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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Some Things I Like: The Brilliant Blog and the Stuff You Should Know Podcast

I very much enjoy following The Brilliant Blog and the Stuff You Should Know Podcast, and find them both highly informative. I'd like to suggest that you take a look at both of them during your break.

The Brilliant Blog
Writer Annie Murphy Paul delivers the latest findings on how to learn smarter.



Annie Murphy Paul is a book author, magazine journalist, consultant and speaker who helps people understand how we learn and how we can do it better. She is a contributing writer for Time magazine and also blogs about learning for several websites. She is currently working on her next book, Brilliant: The New Science of Smart, to be published in 2013.

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The Stuff You Should Know Podcast
Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuckers" Bryant explore the Stuff You Should Know in this free podcast published by Discovery Communications via HowStuffWorks.com.



The podcast is released every Tuesday and Thursday, and covers  a wide variety of topics in a pop culture context. The podcast is available for free on the iTunes Store

COD - 9/25/2012 - Makewaves [Broadcasting]

Makewaves, from the UK, provides a free social media platform for education enabling schools to create and safely share videos, podcasts, and blogs.


The Makewaves school blogging network has been providing safe social networking for schools since 2003 when it was first known as Radiowaves. They work with schools, local authorities, charities, and government departments to publish internet radio, school podcasts, videos, and blogs from students around the world.

Over 50,000 students with mopre than 130,000 blogs and videos stories already online are using Makewaves regularly to broadcast their school podcasts and videos using a safe social network.


Started up by brothers Mark and Tim Riches, the Makewaves team now includes teachers, broadcasters, journalists, developers, designers, project managers, and trainers.  

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Catch of The Day - A Moment of Science - 10/12/2011

A Moment of Science is a daily audio podcast, public radio program, and video series telling the scientific story behind some of life's most curious mysteries.

Thousands of questions about the world you live in are answered in the two-minute radio programs from A Moment of Science. They are for anyone even a little bit interested in how the world around you works – even those who don't know much about science.

A Moment of Science removes some of the mystery from science without diminishing the wonder. "A Moment of Science makes you think 'Wow, that’s neat!' and go tell somebody else about it." There are thousands of topics covered, and by sending in questions, listeners can add to this already vast repository of information.

Listen to an A Moment of Sciencepodcast

A Moment of Science is produced at Indiana University, Bloomington, in cooperation with IU’s scientific community.

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Catch of the Day - Voisse - 8/12/2010

Voisse is a website where you can conveniently and easily record, store, and share audio online.

Voisse lets you record whenever and however you want. Record online in your browser, use your phone by calling a dedicated number, or upload already existing recordings.

Store your recordings in your own safe, secure, and free online library called My Voisses. Create audio slideshows and podcasts from your recordings. Voisse slideshows can be viewed on-line or downloaded to an iPod device. Share your slideshows by email or social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, even sell them in the VoisseMarketplace. By default, everything that is recorded on Voisse is private.

Voisse is free to record, keep, and share online. The free Personal plan provides unlimited recordings, storage, and sharing. With purchased credits (1 credit = £1 = $1.59) you can create podcasts or slideshows and buy content in the Marketplace. There are also Personal Plus and Professional paid plans.

Voisse is a UK based company founded in early 2009.

Watch a video intro to Voisse

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Catch of the Day - Say It Save It - 8 Feb 10

Say It Save It is the succulent catch of this day

Say It Save It is a freeware application for Mac OS X that speaks text files and/or saves them as MP3 files. You also have the option to automatically add the MP3 files directly into iTunes.

You can get text into Say It Save It in two ways. Copy the desired text and paste it into the Say It Save It window or drag a text file into the box at the top of the window. Then choose Say It to have the text read to you in the selected voice or choose Save It to have the text converted into an MP3.

In the preferences drawer you may choose from among the available voices. You can also choose to have the saved MP3 added directly into iTunes.

The file appears in your iTunes library as a music file in the Say It Save It folder. Here's where you can get really slick! Right click on the file in iTunes, select Get Info, choose the Options tab. Now change the Media Kind to Podcast. The file now appears in iTunes' Podcast library and has the properties of a podcast. This means that if you have an iPhone or Touch you can listen in 2X speed, cutting your listening time in half!

Say It Save It requires Mac OS X 10.4.2 or higher.

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Catch of the Day - Kid-cast.com - 20 Jan 10

Kid-Cast.com, a new podcasting service, is today's very fresh catch

Kid-cast.com is a website for kids to publish their own podcasts so that other kids can listen to them. Kid-cast.com provides kid-safe podcasts for young minds to hear.

Kid-cast.com Home Page

Kid-cast.com wants parents and teachers to know it's a safe place for their kids to spend time creating their podcasts and to have them posted. They take many precautions to make this a safe place for kids' material to be posted and heard.

Podcast Page

Each podcast is reviewed before posting to try to determine it's age-group appropriateness. One of the things Kid-cast.com uses to help you determine if a podcast is right for your students or child is the implementation of their own podcast rating system that's similar to the ESRB ratings found on video gaming systems. By using this Podcast Rating System it's easier to identify who can safely listen to a particular podcast ...

• E - Everyone
• E10+ - Everyone 10 and Over
• T - Teens (age 13 minimum)
• T16+ - Teens 16 and Over

Kid-Cast.com is dedicated to helping kids get their message out to the world. Contributions are by kids themselves, allowing kids to listen to their peers on subjects they care about. Visit the Kid-cast.com blog.

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Catch of the Day - Drop.io Voice - 19 Jan 10

Today's catch is drop.io Voice, a voice recording tool

Drop.io Voice lets students and teachers create simple online podcasts directly from any phone.

First, you will need to create a drop at the drop.io home page.

Each drop has a phone number and custom extension (just like each has an email address). Dial the number, wait for the prompt, enter the extension and start talking. Whatever you say, drop.io Voice will convert to an MP3 and put on your drop in a matter of just a short time. Then it can be listened to on the drop, or sent out via email, RSS, MMS, or basically anything else you want.

Click here to listen to a short recording I made using drop.io Voice.

Try it yourself. Call 646-495-9241 x 45069 and record a message.

The amount of talk time is limited by the size of the drop. The size of a free drop is 100 Mb which is about 400 minutes of talk. You can determine security levels when you create the drop.

Drop.io Voice numbers are in the 646 (NYC) area code, so depending on your phone plan, calling drop.io Voice may cost money. If that's an issue, you can call using Skype, Google Voice or a similar service.

Using drop.io Voice, a drop can be the world’s simplest podcast system, a private class audio-blog, a way to record a speech or lecture for future review, use, sharing, and more.

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Find and Share Free Sound Effects and Loops

Soundsnap.com is a platform to find and share free sound effects and loops - legally. Soundsnap is a collection of original sounds made or recorded by its users.

Originally, a small group of sound people from all over the world started Soundsnap. It is their belief that sounds and samples should be free for everyone to use in their projects.

High-quality sound clips can be previewed and downloaded as mp3, wav, or aiff format files.

Example 1
Example 2

Podcasts Find Use in Classrooms - TIME

This AP article by Felicia Fonseca describes how a small New Mexico high school equipped all of its students with Microsoft Zunes and began to use podcasting.

The students were encouraged to be linked to their devices during class hours, on bus rides home and on school trips. Teachers got a $400 bonus for coming up with lessons to identify 20 downloadable digital lectures that supported their lessons and to develop five of their own.

Podcasts Find Use in Classrooms - TIME

Simple Steps for Introducing Podcasting into Your K-8 Class

This second segment of a two-part series explains how to edit and publish the podcasts your class produces. The author also offers suggestions for managing the podcasting class.

Read the article ...
Podcasting Basics: Simple Steps for Introducing Podcasting into Your K-8 Class, Part 2 : March 2008 : THE Journal

Read the first segment of the series.

All About Podcasting and Blogging

This collection of information about podcasting and blogging will likely give you the opportunity to learn more about these popular and growing topics than you ever wanted to know.

Go... Podcasting and Blogging Information

Building a Better Podcast

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPod in October 2001, he predicted the technology would change the future of education. More than six years later, educators are using the iPod and other tools to supplement lessons with podcasting.

Read more ...
Building a Better Podcast : January 2008 : THE Journal

Podcasts Help Engage Maryland Students

Podcasts help engage students

... educators across Frederick County (MD) Public Schools, have discovered the potential of podcasts. They use them to enhance classes, engage students and translate classic subjects into the digital age.

‘‘You can use podcasts in any subject area,” Amy Boehman, a technology curriculum specialist for Frederick County Public Schools said. ‘‘You can do interviews, or record student research ... Any content that a child learns can be turned into a podcast.”

Plug into iPods

High-tech classes plug into iPods
At Chenango Valley (NY) High School, Michael Breed's freshman earth sciences class members receive and submit their assignments not with notebooks and day planners, but with iPod Shuffles.

The iPods are used as electronic storage devices. They hold assignments, Breed's podcasts of test preps and, yes, a few songs of the student's choosing. "They're the only kids in the entire district allowed to have an iPod in school," Breed said.

The iPods are effective because most of the nonschool day, students are listening to their iPods, instant messaging, text messaging or surfing the Internet, Breed, a 13-year science teacher, said. "And they get to school and it's cut off. It's not a surprise to me to see that kids are bored."

Breed produces his own podcast for the class, where he assigns homework, reviews for tests and offers some personal music selections. A podcast is a digital media file distributed over the Internet for playback on portable media players, like iPods, and personal computers. They are most often audio files, like a radio broadcast.

What Is this RSS stuff, anyway?

RSS, huh? There are differing opinions as to what the letters R S S stand for. And, it's not really important anyway.

RSS is the easy, efficient way to see the new things on the web that interest you. New information comes to you, you don't need to go out and look for it.

It's kind of like the difference between Netflix and the traditional neighborhood video store. If you want to see Young Frankenstein, you tell Netflix and in a day or two you'll find it in your mail box. Or, you drive to your local video store and hope they have it on the shelf. If not, you wasted your time and gas.

All you need is a feed reader. Some browsers like IE7 and Safari have built-in feed readers. There are also numerous desktop feed readers, many free like FeedReader or Omea Reader. The best feed readers are the Web-based readers like Google Reader and Bloglines. By using one of these, you can read your RSS subscriptions using any computer any place you have an internet connection.

Listen to a podcast What is RSS, Anyway?

A brief, rudimentary, one-page explanation of RSS with links to numerous resources ...

What Is RSS? RSS Explained - www.WhatIsRSS.com

Two New Toolkits

I've put together two edtech toolkits. One is for anyone who wants to get started in podcasting. This toolkit includes Windows software and a collection of informational and instructional videos to help you get going. The other kit includes all the tools to build and use a PowerPoint version of the popular game show Jeopardy in your classroom.

You can get these toolkits by ...

• Downloading from the Internet
• Copying to your USB flash drive
• Burning to a CD-R

Send an email or drop by Room 220 Tuesdays or Wednesdays