Periodic Tables that will suit a variety of learners

Ever wanted to find out what super hero was made up of gold or mercury?

The Periodic Table of Comic Books is a great website that has been developed by two teachers from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky. With almost all of the elements there is at least 1 superhero comic available to download that discusses or makes reference to the element.
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Another website to check out (linked from the Comic Book site) is WebElements Periodic Table. This website has a very in depth view on periodic tables. With video, audio, images, etc...

Give both of these a look...great resources for your science program.

PDFescape

Need to quickly edit a PDF on the fly?

PDFescape enables a user to edit a PDF document from within a web browser without installing any software. There are a lot of free PDF converters available online (ie: changing a Word document to PDF) but PDFescape allows you to make slight edits to an existing PDF document such as: edit text, add a form field, add vector shapes and hyperlinks to an exisiting PDF document.

Nothing beats the full version of Adobe Acrobat for creating and editing pdf files.

Note: PDFescape developers recommend the use of Firefox for the best experience with PDFescape.

The impact of technology on learning.

How does technology impact student learning? Some will say it has been the demise of education since the computer has entered the school doors. Then there is the other extreme that believe the computer is the ONLY tool of choice for learning.

Some students may say "hate computers" and others live for them. But is it just the computer that is part of this technology evolution?

There are electronic microscopes for science classes and GIS (geographic information systems) that are common in most social studies programs where students learn the skills necessary for engineers and future city planners. SiliconCoach is an amazing tool that can be used for Phys.Ed, Dance, and many other sports teams. It "produces a range of sports analysis software designed to analyse motion, enhance performance, and reduce the risk of injury." Food analysis software for Food & Nutrition classes. And the list goes on.....

I purchased a new cellphone the other day. While we were having lunch with friends and their teenage kids, I was mumbling about how I wanted my old cellphone back. This one just wasn't doing what I wanted it to. My friends teenagers asked to see the phone....in a matter of about 4 seconds they were into my cellphone looking like NASA programmers and had my problem solved. I smiled and asked them if they could figure out what other features the phone had. Again they turned to the cellphone with a serious look and in about 10 seconds told me about 10 other features my phone had (that I wouldn't admit I didn't know). Great I said, and the teenagers just smiled and shrugged his shoulders. All in a days work. Think about the joy any teacher would feel if a classroom of students took on that same enthusiasm with their work. Shouldn't this happen in all classes?

Are we using the right tools to engage our students? Are we as educators scared to take this journey along side our students instead of being the leaders? Are we trying to engage students with old technologies?

Next time you are with some students. Ask them this: How many people use technology? You may find that many only think of a computer for an answer.

Then ask...how many have a cellphone? An mp3 player? Have Digital TV at home? How many have a Myspace account?

Hey, that's technology.

Is hand writing a dead skill? Does this matter?

Over the last two years I have noticed more and more schools moving towards web based learning through applications for students. Many of these are very successful programs such as Mathletics. My maths department uses this program and seems to get great results from it. The students love it. They are able to compete online with other students from around the world, win prizes online and parents can have scores emailed to them weekly. The teachers set the work online for them and it is aligned with our NZ curriculum. It hooks and engages the students and it has made mathematics fun.

I came across an online writing tool called MY Access it automatically generates scores for essays, critiques five aspects of writing, and provides feedback for improvement. A comment made by students on their homepage video made me think - are we going to lose the skill of writing with pen and paper? The students said, "....it's fun to use and its better than having to write it on paper" and another student said "If I had to use paper and pencil then I don't think it would be as much fun. Its a lot quicker on the computer and its more fun to type."

Does this matter for our future society? How will the digital divide impact this? If we still have a literacy problem worldwide and communication moves more and more to the computer. Will we now have a "literacy divide" problem? Wired carried a story last year that reports that the digital divide is not only alive but growing.

We found cave writings on the walls of stories from thousands of years ago. What stories will they find thousands of years from now? Will our media survive as the cave walls have?

VOX: the easy way to keep in touch with people

There are a lot of blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 web applications that allow you to keep in touch with your friends, family and even make new friends. Vox takes it to a new level with an easy WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editor and security levels.

Vox reports that, "you can choose the privacy level for every post, every picture, every sound clip, every video. Put up posts for the world. Put up posts for just your family. Or just your friends. You can control everything."

This is especially helpful when you are using a collaborative site for your classroom....you can decide who sees it. Just want your students and/or their parents to see it, Vox states that this can easily be done.

An easy editing interface allows the user to add text, images, video, and audio are just some of the great things you can add into your Vox postings.

Frappr: the social map

It is easy to sign-up to Frappr and create maps for your website or blog. If you are working with schools from around the world, create group maps to find out where those students are from.

eLouai: interactive activities

Explore the world of eLouai - I absolutely love this site. It is full of interactive Flash applications that students of any age will have fun with.

Doll Makers has quite a few different applications to interact with. I created this avatar on the right that I could use with my signature in emails...even has the same hairstyle as me. Students could use the avatars for their own digital signature on assignments. Once you have created an avatar, you can save your image as a .gif, .png or .jpg. These can then be edited further in a graphic program.

Room Makers is another collection of applications that range from creating worlds for a game to creating cities. The City Creator uses the images from the SkyscraperPage website.

Caricature Maker has the components of the face broken down. As the user builds their caricature it helps them understand exactly what makes up a caricature. Each component that is placed on the face can be moved up, down, left and right. Even small movements of a mouth for example, can change the appearance of the caricature.

Explore eLouai and have some fun in your classroom.

Springdoo - video says it better

Springdoo is a great tool that is taking audio and video easily to the masses with tools such as springMail and springCast.

springMail allows you to record audio and/or video and load the messages to your Springdoo account. An email is sent to whom ever you want and instead of clogging an inbox with large audio or video files....the recipient is sent a link to hear/see your message.

As easy as "push a button on the website, talk and then hit send."

springCast "communicator is a video and audio broadcasting widget" which allows you to post your audio/video directly to a blog or website. Videos you record from your mobile phone can be displayed onto your website.

Great tools to use whith your classes if you have your students working on global projects with other schools. Great tools to use if you are on a school field trip and want to update a class/school website.

Architecture and Engineering: Skyscrapers

If you love skyscrapers or are using them within your curriculum area, these sites are for you!

Skyscraper Page is a unique resource and community all wrapped into one. There are brilliant small illustrated skyscrapers from around the world that you can download as an image - Resource. The site also teaches a person how to illustrate these little skyscrapers (using several different software applications) and then encourages all users to upload their creations as a part of the archived skyscraper library - Community.

Further Resources to check out:

• All About Skyscrapers
• PBS - Building Big: All about skyscrapers
• Howstuffworks: How Skyscrapers Work
• Skyscraper Picture Collection
• Skyscraper Museum
• Skyscrapers.org

iGoogle

iGoogle allows you to personalize your own homepage for free. There have been many different personalized homepage web applications over the last year, but I must say iGoogle gives a user a number of options.

There are over a hundred different RSS feeds or widgets to choose from to put onto your desktop.

• Weather - choose as many cities as you like around the world to have a 4-day weather posting.
• Calendars/clocks - a couple of different varieties to choose from.
• To-do lists
• Convert a document to .pdf via email
• Various quotes of the day
• Lots of games
• Spell check

Just to name a few of the hundreds that are available. If you like to have the news at your finger tips when you login along with the weather and other tid bits....give iGoogle a try.

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iGoogle Sidebar - Firefox Add-on

If you don't want to take up a whole page for your iGoogle widgets/modules, you can download the free Firefox add-on and this will display your iGoogle widgets/modules in the side while you continue using your main navigation window (can only be used in Firefox).

gOFFICE - the web office suite

gOFFICE is another online tool that is pushing towards a "web desktop."

The user experience is quickly evolving. We used to have to install software applications onto our computers, now many are available on the web and do not need local installation.

gOFFICE is one such evolution. gOFFICE is a web-based office suite that lives in your browser. You have access to word processing, desktop publishing, develop presentations, and spreadsheets. It does not matter what computer you have stored your data on, you will be able to login and access your data from any computer.....anywhere.

Student Resources

Whether it is research or managing your school day....there are a variety of web applications for students to help them do all of that.

The great thing about these web tools is that it does not matter what computer or where you access your data from....it will be there.

mynoteIT is an online note taking tool for students including a WYSIWYG note editor, assignment reminders, grade management, to do lists, manage your tasks with an online calendar and more.

Students can also share notes with friends and receive feedback through commenting on notes.

A similar online tool is Backpack.
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Zotero (beta) is a free extension to use in the Firefox 2.0 browser.

"See it. Save it. Sort it. Search it. Cite it."

This is a really great research tool and I only wish it had been around when I was writing my papers during university. It lives where most of us do our research these days....in our Firefox browser. It makes it so easy to organize your references.

Pocketmod: the free disposable personal organizer

Pocketmod is a fantastic free tool.

Even though this is a technology age with all types of digital organizers (that can be quite expensive), sometimes you just need a piece of paper to help organize yourself.

Pocketmod has templates that you can quickly access (either by the Flash online version or the offline download version - for both Mac & PC) and print out.

"The PocketMod is a small book with guides on each page. These guides or templates, combined with a unique folding style, enable a normal piece of paper to become the ultimate note card."

Some templates available:

• writing guides (lines, grids, storyboard, music staff sheet, music tab sheet, etc...)
• calendar (daily, weekly, monthly, full year 2007, etc...)
• organizers (simple list, shopping list, contacts, etc...)
• reference (conversions, formulas, tip table low, etc...)
• games
• miscellaneous

Great tool and so easy to use. Give it a try.

Resources: Study of Color

Two sites to look at that explore the theory of color.

The first website is by J.L. Morton called Color Matters.

Some of the topics that are available are:

• symbolism & emotion
• effects on the body
• effects on vision
• design & art
• business & marketing
• computers
• ecology & usability
• amazing science

I have used several of the ebooks (available for purchase from the online store) with my students in my multimedia program and have found them really useful.

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The second website is Worqx.com by Janet Lynn Ford.

A fantastic site to use with your students with all kinds of visuals including an interactive color palette picker that allows students to visualize color combinations. The hexadecimal number is given for each color chosen. Great when students are using these color combinations for web design.

Some of the topics you will find on this website:

• color theory overview
• color basics
• color systems
• color wheel
• complementary colors
• after images
• color combinations
• color & contrast
• Itten's contrasts
• proportion & intensity
• contrast & dominance
• shades & tints

Give both these sites a peek if you are exploring the world of color.

Netvibes - your personal homepage

Netvibes is a free Web 2.0 startup page that has a huge amount of options for the user.

When you first open any browser window, you have the option to decide what site will be your opening page (tools-->Internet options). If you use Netvibes as your opening page, you will be able to personalize a lot of content at your finger tips.

"With millions of users in more than 150 countries, Netvibes lets individuals assemble all in one place their favorite websites, blogs, email accounts, social networks, search engines, instant messengers, photos, videos, podcasts, widgets, and everything else they enjoy on the Web."

Epic 2014 & 2015....a look into the future?

Epic 2014 is the original flash online movie made by Robin Sloan for the Museum of Media History. Set in 2014 it charts the history of the Internet, the evolving mediascape and the way news and newspapers were affected by the growth in online news.

A simple flash movie in black and white that has a powerful sensory impact with a interesting story and subtle music in the background.

Epic 2014 coined the word "Googlezon" from a future merger of Google and Amazon to form the Google grid, and speaks of news wars with the Times becoming a print only paper for the elite culminating in EPIC (Evolving Personalised Information Construct.)

Epic 2015 is a new updated vision of the future set in 2015 (website access).

Classroom: A great springboard for discussion. This animation captures a past, present and possible future timeline of media and the impact that the Internet and companies such as Google has and possibly will have in the future.

The World of "Colr Pickrs"

I have used Colr Pickr - Color Fields for quite a while. This cool software toy (designed by Jim Bumgarder) is a Flickr mash-up that allows you to choose a colour from the colour wheel and it will retrieve thumbnails of photos from Flickr that are available to the public to download.

I have used this tool time and time again when teaching colour theory and needed to retrieve photo images that represented the various colours. Great to also get images that will spice up a classroom with colour and interest.

Adjust the slider to change the saturation of the colour...different photo images will appear.

Other groupings of Colr Pickrs (more on the website):

1. Flowers
   
2. Squared Circle


3. Graffiti


4. Doors & Windows


5. Urban Decay
   

Want to find out more about the code that Jim used for these applications? Jim has co-authored a book with Paul Baush that shares this code and more for Flickr mash-ups. You can review this book at Amazon.

An interactive "maths dictionary for kids"

"A Maths Dictionary for Kids 2007" is an amazing site designed and developed by a teacher from Australia...Jenny Eather. Along with every definition there is an interactive exercise/example for the students to explore so they have a clearer understanding of the maths concept. I have seen a lot of educational websites that claim they are interactive....but this one is absolutely fabulous.

Jenny has also designed another maths website for K to 7 called Rainforest maths. This is based on Australian maths standards but is a great one to also check out.

There is no end to this teachers talents....Writing Fun is another site Jenny has created. All these sites have been designed using Adobe Flash.

Great to use in the class and for students to access at home for review. Great job!

Scanr: turn a camera phone or digital camera into a digital copier

There are a lot of great new ideas applications coming online everyday. Scanr brings a fresh approach to using mobile devices with "hardcopy communication".

You really need to explore the website to see all of the examples....you download the free software for your mobile phone smart phone or digital camera (check for compatibility for support for your type of mobile device).

1. Whiteboard Scans - Scanr allows you to take photos of a whiteboard....never write "DNA" (do not erase) again on the board....visit whiteboard link for more ideas (convert to pdfs).


2. Documents - Any document can also be scanned and saved by Scanr (convert to pdfs).


3. Business Cards - Tired of having drawers full of business cards? Scanr allows you to scan a business card to keep digitally (convert to vcf).

Can you think of the different uses in your classroom?

Answers.com - the online dictionary, encyclopedia, etc...

Answers.com is an online information portal that has a collection of over "4 million answers that are are drawn from over 120 titles of brand-name publishers, the Answers.com editorial team, Wikipedia and user-generated answers."

Answers.com can be launched from Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera browsers.

The unique thing about Answers.com is that it goes beyond the search box and offers free software that a user can download (Windows only) and when you alt + click on any word in any program on your screen.....a pop-up windows appears with an AnswerTip. Read more information on this application here.

Answers.com teacher toolkit is a great reference and search option for teachers and students. Answer.com teacher toolkit was the Winner of the 2006 Codie Award for Best Education Reference or Search Service.

This portal starts with a lot of links that would interest educators such as: lesson plan tools, free worksheets & posters, free downloads, ESL, Education Blogs, Librarian Lowdown, just to mention a few.

Take Answers.com for a spin and give it a try!

Ning: create your own social network for anything

Better than a blog...better than a wiki...create a social network with Ning.

It is the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds.

As the author, you decide who you would like to participate within your network and you can make the network public or private. You can even decide if you want to allow your members to upload pictures or videos to your network (great to us as a discussion tool for images/video for media or film studies.)

Try using it as a collaboration tool with students in your classroom or colleagues, locally or worldwide. Use it with ad hoc groups such as sports teams, or teacher or parent committees.

I am going to give it a go by setting up a private network for my teachers so we will be able to work together as a collective for this school year as we travel the "IT PD" journey.

Bubblr

Bubblr is a cool Flickr mashup that allows you to create single comic or comic strips from photos that have in Flickr. You can search for your own images from Flickr OR just type in something you are looking for (I had typed in "funny dog") without putting in a password as many people on Flickr have a lot of their images available to the public. Scroll through all the choices that appear at the top and then click and drag the image down into the frame(s) below.

I found an image of a little dog in a "lovely" pink dress (poor dog). Then I dragged a "text bubble" up to the image. Type in the text, move the bubble around as required and you can publish the new image to your Bubblr account.

Great tool for students to use for class presentations or projects. Think of the fun you can have with pictures from class activities.

Content Management System to publish media to the web

A CMS (content management system) called Loudblog is an appropriate name for a web system that combines blogging and audio.

It automatically generates a skinnable website and an RSS-Feed for Podcasting. Just upload your audio/video files, add some notes and links, and you’re done!

Loudblog makes Mediablogging and Podcasting easy. There are a variety of ways to put your media content into the system. You can upload it via your browser, use a free FTP client like filezilla or get the files from the web!

Great to use within a school intranet or Internet especially if you have classes that are creating podcasts.

Dumper: Fun with Photos

Dumper is a free online tool that allows you to upload images from Flickr, Web 2.0 Mashup, URL or browse from your computer. There is a selection of fun options you can choose from to manipulate a photograph.

Once finished you can save it back to Flickr (need to sign-up for a free account), share/blog/myspace or print it. I found using a screen capture tool allows you to save the new image as a graphic if you just want to have it on your computer right away.

Here is an original photo of my little Canadian cat Zoe.

Below is the pencil sketch option of Zoe and then Zoe within one of the museum options. Have some fun with your photos!

What the Font?

MyFont has been a great website for web, graphic, print designers and anyone who is looking for something a little different to put the edge on their presentations. MyFont now offers a really great service called What The Font?

Ever wanted to find out what type of font was used in an ad campaign or website? Just upload a scanned image (from print) or a screen captured image (from the web) to the link provided on the webpage and it will return a name of a font that is the closest match in their database.

Pageflakes....content controlled home pages

Have the news, weather even recipes at your finger tips. One such site that users can use as a content controlled homepage for their browser is Pageflakes. It is free to use and loads quite quickly on startup. A similar free application that I had blogged on last year was Protopage .

When signing up for Pageflakes, you select your interests (feeds) from: news, sports, finance, videos, tech, music, games, movies/tv, food and gossip. These then appear in pods that can be edited and moved around or deleted from your start page. You can add more pages and you can also add more feeds.

How to insert Flash into PowerPoint

One of the things I get asked the most is how to insert a flash animation into PowerPoint. It used to be an easy task but alas....not all software applications play nice together.

There are several ways to do this but the easiest and free way is to install Swiff Point Player for PowerPoint. Sorry Mac users...this particular tool is only for Windows 98 - 2003.







Once installed you just open PowerPoint and the SwiffPoint Player icon will be in the drawing tool bar or under insert in the menu options at the top.

Note: when doing a PPT presentation where you have used Swiff Point Player to insert a flash animation....the player must be installed on whatever computer you use to do your presentation. I keep this on a USB drive as a collection of tools in case the machine I am presenting on needs it.

If anyone knows of any other applications for PC or Mac please feel free to list them.

Digital Assignment Planners

Assignment Planner 3 is a software application that was designed by a 3rd year computer science major - Logan Rockmore (University of California). Tired of carrying a paper daytimer around....great little tool for teachers or students (shareware - $8.00 to register) to run off of your laptop, iPod, or other digital portable device.

"It includes features that allow you to display only those assignments that are yet to be completed, add information to all your assignments, courses and textbooks for reference, filter assignments by their type, color code assignments by a number of different criteria, and much more. You can also export your assignments to a text file or to iCal, to easily view your assignments from your iPod."

Specs: Mac and Universal
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Another Mac Assignment Planner designed by another student (Ronald Heft). "Assignment Planner’s main functionality is to keep track of your assignments. Nothing more, nothing less." (Cost is $5.00).

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PC version: StudyMinder Homework System 2.3 (free to try for 30 days and 29.99 to buy).
StudyMinder shows the total time needed to prepare for school each day and the status of all assignments.

- Track assignments, tests and quizzes, even large projects
- See all assignments at a glance - by class, day and week
- List assignments by difficulty, estimated time, status, type and more
- Be reminded about upcoming assignments and projects
- Displays the amount of time needed to study for each assignment
- View total study time by assignment, class, day and week
- Calculates current grade point average for each class
- Lets students share assignment instructions with your classmates

Freelite version that doesn't have all the features (see chart to compare) but still does a great job of tracking all that homework, projects, tests and assignments. Download here.

Synapselife

Synapselife has a collection of 5 free web based applications that are all combined in one site. People, calendar, lists & ledger, favorites and feeds are either accessible via the web or mobile device (cell phone or PDA).

If you use Firefox as your web browser there is also a free download for a toolbar to access all lf the 5 applications from Firefox.

Engrade

Teachers...if you do not have a way to put your marks online for parents and students to see...give Engrade a try.

A free online tool that will enable your students and parents to have access to their marks anytime and anywhere, all they need is an internet connection. Engrade is a free tool developed from the Web 2.o technology....give it a spin.