Some More Useful Links!

Just when you thought I wouldn’t bug you with any more blog emails, here’s another one! If you get a chance, have a look at some of these links – some are good to use with your Smartboard and some provide some thought provoking ICT/Learning stuff. 

I’m also writing this blog using Microsoft Live Writer which is looking to me like a very easy way to post blog entries – ie write them off line, then post them directly when you have them finished. Regular blog writers may want to try this tool.

I think I’ve posted this before but  I like videos and this is a great commercial!

 

The above site is worth a browse……..

1,000-year-old fishing trap found on Google Earth Britain's most ancient fishing trap has been discovered off the coastline of Wales after research carried out on Google Earth.

For The Smartboard:

Try this timezone map - Good smartboard tool??

Interactive science and engineering for 9 to 12 year olds. For interactive, read game!

Or try these byte sized activities from the BBC for Year 1 / 2. ps I think the narrator eats pork pies and drinks scrumpy!

Interesting:

Wow Science investigation! Teenagers armed with only a £56 camera and latex balloon have managed to take stunning pictures of space from 20-miles above Earth.

Are our kids Narcissistic??? The growing expectation placed on schools and parents to boost pupils' self-esteem is breeding a generation of narcissists, an expert has warned. A BBC article

Or try Don Trapscott’s view:

Video of the Week:

More next week!

Mathletics, Knowledgenet and other stuff.

Mathletics and Knowledgenet

I'll send around your teacher logins for mathletics this week. When you log in you'll be able to print out your maths class logins and passwords in case you want to get into it before the end of the term.

I'll go over the basics of teacher admin on teacher only day anyway. There is a login link on the Wellesley Maths page.

Knowledgenet is our new Learning Management system and Intranet. I've started populating this with our intranet stuff, and there will be usernames and passwords for this as well (but only for accessing certain parts of it. More on teacher only day!

And remember the blog competition. I've organised a judge to check them out next week, so make sure you blog is up to date before then.

Smartboards

Wordle

Have a play with Wordle – a tool which lets you create word clouds with examples of text. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

For example, the cloud below is constructed from the Wellesley Philosophy as it appears on the school web site.

Which words are given prominence? What does it tell you?

How could you use this on the Smartboard?

Smartboard cartoons - Welcome to Hunkin's Experiments. Cool cartoons that will have you experimenting with food, light, sound, clothes, and a whole lot more!! Hundreds of cartoon experiments from cartoonist, broadcaster and engineer Tim Hunkin.

http://www.hunkinsexperiments.com/

ICT Sessions at Wellesley

These are some images relating to work done by your boys in ICT. First some edited digital photos using online editing web site Fotoflexer:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27595273@N05/sets/72157605585388227/

And some 2d images of 3d designed vehicles in Google Sketchup.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27595273@N05/sets/72157605578770018/

Young Minds, Fast Times: The Twenty-First-Century Digital Learner

How tech-obsessed iKids would improve our schools. Marc Prensky

http://www.edutopia.org/ikid-digital-learner-technology-2008

An interesting article. What do you think:

Turn teen texting toward better writing

Teachers who co-opt Web tools for class have the best of both worlds.

"Our student bloggers and digital writers of all backgrounds are part of a journaling culture which America has not seen since the great age of diarists during the Transcendental movement, when Thoreau and Emerson recorded their daily lives for eventual public consumption."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0513/p09s02-coop.html?page=1

Thinking and Learning

21st Century Learning Skills:

From the Thinkfinity site mentioned below

In some respects, the potential of 21st century learning lies in the
exploration of how digital tools (cameras, presentation software, computing
equipment) and online resources can support and enhance traditional
subjects,skills and teaching practices. The Internet alone provides students
with enormous opportunities to access:

· A trove of primary source documents previously located on library
shelves, but now available online through digital archives.
· Authentic scientific data across a range of fields from current and historical
meteorological forecast data to economic statistics
· Geospatial tools that combine data with dynamic maps
· Global communications media that make distance collaboration, cross-cultural exchanges and rich media experiences possible

How many of these opportunities do we provide for our students?

Inquiry
Fantastic inventions site via the Smithsonian Institute:

Authors and Reading:

This is the link I sent around earlier in the week of Michael Rosen interviewing various authors:
http://www.teachers.tv/readingaloud

Video of the Week:

Principal from hell! Rowan Atkinson deals with the problem of boys not issuing books from the library.........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBeguUvuDzs
Actually we have some books taken without being issued; perhaps we could try this technique?

Searching

Just discovered this Boolean Search graphical tool! We have some information on Boolean searching on our search site and it is a tool all searchers for information need to employ to some degree.:

But this is a very clever way of seeing how it works. The example in the image uses a search for information on Wellesley College but not including USA but including New Zealand results.I would think this would be good to do on the Smartboard!

And if you have a Vista machine, have you tried the snipping tool??

Under accessories, it enables you to take images of anything that is on your desktop and either copy it to the clipboard, or save it to an image file.

Blogs

What’s a blog? 6 and 7 year olds from Nelson Central School talk about what a blog is:

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=601b9f31bf04019c8593

Smartboard Activities:

For Juniors, try Animal Riddles:
http://www.meddybemps.com/riddles/

The Kids Network has a large number of categorised educational resources.

Thinkfinity is another one with links to a large number of interactive resources.