Some Health Links

Hi All! I was exploring some links and found a few really good websites related to Health Sciences.

Online Exhibit of the Heart
This online exhibit is multimedia with sections to the website:

• Things to Do - Interactives that can be done on the site.
• Things to See - Videos, x-rays, and images of the heart.
• Things to Learn - Teacher resources, activities and glossary.
• Places to Go - Links to online resources.
• Things to Hear - Listen to heartbeats.

Internet Stroke Center with information about Stroke Research and Clinical Care.

Human Body & Mind from the BBC with lots of multimedia and interactive games with facts about the body and mind.

The Arizona Health Institute has podcasts - both video and audio - to educate patients (and the general public) on procedures and healthy lifestyles. Dr. Wheatley, the creator, realized when listening to his ipod what a great tool this would be for patient education. He provides ipod in the waiting room for people to use before and after appointments. The article is here.

VOD: The Brain (Thanks George!)

Health Videoconferences:

Vanderbilt Science Outreach has videoconferences that can be scheduled and that are also archived. In addition, they hold podcasts Snacks 4 the Brain with a corresponding blog! For teachers there is even downloadable lessons!

Cooperating School Districts where my friend from class works have a videoconference series - Adventures in Medicine and Science, with St. Louis University.

The Liberty Science Center offers a series on the Human Body.

COSI has a surgical suite series of videoconferences and even a 2 hour autopsy.

If you know of others, please feel free to add them in here! Donna

WikiVille

Here's a cool idea I came across. This wiki for kids was recently started in the UK but the idea is for kids from all over the world to add information about their schools and their towns. So far, there are no schools in New York who have added information. Maybe we could get the ball rolling!

Welcome to WikiVille 21st Century students building a world-story of life in their home towns.

Has your town been WikiVilled yet?

For every place in WikiVille there'll be stories & stuff about

• school life from the day-to-day to hopes & dreams

• home life from jobs & chores to happy places & things that could be better

• about the past as well as the future

PLUS WikiVille:Community Portal projects help needed

More on Earth Day

Earth Day is April 22nd. I had mentioned a few resources in the Spring post, but here are a few more!

Environmental Timeline

Online Environmental Links

BrainPOP offers free online movies on topics related to Earth Day throughout the month of April.
The movie titles include Earth (April 1-9), Global Warming (April 10-16), Recycling (April 17-23) and Earth's Atmosphere (April 24-30).
To view the films, go to http://www.brainpop.com/ and click on the featured movie.

eMints: Earth Day Resources

Earthday.gov

The Wilderness Society Earth Day

US ARMY Environmental Center

Earth Day Network

Earth Day Lesson from National Geographic Xpeditions

TeacherNet Earth Day ChatBoard

Hope these help! Please feel free to post others! Donna

Computers in Libraries 2006

I noticed that a lot of people were referencing the Pew Internet Life Study recently and it turns out Mr. Lee Rainie was a presenter at the Computers in Libraries conference this past week in Washington DC. A few people have been liveblogging (and regular blogging) on the conference.

Here is a blog that many people have linked to in reference to Mr. Rainie's presentation.
Thinking Out Loud - Mermaid - The Intenet: Enhancing Digital Work and Play

Here are other blogs with the CIL2006 tag. CIL2006 Tecnorati Tags (You can tell they are librarians - they pre-defined the tag - I don't know if it was an underground or official movement - But definitely a great idea for conferences!)

CIL2006 Unofficial Wiki

Karen & Jane from Library Services at BOCES attended. Maybe we can ask them to blog here or let us link to wherever they blogged!

Here is some information found in the Pew Study. If you want more information, here is the report.

Chat Lingo Explained

Hi All!
Kim Komando just published this column on Cyber Lingo on March 24th. It has some good information and some links to gather more information. It is designed for parents, but it applies to education as well.
Donna

A Dance With the Butterflies

A Dance With the Butterflies
I found this Spring Project and wanted to add it to the spring list!

Boing Boing: New bill: Cyber Safety For Kids Act of 2006

Boing Boing: New bill: Cyber Safety For Kids Act of 2006
I am a little behind in going through my blogs and emails, but one of the librarians sent me this Friday!
Pretty interesting no matter what side of the issue you are on!

Cyber Safety

Hi Team! I know we have been passing around the topic of internet safety lately and I came across a few more resources.

The Consortium for School Networking has two sites - an old one and a new one. The old one has a toolkit that seems pretty helpful. The new one has a broader focus - not just cyber safety but security of data as well.

Play it Cybersafe has curriculum for elementary and middle school students on copyright issues and illegal software copying, downloading, and distributing content.

The FBI has a site for internet safety for children.

CyberSmart has a free curriculum for use in teaching K-8 internet safety.

And of course... The Looney Tunes Teach Internet Safety!

Hope some of these can be of value! Donna

Journey North Monarch Butterfly

Hi All! Just a couple online resources for you as spring approaches...

Journey North is back online with lessons and maps for your students. In addition to the Monarch Butterfly, Tulip Gardens, Whooping Crane, Bald Eagle, Humming Bird, Grey Whale, Robins and Songbirds are all offered as options to track and follow this spring. Each topic has maps, lessons, activities and booklets for the students (and teachers).

Sea Turtle Migration tracked by satellite.

Sutton Avian Research Center has a Bald Eagle Nest Cam with babies in the nest to watch. There are snapshots to use as well.

Don't forget the Peregrine Falcons at Kodak! The webcams are on and there are teacher and student materials available.

April 22-30th is National Wildlife Week. The NWF has a site with books and activities for students for the celebration.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has an Urban Birds Study which has some videos and activities. Not everything is free at their site, but there is a lot that is for creating bird watching lessons this spring!

Online School Yard and Class Room Investigation Projects

A couple other online projects that are taking registrations:
Bucket Buddies (any grade)
Square of Life (any grade)

Staring soon:
3/27 The Global Water Sampling Project (grades 9-12)
3/27 Take a Dip (any grade)
4/3 Human Genetics (grades 6-12)
4/17 The Global Sun Project (any grade)

Don't Forget Earth Day April 22nd!
Join the Earth Day Groceries Project.
Downloadable Earth Day Coloring Book.
Earth Science Picture of the Day.
EPA Environmental Kids Club.

And a cool site I bumped into today: If These Walls Could Talk. An interactive and visually compelling website, the Atlanta History Center provides some answers to those questions by looking at four historic homes around that fine Southern city. This would be a cool project to do for Rochester or even the towns of the schools!

Enjoy! Donna

Ed Tech Day in Ithaca

Several of us attended Ed Tech Day in Ithaca, NY. I'd like to share 1 really cool thing I learned about. Maybe others of you already knew about this, but I didn't. It's called, "Producer" and it combines a movie and a PowerPoint. Although the download title says that it's for PowerPoint 2003, the guy from Microsoft said it works with PowerPoint XP also. It allows you to have video playing in one, small window and then sychronize PowerPoint slides to it in a larger window to add more information. It's a free download at this link.

Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
Here's how Microsoft describes it:

Use Microsoft Producer 2003 for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 to capture and synchronize audio, video, slides, and images, then preview and publish a rich media presentation virtually anywhere for viewing in a Web browser.

If you would like to see what it can look like, CLICK HERE to see a demo, or click on the picture above.

They gave a demo at the session I was in and it is incredibly easy to use. I'm thinking of using it to create some online tutorials for things.

Blogging Tools

Hi! I was doing a little blogging research and I came accross these 2 blog services.
Learner Blogs
Edublogs
I looked them over and set up a couple of trial blogs. It seems like these are good tools for teachers because there is an option to be able to monitor all comments prior to posting. Both also allow the author to add people to approved posters. They are also free.

I know everyone has been happy with Blogmeister - but just in case you need a couple of more tools.

NECC 2006

I thought it might be nice for us to share which workshops and/or concurrent sessions we are thinking about or planning to attend at NECC in San Diego. Below are the sessions I currently have in my planner. On Thursday, 7/6, in the 3:30-4:30 time block, I currently have 4 things. Obviously I'm going to have to choose 1 at some point. Maybe if someone else is planning to go to one or more of these, that will make my decision easier. Each title below is a link, in case you want to read more about the session. I've already seen Dewitt Jones several times, so I'm not going to go to that keynote, although his work is good.

Tuesday, July 4

8:30-11:30 - Flash in a Flash: Practical Applications across the Curriculum
7:00-9:00 - 4th of July Party and Opening Reception

Wednesday, July 5

8:30-9:30 - Beyond Cyber Safety Awareness: Practical Internet Safety Education that Works
10:00-11:00 - Podcasting and Podcatching for the Absolute Beginner
12:30-3:30 - Extreme Web Site Makeover: Javascript, CSS, and Multimedia
4:45-5:45 - Exhibit Hall Reception

Thursday, July 6

8:30-9:45 - One Laptop Per Child - Keynote - Nicholas Negroponte
9:45-10:15 - Continental Breakfast in the Exhibit Hall
11:00-12:00 - A One Hour Tour: Navigating Primary Sources on the Internet
12:30-1:30 - Computer Ethics: The Dark Side
2:00-3:00 - Copyright and Ethical Issues: Avoiding the Copyright Police
3:30-4:30 - I need to choose 1 of the following things that I'm considering:
Maximizing Your Cookies: Leading Geeks in Education
Favorite Learning Resources: Students and Teachers Share Where and Why
Visual Learning and Generation M
A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything
7:00-9:00 - Thursday Night Social

Friday, July 7

10:00-11:00 - Creating a Kids' Creative Commons Using Local History Resources
12:30-3:30 - Podcasting 101: The Essential Tools for Creating Educational Podcasts

My gosh! I'm tired already, just looking at all of this, but really excited at the same time!!! I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is thinking about taking.

Maybe we should also designate a date and time to meet, maybe for dinner somewhere, include our families or whatever.

Podcasting and Language Arts

I came across the following podcasts by students that are interesting illustrations of podcasts that enhance Language Arts instruction. Obviously the reading, writing, listening and speaking involved in creating a podcast support ELA instruction, but these 2 episodes go one step further. You might want to take a listen.

Room 208 - 3rd/4th gradeLiterature Circles
Listen to the podcast here

Radio WillowWeb - 5th grade - Defining the 6 Traits of Writing

Olympic Venues on Google Earth

I just discovered something kind of cool today. You can add a layer in the "My Places" section of Google Earth that shows all the Olympic Winter Games Venues. Just click on the title above to go to Google Earth Home. Near the top of that page is the link to click on to download this feature.

When you have this downloaded, and you have it on your screen, you will see it in the "Places" section on the left-hand side of your screen marked as a "Temporary Place." To keep it permanently, click on the "OlympicVenues.kmz" and then go to Edit > Save to My Places. That will keep it in your My Places folder permanently.

Also, if you mouse over the venues on the map, you'll see a yellow box around them. Click and it will open more info and links to related info.

AND . . . They have now released Google Earth for Macs, so everyone can play now. I just downloaded it and it works great!

Boy, I wish I had known about this BEFORE vacation!

Wiki Follow-Up

As a follow-up to Tadge's post on wikis . . .

There is an article today in eSchool News Online.

Wikis Test Students' Research Skills
'Information literacy' is key in dealing with online sources
By Roger Riddell, Online Editor, eSchool News

"Wikipedia and other reference sites that allow users to submit and edit content themselves are creating new challenges for educators. Experts say the rise of these kinds of web sites underscores the need for educators to teach students strong information-literacy skills."

And a sidebar in the article . . .

Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica--at least on science
Nature conducted a side-by-side comparison of articles in covering a broad swath of the scientific spectrum

There is even a photo of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia (in case you were wondering what he looks like). Thought you might be interested in taking a look.

It would be great if some of our science educator blog members would comment on this too. I'm interested to see what you think about the article above on the accuracy of Wikipedia on science topics.

Ed Tech Buzz at Village Elementary: Podcasting with Students

Ed Tech Buzz at Village Elementary: Podcasting with Students

This is a link to a post I put on a different blog that I'm using with a technology integration study group in Hilton. Thought I'd also share it with all of you. If you have students podcasting, I'd love it if you could share links. Maybe we could get a conversation going between students in different districts.

OR

If you are interested in starting a podcast with students and would like some assistance, I'd be glad to collaborate with you and teachers in your district. Just let me know.

I'd really like to try this out with some students, and, lacking students of my very own, I'm seeking some to play with.

Wiki and Media

Hello from Tadge O'Brien! This is my first post here so I thought I would say hello.

Lori just sent me a really interesting post from Education Bridges on Wiki Books. They were talking about wiki books and the ability to use them as a show case of best practices for teachers. All I could think of was wow how cool would it be to connect this to videos of teachers using best practices in their classroom! For example check out what West Irondequoit has done for their teachers! Imagine being able to connect what is done in a professional development course and being able to quickly show an example of best practices! Then it would be great to be able to go out and look at a book about similar teaching strategies. Think of the power this could give teachers and how much it could help students learning.

You could begin to easily integrate a multimedia and textual site that can help teachers and students learn about what works in the classroom.

Mobile Technologies

The following began as a comment to iPod, Therefore iAm!, but I felt that it might stimulate some dialogue among us regarding emerging mobile technologies in education. Something that I have been very interested in:

I have played with the iPod and it is very, very cool, but I can't help but bring up the fact that a handheld (PDA), my Dell Axim for instance, can also play podcasts as well as read blogposts through a free RSS aggregator called pRSSreader . It allows you view blog posts and to download enclosures (podcasts) directly to the storage card (mine is a 1GB SD card).
NOTE: While my Axim can play video, I have not experimented with vodcasts (video podcasts) as of this posting.

While I can't compare with the storage of an iPod, I like my handheld because it's more versatile than my stepson's 60GB video iPod. More versatile meaning I can use similar features available on the video iPod, in addition to accessing the Internet via Wi-Fi, create and edit documents, spreadsheets, even presentations (i.e. - PowerPoint). I can read and send e-mail synced with my Lotus Notes as well as schedule meetings with colleagues.

We have been wrestling with what part these particular mobile technologies will take in our classrooms. What is the best device for the classroom? I feel that it's really a delicate balance of what desired outcomes and cost to schools.

Trusted Sources and Suprglu

Will Richardson has a post on his blog, Weblogg-Ed, about Suprglu. Click on the title above to go to that post. There is also an interesting comment by Bosko Milekic about a product he created, PeopleFeeds, to improve on Suprglu. I'm still trying to get my brain around what this is and how it works, but little by little I'm beginning to understand a little.

iPod, Therefore iAm!

YIPPEE!! Santa brought me an iPod for Christmas. Doesn't it make me look younger?! (see picture)

Seriously, I've found some really great EdTech related podcasts that I've been listening to. And, even if you don't have an iPod (and I really feel for you) you can still listen to these on your computer.

Here are some that I highly recommend:

Connect Learning - David Warlick - I really enjoyed the 3 part series he had that was a presentation by Angus King, the former governor of Maine talking about the Maine laptop project and other technology related issues.

EdTech Learning Coast to Coast - A regular podcast featuring Educational Technologists from throughout the country. Regular panelists include Will Richardson, Tim Lauer, Tim Wilson, and Steve Burt. Show notes are also available on the web site. The latest episode was on Content Filtering with Steve Burt, Tim Lauer, Tim Wilson and Will Richardson discussing Myspace and the like. It was very good and there is a great list of resources there that you can download.

EdTech Talk - Edtechtalk shows are recorded during live interactive webcasts. They usually have a guest or two to discuss what they've been working on or share their thoughts about some aspect of ed tech. During the show listeners can skype in to comment and ask questions or they can hang out in the chat room and participate from there.

The Savvy Technologist - Tim Wilson - Interviews and other information about educational technology from a curriculum guy who happens to be a geek (his words, not mine). He has a blog, and video on his web site as well.

Blog Beat - Will Richardson - He has some ocassional podcasts mixed in with his regular blog, Weblogg-Ed. I tried to find a way to subscribe to the podcasts separately but couldn't figure it out. However you can listen to the audio online or download it and then transfer it to an iPod or other device.

TO FIND EDUCATIONAL PODCASTS - Education Podcast Network - Ted shared this link with us over the listserv. It's a great source of education-related podcasts, both done by teachers and done by students.

FOR STUDENTS - Ask an Astronomer - Real NASA astronomers, from the Spitzer Space Telescope and Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, answer questions about the science of astronomy. This has video (no, I didn't get the video iPod) from experts that answer the questions posed. I was looking for information about how to submit a question but couldn't find that.