Featured 7-10-2014: MIT+K12 Videos

 

 

MIT+K12 Videos about STEM topics are made for students by students.

 

Current MIT students are invited and trained to write and host webisodes for kids about their favorite science, technology, engineering, and math topics, seeking to entertain and engage as well as to educate.

 

 

The mission of MIT+K12 Videos is to "use MIT's unique resources to inspire the inner scientist in all learners. We believe everyone can have wonder for our world - so we create fresh and authentic video content that entertains and engages just as much as it educates."

 

These videos strive to show science in a different light from what you might find in a textbook while making the assets that are distinct to MIT accessible to a global audience.

 

MIT+K12 Videos are hosted by MIT students who possess a diverse set of interests, personalities, and backgrounds and are relatable and fun. By training these students to become engaging advocates for science and producing these videos, the hope is to foster an enthusiastic and curious global community of learners and educators.

 

 Visit the MIT+K12 YouTube channel

 

The MIT+K12 Videos are free and accessible to anyone in the world.

 

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Featured 6-2-2014: Q?rius

 

Created for teens and tweens, Smithsonian's Q?rius (pronounced curious) is intended to help students make sense of the connections between nature, the planet, the universe, and their  everyday experiences.

 

 

Q?rius is an interactive and experimental "learning space" that capitalizes on the science, researchers, and collections assets of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History  Visitors are encouraged to be an active part of this energetic and fascinating community.

 

Through conversations with scientists and interactions with thousands of authentic specimens and objects, visitors will boost their understanding of the natural world, find new interests, and develop inquiry skills. Educators will come away with fresh ideas for engaging their students in science.

 

 

A Q?rius teacher account allows a teacher to create one account with multiple associated student sub-users. Teachers add student sub-users by providing a user name (not the student’s real name) which is associated with the teacher’s email address. No personal information is requested or collected about the students.

 

Student sub-users can create, save, and access a digital field book as part of the Create Your Own Field Book activity. Students can also post moderated comments to the Q?rius user community. Comments are only visible to other Q?rius users, and only by the user name provided. Sharing features, such as sharing content via social media services or email, are disabled for teacher accounts.

 

 

For student sub-users under 13, teachers are responsible for obtaining verifiable parental consent prior to registration. Teachers must retain this information for the duration of the school year in which they created the teacher account.

 

 Watch Q?rius - Question Everything - Discover More

 

Q?rius allow users to include media from Flickr, YouTube, and Vimeo into their field books. The AddThis service is used to allow certain users to share content via social media services using their own user names and passwords for those social media service accounts.

 

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Featured 5-5-2014: eduCanon

 

eduCanon is an online learning tool that can be used to build and share interactive video lessons transforming passive content into an active experience for students.

 

Begin with a YouTube, Vimeo, or TeacherTube video. Use eduCanon to break the content into digestible chunks by time-linking activities that students interact with as they view the video - increasing student engagement and, with real-time monitoring, informing the next day’s lesson planning.

 

Principally designed to be used in a 1:1 student learning environment, teachers have used eduCanon in class as a blended tool, assigned students an eduCanon lesson as homework in a flipped setting, and had students to create their own lessons. eduCanon is flexible enough to be adapted to your resources and teaching style.

 

 

eduCanon is a web-based app, so no downloading or installation is required. It works on Macs and PC, on all major browsers, but the best experience comes with Chrome or Safari. It can even be embedded into a website or blog.

 

 Watch eduCanon’s introductory video

 

eduCanon is committed to keeping a free, functional site. Some premium features are offered such as gradebook export, free response question types, and a lesson search giving you access to the library of high-quality lessons created by users.

 

Note: Students are not required to have an email address to sign up for eduCanon.

 

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MS OneNote for Mac OS X

I have been an Evernote user since long before Evernote was trendy. I was among the first 10K users. Evernote has a prominent position in my digital life and many of my workflows.

Yesterday, I downloaded and tried Microsoft OneNote for Mac OS X. Hey, it’s free, so why not. Here are my impressions.

 

OneNote has a very nice interface. If you are an Office user (I’m not), you’ll find the interface very familiar with the ribbon metaphor. There is a lot of flexibility in the creation and content of new notes. You can place a text box anywhere in the note and include various kinds of media.

 

I would think that OneNote could be very useful to anyone who would use it principally for note-taking.

 

 

However, my main use for Evernote is capturing and organizing web content. The browser extension Web Clipper gives a number of options as to what exactly you want to capture and what you can do with it.

 

Unfortunately, OneNote falls woefully short in this regard. You capture a web page using a simple bookmarklet which creates a new page in OneNote consisting of a static ‘screenshot' of the web page which is not editable and contains no live content. Any links are the page are not functional. You cannot select and copy or delete text. Maybe Microsoft will add more capturing features in future versions, but right now it comes up short.

 

OneNote syncs through a MS OneDrive account. My experience was that it was slow updating. Web page captures did not appear in the app for a few minutes. This could be just an early-days glitch.

 

Also, some pages didn’t render very faithfully. The proper positioning of page elements was lost. Be aware as well, that there appears to be no simple way to import your existing Evernote data.

 

At this point, OneNote doesn’t have the extensive integration with other apps to match Evernote, but that will likely improve over time.

 

After these experiences, I didn’t try out much else, because I realized OneNote was not going to work for me. But, that’s me.

 

It’s FREE, so if the issues I noted are not deal-breakers for you download it from the App Store and give it a try.

 

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Featured 3-27-2014: AirPano

Created by a team of Russian photo enthusiasts, AirPano is a not-for-profit project focused on high-resolution spherical panoramas shot from a bird’s eye view.

 

AirPano claims to be the largest resource in the world (by geographical coverage, number of aerial photographs, and artistic and technical quality of the images) featuring high-resolution aerial 360° panoramic photographs.

 

During next two years, AirPano plans to create aerial photo panoramas and virtual tours of more of the most significant places in the world. They currently have nearly 2000 aerial panoramas showing over 200 famous locations, including the North Pole, Antarctica, the Mariana Trench, and even the view of the Earth from the stratosphere. New virtual tours are published every week.

 

 

A spherical panorama can give you and your students a sense of being on location, where you can turn completely around and have a closer look at every detail. This can be especially effective when viewed on a large screen such as an interactive whiteboard. You can zoom in closer and examine objects of interest, or "fly" to a new location by simply moving your hand.

 

AirPano offers most panoramas in several different resolutions to accommodate the viewer’s internet connection speed and computer hardware. There are even panoramas suitable for mobile devices.

 

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Featured: 2-18-2014 TimelineJS

TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables users to build visually rich interactive timelines. Create a timeline using nothing more than a Google spreadsheet.

 

Make your own interactive timeline in four easy steps:

1. Build a new Google spreadsheet using the TimelineJS template. Drop in dates, text and links to media.
2. Publish the Google spreadsheet to the web to generate a URL.
3. Copy and paste the spreadsheet URL into the generator box on the TimelineJS site.
4. Copy the resulting embed code and paste it into your site where you want your timeline to appear.

Media from a number of sources can be used with built-in support for Twitter, Flickr, Google Maps, YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Wikipedia, and more.

 

 

 See a video walk-through of TimelineJS

 

TimelineJS works on any site or blog. All modern browsers are supported (as well as Internet Explorer 8+). It is available in 40 languages.

  

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Featured: 1-13-2014 eduCanon

Build and share interactive video lessons using eduCanon. Students can now become actively involved in what has traditionally been a passive experience.

 

 

eduCanon makes it possible to take any YouTube, Vimeo, or TeacherTube video content and embed rich, dynamic questions with explanations inside the video. As students watch the video, the content is segmented into more palatable components to increase student engagement.

 

You can discover quality content by searching through the eduCanon database of teacher-created video, or you can paste the URL of a YouTube, Vimeo, or TeacherTube video, such as screencasts, Khan Academy, Minute Physics, TED, NOVA, etc.

Any aspect of the lesson can be easily edited, even after you’ve built it, from the title, to the video itself, to the questions, and when they appear. 

 

 Watch an overview of eduCanon's Builder Environment Walkthrough

 

eduCanon Monitoring analytics can inform you about whether students actually watch the video (key to flipping classrooms), what concepts they struggled with, and who really needs help. 

 

eduCanon is a free web-based app and works on all major browsers, Google Chrome and Safari are recommended, however. It supports iPad use as well.

 

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Featured: 12-5-2013 Newsy

Newsy is a multisource video news service that highlights nuances in reporting from multiple media outlets around the world.

 

Newsy can enhance your understanding of a news story by allowing users to compare video news sources from around the world to see how a story unfolds.

 

Newsy conveniently brings you a broader view of news, in a concise format - when, how, and where you want it.

 

 Watch Introducing the All-New Newsy App for iPhone

 

 

In addition to the website, there are free Newsy apps for iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows 8, and more.

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Featured: 10-24-2013 UClass

UClass is a global lesson exchange created by teachers for teachers.

UClass taps into an abundance of experience and knowledge by gathering, sharing, and crowd-sourcing planning globally. A huge collection of authentic classroom assignments is readily accessible.

When teachers connect on UClass, their classrooms can participate in dynamic global exchanges. Teachers may choose to open access to a global audience, allowing students to receive feedback from students around the world, thus fostering a powerful sense of global citizenship.

UClass lessons each consist of:

• a lesson outcome
• directions
• Common Core standard tagging
• a full lesson plan
• a worksheet
• an assessment
• and a multimedia link

Lessons are searchable by grade, subject, category, strand and standard.

 Watch a video introducing UClass

A teacher who has joined UClass can access lesson previews, but must purchase lesson credits to download the entire lesson. If a teacher creates a lesson, that teacher gets paid for each time it gets downloaded.

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Featured: 9-12-2013 Net Texts

Net Texts helps schools replace or supplement traditional textbooks with customized multimedia courses delivered to students' iPads, Android tablets, and laptops.

Teachers can use NetTexts' Content Management Website to select existing courses or to create new ones by mixing and matching items from the NetTexts library with their own educational material. Courses can include videos, slideshows, e-books, PDFs, text, audiobooks, and Web links.

Students then use the NetTexts iPad, Android, or web app to download and view these courses. Students will feel more engaged and have more ownership of their learning, whether reading the latest assigned e-book or watching a 'flipped classroom' video.

Net Texts consulting services help your school get the most out of Net Texts. Teachers will be trained how to use the content management site and mobile apps, how to find Open Educational Resources, and how to create high quality content.

Net Texts can build customized OER courses based on teachers' recommendations, syllabi, and state standards. A school or district can replace textbooks with a multimedia curriculum based on OER, saving money on textbooks for years to come, as Net Texts courses can be updated with new material at any time.

 Watch Introducing Net Texts: The Digital Backpack for Your iPad

Net Texts courses contain teacher-created material as well as Creative Commons-licensed and other open education resources from the Web.

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Featured: 8-13-2013 Flowboard

Flowboard is a free iPad app that lets you create side-scrolling presentations with text, images, video, and links.

 

 

 

Create each screen of a Flowboard using simple touch gestures. Add buttons, videos, and galleries for interactivity. Present your Flowboard and let others explore, using the interactive features, on your iPad, online, or offline.

 

Create Flowboards with content on your iPad or from the cloud. Add photos and videos from Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive; pictures from Facebook or Instagram; and use Google Image Search, as well.

 

Flowboard automatically saves your presentations locally as you make changes, and you can save drafts to the cloud, so your presentation is always safe.

 

 

Present straight from your iPad, connect to a projector, or mirror using AirPlay. You can share your Flowboard to other iPad users and the web by a URL that can be posted anywhere.

 

 Watch a Flowboarddemo from TechCrunch

 

Flowboard is free to download and use (Requires iOS 6.0 or later). Premium increases your monthly upload quota to 1GB, with bigger file upload sizes, and the ability to upload PDF files. Currently, a subscription for Flowboard Premium is $5(USD) per month. 

 

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Featured: 8-5-2013 PhysicsCentral

PhysicsCentral is intended to communicate the excitement and importance of physics to everyone.

The physicists of the American Physical Society invite you to visit PhysicsCentral regularly to find out how physics is part of your world. Get answers to your questions about how things work and keep informed with daily updates on physics in the news.

The Discover portion of PhysicsCentral includes topics such as chaos, compression waves and sound, electricity and magnetism, light and optics, material science, and more.

Other sections of PhysicsCentral:

• Physics Buzz Blog
• Physics in Action
• Physics in Pictures
• Physics +
• Physics@Home
• Podcasts
• Physics Quest
• More

Additionally, PhysicsCentral provides an opportunity to keep up with the latest research and the people who are doing it.

PhysicsCentral also distributes thousands of their Spectra comic books, reaching an audience that may otherwise miss out on the fun and excitement of physics.

 See a video about Physics Central's comic books

The American Physical Society represents some 48,000 physicists. Most of their work centers on scientific meetings and publications.

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Featured: 7-9-2013 WeVideo

WeVideo is a web application that allows you to edit videos online and collaborate on the editing process with others.

Edit anytime, anywhere, on any device with WeVideo's powerful cloud-based video creation tools.

Teachers can set up class video projects with WeVideo for Education, making relevant media available to each class. The educator can also group students, view and comment on their work, and monitor the progress of each video project.

WeVideo has three interface levels. It can be used both by novices that have never before edited a video, as well as more experienced editors and even experts. You can switch between modes at will, as you like.

Unique Themes give your video a specific look and tone with a single click. Your video can be designed with professional visual effects, transitions, typography, and sound tracks.

 Watch WeVideo - Video Editing in the Cloud

Capture videos and photos and upload them into your WeVideo account using apps for your Android or iOS device. Mobile users who already use WeVideo can quickly transfer footage into online video editing projects.

For $100 (USD) per semester, up to 50 students can use WeVideo. Volume license pricing is available for multi-class, school, or district subscriptions at lower costs per student.

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