Rhymes, Scribbles, and Glogster…

If you’re writing some poetry, Write rhymes is a site worth checking out.  Type your prose, then click on any word to find others that rhyme.  Very fun.

There’s still plenty of time for students in grades 5-8 to enter the Young Scientist Challenge.  May 20 is the deadline.

Let’s say you use maps…Scribble Maps is an awesome tool that lets you draw, place markers, label, and otherwise mark up an online map.  Then you can save, print, or share them with others.

Glogster is a fun tool that teachers and students are enjoying.  What does it do?  You can create interactive posters using text, images, video, etc.  It’s another way for students to show what they know.

NationStates is a free nation simulation game. “Build a nation and run it according to your own warped political ideals.”  Sounds just right for your students.

Time, Space, After People…

This blog post, 18 cool sites and apps that teach you about space, gives you exactly what is claims.  Use these resources to help liven up lessons about objects billions and billions of miles away from your classroom.

Combine History and Science with the Science and Technology of World War II, a great site from The National WWII Museum.  Includes activities, resources, and lessons.  In addition, you can order a free poster…and who doesn’t like free?

Have you ever watched Time Warp on the Discovery Channel?  Using high-speed photography, the hosts slow down events that normally occur in the blink of an eye…like the vibrations of a cymbal or a cat licking up milk.  Now you can watch tons of their videos online.  They’re very cool.

The swine flu isn’t going to do it, but check out The History Channel’s Life After People site.

Elements, Wonders, Swine Flu

Watch the BBC’s One Minute Wonders…quick bits of science and nature goodness.

I love The Periodic Table of Videos.  The University of Nottingham (that’s Robin Hood territory) has put together a short video for every element.  Some are fun, some are odd, but all have great information.

Show your students the power of information tied to location.  Check out the Swine Flu on Google Maps.

With WildEarth.tv, you can watch live broadcasts of explorations through a wildlife preserve in Africa.  Each live broadcast is archived for later viewing.

Footprints, Windows, DoInk (not doink!)

It’s Earth Day on Wednesday.  Calculate your ecological footprint with these calculators.  http://www.ecofoot.org/ or http://www.myfootprint.org/.
HS science teachers may find these videos from Semiconductor worth watching.  They are somewhat of a cross between science and art and could be good discussion starters.

Windows to the Universe is a site that includes a rich array of documents, including images, movies, animations, and data sets, that explore the Earth and Space sciences.

This is a cool image…zoom in on it and it just keeps displaying more, user-submitted images.  It’s an Infinite Photograph.

Create and share simple animations online with DoInk.  Great for showing a scientific process or demonstration a math problem or telling a story.

Farmers, Eyeballing, Taxes…

Agriculture is big business here in Michigan.  Check out the Harvest of History from The Farmers’ Museum and discover how farmers produce the food we eat everyday.

While studying geometry, have your students play The Eyeballing Game.  Players adjust a line segment to bisect an angle, form a parallelogram, or several other tasks.  It only takes a few minutes and it’s a good way to see if your students understand basic geometric ideas.

Current and historical photos can be found at LIFE – Your World in Pictures.

Tax Day is this Wednesday!  Share the pain with your students at the IRS’s Understanding Taxes site.  There are activities for students as well as lesson plans and resources for teachers.

It’s been a while since I talked about Google Docs.  It’s a tool that is getting better as it ages (just like people).  They just added a new feature:  inserting drawings.  Now students and teachers can use Google Docs as an online diagramming tool as well.

Brain Fun, Online Games, Video Resources…

Fun 4 The Brain contains activities for Math, Science, and English.  Lots to choose from here…

Turn your computer into a “virtual telescope” with the WorldWide Telescope.  You can download an application for Windows, or use the web-based version for Windows or Mac.

Academic Skills Builders is another site for quick and easy mind games.

The BBC – Schools site has a hundreds of resources across the curriculum and for all age levels.  It obviously caters to the United Kingdom, but there are many lessons, videos, activities, etc. that would benefit those of us on this side of “the pond.”

Academic Earth has collected “thousands of video lectures from the world’s top scholars.”  Great for high school students.

TechCamp, SmugMug, Yelp…

It may seem like summer is a long way away, but begin thinking about attending TechCamp 2009.  During TechCamp you’ll have the opportunity to attend six hands-on sessions as well as hear from excellent presenters.  TechCamp 2009 is on August 25 & 26.  Visit the TechCamp wiki for more information, see last year’s Schedule-at-a-Glance, or to register.

Use SmugMug to upload photos of school activities to share with the world (or those who have the password).  With the Pro account, free for non-profits, viewers can buy prints from your site with the profit going to your school.  That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Get your students to write with a purpose.  Have them write reviews of restaurants, shops, local services, and more and post them to Yelp.  “Yelp is the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what’s great, and not so great, in your area.”

Here’s a simple tool for teachers using the Internet.  Down for everyone or just me? is useful to check to see if a website is not working, or if you’re own computer is on the fritz.

Kerpoof is a fun site for young students where they can draw, create a card, create a movie, and complete other creative activities.

SMART blog, Math Labyrinth, CollegeTV…

Lately, I’ve picked up several sites from the Teachers Love SMART Boards blog.  Mr. Hollis focuses on tools for interactive white boards, but you can use his resources whether you have one or not.

One of the latest sites highlighted on the aforementioned blog is PEEP and the Big Wide World.  Lots of activities for younger students.

“Lure of the Labyrinth is a digital game for middle-school pre-algebra students. It includes a wealth of intriguing math-based puzzles wrapped into an exciting narrative game in which students work to find their lost pet – and save the world from monsters!”  Looks and sounds awesome!

High school counselors and students should benefit from CollegeClickTV.  This site contains streaming video of students, parents, faculty, etc. from hundreds of U.S. colleges and universities.  Exploring this content is a great way for prospective students to learn more about the opportunities that exit at each school.

Conference planning…bring your cigar

This post was originally published on the MACUL Conference Blog.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

By my estimates, the total number of miles walked by participants by the end of each MACUL conference equals 2.75 times the distance from the earth to the moon.  I mean, really, there’s a ton of walking! Unfortunately, much of it would be considered aimless wandering and meandering by participants who aren’t sure where they’re going.  I’m not talking about being lost, I’m talking about people with no destination.

In order to get the most out of attending the MACUL conference, you really need to spend some quality time planning your strategy.  Cobo Hall is too large for you to make it up as you go along.  You’ll never see what you want to see!

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail.”
-Source unknown

There are many resources and strategies for laying out your plan.  Here are a few from me:

Take a look at the Program Book before the conference.
It’s on the web, right here, a full two weeks before the conference.  You don’t want the first time opening it be during Thursday’s keynote.  It’s like opening a good book, once you start you’ll have a hard time putting it down.  Then you’ll miss Alan November…and he’s pretty funny.  Come back to the Program Book often and narrow down your session choices.

Use the At-a-Glance Schedule…or whatever it’s called.
The Program Book is very important, but it can be unwieldy as you’re moving from session to session.  So…once you get to the conference, dig down into your Green Bag (or maybe they’ll be Black this year.  w00t!) and dig out the single sheet that shows a matrix of all the sessions for each day and where they’re located.  Since you’ve been looking closely at the Program Book, you should be ready to circle the sessions your planning on attending.

Backup! Backup! Backup!
Without a doubt you’ll find, that for whatever reason, a session you chose to attend isn’t going to be one of the ones you’re actually going to attend.  Maybe it’s a BYOL session and it’s full.  Perhaps you discover that you already know the topic.  Whatever.  Now what are you going do?  This isn’t the time for last-second decision making!  During your planning, pick one or even two “backup sessions” per time slot.  That way, when Option #1 falls to pieces, you’re ready to act!

• If you’re really on top of things, you’ll try to identify backup sessions that are close by your first choice.  Otherwise, you’ll waste all your time hoofing it from D3-19 to Michigan Hall.  (Not gonna happen.)

I love it when a plan comes together.
-John “Hannibal” Smith

I’m sure there are other strategies and tips that seasoned attendees could add (and please do btw), but this is a great place to begin.  With a little thought beforehand you can maximize your experience.

TechCamp 2009 is on the stove…

It’s been since September that I actually posted something besides a Weekly Web Wonder.  Somehow I just have a hard time getting the thoughts that work their way through my head out onto the screen.  C’est la vie…

In any case, I want to make sure to start giving coverage to this year’s TechCamp.  Last year we had two great days of learning and exploration and I’m really looking forward to doing it again.  This year, TechCamp will be held on August 25 & 26.  It’s a week later, but so is Labor Day.  (It’s hard to believe that Michigan students won’t start school until September 8!)  The format will remain basically the same…participants will attend 6 hands-on sessions over the two days as well as listen to 2 keynote presentations.  Who?  Well, I said TechCamp is on the stove, not simmering on the front burner.  I haven’t gotten there yet…close though.

If you follow the link, you’ll find last year’s wiki information.  The presenters uploaded a ton of resources which many participants have come back to over the past months.  You’ll also see my lovely new TechCamp logo as well as be able to download the flyer.  (Did you notice that I’m not providing links for that stuff…I’m nastily forcing you to hop over to the wiki and check it out yourself.