ICT News and Curriculum Websites

New Literacies for the 21st Century
This EDNA group has been set up to enable discussion related to the use of wikis in education.
Scroll down the page to click on one of the two discussions running to read the comments made by other educators and perhaps to add your own comment:
• Wikipedia’s detractors
• Community of Practice

http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/forum/view.php?id=34480

Integrating the Best of Web 2.0 in the School Library Media Program
This site has some excellent examples of blogs, wikis, podcasts and vodcasts. Please scroll down and click on some of the examples that have been used.

From blogs and podcasts to wikis and virtual worlds, everyone’s talking about the dynamic technology tools and resources available to educators and students. Let’s separate the hype from what’s realistic, relevant and practical for your library media program. What’s effective, efficient, and appealing? What’s just a fad? How do these technologies mesh with information and content standards?
This workshop explores the possibilities and potential for using social, collaborative, and interactive technologies across the curriculum. From online book clubs and virtual literature circles to local history wikis and personal, information inquiry blogs, you’ll find dozens of practical ideas to enrich your school library media program.

http://eduscapes.com/sessions/bestofweb2/index.htm

History Podcasts

http://www.historyonair.com/

feed://feeds.feedburner.com/HistoryPodcast1

http://www.learnoutloud.com/Podcast-Directory/History

12 Byzantine Rulers Podcast

http://www.anders.com/lectures/lars_brownworth/12_byzantine_rulers/

Visual Ranking Tool from Intel

Check out the above website from List member, Linda Hyler. This is one of many interesting, new and different ways you can use technology to improve education in your classroom. Making a list is usually straightforward and requires little thought. But when it comes to ordering and prioritizing items in that list, higher-level skills of analysis and evaluation are put to use. The Visual Ranking Tool brings focus to the thinking behind making ordered lists. Students identify and refine criteria as they assign order or ranking to a list. They must explain their reasoning and can compare their work with each other in a visual diagram. This tool supports activities where students need to debate differences, reach consensus, and organize ideas

http://www.intel.com/education/visualranking/index.htm

Interactivate’s Pattern Generator
“I am not sure if you have ever sent this one out, but it is wonderful and the students in my Grade Four class just love working through this interactive pattern generator. Their results in the patterning component of Math have dramatically improved.”

http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/patterngenerator

Media Convert
Media Convert will allow you to convert any movie that you view online to another format that you can use on your computer. Simply enter the location of a file on your system or enter a URL that hosts the video and choose your output format. This will be of use to anyone who wants to show videos in their classroom that are hosted on sites that might be blocked.
http://w3.media-convert.com/

Learn to be Healthy.org – Huffin’ and Puffing Anti Smoking Education

This site will give you access to health education lesson plans, web-based activities, and interactive games! Each lesson plan helps you teach healthy habits to students in grades K-6. It’s quick and easy to join this health education web site. Besides access to health education kits, you will receive lesson plan and activity updates as well as health education news.

http://www.learntobehealthy.org/samples/huffin-n-puffin.aspx

National Pi Day

Did you know that this intriguing little mathematical symbol is 300 years old this year? Celebrate National Pi Day with this collection of resources from the Mathematics Educators of Greater St. Louis!
-
http://www.mobot.org/education/megsl/pi.html

WebShots Photo Sharing

Webshots is the world’s largest photo sharing site. I’m sure it has some potential to be utilized in the classroom in many ways.
-
http://www.webshots.com/

Did you know? Global Perspective

You had better give yourself a few minutes to watch this one. Then a few more to think about it afterwards! Here’s a great perspective on global population and distribution.
http://www.scottmcleod.org/didyouknow.wmv

Amazon Swim

Edmonton teacher, Fred Shreenan, shared this site about Martin Strel, a marathon swimmer who is currently swimming the length of the Amazon River. This is a 70 day journey. The site links to information about the Amazon rainforest and related topics to Brazil and includes a live Internet feed on Strel’s progress. This might be of interest to Grade 8 Social teachers currently teaching the Brazil unit.
http://www.amazonswim.com/main.php?S=1&Folder=2

Art Pad

ArtPad is a fun flash-based art activity that students may use to create whatever their imagination holds. When finished, they can add a frame and display it in a gallery. Careful – this one is as bad as freecell…!
http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/

The Ten Most Magnificanet Trees in the World

“A tree is a wonderful living organism which gives shelter, food, warmth and protection to all living things. It even gives shade to those who wield an axe to cut it down.” -Buddha.
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/03/21/10-most-magnificent-trees-in-the-world/

Good Photoshop Tutorials
a collection of Photoshop tutorials (a rather massive collection, actually) from GoodTutorials.com.
http://www.good-tutorials.com/tutorials/photoshop

Mangrove Virtual Tour

Well today’s site isn’t quite dedicated to Photoshop, but it was created by my new friend, George L. Venable, a fellow conference attendee. George has a long history of interesting adventures including the role of Senior Scientific Illustrator for The Smithsonian Institute. In our discussions, I learned of a website that George created, called Mangal Cay – A Caribbean Mangrove Island Virtual Tour. You’ll learn a great deal about this unique ecosystem on the site as students stop at several points on the island to learn about all the different flora and fauna.
http://www.serc.si.edu/labs/animal_plant_interaction/Trail/VirtualTour.html

Desktopography

This site contains an intriguing collection of desktop art. It contains some inspiring ideas for classroom lessons or just to decorate your home computer workspace.
http://www.desktopography.net/

Google for Educators Classroom Posters

Have you seen these nifty posters from Google? Check out the collection of activities as well. You’ll find the link on the left side of this page!
http://www.google.com/educators/posters.html