How many teachers want a new smartboard in their room?  How much money, especially in this economy, do we have to spend?  I bet most districts don’t have $1500 -$2000 per classroom to spend!  We this is really awesome!  This guy is brilliant!  At the last TED Conference Johnny Lee demonstrated his Wiimote smartboard.  This is awesome.  Take a $40.00 Wiimote, add a $5.00 LED pen and a free download of the software and you get a functional interactive whiteboard!  Wow!

You can view the video by clicking here.  You can get the free software here!

Site of the Blog:  Johnny Lee Projects

Quote of the Blog: “Before you speak ask yourself; Is it kind, is it true, does it improve the silence?” Author (Unknown)

With only a few days to go before the next Presidential Election, I thought it may be interesting to put something up that could be useful to teachers and students to gain a better understanding of how the elections work in the U.S. and some interesting information that we find on the web.

The History Channel has some really great resources but this one has a ton of information and some really great information on the U.S. Presidents, speeches, ads, and election videos.  This site provides a ton of information!  Let’s say you want to get some information on what Wallace had to say.  Simply go to speeches and click on “Wallace Campaigns for Presidency”, maybe you want to see campaign ads from 1964 and see how they address Vietnam?  Simply click on the ads and pick the one you want. Want info about President Carter or Nixon?  Click on the About Presidents link.  Tons of stuff!

Site of the Blog: http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=mini_home&mini_id=1045

Quote of the Blog: If the World Series runs until election day, the networks will run the first one-half inning and project the winner.  ~Lindsey Nelson

In light of National Cyber Security Awareness Month I wanted to provide teachers and parents with some resources that can be used to help keep things secure and safe when using the computer and Internet.  This past week I met with a group of students and began talking with them about Internet safety and cyber bullying.  Needless to say it was not comforting to know that many of the students had received chat requests, instant messages, and e-mails from people they did not know.  Some of these students had responded to these communication requests.

In addition I found that many, I would say about 1/2 of the students had computers in their rooms with access to the Internet.  This is deeply terrifying.  I showed students how I can access information about them simply by doing a search on the Internet with their phone number.  I also showed them a video that can be seen on netsmartz.org….you can see the video by clicking here.  This video shows how a person can gain access to information about you simply by looking at information posted on various websites.  It was really helpful for the kids to see this.

There is also a really good site for cyber security that many people may not have know about.  GetNetWise.org is a really good site with tons of information for all users of the Internet and computers in general.  There are resources for keeping your students safe online, stopping unwanted e-mail and spam, protecting your computer, and keeping personal information personal.  All areas that we need to make people aware of.  There is even some free resources for tracking what your kids are doing online!!

Sites of the Blog: http://netsmartz.org and http://getnetwise.org

Quote of the Blog: In theory, one can build provably secure systems. In theory, theory can be applied to practice but in practice, it can’t. — M. Dacier, Eurecom Institute

Teachers are always looking for new ways to use games in the classroom.  The problem is finding the good ones and making sure they are not blocked by the software the district uses.  Here is a great solution!  Use PowerPoint to create games that are interactive and easy to modify for different lessons.

So how do you do that in a way that is easy  and will not take tons of time….the solution:  Find the template online and modify it.  There are tons of templates that are available and some of them are really good, but it is better to find a site that has a ton of templates in one location.  Well…here you go!  I have included these two sites that have a ton of game templates free for download!  This site and this site have games including Jeopardy, Deal or No Deal, Family Feud, Hollywood Squares, Weakest Link and tons of others that can make working on material fun for both students and teachers.  All of these are done in PowerPoint and can be easily modified to meet your needs!  Use these in grades K-12!  Talk about a real motivational way of teaching!

Thanks to Kelly Boswell for the site suggestions!!!

Site of the Blog: http://www.murray.k12.ga.us/teacher/kara%20leonard/Mini%20T%27s/March%20Mini%20T-Games/Games.htm

Site of the Blog 2: http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/PPT-games/

Quote of the Blog:
“My belief is that PowerPoint doesn’t kill meetings. People kill meetings.”

- Peter Norvig
Google, Inc.

The Smithsonian Museum has a really great site that provides information about the Vikings North Atlantic Saga!  The site has links to many of the exhibits that are currently on tour in the United States.  The exhibit portion of the site has examples from the exhibit including detailed explainations of what each item is and was used for.  The Learning Center has a great deal of information for families, teacher resources, and a great deal of additional information that is useful for families and educators.

This is a really good site with tons of information and interactive resources for virtually anyone!!  Check it out and enjoy the tour!!

Site of the Blog: Vikings of the North

Quote of Blog: Never walk away from home ahead of your axe and sword.  You can’t feel a battle
in your bones or foresee a fight.

- The Havamal (Viking Quote)

Hakia.com is a new type of search engine that uses semantic searching. What this means, in simple terms, is that the search engine uses various tools and codes all in the background to attempt to improve the quality and relevancy of your search.  Hakia.com was developed by scientists in Europe and can help your students get better information by pulling out some of the junk that google and other non-semantic search tools will often provide.

One really interesting example is on the Hakia site.  They have a comparrison tool to allow you to search both Google.com and Hakia.com side by side and compare the results.  I tested this by searching for “interactive teacher resources” and got 550,000 hits on Google.com and 380 on Hakia.com.  While the list is not comprehensive, Hakia seems to give more resources form educational organizations and avoids some of the sites that are trying to sell you something.  Let’s be honest searching through 550,000 sites is a bit overwhelming.  If nothing else, this is a good site to try to narrow your searches and get the information you want a bit faster…worst case you can always try Google if you don’t find what you need!

Site of the Blog: Hakia.com

Quote of the Blog: You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.
Buddha

I was looking around for a photo editing program that I could use online to get some basic stuff done with a couple of pictures.  Web 2.0 has provided us with tons of really good stuff and I figured there would be something easy and quick to use.  I was not prepared for fotoflexer!

As far as ease of use….you couldn’t get easier.  Simply upload a picture you would like to edit or link to one you have on a website such as flickr or a blog. Sign in (so you can save your stuff), and begin editing.  The functions are really good and include everything from basic photo editing, fixing blemishes etc. to distorting images and decorating them with stickers, glitter text, and animations!

Now that you have played with it and have made the image you want to share look perfect, simply save it and click “1-click photo sharing”.   Now you can automatically post it to one of 20 social networking sites, 10 blog sites including blogs hosted on your own servers!!! (It works really well and is fast!)  Or e-mail it to your friends!

The only problem I found is that in order to get the photo you have to send it to yourself in an e-mail and then click the link to open the page.  Then right click and save photo as.  But with all the other tools it is an awesome site.  Below is an original picture I uploaded to try.

Original Picture

I took the picture, clicked effects and selected blur edges.  The went to decorate, selected glitter text.  Typed in what I wanted, resized by dragging and dropped the text on the picture.  Literally 3 minutes.  Saved it and done.  Below is the picture

Modified Picture

You can get as tricky as you like!  But really how much work does this save for you and your students!  What a great tool!!

Site of the Blog: http://fotoflexer.com

Quote of the blog: Take only pictures, steal only time, leave only footprints.
Unknown

We all like to look at youtube but there is a ton of stuff that really should not be seen by our students and in fact seen by us!  So how do we get information in video format that we would like to see in our classrooms when youtube is blocked?  We have looked at vixy.net and that works well but there are a few other ways of getting content as well as sharing it that works well for our teachers and students.

Enter Teachertube!  This is a really great website that will allow you to search for content that is good for you and your students, published by teachers!  Lots of interesting characters that have some really good content including projects that the students have done!  Nice resource and not blocked by most districts!!

Site of the Blog: Teachertube

Quote of the Blog: You don’t have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone

John Ciardi (1916 - 1986)

There have been a large number of websites that help teachers share information and resources that can be used to assist us in teaching students.  Many of these sites allow users to add content such as lesson plans and links to useful sites.  Curriki is one of these sites but it seems to offer a bit more flexibility and some additional types of resources.  Curriki is simply put a curriculum wiki with tons of resources that can be used in the classroom to help improve instruction.  You can search this database by file type such as pictures, audio/video, curriki, or website.  In addition, you can search by grade level, curriculum area,  language, and instructional type.  A really rich and full resource.

Now for the really different part.  Teachers can join curriki and then create user groups that can share resources or collaborate on projects. This is really a strong portion of the site. In my district we have a group of teachers that have created a webpage on our homepage that they use to share information regarding the curriculum area they are in.  Now they can take this to another level by including teachers in schools accross the country and around the world.  It’s time to use the power of the web and social networking to help us work smarter instead of harder!!!

Site of the Blog:  http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/

Quote of the Blog:

An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.

Anatole France (1844 - 1924)