A year later it is interesting going back and looking at what you said, sites you found, ideas you had, and "re-reflecting." In February 2010, I was still fairly new to the whole blogging and Twitter experience, so much of February focused more on what I was experiencing in my new job and new Professional Learning Network. So here are some of the best posts from February 2010 and a short description.
4.) How Do You Reflect? - An extension on my post about #edchat and encouraging teachers to reflect through blogging and encouraging administrators to encourage teachers to blog as a form of reflection and observation.
5.) Facebook 4 Education - There was a lot of negativity in the news about Facebook and how teachers and students were using it inappropriately. I created a wiki with the goal in mind of promoting the positive use in classrooms, schools, and districts. Since that time, Facebook has taken off from an education stand point. I wish I had more time to update it though. Hopefully some of you all can help!
If you have a blog, what were you writing about a year ago?
A full week off from work last week due to snow has made it hard to get back into the groove of things. I have come to the conclusion that snow days are a love-hate kind of thing.
English
1.) 50 Places to Find Free Books Online is another list of sites where students and teachers can find books online. For schools with a 1 to 1 program in place, these types of sites are a beneficial addition to the curriculum.
2.) Wordfaire is a "live" writing/blogging/publishing platform. The site advertises that as you write, it is published to the web. There is no waiting for the post to appear. The program is currently in beta, but if you are someone always looking for a new tool to try with your students, this might be worth looking into.
Mathematics
1.) WOW Math is a personal teacher website for a math teacher who teaches Algebra 1 and 2, as well as AP Calculus. You can find links to his YouTube videos as well on his personal YouTube channel. He came up with the site name because when people see his resources and videos, they say "Wow!"
2.) InterMath is a professional development effort designed to support teachers in becoming better mathematics educators. It focuses on building teachers' mathematical content knowledge through mathematical investigations that are supported by technology. InterMath includes a workshop component and materials to support instructors.
Science
1.) The Institute of Physics has a great YouTube channel of videos to share in physics classrooms. The power of online video is changing the landscape of classroom teaching.
2.) Sun Motions is a Flash based interactive that allows users to see the angle of the sun from months, latitudes, and times of day. You can play an animation of the motion of the sun as well to help students see how the sun acts through certain time periods. A great asset to teaching this aspect of Earth Science and Geography. There are several other data sets you can examine as well as settings that you can change. This is neat.
3.) Explore Biology is a resource for teachers of high school biology and especially AP Biology. I highly recommend it for AP teachers. On the site you will find lecture notes, blogs, handouts, and Activities and Labs.
5.) 2011 is the International Year of Chemistry and they have a great resource site for Chemistry teachers. You can find ideas and activities for the classroom as well as other various resources.
Social Studies
1.) The History Teachers Channel on YouTube takes popular songs and changes the lyrics to teach various content in history. Interesting use of music, and a great way to show students what they could do for a project.
2.) From Nikon comes THIS DAY which is a website that provides an image from history for the day you visit from various years in history. Free Technology for Teachers does a write up on this site, so check it out.
Miscellaneous
1.) PsykoPaint is a web based software that allows you to create and paint amazing art from photographs. An interesting way for journalism and art students to collaborate.
2.) DrawIsland is a free online version of Microsoft Paint. Easy to use.
Bounce is a fun an easy way to share ideas on a website. You provide a URL to a website and then it will grab a screen-shot of the website. From there you can then click and drag to create a textbox around an area that you want to take notes about. You can provide a title for the page and after you are finished taking notes, you can share the page via Facebook and Twitter. You can also provide names so that Bounce can label the feedback.
Students could use Bounce to analyze a website or as a teach you could use the site to provide feedback about a website that you want students to review. If there is a website with an article, you could provide notes at certain parts of the article you want students to be prepared to discuss, or write about.
My Fake Wall provides students and teachers the ability to create a Fake Facebook wall. Not sure how long this site will remain open before Facebook claims copyright infringement or some other lawsuit. As much as our students are on Facebook, this would be a great website for a student project. You can find several sample Fake Walls to show students as an example.
My Fake Wall could be used across the curriculum in various ways. It would be a neat way for students to create a wall over a math problem or formula. History teachers could easily incorporate it into a project over a person or event. Same goes for Science Teachers and English teachers. The possibilities are endless and once again provides an alternate project idea for students.
Using My Fake Wall does require signing up with an email and a password, this will allow you to save and share the walls that you create. You will want to check with your district to make sure the site is not blocked as well. You can see a sample below of Franklin Roosevelt.
I have created several Google Docs that will be updated monthly with Core Subject Resources, but I still wanted to continue with my weekly updates as well. Many of these resources will be added to the Google Docs later.
English
1.) Random Logline Generator will create a random sentence or topic that you can utilize in the classroom for students to write freely and creatively. It will provide students with a good starting thought point.
2.) QuietWrite is a site that you could use in correlation with the resource above. QuietWrite removes the editors so that you can focus on writing. Create an account and it saves your writing, and it saves it automatically as you type. This would be a great way to create a blog as well. You can export to a WordPress blog and even edit the writings on an iPad.
3.) From Read Write Think comes an Acrostic Poem generator and and interactive. The interactive goes through the steps of creating an acrostic poem. They also have the same interactive available for a Diamante Poem. If students are not working on a Poem, they have also created a Letter Generator interactive as well.
Mathematics
1.) Whiteboard Resources offers flash based games and interactives for math teachers. You can find interactives separated by content and curriculum area. Each interactive comes with a short description of who can use it and what it is.
2.) A Complete Source of Online Math Tools offers 100s of resources for math teachers separated by subject matter. This would be a great starting point for math teachers looking to integrate web based resources into their math curriculum.
3.) Virtual Math Museum is a website that takes several aspects of mathematical formula and used them to "create art."
4.) The University of Mississippi has an online Math Contest where students and classes can answer a problem of the week and when they solve it correctly have their name and location added to a list. Also available are Algebra, Middle School, and Elementary based math problems. To learn more about the program, watch the video below.
Science
1.) Google Sky is like Google Maps for the Solar System. You can examine the Constellations, Hubble Images, and several other aspects of our solar system.
2.) :60 Second Science is a video competition for students to submit science videos. There are several other resources available on this website and you can also find the rules for the contest.
3.) Sumanas Multimedia Development Services offers animated tutorials in a variety of formats for the various scientific disciplines. The Science in Focus section offers animations for science that is currently in the news.
4.) The Biology Project is an interactive online resource for learning biology developed at The University of Arizona. The Biology Project is fun, richly illustrated, and tested on 1000s of students. It has been designed for biology students at the college and high school level.
5.) DnaTube is a scientific site providing video based studies, lecturers and seminars. One of the best features of the DnaTube, is that it supports other types of scientific works through flash animations, powerpoints, in addition to videos.
2.) A growing area of study in the Social Studies classroom is the Middle East, and thankfully there is a site for Teaching the Middle East which provides links, resources, and activities for teaching this part of the world across the social studies curriculum.
3.) A great video that explains the Civil War in 4 Minutes. Great for an introduction or a review.
4.) Picturing America, from the National Endowment for the Humanities brings masterpieces of American ar into the classroom. Students can gain a deeper appreciation of our country's history and character through the study and understanding of its art.
5.) DataMasher provides the data available from the United States and allows users to create mashups to visualize them in different ways and see how states compare on important issues. Users can combine different data sets in interesting ways and create their own custom rankings of the states.
6.) ARTSEDGE: Multimedia Library is a website that provides images, audio stories, music, video, and interactives from the Kennedy Center. There are valuable resources for teaching about the arts as well as lessons for educators.
7.) The Old Photo Album provides a walk down memory lane by providing vintage photography of war and everyday life. You can search through the photos by category or by tag. It is a blog that has been around since April of 2009. Visitors can submit photos as well. A great primary source website.
Foreign Language Bab.la offers translations in many different languages, ranging from colloquial and regional expressions to more technical or field-specific vocabulary. Special features include search filters, synonyms, pronunciation, sample sentences and much more.
Art The Google Art Project has received quite a few blog posts in the blogosphere but I thought I would share it here as well. Through the Google Art Project you can explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces
