Catch of the Day - VUE - 14 Aug 09

Today's catch is VUE, an enhanced mindmapping tool from Tufts University.

VUE provides a flexible visual environment for structuring, presenting, and sharing digital information. At its core, the Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) is a concept and content mapping application, created to support education and for anyone who needs to organize, contextualize, and access digital information.

Using a simple set of tools and a clean interface consisting of nodes and links, teachers and students can map relationships between concepts, ideas and any kind of digital content. Content can be drag-and-dropped from the internet, or using the Resources panel to access local file systems, FTP servers and other digital repositories.

But what makes VUE more than just another mindmapping tool is its Pathways feature. The Pathways feature in VUE allows users to create custom trails through nodes in their maps allowing construction of interactive presentations. These custom trails are useful for highlighting particular nodes in large maps. VUE's presentation tools allow the presenter to focus in on specific content while at the same time maintaining a sense of its overall context. Presenters can build and navigate their pathways in a linear or non-linear fashion, allowing for “just-in-time teaching” and more in-depth exploration of a topic.



VUE is an open source project from Tufts University. It is available as a free download for both Macs and PCs. Included on the site are well written tutorials to help you use VUE effectively.

Catch of the Day - wildearth.tv - 13 Aug 09

Today's featured catch is wildearth.tv, broadcasting live from the South African wilderness.

wildearth.tv is from Wild Earth (Pty) Ltd, an ambitious South African media company delivering high quality live broadcasts from the African bush to a global audience.


Everything you see on wildearth.tv is totally live and happening in real-time. You can join live presenter lead safaris into the wildenerness of the Djuma Game Reserve 04:30, 13:00 and 16:00 GMT. If you miss the live broadcasts, everything is archived for your convenience.



wildearth.tv is based on the Djuma Game Reserve in South Africa. The idea of live broadcasting from the wilderness was pioneered by Graham Wallington in the late 90's. The broadcasting infrastructure began to take shape in 2006. Overcoming a range of technical and environmental obstacles, they were ready to begin broadcasting in April 2007.

Catch of the Day - EcoKids - 12 Aug 09

Today's fresh catch is an award-winning environmental education resource for kids and teachers, EcoKids®.


Started 14 years ago, EcoKids® is a free, environmental education program that offers curriculum-linked materials and activities for Canadian elementary schools. Children are encouraged to form their own opinions, make decisions, get involved and understand the impact their actions have on the environment.

The center-piece of EcoKids® is an interactive web site for children, their families, and educators in Canada and around the world. It offers topical information about the environment through interactive, fun, educational games and activities.


For Kids there are ...

• Games and Activities on Wildlife, Climate change, Energy, Water, and more.
• Homework Help
• Have Your Say is a forum where kids get to speak their mind and share their opinions and comments about environmental issues with kids around the world.
• Contests
• and an environmental Blog for kids.

The Teacher’s Lounge offers a wide range of free environmental education resources ...

• A collection of new lesson plans tailored to the Ontario Elementary Science and Technology curriculum
• Corresponding printable handouts and assessment materials for each lesson
• A searchable interface of their available resources
• Literacy Corner—a resource list of environmental books with corresponding teaching tools
• English as a Second Language lessons and resources
• A Free Stuff section where you can get free items such as the EcoCalendar, stickers, tattoos, bookmarks and posters
• Profile pages for other EcoKids® schools that list their activities and accomplishments

Teachers must register and signin to access the Teacher's Lounge.

Catch of the Day - Create a Quiz in Google Forms - 11 Aug 09

Today's catch is this great video Using Google Forms to Create an Online Quiz

In five minutes, learn how to use Google Forms to create an easy-to-administer and grade online quiz or test. Results are presented in a Google spreadsheet.



From the classroomnext channel on YouTube

Thanks to rmbyrne on Twitter

21st Century Skills Maps

The 21st Century Skills Maps from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

These 21st Century Skills Maps are the result of hundreds of hours of research, development and feedback from educators and business leaders across the nation. The leading advocate for integrating 21st century skills into education, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, has issued these maps for the core subjects of English, geography, mathematics, science, and social studies. Each skills map is a downloadable PDF document. These are rather large, graphics-intensive documents so be patient.

Core subject maps -

• English
• Geography
• Math
• Science
• Social Studies