The Rearview Mirror 4/30/2011

For those of you who may have missed a Catch of the Day or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.

Monday

The PlanetFOSS website gives students the opportunity to take and share science-themed photos and see the photos submitted by other kids.

Tuesday

With QuizGeo, users can create and play geography-based quizzes using Google Maps.

Wednesday

ScienceIQ is an online science quiz for teams of school students.

Thursday

eSkeletons is an interactive website to view and learn about skeletal anatomy.

Friday

This series of free eBooks from netTrekker has been created to help educators prepare students for a 21st century future.

Catch of the Day - netTrekker eBooks - 4/29/2011

This series of free eBooks from netTrekker has been created to help educators prepare students for a 21st century future.

Each of these netTrekker eBooks contains tips and best practices on various themes such as web safety, 21st century learning, summer reading projects, and using netTrekker.

Click on the image of an eBook to open it as a PDF. You can then download or print the eBook.

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Catch of the Day - eSkeletons - 4/28/2011

eSkeletons is an interactive website to view and learn about skeletal anatomy.

The users of eSkeletons can view the bones of both humans and non-human primates and access information about them from the eSkeletons osteology database.

eSkeletons teaching resources include:

• Life-size printouts
• 9-Piece scramble puzzles
• Jumble puzzles
• Matching puzzles
• Word search and crossword puzzles

Funding for eSkeletons is provided by the College of Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services at the University of Texas at Austin and the Division of Undergraduate Education of the National Science Foundation.

Note: eSkeletons requires a JavaScript is enabled browser and some functions of eSkeletons require QuickTime 3.0 or higher.

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Catch of the Day - ScienceIQ - 4/27/2011

ScienceIQ is an online science quiz for teams of school students.

ScienceIQ is a series of online science competitions organized by the Science Teachers’ Association of Western Australia. The ScienceiQ quizzes test students in many areas of science including astronomy, biology, chemistry, and physics.

Teams of four students compete in ScienceIQ. Teams have one hour to complete two rounds of 15 questions. The rounds are a week apart and accessible on the website for the duration of that week. To win, a team will need to finish with the most questions correct in the least time.

See ScienceIQsample questions

Members of the winning teams will be awarded a prize from ScienceIQ. A school certificate will also be awarded to the winners school.

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Catch of the Day - QuizGeo - 4/26/2011

With QuizGeo, users can create and play geography-based quizzes using Google Maps.

Create your own quizzes by adding points or areas to the map as questions. Search for quizzes created by other QuizGeo users based on quiz names.

QuizGeo quizzes can "include anything from locating all of the countries in the world to locating all of the playground equipment at your local park or school." You place the questions on the map so you can choose how large of an area your quiz will include.

QuizGeo is currently in beta, but more features and options are promised.

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Catch of the Day - PlanetFOSS - 4/25/2011

 

The PlanetFOSS website gives students the opportunity to take and share science-themed photos and see the photos submitted by other kids.

Students identify examples of science concepts in their local environment and capture them in digital pictures. They then upload their images to the PlanetFOSS website for sharing. Students can view science pictures taken by other students anywhere.

Resources for teachers using PlanetFOSS:

• Tutorial video
• Student worksheets
• Quickstart guide
• Parent letter

Images uploaded to the PlanetFOSS website are reviewed by a FOSS specialist and are not be accepted if they contain any human face or personal information.

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Catch of the Day - 6+1 Trait® Writing Lesson Plans - 4/21/2011

Education Northwest has compiled this collection of 6+1 Trait® Writing Lesson Plans that should be useful to any teacher at any grade level.

Teachers, evaluating student writing at all grade levels, identified common characteristics of good writing. These qualities became the framework for the 6+1 Trait® Writing model. Common language and scoring guides are used to communicate the characteristics of writing and define "what 'good' writing looks like."

The traits are:

• Ideas
• Organization
• Voice
• Word Choice
• Sentence fluency
• Conventions
• Presentation

Organized around the traits and grade level, teachers can use the 6+1 Trait® Writing Lesson Plans search form to find lessons that will work with their students and are specific to their students' needs.

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Catch of the Day - Better World Flux - 4/20/2011

Better World Flux is an interactive tool for visualizing information about what really contributes to the quality of life. Choose indicators like happiness, life expectancy, and years of schooling to be displayed in a colorful, meaningful, flowing Flux.

Better World Flux makes it possible to visually communicates world data related to standards of living and quality of life for many countries and and illustrates how this has changed over a period of up to 50 years.

Better World Flux is a device for telling a story and sharing it. This tool is available to the global community to use, regardless of their areas of concern, to understand and promote the UN Millennium Development Goals, as well as to reflect on what really matters in life.

You could use Better World Flux to:

• build a composite of what you think matters in life by selecting indicators and find the ideal country to live in based on your preferences
• track the progress of countries and the world over the years and find interesting trends and patterns, see which countries are most in need
• save and share your most compelling visualization and discover what others are sharing

Watch a video overview of Better World Flux

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BetterLesson Adds New Features

BetterLesson, a website to connect teachers and enable them to create, organize, and share their best curricula, was the subject of an earlier post in February.

BetterLesson recently announced a number of new features and upgrades including:

• My Documents to complement My Curriculum. Easily upload your instructional documents, organize them at any level, and quickly edit them without leaving the page.
• Searching by Networks to find a network of schools, teachers, or curriculum organizations, a great way to find new and diverse communities of educators and resources.
• SAT Prep Materials, as well as prep materials for a many other tests.

Go to the earlier post about BetterLesson

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Catch of the Day - Apples for the Teacher - 4/19/2011

Apples for the Teacher offers a library of online classroom games and learning resources to reinforce the curriculum and to integrate technology into the classroom. Apples for the Teacher is for toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarten, and elementary students through age 11.

 

Apples for the Teacher offers many different types of coloring pages to color online or to print. There are also activities linked to many traditional and non-traditional holidays: printable short stories, poetry, coloring pages, word searches, crossword puzzles, holiday information, recipes, interactive games, thematic book list reviews, and holiday suggestions and craft ideas. Apples for the Teacher adds pages daily, so content is fresh.

Subscribers to the Apples for the Teacher newsletter receive free teaching resources including lesson plan ideas and printables. Drawings are held for gently used books.

Browse Apples for the Teacher by subject area, theme, or use the custom site search to locate content.

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Catch of the Day - Teach English in China - 4/18/2011

Teach English in China is an agency that specializes in work experience and paid teaching positions in China.

Since 2005, Teach English in China has operated two programs:

• a summer internship for teachers during July and August
• long term positions for those who can commit to one year in China

The internship program is a chance to to get a sampling of teaching and life in China. As well as being a native speaker of English, the main requirement is to enjoy working with children aged 7 to 15 years. The ability to speak Mandarin or having teaching experience are not required.

The paid teaching program is an opportunity to gain invaluable teaching experience overseas. The main requirements are to be a native speaker of English, preferably have a university degree, and be able to commit to working in China for one year. Speaking Mandarin or having previous teaching experience are not required.

Teach English in China is UK-based and meets in London with candidates. Those who apply for a serviced option receive advice from both Western and Chinese perspectives, a language lesson, and advice and support while in China.

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The Rearview Mirror 4/16/2011

For those of you who may have missed a Catch of the Day or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.

Monday

Speaking Image is a web tool for creating interactive images and sharing them with others.

Tuesday

The Full Wiki from Australia searches the web to find sentences similar to those in Wikipedia articles, complete with their citations for you to copy and paste into your work.

Wednesday

Novachi offers all K-12 schools in the United States a free comprehensive integrated learning management system and student information system.

Thursday

StudyBlue is a free online tool to keep lecture notes and make flashcards. Have access to your study materials whenever and wherever you choose to study.

Friday

Copyto is a private bookmarking site that lets people save only the useful content from the pages that they find online.

 

Catch of the Day - Copyto - 4/15/2011

 

Copyto is a private bookmarking site that lets people save only the useful content from the pages that they find online.

The purpose of Copyto is to just mark the most important parts of a particular page rather than a link to the entire page. Even if the original page disappears or changes, you won't lose the content on your bookmarked page.

Clip only the wanted parts of pages by using copyto.co or the browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome. A small screenshot of your saved content will always be included with the bookmark making browsing your bookmarks easier.

You can share your bookmarks with contacts or groups on Copyto. You can also  share a bookmark with the the world by making it public.

Import bookmarks from Delicious, Firefox, Chrome or any other service that lets you export your bookmarks in Netscape bookmark format. All the content of these bookmarks will be saved to your Copyto account.

With the mobile version of Copyto you can add new bookmarks or search through your already collected items using your mobile device.

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Catch of the Day - StudyBlue - 4/14/2011

StudyBlue is a free online tool to keep lecture notes and make flashcards. Have access to your study materials whenever and wherever you choose to study.

StudyBlue provides labor-saving tools that help focus your studying. StudyBlue tracks what you know and and what you don’t, making your review sessions more on point and effective.

StudyBlue flashcards can be quickly made and are a convenient study aid allowing you to study both at your computer and on your phone for effectual, productive, anytime learning.

A StudyBlue iPhone app is available free. iPad and Android apps are promised soon.

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Catch of the Day - Novachi - 4/13/2011

Novachi offers all K-12 schools in the United States a free comprehensive integrated learning management system and student information system.

Novachi is a safe and secure education system making it possible for schools to enable students, parents, teachers, and staff to collaborate online. Client data is stored in a secure and reliable data center within the US.

The Novachi system provides a flexible platform to facilitate better collaboration with a goal of improving educational quality, reducing the use of paper, lightening teacher workloads, and improving communications. Novachi automates "many classroom administrative tasks so that teachers can focus on teaching and students can focus on learning."

Watch a Novachi video tutorial: School Admin | Teacher

There is no contract, setup, hosting, or support cost when you signup to Novachi.

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LifeStraw: Make a Difference

Though most of us take fresh, clean, safe water for granted, more than 15% of the worlds people struggle everyday to find water that is fit to drink. That's about a billion people!

Filtering impurities from the water is perhaps the best way to make it drinkable. LifeStraw is a water filtration device developed in 2005 by a Swiss corporation, Vestergaard Frandsen. LifeStraw is relatively inexpensive and easy to use and has become a powerful tool in the effort to contain waterborne disease. Forbes magazine named it "one of the 10 things that will change the way we live."

LifeStraw is a portable water filter that can be carried around and used to provide safe and clean drinking water. One LifeStraw filters at least 1000 L of contaminated water and removes nearly 100% of waterborne bacteria and parasites. LifeStraw contains no chemicals and requires no batteries or electrical power of any kind.

You can donate a LifeStraw through the Rotary Club:

• In the US ($6.50)
• In the UK (£10)
• Internationally

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Catch of the Day - The Full Wiki - 4/12/2011

The Full Wiki from Australia searches the web to find sentences similar to those in Wikipedia articles, complete with their citations for you to copy and paste into your work.

The Full Wiki is a way to extend beyond Wikipedia's content to find authoritative sources and relevant quotes to give your research more depth.

The goal of The Full Wiki project is to make "community driven reference content" into unique and useful information. There is a left-side navigation companion that highlights the part of the article you are currently viewing. There are travel guides, quotes, and study guides on the same page, as well as Google maps for every article.

See a video overview of The Full Wiki

The Full Wiki promises to soon have timelines for 3 million topics. The Full Wiki is in beta and currently has only a few thousand articles processed. It is in the process of getting more servers, so they expect to soon have all of Wikipedia done.

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