It has a very neat graphic that categorizes useful online tools.

If you are sick and tired of powerpoint presentations – see if you can push students a little out of their comfort zone by requiring them to use a new tool.  They will learn your content better, and learn a new web application along the way.

The Teacher Chronicles – E-learning and web 2.0 tools for schools.

HOWEVER, I have been pleasantly surprised lately to discover that several formerly blocked applications are suddenly Bess-free.

Anyway…….. Check this out:

Six easy ways for students to create videos online.

FreeDocumentaries.org

There are very useful materials for  AP Biology,  AP Calculus &  AP Physics.  But there are materials for many other areas – Shakespeare, visual arts, introduction to western music and much more.

MIT courses cover a variety of subjects and include videos and other resources for you and your students.  General Subject areas covered are:

* Biology
* Chemistry
* Computers and Electronics
* Engineering
* Foreign Languages
* Math
* Media, Music and The Arts
* Physical Education
* Physics
* Social Sciences
* Writing and Literature

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• You’ve assigned kids to create a presentation using PowerPoint or other technology.
• You have asked them to write an essay and turn it in to you for grading.
• Students have created a video or a photography project and want to share it with the class.

How to you collect these projects?

You have students turn in the papers or bring their digital presentations on flash drives, of course.

So – what happens next?

• You drown in papers to bring back and forth from school
• For digital presentations, you have to monkey around loading files from each person’s flash drive.

Is there a better way?

Of course.   Create a form on your website that will allow students to upload their files directly to you.  They will not be visible to others – but can be opened easily from a single web page during class.

Other advantages?

• You can use MS Word’s “comments” feature to add your comments/corrections/grade in red text directly into the paper.
• Although you will have to print the papers to return them to the students,  your typed comments will be easier for them to read.  You can even have a list of frequent comments to copy & paste from.
• You will be preparing students for college where many professors require students to upload their assignments to them.

Won’t it be a hassle getting students to do this?

If you refuse to take paper submissions, students will soon get used to the process.  Even if a student has no computer at home – they can upload files in seconds from one of the school computers.

How hard is it to create such a form?

Come on into the library and we should be able to get it set up in minutes.  To see the form I have set up for students to send me files – go to my Document Submission Form.

Here are a bunch of  posts (10 in all) that might be of interest to you and/or those you  work with:

1. Harry Ransom Center Introduces Edgar Allan Poe Digital Collection

2. Tag cloud of Obama’s back-to-school speech

3. Information Visualization: Introducing News Dots, The Six Degrees of News

4. Updated Site: Energy Kids Have a New Place to Play and Learn

5. Collection of Black Memorabilia was Librarian?s Lifelong Passion

6. Listen Online: British Library Adds Over 2,000 Hours of Recordings

7.  Now Online: Summer 2009 issue of the Teaching with Primary Sources
(TPS) Quarterly

8.  Cool! Listen Online: Online Database: Learn About and Search the
Western Soundscape Archive

9. Internet addiction center opens in US

10. Fast Facts for Grandparent’s Day (September 13, 2009)

I hope some of these 10 items are of interest to you.

cheers,
gary

–
Gary D. Price, MLIS
Librarian
Editor, ResourceShelf and DocuTicker
Visit ResourceShelf and Docuticker
http://www.resourceshelf.com
http://www.docuticker.com

1. Air the speech as well as the speeches to students given by Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Ask students to compare and contrast rhetorical styles, the setting for the speech, response of students in the audience, etc.

2. Use Wordle.net to have students create Wordle visuals of presidential speeches to examine their emphasis and content so they can compare and contrast.

3. Examine the media frenzy over the recent speech. Help students filter out fact/fiction in print reporting /internet reporting over the speech. Have students look at the reporting before the speech (by checking newspaper archives, databases for last couple of weeks, letters to the editor, etc.) and then have them check out the post-speech reporting in the next day or two in those same sources.

4. Have them analyze the speech for examples of good rhetorical techniques (using a personal story, word choice, call to action, etc.) Compare these used to other motivational speeches.

5. Use the Newseum website to examine headlines around the country for their reporting on the speech and compare/contrast the reporting. (But quick, before the headlines disappear!)

If you want to explore options yourself, I can unblock a library computer for you, or you can explore at home.  Perhaps if enough of us express our discontent with the extreme filtering that goes on, something can be done about it.

Some thoughts from a first grade teacher….

iSchool Worries…Is Technology A Distraction?