Simplenote

Personally, I find myself using the Notes app on my iPhone a lot.  Problem is, I have had no way to sync those notes to my computer without copying and pasting them into an email.  Simplenote is an app/software that allows you to create, share, and save all your notes.  Simplenote is a free application for iPod, iPhone, and iPad.  Creating an account for Simplenote is as easy as an email address and password.

For each note you can add tags (which is like creating folders) as well which helps keep all your notes organized and makes it easier to separate personal and professional notes.  If you create a note and forget to tag it, you can do that after the fact.You will have to put up with some ads...but it is free, so that is expected.  The ability of the software to easily streamline data between devices was really good, I was impressed.  Each note also provides you with the number of words and characters as well.  You can also pin each note to the top of your list.

There are also several desktop based apps that will also make it easier to streamline all the data from your devices and the web.  What is great is that there are several other apps that you can download that sync with Simplenote. 

One feature that I have not seen elsewhere is the ability to take a note and publish it as a web page.  You can also share the note and it will create a URL as well.  Whoever you share the note with, you both can make changes at anytime.  What a great collaboration addition.

You can upgrade to a premium account for $1.00 a month as well as purchase an ad free version within the application.  I find this to be a very thorough note taking application, something I can see being used by students once tablet technology takes off.

Weekly Core Subjects Resources

January is off to a great start.  Hard to believe that it is January.  In case you missed the news, there is a new Zodiac sign.  So all those horoscopes people have been following for years are worthless now if you no longer have the same Zodiac, like me.  I went from a Pisces to Aquarius.  But enough about horoscopes, although something tells me I can predict that you will like these resources...no matter what your Zodiac sign is.

English
1.) WordNet is a large lexical database of English.  Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms, each expressing a distinct concept.  WordNet's structure makes it a useful tool for computational linguistics and natural language processing.

2.) NounProject is a site dedicated to creating images for every noun in the English dictionary.  A great resource for ESL and Special Education students, as well as other learners who struggle with the English language. 

3.) The English Room: 30 Days of Poetry is a collection of lessons and student activities creating a great unit on Poetry.  A great resource for English teachers.

4.) Biblio Bouts is a resource I did a blog post about recently.  The idea is to create a competition between students to find the best possible resources through research. 

Mathematics
1.) Archimy is a service for drawing graphs of all types of functions.  With Archimy, you will draw the graph of any function and form.  There is a text-box to input the fuction.  The graphs can be both 2D and 3D.

2.) XtraMath is another option for learning basic mathematics.  The site is designed to help students, teachers, and parents.  There are six videos on the front page that will help you learn how to utilize the service.  XtraMath is for non-profit and completely free to use. 

Science
1.) The Surfing Scientist is site by Ruben Meerman and he travels to different schools in Australia sharing different science experiments with students.  Through his site you can access several lesson plans and tricks that he uses in his travels. 

2.) I am a weather buff and am constantly checking NOAA for upcoming weather.  Recently I noticed that NOAA has a great Education Resources section for helping teach about earth and weather.  It is worth checking out. 

3.) MEDtropolis is another site option for studying a virtual body.  It is available in both English and Spanish.  It is broken down into four sections: The Human Brain, Skeleton, Human Heart, and Digestive Track. 

4.) If you are not wanting a skeleton of the human body, then I recommend checking out Eskeletons which offers virtual animal skeletons.  There are about a dozen based animal skeletons from the monkey family that you can examine.

5.) Going around the Twitterverse is the Google Global Science Fair where students and teachers can get involved in sharing science experiments and other projects.  I suggest following the links and reading more about it to learn if it is something you want to get your classroom involved with. 

Social Studies
1.) Howard Zinn was a popular historian who also wrote the book "A People's History of the United States," which has become one of my most favorite books for reading about history.  The Zinn Education Project is dedicated to sharing his vision and providing resources to educators.

2.)  Not Even Past provides dynamic, accessible, short articles on every field of History.  The site is for everyone interested in the past and in the ways the past lives on in the present. 

3.) Primary Access is a great site for learning about using Primary Documents in the classroom by providing three resources to create activities using those primary documents.  I recommend viewing a previous post about it to learn more. 

4.) Here is a great slide show presentation with links to TED Talks for Social Studies Teachers. 

5.) Our Changing World is a great interactive for showcasing various data for every country around the world.  The physical aspect of all the countries change as the data changes. 

Bonus Sites
1.) Top Documentary Films is a great site for finding films across the curriculum.  All the films are free and available online.

2.) Education Podcast from Podcast.com is a great way to find audio clips to use in the classroom through a simple search.

3.) I always liked watching Jeopardy, and there are tons of options out there on the web.  Custom Flash Jeopardy Maker allows you to create a Flash based version of a Jeopardy game which is great for review. 

Time Warp - Posts From January 2010

In an effort to share old blog posts that can get lost by continuing to post new material, I thought it would be a great idea to have a monthly post where I share "A Year Ago This Month."  All of the edubloggers out there share some great stuff, and over time, that great stuff can get lost in more great stuff.  Not only that, you get some new readers who might have missed your blog from "way back when."  Because honestly, how many of us when we visit a blog examine the Previous Post Section...especially from a year ago?

So, what were some of the posts from January of 2010?

1.) The Hero Factory - A great site for students to create a Super Hero!

2.) Awesome Stories - A great resource for hearing stories from people who lived during various times

3.) One Word, So Little Time - An interesting site that provides a word and a text box.  Great for free writing.

4.) The State of the Union Address Comparison - Using Wordle

5.) 10 Twitter Tools -  A list of Twitter companion software that you can use.

6.) Education Humor - A great blog to help lighten the mood.

Do you have a blog with a long history or share tons of resources that might be worth mentioning again?  This might be a great way to share with your readers some of your older blog posts that they might have missed.

Now in 2012, I can just share this post, with posts from January 2011.

Have fun looking back and reflecting!

Biblio Bouts

What an interesting concept.  Biblio Bouts allows students to research sites and compete to have the best set.  Then through various methods those sites are graded, ranked, examined to determine value. The students who have compiled the best research sites win the "bout."  The highest rated resources can then be used for the bibliography for a particular assignment.

In order for Biblio Bouts to work, user must be using Firefox and have the Zotero (A free citation management tool, which you can read a blog post about here) installed on Firefox.  Once that has been done, then users will supply an email, username/alias, and password.  

There are four types of bouts:
1.) Donor - This is a general sharing of a resource/website
2.) Closer - These are what students would consider their BEST resource/website
3.) Tagging and Rating - Here students are rating the quality of their OPPONENTS (Other Students) resources/websites
4.) Best Bibliography - From all the submissions by the students, choose the top ten.

Students win by having the largest number of points taken from all four bouts.

There is a video on the front page of Biblio Bouts that explains a little about the each bout and the process.  What a great way to get students competing for finding the best research!!

PrimaryAccess

A great tool for social studies, PrimaryAccess allows users the ability to take primary documents and create three different presentations.  PrimaryAccess was designed for use in K-12 classrooms to aid in teaching content knowledge, critical thinking skills and even writing or storytelling skills. Teachers can set up and manage class activities and materials with ease.  Here is a description of each presentation tool:

"PrimaryAccess MovieMaker enables you to combine text, audio and images into compelling personal narratives and digital stories, with a simple movie-making process. Steps like scripting, recording and saving are entirely Web-based--no software to install--and the movies are easy to retrieve and share."

 
"PrimaryAccess StoryBoard enables you to create comic strips and slideshows by combining images, thought bubbles, props and actors. All steps are entirely Web-based--no software to install--and the comics are easy to publish and share."

"PrimaryAccess Rebus makes it easy to create a Rebus using primary source documents. A Rebus (Latin for ’by things”) is a written story that uses pictures as parts of the text. PrimaryAccess Rebus encourages students to explore primary sources by creating crops of those sources and using them to tell a story."

All images are made available from the Library of Congress.   You can use any of these presentation tools without an account.  If you want to create activities and manage classes you can use their Teacher Tools page to create a classroom of students, choose and upload images for students to use, browse other creations by teachers and students, and several other features as well.

PrimaryAccess is an initiative at the Center for Technology & Teacher Education in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.