Catch of the Day - The Maths Zone - June 30, 2010

The Maths Zone website brings together and organizes a variety of free resources located on the Internet which can be used for teaching mathematics.

The Maths Zone groups together resources from numerous sites in sections sorted by age level and topic to form a repository of interactive games and other activities for teaching math skills to learners aged 5-16.

Content intended for young learners (KS1/2, ages 5-11) is grouped by the following topics: counting and number sense, number facts, calculating, shapes, measuring, handling data, and using and applying math.

For older students (KS3/4, ages 11-16), content is categorized as tools, number sense, addition/subtraction, multiplication/division, algebra, geometry, and data handling.

The Maths Zone also includes a section that summarizes the key mathematics objectives for years 1-6.

Presently, most of the content of The Maths Zone is aimed at younger kids, but appropriate material for older students is being added.

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Catch of the Day - Learning Chocolate - Jun 29, 2010

Learning Chocolate aims to help students memorize English vocabulary in an easy and efficient way, by using pictures, sounds, and games.

The Learning Chocolate content categories are ...

• Animals
• Basic
• Body
• Clothing
• Food
• Home
• Nature
• Others

Each category includes audio pronunciations, matching, fill in, and dictation activities and help related to that category.

Clicking Useful Links will take you to a directory of websites related to learning and teaching English.

Create Word Game is a new feature at Learning Chocolate. You prepare your images and vocabularies, and the Create Word Game tool will help you create the sounds and games like the word games on the Learning Chocolate website. A complete tutorial is provided.

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Catch of the Day - STEMresources.com - Jun 28, 2010

At STEMresources.com, teachers can gain quick and easy access to standards-based instructional tools, quality curriculum materials, and the latest Internet resources.

An understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics is important to enabling full participation in modern society.

STEMresources.com will give teachers the means to offer a curriculum that is integrated, to emphasize questioning and inquiry, and to provide students with frequent opportunities to apply engineering design and problem-solving.

Teachers will find that the resources in the STEM Education Apps section of STEMResources.com offer ideas and strategies for implementing STEM curriculum, instruction, and assessments.

The STEM Teacher Resources section is divided into two categories …

• The WebLink collections can help teachers effectively integrate digital resources into their teaching. Further, STEM WebLinks can serve as a starting point for locating information on the Web.
• Teacher Work Samples includes a compilation of teacher-generated materials, models and examples that could aid teachers in visualizing how the STEM tools could be used.

The content of STEMresources.com is based on Tennessee state and national science and math standards.

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Aviary Education - Tools for Graphics and Sound

The online creativity suite Aviary now offers a selection of its tools in a free, education-safe, private environment, Aviary Education.

With Aviary Education you can ...

• Create private student accounts
• Manage assignments and projects
• Use any of four selected tools
• Access only school-safe content and images

The currently available tools are the image, vector, and audio editors and the music creator.

Aviary Education is presently on an invitation-only beta basis. You can request an invitation by clicking Request Free Beta and completing the form. An invitations will be emailed to you within a few days.

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Catch of the Day - National Lab Day - Jun 25, 2010

 

National Lab Day is a US initiative to develop communities of support that will nurture project-based learning collaborations among students, teachers, and volunteers.

Volunteers, college students, STEM professionals, and other community members work together with teachers and students to bring discovery-based science experiences to grades K-12.

When an educator posts a project to the National Lab Day system, the NLD network can help them get the resources needed to realize that project.

As the experts on their students and classrooms, teachers are the center of the National Lab Day initiative. Teachers know what they need to improve the hands-on learning experiences of their students. Teachers work with local volunteers to meet those needs.

National Lab Day volunteers (university students or professionals in science, technology, engineering, or math) are asked to work with local elementary, middle, and high schools to help them do more project-based learning with their students.

Watch a video introduction to National Lab Day

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Catch of the Day - Wordnik - Jun 24, 2010

Wordnik is a website all about words and everything about them.

The goal of Wordnik is "to show you as much information as possible, as fast as we can find it, for every word in English, and to give you a place where you can make your own opinions about words known."

Unlike traditional dictionaries which wait to make information about a word available until they have "enough" information about the word, Wordnik supplies as much information as is currently available about whatever words are in being used.

The information served by Wordnik includes more than just traditional definitions. This information could be ...

• An example sentence and where it came from
• Related words - not just synonyms and antonyms, but words that are used in the same contexts
• Images tagged at Flickr
• Statistics - meaningful information about the word's frequency and use patterns
• An audio pronunciation
• Information contributed by users

Anyone can use Wordnik without signing up, but to contribute you need to sign up. Then you can add citations, usage notes, pronunciations, or comments to any word or list. You can even create new words on Wordnik.

Wordnik is completely free to use as much as you like.

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Catch of the Day - PhysicsCentral - Jun 23, 2010

 

PhysicsCentral is a website where the American Physical Society endeavors to communicate the excitement and importance of physics to everyone.

By visiting PhysicsCentral you can find out how physics is part of everyone's world. Find answers to your questions about how things work.

Keep informed with updates on current news in physics. Learn about the latest research and the people who are doing it.

Topics to explore at PhysicsCentral include …

• Chaos
• Space and the Universe
• Light, Sound, Matter
• Earth Science
• Biology and Medicine
• Atomic and Subatomic

And, discover where to go on the web if you want to learn more about physics.

PhysicsCentral offers several RSS feeds to help you keep current: PhysicsBuzz Blog, Physics in Action, Pictures in Physics, People in Physics, and others.

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Catch of the Day - esolcourses.com - Jun 22, 2010

esolcourses.com is a site where learners of English can practice English skills using free interactive listening activities, reading exercises, quizzes, and games.

esolcourses.com has beginner, elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, and advanced level exercises covering vocabulary, grammar, reading, and listening.

English language activities …

• Interactive Listening
• Interactive Reading
• Picture Matching Quizzes
• Word Matching Quizzes
• Word Searches
• Crossword Puzzle
• More

To find appropriate content, search esolcourses.com by keyword or browse by topic.

Take a video tour of esolcourses.com

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Catch of the Day - The Ocean Portal - Jun 21, 2010

The Ocean Portal is an interactive website whose goal is to promote awareness, understanding, and stewardship of the world’s oceans.

From The Ocean Portal home page you can access these primary categories …

• Ocean Life & Ecosystems
• Photo Essays
• The Ocean Over Time
• Ocean Science
• The Ocean & You

The Ocean Portal hopes to provide an experience which will "empower you to shape and share your personal Ocean experiences, knowledge, and perspectives."

The Ocean PortalEducators’ Corner (Click the For Educators button on the home page) supplies activities, lessons, and educational resources to bring the ocean to life for your students.  Resources from The Ocean Portal's  collaborators provide teacher-tested, ocean science materials for your classroom.

The Ocean Portal has been developed by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and more than 20 collaborating organizations. The Ocean Portal is the third segment of the Smithsonian Institution’s Ocean Initiative and builds upon the work of the NMNH’s Sant Ocean Hall and the Sant Marine Science Chair. These were developed to support the Smithsonian’s mission of increasing the public’s understanding and stewardship of the oceans.

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More Bookmarklets

Marklets.com is a beta site that  searches specifically for bookmarklets from throughout the web.

Read an earlier post that explains bookmarklets

Marklets.com even has a bookmarklet of its own that lets you search for and use the bookmarklet you need without leaving the website you're visiting. This one bookmarklet gives you access to the internet's largest bookmarklet database.

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Catch of the Day - FedFlix - Jun 18, 2010

FedFlix features the best movies produced by the United States government, from training films to history, from national parks to the U.S. Fire Academy and the Postal Inspectors.

All of the FedFlix movies are available for reuse without any restrictions whatsoever.

To find useful movies, you can browse by subject, title, or author, or use the simple or advanced search tools. On the FedFlix home page are lists of the most downloaded items, recently added movies, recently reviewed films, and a spotlighted item.

FedFlix is a joint project of the National Technical Information Service and Public.Resource.Org.

Communities and Environmental Laws (from EPA)

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Happy Birthday, MC Escher

The Dutch artist, M.C. Escher was born on this day in 1898. He is noted for his mathematically inspired art which featured impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations.

Catch of the Day - Vaughn Memorial Library - Jun 17, 2010

The Vaughn Memorial Library at Nova Scotia's Acadia University hosts four animated interactive tutorials covering topics related to web research in their Help section.

Credible Sources Count! — Outlines some questions to ask yourself when evaluating what you find on the web.

Research It Right! — Describes the steps of the research process from finding a topic to the final product.

Searching with Success! — Demonstrates how to better approach searching the web for information.

You Quote It, You Note It! — Explains the basics of avoiding plagiarism by learning why, when, and how to cite.

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Catch of the Day - My Words - Jun 16, 2010

My Words is a free website for those teaching or learning English. Using My Words, you can improve and test your vocabulary.

My Words offers several tools to facilitate English learning.

The core tool, My Words, enables you to create and maintain individual vocabulary portfolios by constructing personalized glossaries and assessing your learning progress. Full lexical information (e.g. definitions, synonyms and antonyms, spoken pronunciation, frequency, sample sentences, etc.) is provided. Maintain and enhance your glossaries, which can be accessed anytime and from anywhere. Identify your vocabulary level through a number of assessment methods.

The My Words Toolbar is a browser (IE or Firefox, Windows) add-on toolbar to capture new words or phrases on any web page and add them to your own personal word list. The toolbar allows you to look up information from several web sources such as the Cambridge dictionary and Wikipedia. Listen to the pronunciation of any highlighted text. Learn vocabulary from anywhere.

Check My Words is a toolbar that can be installed in Microsoft Word that helps you write accurately and fluently. It shows you how words combine in English, explains most of the common errors made by learners of English, and more.

Nano is a desktop reference tool that gives you access to different English resources. The dictionary includes more than 70,000 definitions, word classes, translations, example sentences, and word families. Images are used to illustrate the meaning of words. Included is a game gadget you can use to review the vocabulary you store in My Words.

Say It Right! is an online program that uses text-to-speech technology to convert English text into natural sounding speech. You can slow down or speed up the spoken text and see a real-time display of the corresponding mouth movements for any sound or word.

Mark My Words is a toolbar for MS Word that lets an instructor insert comments in students' written assignments. Teachers can insert ‘resource-rich’ comments as feedback, without having to rewrite students’ texts. These comments automatically direct students to detailed online explanations, lookup tools, etc.

Watch a video pitch for My Words

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