Science Bulletins – American Museum of Natural History
Posted: June 22, 2011 Filed under: Science, Uncategorized Comments Off on Science Bulletins – American Museum of Natural HistoryThe American Museum of Natural History presents Science Bulletins, currently research about the natural world on current topics.
Earth Events: May 23 - June 5
The short animated programs present Science information that is current in the news or currently of importance to our world. Many times the programs cross over into other subject areas, especially English and History. There is an entire section (Click Tab) of Science Bulletins on Brain Research. Health teachers may find some interesting research here!
Examples of Science Bulletins include: Ozone Layers, Earth Snapshot (current earthquakes and volcano eruptions), Our Known Universe, Mississippi Floods, More Species Better Water, The Roots of Human Language, Coral Reefs in Hot Water, Scientists Map Human Brain Connections,…
- Coral Reefs in Hot Water
The Promise of Brain Computer Interface
Since the Science Bulletins are short, they are great to start a class, to spark ideas, or just to illustrate all of the various topics that are being explored by Scientists.
New Science Bulletins are posted several times a month. You need to keep going back to the site to see the latest postings.
Fotopedia – High Quality Photographs For your Lessons
Posted: June 10, 2011 Filed under: Photographs, Uncategorized Comments Off on Fotopedia – High Quality Photographs For your LessonsI am always looking for high quality photographs that I can use in my lessons. Especially ones that will look great on the white board. Fotopedia is a site that provides many great photographs from around the world.
Rome
- is FREE, our favorite word, but you do need to register and confirm your e-mail address. Once on the site you can search by name or subject to find high quality photographs that members of the site have voted, yes I did say voted, as the best photographs on that subject. You can also start you own project, upload photographs and allow members to vote.
Philadelphia City Hall never looked so good!
Once you have found a photograph that you would like to use you can:
- Click on the photograph
- Click download or embed
- Right click on the photograph and click “Save As” to save to your home directory
It’s that simple! Photographs are FREE to use in non-commercial projects.
The Alamo in downtown San Antonio, Texas.
Fotopedia has just joined with National Geographic Traveler to bring you even more great photographs.
Thank you to Richard Byrne of Free Technology For Teachers for making me aware of Fotopedia.
Read, Write, Compete, Publish – BoomWriter
Posted: June 3, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized, Writing | Tags: Reading, Writing Comments Off on Read, Write, Compete, Publish – BoomWriterBoomWriter combines the process of writing with the voting of American Idol!
This FREE website is available to individual teachers or schools as a tool to encourage students to read, write, vote and then publish a story. Did your say, “vote?” Yes vote, that is the American Idol part.
Here is how it works. The teacher starts the story, maybe a paragraph or two, then the students login to their accounts, see what the teacher has written and then they are responsible for completing that chapter using the topic presented. Students can take the story anywhere they want, putting in their own ideas and writing style.
When all first chapters are complete (you will need to set a time limit), the students read everyone’s chapter and then vote anonymously on which one was the best. The winning chapter becomes Chapter 1 of the book.
The ideas and characters from Chapter 1 are then used to write Chapter 2. When all are complete they vote again and this becomes Chapter 2 and the process begins again until the teacher decides that the book is complete.
All of the writing takes place on the BoomWriter web site which means that students can work on their chapters in school and at home.
Teachers may want their students to use Pen Names when setting up their accounts. Students love to create Pen Names!
To learn more about BoomWriter, visit their web site or watch the movie from WBGH.
Thank you Kristen Swanson for making me aware of BoomWriter. You can visit her blog Teachers as Technology Trailblazers here.
Send a large file (up to 300 MB) FREE using Sendspace
Posted: June 3, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Comments Off on Send a large file (up to 300 MB) FREE using SendspaceI have often needed to send a large file or files to myself or other individuals but the file exceeded the limits of my e-mail account.
Problem solved, Sendspace will allow you to upload large files, up to 300 MB, or several files quickly and easily. Sendspace does not send the files as an e-mail attachment but gives you an e-mailed link allowing you to download your files directly into your “H” drive. And it is FREE, no registration required.
I learned about Sendspace because one of our national vendors needed to send me some large firmware update files and they did so by using Sendspace. I figured if a national name brand company is using Sendspace, then I should be using it.
The site is really easy to use, just 4 steps (really only 3 required steps):
Go to http://www.sendspace.com/
Browse for the file that you want to upload (send)
Give a Description (optional)
Type in the e-mail address(s) of the individual(s) who is to receive the file
Type in your e-mail address (they say this is optional, but it is actually required)
Click the “Upload Button” and your file is on its way!
Once the file is uploaded the recipient will receive an e-mail that they have a file waiting for them to download, who sent the file and a link to start the download process.
It is really that easy.
Send that large movie to yourself so that you can work on it at home. Forgot your thumb drive, no problem use Sendspace. Need to send a large file or files to several other individuals? No problem use Sendspace.
If your e-mail server cannot handle it, Sendspace can!
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