Shorpy Historical Photos

This site is just plain cool! Shorpy posts a photo, with a brief explanation, each day. Students are able to use these photos in school projects as long as they create a link to the original. Seems like it has a great search engine as well!

There are tons of ways these photos could be used in many classrooms, not just social studies!

Check it out - it is so interesting!

Brave Thinkers

The Atlantic has published its first list of Brave Thinkers. Many on the list I had never heard of.

Every time I read something like this I am in awe of not only their intelligence but also of their ability to look into the future. How does that happen? And, how glad are we that people like this exist to help us push our own limits!

The Visual Makes a Difference

Eli Shaheen, Instructional Technology Coach from South Butler County SD in Pennsylvania, shared this webpage - PowerPoint from the CDC via our coach listserv today. The information in it is very powerful (and scary). Additionally, it is a great example of making statistical information visual. Perhaps our students would understand statistics better if there were more of these examples? Or, better yet, if they could create examples like this?

U. S. Obesity Trends

I am back at it!

Today is the first day of my new blogging career. I really mean it this time Lauri :-)! My goal is to put on something new each day! Let's see how it goes.

Today I Skyped in with Dave Ehrhart's college class. Dave does a great job giving future teachers a reality check as to what it will be like using technology in the classroom. Here is my message to all future teachers - learn all you can about using technology in the classroom. It WILL be part of your career!

Jeopardy Labs

JeopardyLabs allows you to set up a Jeopardy game online. As they emphasize, this is NOT the usual Power Point Jeopardy. You can create your own or use some that others have created. It keeps score and you can play with multiple teams. Since multiple people can be playing the same game, it can be set up to involve everyone in your class. Not flashy or fancy, but it works great!

Shape Collage

Shape Collage is a great little program for both Mac and Windows and it is FREE! In seconds, you can make some cool collages. Educational value is minimal but it is fun! Check out mine - 30 seconds, no kidding.

Shahi

Wow, is this site cool. This is a Visual Dictionary - type in a word and it defines it - and finds pictures from various sources that go with that picture. Try all parts of speech. Lots of activities come to mind here. Why do certain pictures show up? Does that pictures really help us understand the word's meaning more? Check it out!

Shahi

Cash Cab

I love Cash Cab, the Discovery Channel's game show played in a cab in New York City. Now we can play it too on the Cash Cab Game Site. It isn't as easy when you have to answer the questions. But it is fun - and the shout outs are great!

Heath's Collage

 

Never paid much attention to Picasa before. As a Mac user, I have iPhoto, which has pretty much always done what I wanted it to do. However, Mardy McGaw from Conestoga Valley made a very nice collage for our CFF Collaboration day using Picasa so I took another look. It can do some very nice things. The collage feature is great and it lets me put text right on my picture. Plus, I can take a picture right from Picasa and put in in my blog. Check out the collage above more closely by clicking on it!

Searching for Specific Information on Large Websites

Last week I had a social studies teacher tell me he did like/use the Library of Congress website because it was too hard to find specific information on it. I shared this tip with him that I had learned from Alan November and my CFF colleagues.

Using Google:
type - site:domain name +whatever you are searching for
example - site:loc.gov +"political cartoons"

Using Alta Vista:
Do the same as above, only use the word host in place of site.

New Blog - New Post

I have thought about having a blog for quite some time. However, I also wonder if I have anything really valuable to share with the world. I have learned so much from others and was recently made to feel a bit guilty by a friend and colleague who said I should not be only a taker, that I have an obligation to share what I know.

So, I will be using this blog to post one thing that I learn each day. It may not be earth shattering but since my goal is to learn something new each day, it should not be too hard for me to come up with something to post.