Math Bits and Bites

The BBC has a number of great Flash-based math games to help introduce or reinforce a concept (or two) on their math focus site.

What's nice about the way the BBC has set this up, is that you can even embed a particular game, review or quiz on your own class site. (The embed code is provided for each activity.) This gives you a little more control over kids being distracted away from the task at hand. And, it means you can point your kids to a practice space on your webpage for at-home review.

(Even older kids might get a kick out of the "cheese-y" graphics!)

A "wiki" alternative = Zoho Notebook

I'm a big fan of wikis because they allow students to co-create work and then share the results with others. Creations can be on-going and truly open-ended. However, sometimes you don't want all students editing everything... especially if you have some cyber-vandalism issues in your class.

One solution is to use something like the Notebook feature of Zoho. When you go to their site, you can see that Zoho has a range of on-line apps (a bit like Google Docs).

The Notebook app has several features that make it ideal for classroom co-construction:

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Create different types of content
Create content of type text, image, audio, video, etc.


Aggregate your information in one place
Embed content of any type from multiple applications.

Fine grained collaboration
Share a whole book, page or just an object on a page by granting read/write permissions.

Version control
Keep track of changes not only at the book or page level but also at the object level.

• 
  

You can create a "book", set up the pages, allow individual students (or pairs) to edit, write, annotate a specific page and leave others fixed. The final product is share-able via an external URL for the whole class to view, and the completed work can even be downloaded as an mht file (readable in Firefox with a plugin installation - UnMht.)

Here's an example: (Mock up of study guide for a French novel)

Start creating classroom resources your students can use.

Create Your Own Space

[This site is no longer active]




I came across this "fun" site (Design My Room) that allows the user to set up and furnish rooms à la "Designing Spaces". You are given a huge selection of furnishings and furniture, as well as colours, window treatments and lots of doodads and knickknacks.

Be an interior designer, or recreate your parents' living room. Students can be creative and imagine a character's house or use this as a jumping off point for a short story.

While you need an account to save your creations for re-editing later, you can build and design without an ID. Keeping a record of your work can be done by simply taking a screen shot.

This would be a fun way to work on vocabulary, talk about colours and textures, and even look at "art and design" issues for older kids. Have fun!

Webbing online

I like the ability to use productivity tools that don't require a software download to work. Webbing is one such example. How many times have I wanted to create a mindmap, but found that Kidspiration hadn't been installed on my PC! The folks at Inspiration have come to the rescue and created a web-based version of their popular program: mywebspiration.com/

While it does require the user to create an account, the functionality is great. It works very much like the software-based version: lots of options and graphics.

Want a complete freebie? Try Bubbl.us. There's no sign-up to try, but then you can't save and come back to your mindmap (unless you create an account, of course!) There are fewer options than webspiration, but for a quick webbing exercise, it does the trick.

The ultimate photo mashup - Photosynth

You know when you are on holidays and you take a hundred photos of essentially the same thing? "What a waste of time!" you might say. Or if friends at an event take basically the same pictures you have, but from a slightly different angle? What if you could somehow assemble them all into one big "mega-picture" that would give you a panoramic, scrollable, zoomable, stitched together view?

Photosynth is the answer. A great test of this technology was the inauguration speech. Using Photosynth, multiple users were able to upload their pictures to create a sweeping vista of the event, up and down the Mall, with the ability to zoom in and out, and even look left to right, up and down. All it takes is someone to upload a pic and it gets added to the mix.



Unfortunately, there is no uploader for Macs, and the full-view is a PC only interface. If you download Silverlight, macophiles can get a taste of the full effect. I'm looking forward to a Mac version so I can start uploading my holiday clips!

Virtual Books with Scribd

I mentioned Scribd in an earlier post as a great way to get pdfs on-line. Students can easily view and download teacher-created workbooks, brochures, criteria sheets etc.

Here's one more way to use this service: virtual books. Just like Issuu, you can upload student productions and have them appear as flippable e-books. The interface is clean-looking and easy to use.

Hint: You may want to edit the embed html to remove the tags and references to other material on Scribd. For visibility, you might also need to adjust the window size (to 400x350) in order to paste into a blog.

CommonCraft: "What blogging is all about."

CommonCraft is one of those sites that is so simple, yet so useful. The creators use an easy-to-follow "felt-board-like" video montage to explain tricky Web 2.0 concepts. The one featured below explains "in plain English" how blogs work. It would be a good way to introduce the application to students or interested teachers.

The site also has a number of other easy-to-follow explanations as well.

Video: Web Search Strategies in Plain English
Video: Social Media in Plain English
Video: Podcasting in Plain English
Video: Twitter in Plain English
Video: Online Photo Sharing in Plain English
Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English
Video: Social Networking in Plain English
Video: Wikis in Plain English
Video: RSS in Plain English

Issuu: put it on-line!

Have you always wanted a way to put documents on-line in a way that looks like a book or magazine? There are a number of pay sites that will convert and host documents for you, but what about "free"? I stumbled across Issuu while I was looking for a solution to post student-made storybooks on a blog or other site. Issuu seems to be the answer to my search.

It is very easy to use. You create an account, upload the PDF version, mark it private, and then generate the embed code needed to past it into a blog or class website. You can even email a link to friends and family so they can view it apart from the blog.

So, just to show off, I've created a "Flower" album using iPhoto, saved it as a PDF, uploaded it to Issuu and embedded the link. (You can view it as full page if you like!) I think this has lots of potential. (Click on the "Open Publication" link or on the book itself below to view in larger format.)

- Open publication

Apture: Add more context to your sites

Do you sometimes wish there was a way to add more content and context to your blog or website? You've probably seen the extremely cool hotlinks that pop up (when you mouse over them) with additional info, quotes, videos or PDFs. "Apture" is exactly what you are looking for. If you go to their site, you can easily create an account and add "Apture" functionality to your blog. Take the tour and see what it can do for you.

Drop.io: File sharing is so easy!

Drop.io is a great solution to the problem we all sometimes have: file-sharing in an easy, no fuss way. Imagine you have a class where you want to distribute a file or files to your students. Perhaps it's a photo that they will be modifying, a set of short clips to play with or documents to review. You could email them, but then you'd need everyone's address and depending on the file size, your email client may not be happy. This is where Drop.io comes in. Using their easy interface, create an account, add a password (if you want), upload your files and tell your class the address. Students can easily download the files: no fuss, no muss.

Check out the following post for a more detailed description: arstechnica

Scrapblogging

Scrapblog is another in a series of very neat Web 2.0 tools that I could see a teacher using with a class. Students would need their own account, but it allows them to create some stunning visual representations of what they are working on. It's like a slideshow, with extras. Imagine multiple digital scrapbook pages that you can email or embed. You can try it out by clicking on the "Get Started" button, but to save, print or export, you need to be logged in. (You can always take a screen shot of your creation using "shift-apple-4" on a Mac, and then use the pic in other applications.) Let me know if you try it with a class.

Another way to look at the news

The internet gives us lots of different ways to see the news: you can look at the front pages of papers from around the world, you can subscribe to news feeds and get an updated list of stories delivered daily, you can visit digital versions of your favourite daily, you can check out video and audio clips of the big stories on CBC or CNN.

But all of these avenues are essentially text (and pictures) presented in ways we recognize. What if there was another way to look at the news? Using a format similar to tag clouds, Marumushi has created a clever way to represent the important stories of the hour by mapping out Google News items on a grid. The size of the story relates to how much it is being talked about. In their words: "In Newsmap, the size of each cell is determined by the amount of related articles that exist inside each news cluster that the Google News Aggregator presents. In that way users can quickly identify which news stories have been given the most coverage, viewing the map by region, topic or time." Yes, you can choose your country and even filter to exclude certain types of stories. (ie. sports or entertainment.)

Could this catch on? Take a look at their "NewsMap" and see if you agree.

Polyvore: design your life.

So my latest find is actually one of my daughter's current favourite sites: Polyvore (She's crazy about it and loves to create.) You can design "window displays" and create interior design or fashion design layouts.

The interface pulls objects from the internet (taken mostly from on-line catalogs so each object stands alone as a cutout image.) and you can then resize them and put them together collage-like. Take a look at this"artsy" example.

Layouts can be printed, saved, embedded etc.
(The vendors make their money by having every element you choose appear on the "shopping list" showing where the item can be purchased.)

Students can have fun designing displays on assigned themes, dreaming up a layout for another student after a fashion "interview" and using their creations to add to their virtual portfolio, especially if they hope to apply to a design program.

Sumopaint, a WEB 2.0 paintbrush.

Sumopaint is a great example of what is now possible using a web-based tool. This site/program offers the user a "virtual" paintbox, complete with layers. And if you create an account, you can save your work and open it up later, with the layers intact. Finished products can be downloaded as jpegs for use in other projects. The image gallery has a mind blowing array of samples created by members of the sumopaint community. This is a perfect way for an art teacher to introduce the digital medium, without having to install costly, proprietary software.

Literacy + Technology = ?

While technology solutions are not the answer to every teaching problem, sometimes there can be a great support in meeting a student need. Here's the scenario: what about a high school or middle school student who may have trouble reading the typical novel offering? The vocab is too difficult, the sentences too demanding. The student too easily loses the thread of the narrative. What to do? My suggestion is to check out Orca Books, especially the "Orca Soundings" collection. These are dynamic, exciting, relevant novelettes that speak to teens about issues that they find compelling, in a language that is very accessible. The authors are all well-respected YA writers (Carrie Mac, Norah McClintock, etc). So where's the technology?

Tumble Books has added a new horse to the stable: TumbleReadables. And as part of this offering, they have included titles from the Orca Soundings collection. (Check out this link to try some of the titles that are available.) Not only can you (or your teen) read the books on-line, even using a bigger font if needed, but selected titles can also be listened to. This is a great support for a student who has difficulty with the printed text. If you decide this is for you, you can get a subscription for your school or institution.