March 29 Professional Development Survey

Please take a couple of minutes and fill out our survey.  Thank you, everyone!

Visualizing The World

While reading the "Horizon 2010" report, I came across a reference to Worldmapper.  Worldmapper is a "visualization too that redraws maps based on the data being displayed.  For instance, on a world map showing population, countries with more people swell while those with fewer people shrink." (Horizon 2010  report, New Media Consortium and Educause Learning Initiative, 2009.)

 

I poked around on the website and, it's pretty interesting.  For example, the map depicting deaths caused by infectious and parasitic diseases, Africa and the Indian subcontinent are giant bulges and Europe and North America appear almost emaciated.  These maps are very interesting and could be the source of some enlightening discussions with your classes.

For Francoise (and others!)

At the social networking session on Friday's prof dev day, one of our administrators asked if there was a Reader's Digest for web 2 applications. I responded that it's people who do what I do: surf the web, play with the toys and read, read, read all day. However, what I didn't tell him was that I have a couple of resources that do function a bit like the Reader's Digest for me. The many times aforementioned Free Tech For Teachers (source of today's post), Wes Fryer's "Moving at the Speed of Creativity" and "Digitzd"are among my favorites.

So, to today's topic, Youpublisher.  Youpublisher is a free, online service that turns your pdf's into online magazines.  Very cool, and a fantastic way for students to publish their work.   Francoise, one of our French teachers, has her French IV students do a literary magazine, and we usually find a way to put it up on the web so parents can see it.  This takes it one step farther!  Even better, she can embed the code into her SWIFT page and parents can read the publication right there. 

Come to think of it, our Journalism teacher was asking about something similar just the other day!

Copyright and Fair Use

Thanks, again, to Free Tech For Teachers and it's wonderful author Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne on Twitter) for bringing to my attention a very good presentation on copyright for educators done by Wes Fryer.  I've embedded it below, but here are a couple of suggestions to add to your RSS feed, and/or your Twitterpeeps: If you don't subscribe to Free Tech or Wes' blog, At the Speed of Creativity you are missing out of some really good resources.  Wes' slideshare presentation runs close to an hour, but it well worth listening to.

Copyright for Educators

View more documents from Wesley Fryer.

Whitepaper: Educational Networking

Steve Hargadon, a consultant for Elluminate, has been in my PLN for a couple of years now.  He started the Classroom 2.0 Ning to get teachers networking and using a social network for their own learning.  Now, he has produced a whitepaper called, "Educational Networking:  The important role Web 2.0 will play in education."  In it, he argues that technology reall hasn't changed education up to this point, but with the advent of the interactive web and social networking, we are beginning to finally see the changes that people in education had been expecting to happen when computers first entered the classroom.  It's a quick, but informative read!

Educational Networking: The Important Role Web 2.0 Will Play in Education

Alice in Web 2.0 Land

I love the web!  I love the fantastic things that people create and share on the web!  I love the fact that my PLN isn't limited any longer to the people I have face to face contact with. 

So, why the love letter to the Intertubes, you might ask?  This brilliant take off on Lewis Carroll's poem, "Jabberwocky," that's why.  This comes from Steve Wheeler's blog, "Learning with 'e's"  and is a list of a bunch of Web 2 tools woven into poetry.  Amazing!

Who said learning has to be dull?

Some of my favorite moments in the classroom are the ones when students are excitedly engaged in a task and they don't even realize they're learning.  I recently collaborted on a project with one of the Middle School humanities teachers about the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Repbulic and the murder of the Mirabal sisters by his regime.  My favorite overheard conversation happened last week when one of the students was trying to see the issue from the standpoint of the Trujillo government, and she said, "I see why he would think the Mirabals were bad but I hate myself for saying it!" Magic!

So, today's post is a site that I think teachers and students will have fun with.  Using the customizable templates on ClassTools.net students or teachers can create online, interactive games for just about any lesson you can think of.  One of our Spanish teachers thought the drag and drop Dustbin Game would be a perfect way to practice vocabulary.  It would be even better on her SmartBoard!