Take a World Tour

360 Degree Aerial Panorama's of sites around the world - that is what you find at 360 AirPano. 
from their site: AirPano is a noncommercial project focused on high resolution 3D aerial panoramas. AirPano team is the group of russian photographers and panorama enthusiasts. During the next 2-3 years we plan to shoot the aerial panoramas and create the virtual 3D tours of the most interesting places of our planet.

Most of us are not able to travel around the world - and even if we did, we certainly would not get this type of view.  I was lost in both memories for places I have visited and awe at those never seen personally.  What a great way to share the world with your students.

Every week they present a new virtual tour on the website - do NOT miss this one.



Technorati Tags: airpano

Stupeflix - free minute

Stupeflix.com is an online tool for making videos from images and video clips.  You can add music (or upload) from their library, place a map or text cel into the mix.  Your materials can come from your Picasa, Facebook, Dropbox, Flikr accounts - where most of our materials are stored anyway.
It does cost for any videos over 1 minute - you can have a yearly account or pay by the video which is an interesting concept.
Here are some random items imported from my Facebook account.
http://youtu.be/v4XVzzhORgA

YouTube for Schools

Before I retired, my district was using YouTube extensively.  Any "unacceptable" videos that happened to appear on a student screen (not caught by the filter), was expected to be quickly clicked off and reported.  But now, Google has helped - Meet YouTube for Schools:

Bookshare

We are beginning to use this free resource (for identified students) extensively - their new iPad app as well as the downloadable readers make it a win for teachers and students alike. This webinar by the Maine-AIM center is well done and should give you the information you need to take advantage of Bookshare.

http://maine-aim.org/content/bookshare-and-maine-schools

Here is link to download the PowerPoint presentation associated with this webinar.

Technorati Tags: bookshare.org, Maine-AIM

Facebook for Educators

A site dedicated to assisting educators to make the best and safest use of Facebook.  Download their Educator's Guide.

Technorati Tags: facebook

Tony Vincent says "No More Status Quo"

from the Maine Educational Technology Conference 2011

Technorati Tags: tonyvincent

He thought different

Summer and the Living is Easy

To any readers - please excuse the times between posts - it is summer break in my district and I plan on taking it a bit slower in cyberspace.  I am doing a lot of work on the new Moodle 2.0 (and nearly Beta released 2.1).  It has a lot of great advances - if you are interested in a Learning Management System - try it out!.

You can see my support site at New-Learning if interested.
Check out Moodle Fairy's videos.
and this overview:

Technorati Tags: moodle

Chemistry for Middle School

This new site puts a curriculum at the hands of students and teachers.  Chemistry for the Middle School complete with Lessons and activities.
I think that this could be a great differentiation tool for those teachers without time for individual lesson planning.  The student that wants the extra piece of 8th grade Science - or needs a refresher on the Periodic Table - or misses a section due to illness.  The possibilities are endless.

Since it is from the American Chemical Society, I am assuming the facts do not need to be vetted - and it should be modern knowledge.

Why do we need books with this type of online curriculum?  just a netbook, laptop - or tablet and connectivity.


Technorati Tags: middleschoolchemistry, ACS

Skype launches dedicated teacher network

Many teachers already use Skype to connect with other classrooms around the globe, bring in guest speakers without asking them to travel, and take virtual field trips. Now, Skype is making it easier for them to do so.

The company launched Skype in the Classroom, a dedicated teacher network, on Tuesday. Using the platform, teachers can create profiles that describe their classes and teaching interests. They can also search a directory of teachers from all over the world by student age range, language and subject.

• Collaborate on projects

• Connect with other teachers

• Discover new teaching inspiration

From their opening page: Skype in the classroom is a free community to help teachers everywhere use Skype to help their students learn. It’s a place for teachers to connect with each other, find partner classes and share inspiration. This is a global initiative that was created in response to the growing number of teachers using Skype in their classrooms.

There is no better way to bring the outside world into a classroom than direct communication.

Technorati Tags: skype

Multiple Intelligences for all ages.

This is a video designed by a teacher in my district (Tim Thompson - a star in today's educational field).   He has made it possible for everyone to understand from the youngest to the oldest.  Great job.

Multiple Intelligence Song
You can find many other videos from Mr Thompson on his YouTube Channel.
Technorati Tags: timthompson, multiple_intelligences

Storify

I got my invite for the new Storify.com today.  It allows you to collate stories, videos and links about a topic using resources from Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube and more.  A good way to have students analyze information and add their own written commentary.

Example


Technorati Tags: storify

VuSafe YouTube

This looks like a winner for teachers sitting behind firewalls blocking YouTube.
Put together a library of videos from YouTube - your students do not see the links and ads for other videos and products.
It also helps you organize as a teacher.

VUSAFE - browse there and check out the video

QWIKI

This is my site of the day (maybe the week):
QWIKI sorts results into relevant bits and then via text to speech gives an overview of the topic.  It is easy to use and will further delve into the topic with deeper Qwikis.  A great way to get students started on a topic.  This is their alpha release and they are collecting all types of inputs to make this new tool better.
Consider giving it a “qwiki” test drive.

Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt from Qwiki on Vimeo.

PLE meets LMS

Need our teachers to learn.

Make a resolution for you to learn, too.

UNESCO game for HIV education

Fast Car: Traveling Safely around the World is a racing game that helps you to learn about HIV and AIDS prevention and takes you on a tour of some of the World's Heritage sites.
The racing game takes participants through circuits of the continents and virtually visits World Heritage sites.  Check points have Mini-Quizzes related to HIV and AIDS prevention.

The game is produced in English, French and Russian.

You need to download this game - it is worth it.

Download link.

Get Flash to see this player.

=============

Video link.
Technorati Tags: UNESCO,
AIDS, HIV, game

Sir Ken Robinson at Creativity World Forum

This is a livescribe pencast of Sir Ken Robinson addressing the National Creativity Network at the Creativity World Forum (#cwf2010) in Oklahoma on November 15th, 2010.
http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=tVpcNwm578xX
Sir Ken Robinson at Creativity World Forum

brought to you by Livescribe

Technorati Tags: KenRobinson, cwf2010

Building a New Culture of Teaching and Learning

This lecture by Dr. Tae is worth your time!  and hopefully, in the future will be worth the time of our students.

Dr. Tae — Building A New Culture Of Teaching And Learning from Dr. Tae on Vimeo.

Teaching kids real math..

Why do our kids lose all interest in Math?  Conrad Wolfram, says that what we teach is mostly irrelevant to real mathematics and the real world.  He suggests using programming.
Watch and think - from a TED talk.

Technorati Tags: TED, ConradWolfram, Math