Searching…….

Search engines are changing. In fact the whole concept of searching is changing. Microsoft has just launched their competition to Google search:

Then there is Wolfram Alpha.  A search engine that answers questions.

This is more a knowledge search than an information search and its output is in the form of a summarised table. Wolfram only searches reputable databases. It’s in its early days but could well be the future in searching

 

Wolfram Alpha 

There are Links to both these search engines on the Wellesley search site.

And if you are interested in searching Flickr Images, try Tag Galaxy. I can only describe this as a breathtaking way of searching, refining the search and re-refining the search for images. Works really well on the smartboard.

http://taggalaxy.de/

Videos are a powerful tool in the classroom, but it’s sometimes difficult to find the right video for what your class is doing. This site has catalogued a whole lot of videos for class use.

http://www.neok12.com/ 

Social networking for book readers. Want to set up a group? What about a class group??

http://www.goodreads.com/        http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/114.Educator_Book_Club

Technorati Tags: searching,videos,reading

ICT and Mathematics

 

http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivitySearch.aspx

Fantastic Maths site with games and (as you’d expect) illuminating activities for mathematicians of all ages. Some of the activities would be great for the smartboard. Highly recommended.

Remember that KnowledgeNet provides access to digital learning objects, and there’s plenty of maths ones there. Just log on, go to search and use a key word to search through the dlos. These respources are too good to ignore so have a look:

The main menu of the Wellesley maths pages has links to various interactive games and maths drill activities that some of us have used over the years. Again lot’s of these are great for a short, sharp smartboard session.

Don’t forget the New Zealand website NZMaths:

Links to lots of useful classroom maths activities and resources. And I guess I should mention the Assessment Resource Banks:

Login information is easy to remember and ARB provides access to a wide range of assessment examples.

 

And, for the Smartboard:

This is hard to describe Universcale  - A site from Nikon that compares size from very very small to very very large. Would be good to use on the Smartboard.

A Virtual Keyboard: Play it on the smartboard. Simple but clever

Inspiring Young Artists

 

Edutopia Magazine is a part of the George Lucas Education Foundation.  In it’s web form it contains articles for US Public schools, but many are relevant to us.

Edutopia article on using Youtube videos to inspire creativity in young artists:  http://www.edutopia.org/arts-youtube-video-art-music For example:      Claude Monet:

Van Gogh:

Also read:        Art in Schools Inspires Tomorrow's Creative Thinkers

Also from an Edutopia article on Virtual Libraries, The New York Public Library has:

• A Facebook Page
• A Flickr Photostream
• A collection of videos on Youtube
• Put content on itunes U (itunes U is where computers, ipods, mobile phones and learning all converge.)

As more and more information is in non tactile forms, are Libraries having to look at ways of providing access to their digital collection as well as providing access to digital information from other sources

 

And another plug for Wordle – a tool for creating word clouds from text. The words which appear most frequently are given more prominence. This is a fantastic tool – simple to use - I can imagine all sorts of classroom uses for this tool. As an example, the Wellesley vision from our website produces this:

http://www.wordle.net/

So, what happens if you use a poem???? – What poem is it?

and finally, Artscope lets you view 3500 pieces of artwork from the San Francisco Museum of Fine Art:

http://www.sfmoma.org/projects/artscope/ (Takes a wee while to load!)

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!

PD January 29 2009

PD Link.