YouTube Movies

YouTube is now offering visitors the ability to rent movies from their website directly.  They are trying to compete with Netflix and Hulu and I can't say I blame them.  There is a huge demand for streaming movies.  The benefit of YouTube Movies is that they are also offering several free movies as well.

To access the free movies, visit YouTube Movies and then at the top of the screen you will see an "All Categories" drop down menu.  If you click on that you will see "Free Movies" to the left.  Click on that and then you will see all the free movies organized by categories (DISCLAIMER: It is important to note that several of the free movie selections are completely inappropriate for school, but I did not want to ignore sharing these resources because of that.)  Since the movies are free, there is an advertisement before the movie shows.  However, you can still use sites like Safeshare.tv and ViewPure and it will start the movies without the ads (Hopefully YouTube doesn't create a fix for this!)

I tried to use one of the sites that lets you download YouTube Videos...but there was no success.

There are several great movies for education that are free, especially in the Documentary and Biography section.  Otherwise, here are a few examples of movies that are available:

Supersize Me

Down From The Mount

The Patriot

Home

The Battle of Britain

Fuel

To Kill a Mockingbird

21 (For you Math Teachers)

First Orbit

Thanks to Edudemic for sharing this with me.

So You Are New To Twitter...Part II

 

I have been on Twitter for about a year and a half.  In that time frame I have picked up over 2000 followers and followed over 1300.  With a change in position coming next year, I decided it was time to organize those 1300 into lists so that I could easily see what people were saying related to subject matter or specialty.  I made a mistake in thinking that would be a simple and quick task. 

So here is my suggestion to those of you that are new to Twitter and starting to buy into the process of a PLN.  CREATE YOUR LIST NOW!!!  Even if you are not following someone to include in a list, you will.  I created about 15 list.  I have some for subject matter, some for administrators, some for educational technology, etc.  It took a lot of time to put people into those list.  My PLN life will be so much easier now that I have done that. 

Another reason that I did this is that I wanted to be able to easily see some of the latest Tweets from people I follow that are not involved in education.  I also wanted a way to easily follow some of my favorite educators on Twitter. 

You can see my original "So You Are New to Twitter" post HERE

Syncdocs

There is a movement in education for schools and districts to use Google Docs.  For many teachers, the thoughts of moving from one software to another can be a daunting task.  Syncdocs is a free software download that makes it easy for users to transfer files from your desktop into Google Docs.  Simply select a folder on your PC, like “My Documents”, and Syncdocs copies it online and across all your computers, automatically. This folder is then kept in sync.  All file formats are preserved and so is the folder structure.  There’s no complex interface to learn because Google Docs is mapped as a network G-drive and your files are synced automatically.  For more features, click here.

For more information, watch the video below:

Weekly Core Subject Resources

First set of Core Subject Resources for the month of May.  The home stretch to summer time.  Hoping for a good two week dry spell at some point so I can get out on the golf course.  My area received anywhere from 15-20 inches of rain the past two weeks.  To put that into perspective, that is 600% above normal.  On to the resources.

English

1.) Global Poetry is a wiki created by an English class to help log favorite poetry from all over the world.  You will notice the pages are organized by country, so add yours or share a favorite if your country is already listed. 

2.) Wolty is a simple Language Notebook for you and your friends to post your notes and help each other.  You can sign in with Facebook or create an account.  Wolty aims to get you into the habit of saving the things you discover and the questions you wonder along with this meaningful context.  An interesting concept. 

3.) InstaBlogg is a simple blogging platform that requires nothing but starting your blog with a post and then sharing it with others.  For more information, check out the post at Free Technology 4 Teachers

4.) 10 Free Online Spell Checkers - We all know that most document based software comes with their own spell check, but with more web publishing, these could come in handy. 

5.) Topicmarks summarizes text documents for you electronically.  Get a smart synopsis in minutes instead of reading everything yourself.  You can condense any text into an abstract, extract facts, connect texts, and outline and summarize your text.  It is currently free, although there is a process in the future to start charging for the feature.  

Mathematics

1.) nrich: Mathematics Enrichments is a website where you will find thousands of our free mathematics enrichment materials (problems, articles and games) for teachers and learners from ages 5 to 19 years. All the resources are designed to develop subject knowledge, problem-solving and mathematical thinking skills.  Source: EDge21 Blog

Science

1.)  Virtual Volcano explores the explosion at Pompeli.  A valuable resource for explaining the powerful forces behind these wonders. 

2.) Dynamic Periodic Table is a completely interactive Periodic Table of Elements for the Chemistry classroom.  You get information, data, and images for all the elements.  Great for teachers with an Airliner or SMARTBoard in the classroom.

3.) Body Spectrum provides digital coloring books for learning about anatomy.  There are 12 different coloring books that you can use.  Another valuable resource for teachers with an Airliner or SMARTBoard.

4.) Moon Zoo is a website that goes above and beyond to help visitors explore the moon and the lunar surfaces.  For more information check out the iLearn Technology Post. 

5.) WeatherSpark is a new type of weather website, with interactive weather graphs that allow you to pan and zoom through the entire history of any weather station on earth. For more information, check out Free Technology for Teachers

6.) Eyes on Earth is a website for viewing the Earth through various telescopes and also for gathering data and seeing how the Earth is changing.  For more information, check out the iLearn Technology Post. 

7.) Photopic Sky Survey is like the Google Earth of our Universe.  Zoom in and pan around the universe like never before.  A fun way to see just how tiny we are here on Earth.  Information for planets and other aspects of the solar system are clickable to information from Wikipedia. 

8.) Harvard Natural Science Lecture Demonstrations provides information and videos into several experiments related to science.  Demonstrations are divided into different areas of science.  I also recommend checking out their NatSciDemo's YouTube Channel.

Social Studies

1.) American Historical Association has put together a list of 100 films reviewed by Historians.  A good glimpse into what historians think are accurate portrayals in films.  For more information, check out the U.S. History Educators Blog.

2.) EconStories.tv is a website that provides videos explaining the differences in the theories of two famous economists.  There are also music videos and can be humorous and entertaining for studying Economic concepts.  For more information, check out Free Technology for Teachers.


3.) Where Do You Fit is a new 2011 Pew Research survey to help determine your political typology.  It breaks it down into multiple categories between Liberal and Conservative.  This is the most complete Political spectrum survey I have seen.  Great resource for government teachers. 

4.) Ingenious is a website that helps to bring together images and viewpoints to help create insights into science and culture.  You can read articles, debate topics, view images, and create your own account to a have your own personalized links, images, e-cards, and web galleries. 

More Prezi Updates

Prezi continues to add updates to their software and each update provides more flexibility and options when using this presentation tool.  I have written about different ways to use the application and you can see previous posts here.  Here are some of the changes:

1.) Image cropping - Prezi now provides the ability to crop a photo within the Prezi software.  No more editing a photo before uploading it.  You can do that within the program.

2.) Arrows and Lines - You can now bend arrows and lines to make them curve providing more functionality with them.  Once you draw the line you can also re-size them.  You used to be able to make them bigger or smaller in terms of zooming, but now you can make them short or longer after the fact.

To see these changes in action, check out the video below:

Something else cool that Prezi is messing around with is the ability to use motion capture (Like the XBox Kinect) to manipulate and move the presentation just by moving your hands.  Talk about a completely interactive presentation!  They are also working on a remote control app for your iPad.  If you ask me, Prezi has evolved and continues to evolve so much more than PowerPoint ever did. 

You can read more about the cool things mentioned above here: Prezi Blog Post