Friday was a pretty rainy day in Portland and we speculated, based on the information we were getting from the Base Reflectivity file, if we would be able to go outside for lunch recess or if we would have to stay in. Just before lunch I pulled up the file again and based on the information we were seeing we decided that the rain would hold off until after lunch and we made the decision to go outside, and we predicted correctly. While this type of data is available and displayed from within the NWS web site, the ability to pull it into Google Earth, combine it with other types of information and placemarks makes it a very interesting tool and resource for teaching.
Read MoreGoogle has release a new beta of Google Earth 4 which has several new features that previously were not available on the free version. Specifically you can now draw paths and polygons on the free version.
Read MoreThis may or may not be a problem in the future, but for now I am getting great tools for my students and teachers with great support, for basically nothing.... I can work around this a bit by using Google hosted GMail, but still it would be nice if they created an education version that allowed a teacher to create and edit accounts.
Read MoreIt also can take advantage of Apple's Bonjour/Zero Configuration networking, so that a MoinX wiki set up on a teacher's computer can be set up to be automatically seen by students using the Safari or Camino browers (both support Bonjour).... MoinX gives you a full blown and unmodified MoinMoin wiki without forcing you to run a full blown web server.
Read MoreStewart Mader and several other co-writers have published a book, Using Wiki in Education , detailing 10 case studies written by teachers describing how they are utilizing wikis in their course work and classrooms. The introduction and first chapter are available for free download, with access to the entire book, including a PDF copy, available for a fee.
Read MoreJohn points out some educational uses including dumping your list of search links into Google Co-op and making the list of vetted web sites into a custom search tool using Google as the front end. For example a teacher who has researched and found appropriate sites for her students to visit could create a Google Co-op search tool that returned search results from those specific sites only.
Read MoreIt includes the best parts of older reference manager software (like EndNote)—the ability to store full reference information in author, title, and publication fields and to export that as formatted references—and the best parts of modern software such as del.icio.us or iTunes, like the ability to sort, tag, and search in advanced ways. Using its unique ability to sense when you are viewing a book, article, or other resource on the web, Zotero will—on many major research sites—find and automatically save the full reference information for you in the correct fields.
Read MoreThe Google Spreadsheet interface is pretty spartan, and since it is saved to my Google account, I can not only share it with the individual teachers, I can also share the sheets with our reading support teachers. I plan to build some community behind the spreadsheets using WordPress so that we can discuss the results we are seeing and make and note plans for individual students based on the results we are seeing.
Read MoreThis morning I went to Google Spreadsheets and see that Google has changed the interface a bit combining the spreadsheet function and the Writely word processing function into something called Google Docs.
Read MoreLog on, Learn to Play (Without Reading a Note):As informal online learning democratizes the musical experience, it also challenges the norms of musical education and raises questions about creativity itself.Ths Sunday Times has a report on the changing face of music instruction and how people interested in learning an to play music are turning to online and electronic sources of instruction.
Read More
Tony Jamesbarry, the music and technology teacher at Lewis Elementary, has been working with his 4th and 5th grade students learning Google Sketch-Up. They are currently creating houses, learning how to wrap textures, place objects and manipulate the environment within in Sketch-Up. This is leading up to a planned community building activity, both figuratively and literally. Sketch-Up can grab a specific location from Google Earth and using that as a guide, students will be able to build their houses on a specific lot. Tony has been searching Google Earth looking for housing developments that are partially completed.
For example he recently found a location in Google Earth that had streets and cul-de-sacs laid, but construction had not yet started. He used the path tools within Google Earth to create lots. After the students become a bit more familiar with Sketch-Up, Tony will assign them specific lots in the housing development (see example images below...) with the idea that each student will build a home on a lot. Part of the process will involve discussion of zoning and building codes. The students will decide on rules and regulations for their community. I'm looking forward to watching the process develop.
