sorry, I wont share my results – way too scary!)  Can’t wait to see the movie!  In case you didn’t know, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book received this years Newbery Medal Award.  You can watch/listen to Mr. Gaiman read The Graveyard Book via videos recorded on his video tour.

Thing #20: YouTube

While I’ve been familiar with YouTube and TeacherTube for a while now, I have to admit that I’ve never actually sat down and browsed or searched them before now.  In the past I’ve always had a link someone else has provided or searched for a specific video that someone needed or that I knew was already in YouTube.

I have to also admit that the whole YouTube thing scares me a bit – not the how to use/access it, but because of the content.  Yes, it has a lot of great original and educational content, but it also has a lot of copyrighted content that I’m sure was never given permission to be uploaded.  Which leads me to question if I use those uploaded items in the classroom, am I modeling good behavior?  Am I inadvertently giving my kids the notion that it’s okay to violate copyright?  Or have I taught them well enough to be responsible users and producers of materials?

Despite these questions, I can’t help but appreciate and get a guilty pleasure out of finding bits of nostalgia from my past such as “One RingyDingy“  I’m going to try to embed the clip, but since YouTube is blocked by my district, teachers, you’re going to have to take a look at it from home.  Sorry!

Of course, I wasn’t born when Laugh-In aired, but my Mom (who worked for the phone company) had the album.

Another example of the benefit of YouTube is using it to bridge the generation gap, especially with cultural references.  I was talking with some students the other day and we were talking about baseball and for some reason I mentioned Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” sketch.  The kids didn’t know who or what I was talking about, so I pulled up YouTube and, sure enough, I found a bunch of clips of “Who’s On First.”  Of couse, I had to play it a few times for some of them to get the humor, and I don’t think they really found it as funny as I do, they were probably humoring me, but at least they know who Abbott and Costello are now!

CNN.com: “Fans bid farewell to Polaroid film” – “… Sixty years after Polaroid introduced its first instant camera, the company’s iconic film is disappearing from stores. … Although Polaroid says the film should be available into 2009, this is the final month of its last production year. …”  Bummer.  While I no longer have a Polaroid camera, I do have fond memories of Mom taking pictures with hers and me fanning the photo until it magically appeared.  I guess I’ll have to take a look at Poladroid.net and see if, while I can’t have the real thing, I can at least keep the memories going!  There’s also an online movement called SavePolaroid.com if you want to read and share your Polaroid stories.

Scifi.com: “Video: Twilight: The Puppet Saga” – TOO FUNNY!  Watch a short, short, version of the book/movie using puppets.

Judy O’Connell over at HeyJude: Learning in an Online World shared a YouTube choose your own adventure story “The Time Machine: START HERE!“  How cool would it be for students to create their own stories and share them in this manner.  I could definitely see some of my students wanting to take on the challenge!

Newsweek.com: “The Royal Tenenbaum: Will Obama move beyond brand names, and pick from the field?” – I’m not going to comment, just passing it along as I’m sure it will be of interest to some folks I know.

Flicker CC: “cooper nose things” by mrpattersonsir