NASA offers numerous educational resources for students and teachers. One of those resources that I recently rediscovered is NASA's eClips videos. eClips videos are arranged by grade level; K-5, 6-8, and 9-12. There is also a section labeled for the general public. The videos are short clips designed to show students the work NASA is doing and how that work impacts space science as well as its potential impact on everyday life. All of the videos can be viewed online or downloaded for use on your local computer.
Acer and Intel are currently accepting nominations for a K-12 school library "makeover." The winning school will receive ten Acer Timeline laptops and two desktops. I'm not sure if twelve computers constitutes a full "makeover," but it's certainly better than no computers. To enter you must submit an essay describing what makes your school great and why your school should be chosen. You can also submit videos and images to supplement your entry. The entry deadline is January 17th. You can read all of the contest details and enter here.
On a fairly regular basis PBS Teachers hosts informative webinars for educators. These webinars focus on strategies and methods for using PBS resources in the classroom. Last night's webinar was about using the Ken Burns National Parks series to teach social studies and science concepts. I was not able to attend the webinar, but it, like other PBS webinars, will soon be available as a recorded video on the PBS Teachers Webinars Archive.
Back when I was struggling through my high school mathematics courses, I always needed a glossary of mathematics terms. I used to tell my teachers that I needed a "mathematics to English" translation. Today, there are quite a few good "mathematics to English" glossaries online for students like me. One such resource is McGraw Hill's eGlossary.
Free World U has the primary goal of creating an online learning experience for all students in grades pre-K through twelve. One of the key features of Free World U is the large collection of flashcards. Free World U categorizes the flashcards by grade level and subject area. A lot of flashcard services claim to be comprehensive, but Free World U really does have a comprehensive collection. For example, when I clicked through the high school collection I then could select eleventh grade followed by US History. From there the US History category offered a large selection of sub-categories of US History.
The Museum of Humor appeared today the Delicious "most popular" RSS feed. I had never heard of the Museum of Humor prior to today, so I had to check it out. One aspect of the Museum of Humor is a large collection of lesson plans for teaching with humor. In this collection there are links to fun and humorous lesson plans for every content area and grade level. In addition to the lesson plans you will find links to printable fun activities. If you're looking for a fun way to introduce a new topic or review before an assessment, check out the Museum of Humor's lesson plan database.
ASCE, the American Society of Civil Engineers, has created a website for students of all ages to learn about various aspects of civil engineering. ASCEville is an interactive website that students can use to find out how civil engineers plan sewer and transportation systems in a city. Students can also learn about the basics of building design. Beyond the front page, students can meet "real civil engineers" and discover their dream job in engineering.
NOVA, Frontline, and American Experience are three of PBS' hallmark series. Quite a bit of the content from those three programs is available online on the PBS website as well as on Snag Films. Teachers' Domain is another place to find great video content from PBS. But the real purpose of Teachers' Domain is to provide lesson plans and activities to match the media content from PBS and their content partners.
Description: A zooming digital presentation editor. It’s Powerpoint on steroids! What did he say? STEROIDS! There'll be mandatory testing in the future. Type text, embed pictures, and insert video are all features that Prezi puts forth to creators. Unlike Powerpoint, Prezi is free and extremely portable. Because it's web based, Prezi can be created and shown on any computer with web access. If there is no web access available during your presentation, a downloadable version can be obtained to show offline anywhere. No other software needed, not even flash! Prezi also performs quite well in creating a visual organizer. As they claim on their site, "With the help of Prezi you can create maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs, drawings and present in a nonlinear way." As Prezi is in beta, when you apply, you'll be asked to explain how you will be using their site. I explained that I was a seventh grade math and social studies educator and could use it to inform students of social studies information. I was approved in less than a day!
