Curious about Google Documents?  Want ideas for how you can use this resource in your classroom?  Check out Tom Barrett’s wonderful “21 Interesting Ways to Use Google Docs in the Classroom” slideshow!

http://voicethread.com/share/222931/

Have you been wanting to try VoiceThread but wanted some examples for ideas and inspiration?  Check out the VoiceThread Digital Library that is filled with examples of how real teachers in various grade levels and subject areas used VoiceThead as a tool for teaching and learning.   Included in each example are instructions and advice for implementation as well as the finished product!

Check out this inventive and original introduction to teachers using Web 2.0—terrific presentation on WHY you might want to try Web 2.0 in the classroom and for your own personal learning network!

HealthMap App on iPhone via kwout

From HealthMap:

With HealthMap’s Outbreaks Near Me application, you have all of HealthMap’s latest real-time disease outbreak information at your fingertips. Open the app and see all current outbreaks in your neighborhood, including news about H1N1 influenza (“swine flu”). Search and browse outbreak reports on the interactive map, and set up the app to alert you with a notice automatically whenever an outbreak is occurring in your area. If you spy an outbreak, be the first to report it using the app’s unique outbreak reporting feature. You will get credit as a disease detective and your find will be featured on the website.  Outbreaks Near Me is free and available at iTunes. Download it now.

Tagged: apps, health, iPhone, maps, outbreak ]]> http://thegrizzlylounge.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/health-map-app-on-iphone/feed/ 0 theunquietlibrary HealthMap App on iPhone http://thegrizzlylounge.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/100-most-educational-iphone-apps-for-students/ http://thegrizzlylounge.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/100-most-educational-iphone-apps-for-students/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:13:23 +0000 The Unquiet Librarian http://thegrizzlylounge.wordpress.com/?p=37 ]]>

100 Most Educational iPhone Apps | AccreditedOnlineColleges.org via kwout

Do you  have an iPhone?  Check out these awesome educational apps to enhance your learning anytime, anywhere learning!  Categories include:  brain exercises, flashcards/quizzes, science, math, geography/history, languages, art, productivity, reference materials,  and English.

Wikipedia to Color Code Untrustworthy Text via kwout

From Wired magazine

Starting this fall, you’ll have a new reason to trust the information you find on Wikipedia: An optional feature called “WikiTrust” will color code every word of the encyclopedia based on the reliability of its author and the length of time it has persisted on the page.

Go to http://www.pop.ly/2otp to read more!  This is another feature teachers and students can use to determine if it is appropriate to use a Wikipedia article for a research assignment.

Our Documents

Our Documents – Tools for Educators via kwout

What is this resource about?

We invite all Americans to participate in a series of events and programs to get us thinking, talking and teaching about the rights and responsibilities of citizens in our democracy. At the heart of this initiative are 100 milestone documents of American history. These documents reflect our diversity and our unity, our past and our future, and mostly our commitment as a nation to continue to strive to “form a more perfect union.”

We want everyone—students, teachers, parents, and the general public—to read these milestone documents, consider their meaning, discuss them, and decide which are the most significant and why. This initiative creates a number of ways to do that—through classroom activities and competitions, and votes.

Check out the resources for educators, including a link to download the 100 documents, ways to tie the documents to standards, and ideas for teaching activities with your students.  You can also download a mini-poster/flyer for your classroom by clicking here.

National Archives Lesson Plans for Teaching with Primary Source Documents

Teaching With Documents via kwout

Here is a treasure trove of lesson plans for those of you teaching U.S. History or American Literature!  Lesson plans, like this one on FDR’s Fireside Chats, include:

• Background information
• Standards correlations
• Teaching Activities
• All the resources you need for the lesson
• Analysis worksheets/handouts for students’ critical examination of the primary sources used in the project

Bring history alive and engage critical thinking with primary sources by using these two resources!

Classroom 2.0 LIVE! via kwout

Here is a topic of special interest from Classroom 2.0; if you can’t attend live, the session will be recorded, and you can watch at a time that works for you!

Date: Sat., August 22, 2009
Time: 9:00am Pacific/10:00am Mountain/11:00am Central/12:00pm Eastern
Location: In ElluminateI at http://tinyurl.com/cr20live (Links to other time zones and meeting room can be found at http://live.classroom20.com/.)

This Saturday, August 22nd, Kim Caise, Lorna Costantini and Peggy George will be hosting another Classroom 2.0 LIVE show. As an extension to the Classroom 2.0 community, Classroom 2.0 “LIVE” shows are opportunities to gather with other educators in real-time events, complete with audio, chat, desktop sharing, and sometimes even video.  A Google calendar of upcoming shows is available at http://live.classroom20.com/calendar.html. If you haven’t used Elluminate before, we encourage you to view this tutorial to prepare for the Elluminate session: Elluminate tutorial video.

The topic this Saturday will be “Web 2.0 Start Pages as RSS Readers and other Ramblings” with special guest Shamblesguru aka Chris Smith. Please join us as Shamblesguru shares examples of start pages, how to create and ways to use them as RSS readers. More information and session details are at http://live.classroom20.com. If you’ve never participated in a live webinar, don’t be afraid to come and observe. ‘Dip your toes in’ the conversations until you feel comfortable enough to “jump into the conversations with both feet”! We want to encourage “experienced Web 2.0 users” to join us by contributing and extending the conversation by sharing real-life examples and tips/suggestions.

On the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! site (http://live.classroom20.com) you’ll find the recordings for our recent “Exploring AllaboutExplorers.com” show with special guests Gerald Aungst and Lauren Zucker. Click on the “Archive” tab to view recordings.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Elluminate, for providing the forum that allows us to do this!

Visit Classroom 2.0 at: http://www.classroom20.com

The Assignment

This week’s featured assignment is Jason Hubbard’s Amendments assignment.   In this assignment, Mr. Hubbard’s “Law, Community, Response, and Policing” students worked in pairs and small groups to research an assigned amendment to learn how that amendment protects citizens and restricts law enforcement”.  Using the research pathfinder created in conjunction with the library, Mr. Hubbard’s students created a scavenger hunt about their amendment using Glogster or PowerPoint.

What We Did

With assistance from Ms. Hamilton and Mr. Hubbard, students learned how to:

1.  Join the class wiki

2.  Create/add a wiki page to the wiki.

3. Embed Content:

For students who were using PowerPoint or Google Docs, the skill of creating a free SlideShare account was introduced.  Students were able to upload their presentations to SlideShare and to get an “embed” code for embedding their PowerPoint into the Wiki; students then learned how to use the embed widget and embed their SlideShare into their group wiki page.

Students who created a Glogster learned how to find the embed code and embed into their wiki page.

Once the multimedia scavenger hunt was completed, students composed a reflection paragraph their learning process.  Students then worked to complete the other scavenger hunts created by their classmates to enhance their understanding of the other assigned amendments.

Reflections

Here is what Mr. Hubbard has to say about this project:

It was great to see and hear many of the students express their enthusiasm about trying something “outside the box”. Most found that using the available technology to “get out of the books” made their learning of the material come more easily and without the usual effort. As with all technology, we ran into some little snags here and there but in the end, that just added to the overall lesson by throwing in a little mini lesson on patience.   The media center staff made the use of the technology extremely easy.  I think we will be using the SlideShare and Glogsters for many of my classes future projects.

Are you interested in doing a similar assignment or using a wiki to host student created content?  Come by the library, and we will collaborate with you to make your wiki dreams come true!

Resources

Do you want to know more about wikis?  Check out these resources to learn more!

• Everything You Wanted to Know About Wikis but Were Afraid to Ask
• Why Wiki?
• Wesley Fryer’s Way to Use a Wiki
• Using Wikis to Make the Research and Learning Process Transparent

Research: Smaller tasks, more often – Home – Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog via kwout

Does the thought of tackling a massive research project send shivers down your spine?  Does it make you want to crawl under your desk?

While there is definitely a place and time for larger scale research projects in multiple formats, I’d like for you to take a quick look at Doug Johnson’s thoughts on integrating information literacy into your regular instruction—-think smaller bites with more frequency.  I agree with Doug that research skills can be best scaffolded with more frequent but sometimes smaller research tasks to help students gain more information fluency that can make a difference when you are ready to tackle bigger research tasks.  Of course, I am always more than happy to generate a mini-research pathfinder to support your efforts!

http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2009/6/1/research-smaller-tasks-more-often.html

My sense is that most teachers could easily create a “information task of the day” type activitity – or the librarian could supply one to the entire school for the daily bulletin. We don’t rely on big “reading” projects or “math” projects or “writing” projects to teach these essential skills. Why do we rely on big “research” projects to teach those essential skills? Think small. Think more often. Think real life questions.

His post, while brief, is one that every content area teacher can relate to—please chew on this over the summer, and then we can work with you to find ways to make “mini-research” a more regular part of your classroom life to support the standards you are teaching in your courses!