A teacher's adventures in cyberspace

Spend more time teaching, less time searching.

2011-12-13T10:58:00.000+10:30

The YouTube blog announced the launch of YouTube for Schools, this enables schools to access a version of YouTube that is only populated with material that is educationally relevant found on YouTube/Edu. Now YouTube unfriendly schools will be able to unblock and deploy this educational version of YouTube which will allow teachers and students to access educational materials without compromising class focus and school bandwidth with frivolous videos.

An incredibly valuable element of the launch is the store of already curated playlists made available in Science, Math, Social Studies and Language Arts (which we call English!) that address the US national Standards in K-4, 5-8 and 9-12 groupings. To view these playlists go to Youtube/teachers and navigate as given below:

By clicking the + signs the playlists will unfurl the playlist list, here are the 5-8 Maths playlists:

You will note some are in blue, they are ready to run curated playlists; and then some in grey, they are playlists that are just waiting for a playlist maker. Any teacher can get started and make their own playlists - just follow the "submit it here link" or click the "Suggest video" tab and you can curate your own playlists and share them with the YouTube/teachers community.

However I think the goals for this project are even higher, already some teachers have taken the bull by the horns and started making their own awesome educational content and posting it on YouTube. However if you then become a YouTube partner you can then apply to be a channel hosted on Youtube/Edu, and your contributions will then be accessible via Youtube for Schools.

The Physics of Car Crashes

2011-12-06T20:40:00.001+10:30

Here are three videos that have great potential in the classroom.

Understanding Car Crashes: It's Basic Physics Duration 22 minutes

"What happens to vehicles and their occupants in crashes is determined by science. "You can't argue with the laws of physics," says Griff Jones, award-winning high school physics teacher who goes behind the scenes at the Institute's Vehicle Research Center to explore the basic science behind car crashes. Using a series of vehicle maneuvers on a test track plus filmed results of vehicle crash tests, Jones explains in anything but lecture style the concept of inertia, the relationship between crash forces and inertia, momentum and impulse, and a lot more.Quote from Paul G. Hewitt, the developer of the "Conceptual Physics" curriculum and author of the best selling text book by the same name: "The video "Understanding Car Crashes: It's Basic Physics" and accompanying teacher's guide are wonderful. The pacing is excellent, the coverage fascinating, and most importantly, the physics is correct. It's a first rate teaching package. I give it five stars!"
Download the Teachers Guide... it has non-SI units)

Surviving a Car Crash" Duration 44 minutes (also in parts on youtube, with different subtitles)
"Horizon meets the scientists working to make fatal car crashes a thing of the past. A remarkable fusion of mechanical engineering and biology promises to save countless lives across the world. The programme has exclusive access to the secretive world of the most advanced car crash tests. Horizon reveals how the latest advances in trauma medicine, psychology and even extreme sport are transforming your chances of surviving on the roads.The programme shows how researchers are creating a new virtual crash test dummy that could change how our cars are designed forever."

Modern Marvels: The Secret Life of the Crash Test Dummy Duration: 44 minutes

"From a case of mistaken identity in the ‘Roswell Incident’ UFO sightings in the New Mexico desert, to the US military’s top secret research and development programmes of the 50s, to a series of highly sensitive experiments – on humans, on animals and finally on human corpses, The Secret Life Of The Crash Test Dummy charts the bizarre and sometimes gruesome secret life of this mechanical humanoid."

It probably should be viewed first before deciding if it is suitable for your class, some of the footage is difficult to watch. The use of cadavers to "calibrate" the modern crash test dummy would make a good issues investigation, as would the construction of safety standards that centre around the Hybrid III which models the 50th percentile male .

But if you want something quick, 47 seconds .. Crumple zones, you can have too much of a good thing!

CEGSA Conference Touches Down!

2011-07-06T10:15:00.002+09:30

After the 2011 CEGSA conference missed an attempted landing in May, they are now into the final approach and looking to set down on the 13th of August at St Peters College.

My first slot is a 45 minute presentation on Internet Search entitled "To Google.... and beyond!".

Search is one of the most basic skills in Information Literacy and too often students and teachers are expected to know how to search the Internet effectively.

In my experience there is a lot that people don't know, and with just a little bit of knowledge can turn you into a search pro - saving you time, improving your teaching and resources, and improving the quality of your students' work.

This is my hopeful overview to the right... I haven't as yet timed my presentation and some things may have to yield, but I am hoping to cover these points.

My second slot is a 1.5 hour workshop where I am teaching teachers how to use Google Sites to make their own websites to support their students learning. I have been using Sites for the past two years and I would rate Google Sites next to YouTube as the most effective technology tool I have used to enhance my students' learning.

Making a website with Sites is easy - you don't need to know html or anything too complex, if you got the hang of Microsoft Word then you have the basic skills you need.

I do ask that participants to make a Google Account or Gmail Account before the conference - that will expedite matters.

If you want to check out one of my sites, I have recently set one up to support the Physics community in SA.

If you are new to my blog feel free to have a look around, use the tag cloud to the right to find a topic of relevance. I hope to see you at the conference if you are South Australian.

Google News Archives - old news comes alive!

2011-05-10T12:39:00.000+09:30

Most people are aware of the various search options, you can search the web, images, books, news and so on. Google News Archive is a way of search historical documents such as newspapers.

You can put in a relevant person or event (although the archives are mainly american-centric) and a timeline is generated. Click on the timeline to refine the search.

However for my money the best feature is the ability to browse newspapers such as the The Sydney Morning Herald or The Melbourne Age

It could be used to compare the evolution of newspapers, look at the first accounts of pivotal historical events, gain an insight into life during a particular time - so many possibilities.

Search and Sites Conference Presentations - CANCELLED!

2011-05-04T13:39:00.002+09:30

The conference below was cancelled and will be resheduled for later in the year. Perhaps timing, cost or teacher fatigue are the culprits.

The CEGSA (Computers in Education South Australia) Annual Conference will be on @St Peters College on the 13th and 14th of May. Here's the program and the abstracts I will be running two presentations on the Saturday. Registration is open until Friday - I hope to see you there!

A 0.5 hour presentation on search/research "To Google... and beyond!"
A 1.5 hour workshop "Google Sites to support teaching and learning"

I am working away on two websites to support my participants. Feel free to drop me a line by the email form in the sidebar!

Middle School Chemistry investigating Atoms and Molecules

2011-04-28T13:12:00.000+09:30

The Middle School Chemistry site is a brilliant resouce for all science teachers from the American Chemical Society.

This website is pure quality, from it's look, feel, consistency and printable resources. The focus is on Science by Doing. There are six main topics, each consist of 5-9 sub-topics. Each subtopic has it's own page where the introduction lays out the:

Key Concepts
Summary
Evaluation
Safety
Materials for Each Group

After the introduction the units consist of Engage, Explore, Explain and Extend sections. The webpages are all supported with downloadable pdfs of the webpages and student activities.

The Multimedia section includes graphics and videos to support your lessons.

Be sure to explore then bookmark/favourite/tag this site. Time spent exploring this site would be well worth it for any science teacher.

Life Photo Archive hosted by Google

2011-04-27T11:22:00.000+09:30

Google has taken images from the seminal magazine LIFE, and created Google Life Photo Archive. I have a copy of LIFE magazine from 1965 featuring the first space walk, it took me seconds to find the cover.

The photos reflect the high quality of the publication in their composition. There are millions of photos in the archives and most of them have not appeared in the magazine. This would be useful in a history class to view the world through the eyes of middle class America.
If you specify a year eg "1965 source:life" in Google Images you firstly see all the covers from that year and then pictures taken in that year. Just note the images are copyrighted.

Physical Education Resources

2011-04-26T11:17:00.001+09:30

This is my first blog post about Physical Education (PE), otherwise known as Gym class. The PE teachers I know find YouTube a wonderful resource show students technique or engage students with inspirational sporting moments. You can turn any YouTube into slow motion to analyse technique two ways:

Use Embed Plus which allows you to view embedded video with slow mo and instant replay.
Or download the clip and play in a media player that allows slow motion eg VLC several options under the playback tab.

However this blog post was stimulated by being shown the exercise section in Bodybuilding.com. This site has a huge amount of resources for anyone interested in toning their body (or completely bulking up).

You can choose an area of the body you want to work on.

You can select exercises that cater to beginners:

You can select for the equipment you have:

You can choose the exercises by the types of results you are after:

A series of exercises is the generated, all with user ratings:

Click on the exercises and you get a video showing you exactly how the exercise is performed, you have a choice of male or female demonstrators:

It shows you a muscle map describing areas targeted:

The site has a wealth of resources to explore - it even generates complete exercise programs with resources like

warm up exercises
weekly exercises
calorie calculators
macronutrient calculators
information on essential fats
hydration tips
progress charts proformas

I can imagine that if I was a PE teacher I could use this site in so many ways!

Google Custom Searches

2011-04-25T16:17:00.005+09:30

Younger students can be very haphazard in their internet searches and need scaffolding if they are going to find quality information. The world wide web can be a bewildering place! Teachers can create their own customised searches where students are confined to sites only they specify. To make your own customised search is easy. Firstly go to Google Custom Searches.

From there it is easy, follow the steps, agree to the terms of service, then click next. You have some options of the appearance of your search box, then Google generates embed code for your custom search.

You can then place the embed code into a webpage such as a Google Site, a blog or wiki.

Here is a search box that has my blog as the only site. Test it out, you will see that there are ads generated before the search results. Ads are a necessary evil I suppose - there is no such thing as completely free, we all pay in one way or another. Test the box you see below...

You don't need to exclude the rest of the web either. By clicking on "manage your existing search engines" you can ensure that your chosen sites are at the top of the search results.

You could even get students to make their own google searches on a major topic and share with the rest of the class.

LaTex - Writing Maths, Chemistry or Physics Equations

2011-04-24T12:22:00.000+09:30

When using digital media it can be problematic to write maths, chemistry or physics equations and formulas. A few years ago I attempted to create a series of Power Points for my physics class and eventually gave up - writing formula and equations were all too difficult. I even bought a graphics tablet and found that my somewhat mediocre handwriting looked even more mediocre when digitised. To add insult to injury the next upgrade of Office did not integrate with the tablet software, so the tablet was a complete fizzer. I went back to overhead transparencies, however I fear that the humble overhead projector may be an endangered species.

Microsoft Word has Equation Editor - but what happens if you are not using Word? What if you want to use PowerPoint, Open Office, Google Docs, Google Sites, blog or another format? Open Office has only the most rudimentary equation editor. You can use software like FX, however I don't find the user interface intuitive and it costs money.

This is where LaTex Online Equation editor (pronounced "latek") comes in handy. It provides a free, intuitive interface where the equations can be downloaded as a gif or generates html code that you can embed. The real functionality is that you can drag and drop straight into a document such as a Google Doc or Google Presentation - EASY!

I generated the Law of Conservation of momentum very quickly...

You can also generate chemical formulas

If you are comfortable using equation editor then you will find the interface familiar. Share the link with students so they can improve their assignments and practical reports.

Google Wonder Wheel - refining internet searches

2011-04-23T12:52:00.000+09:30

Sometimes students are a little stuck for what to type into search boxes, however Google's Wonder Wheel can help. You find this on the Google search page down on the left hand side.

Let me give you an example of a recent assignment that I was given at Uni. The assigment was on "motivation and learning" - using that to start my search, Google search finds 41 million results. To refine the search I hit "Wonder Wheel".

This compartmentalises my search into topics (similar to the Carrot2 search engine).

I then click on the Wonder Wheel option that is headed in the direction that I am interested.

The wheel then expands to show me further refinements. I then choose "cognitive theory psychology" and so on and so on. In this way the search results are limited to only those areas that you are interested in looking at. Happy Googling!

Google Teacher Academy Sydney

2011-04-22T17:21:00.003+09:30

On the 20th of April 50 educators from all over the world arrived at Google HQ in Sydney to attend Google Teacher Academy. I felt extremely privileged to be selected for a day of intensive professional development - only two GTA's are held in a year. We had attendees from such far flung regions as Japan, Russia, Belgium, America and New Zealand. Quite a few of us footed the bill for our own transport and accommodation and I feel confident that every participant felt it was worth every cent.

I hope that through my blog, conference presentations, in the classroom and through other conduits I can disseminate the knowledge I gained during the day and as a new member of the Google Certified Teacher community. It was a fantastic, unforgettable experience and I would urge anyone who is passionate about technology use in education should look out for the next GTA.

New Ways to View a Blogger Blog

2011-04-03T15:10:00.002+09:30

If you read a Blogger blog like mine, you may wish to display the blog in a whole new way. Just by adding a suffix of /view/flipcard#!/ you can see my blog as a flipcard.

You can also see my blog as mosaic, a snapshot, timeslide or sidebar. Great options for visual consumers of information like myself.

Teach-nology technology resource

2011-03-30T16:55:00.000+10:30

Today I had about ten minutes to prepare my lesson, I had to come up with an age appropriate graphing exercise. Google helped me to locate what I was looking for. Teach-nology had 40 different exercises in graphing I could have chosen from - I used a line graph with data I knew would form a straight line. There are plenty of worksheets and exercises that you can access for free. This is the data I used for my students.

There is no need to kill trees and spend time photocopying, you can use digital resources with a data projector like I did - I added a few questions on hypothesis and variables, got them to copy the table and graph the data. Teach-nology certainly seems to have a wide variety variety of worksheets in Math, Science, Art and Languages in all manner of topics.

Physics.org Resources for Physics teachers

2011-03-26T19:16:00.001+10:30

Physics.org is a site designed to engage and stimulate interest in Physics. Two sections in particular would be useful to Physics and Science teachers - Discover and Explore.

Explore contains a searchable data base of resouces that is ranked in popularity. The launch page shows content that is relevant and ranked by popularity. The site asks people to submit web resources thay have found valuable to add to the catalogue.

Discover contains their own resources to stimulate interest in physics, including interactives, games and videos of experiments you could do in class or at home.

The latest news gives teachers a glimpse at the forefront of physics:

Microscope Interactive

2011-03-24T20:32:00.001+10:30

Before you let your students loose on the real deal, get them to use this microscope tutorial.

It shows the anatomy of a binocular microscope then guides the students through the steps in using a microscope. Students were instantly engaged in the interactive and were more confident in the use of their microscopes. It is equally as effective if done with a data projector, calling up students to navigate through the screens by manipulating the interactive microscope. I would definitely recommend this to any class about to embark on some microscopy.

Chemwars - sumo wrestling atoms

2011-03-23T20:00:00.000+10:30

Chemwars is a game where you get to bet for or against the reactivity of metals. The metals then battle and construct the activity series.

I could only get the program to work in Windows Explorer, it clearly is not made for Firefox. It shows real before and after shots of reactions, such as this before of an iron screw driver in copper sulfate. It is a short activity that may be a way to teach the reactivity series without using chemicals.

Periodic Table Games

2011-03-22T08:00:00.001+10:30

Sheppard software offer numerous free flash games on the periodic table that are graded into levels. I will be definitely be trying these out with my year 9's as we start the periodic table this week.

They also have sound which is very handy when a student is trying to figure out how to say americium or praseodymium.

The various games tests the students knowledge of the symbols and position of various elements.

I love showing the periodic table flash sung by Tom Leher.

Hippocampus - flash tutorials in most subjects

2011-03-21T06:20:00.001+10:30

The Hippocampus website has scores of flash tutorials in a multitude of topics. This facility is made available to the public at no cost by NROC - the National Repository of Online Courses.

Topics include:

Algebra
American Government
Biology
Calculus
Environmental Science
Physics
Psychology
Religion
Statistics
US History

The flash tutorials can also be accessed via a "mini-site" a more student friendly. Here is the example of the Physics lessons available.

The flash interactives contain video and animations, as well as testing you on the materials before you move on to the next portion. They are easy to fast forward and replay. This is a first class resource for students who need assistance.

WeatherSpark - interactive weather graphs

2011-03-19T09:12:00.000+10:30

WeatherSpark is a site that moulds vast amounts of data into easy to read graphs. You can interact with the graphs by panning and zooming to get the information for any weatherstation on the globe at any time in the last 50 years.

You can see temperature maximums, minimums, averages all displayed across time, as well as cloud and precipitation data. You can display it daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. You could analyse graphs across locations and time and draw inferences of latitudes and seasons.

Free Physics eTextbook

2011-03-18T08:24:00.002+10:30

The People's Physics Book is an excellent free reource for students and teachers. The book contains numerical and conceptual problems, all with answers. It can be downloaded chapter by chapter or as a complete book.

The chapter list:

Ch 0.1: Introduction and Vision (includes information on how to print books)
Ch 1: Units and Problem Solving
Ch 2: Energy Conservation
Ch 3: One Dimensional Motion
Ch 4: Two Dimensional and Projectile Motion
Ch 5: Newton's Laws
Ch 6: Centripetal Forces
Ch 7: Momentum Conservation
Ch 8: Energy and Force
Ch 9: Rotational Motion
Ch 10: Simple Harmonic Motion
Ch 11: Wave Motion and Sound
Ch 12: Electricity
Ch 13: Electric Circuits: Batteries and Resistors
Ch 14: Magnetism
Ch 15: Electric Circuits: Capacitors
Ch 16: Electric Circuits: Advanced Topics
Ch 17: Light
Ch 18: Fluids
Ch 19: Thermodynamics and Heat Engines
Ch 20: Special and General Relativity
Ch 21: Radioactivity and Nuclear Physics
Ch 22: Standard Model of Particle Physics
Ch 23: Feynman Diagrams
Ch 24: Quantum Mechanics
Ch. 25 Using Calculus with Physics(under construction)
Ch. 26 Global Warming
App. A: Numerical and Short Answers to Problems
App. B: Equations

Teaching Tsunamis and Earthquakes

2011-03-17T07:02:00.000+10:30

With the tragedy unfolding in Japan, schools play an important role in educating students about the science behind earthquakes and tsunamis.

Tsunamis can be poorly understood by students as they are erroneously called tidal waves.
Flash animations are helpful in showing students how they arise, here are two:
Tsunami animation by Mindpath
Geoscience Place tsunami animation

The Physics of Tsunamis is a great site for senior students.

This tsunami worksheet which is suitable for a physics waves topic.

Here are some earthquake resources.
Map of earthquakes in the last week
United States Geological Survey map of earthquakes in the last 7 days
Edinburg Earth Observatory a great resource worth exploring.
Active volcano map
How a seismograph works - flash animation.
Tsunami monitoring - flash animation
Propagation of the boxing day tsunami - flash animation
Iknowthat.com - a flash animated site good for younger students to self-explore.

Scitable - Biology Resource

2011-03-16T08:55:00.001+10:30

Scitable is an engaging resource for teachers and students of biology. The site says "Scitable is a free science library and personal learning tool brought to you by Nature Publishing Group, the world's leading publisher of science."
Major Topics covered include:
Genetics
Cell Biology
Ecology

The Spotlights section is particularly useful:
"Spotlights are focused explorations of key topics in science: current issues in the news, emerging lab techniques, thought leader perspectives, governmental policy, and a range of other subjects"

Each Spotlight page has an overview and links to resouces to other scitable pages, but also other sites such as Nova, NPR and DNAi.

Spotlights include Genomics, Heart Disease, Genetic Testing, Nanotechnology, Doping in Sport and many more. It may be a good place to start of your student have to choose a topic for an issues based assignment.

Google Streetview Parking Strategy

2011-03-15T07:25:00.001+10:30

This week I was strategising where I could park for free near my University, not excited by the prospect of paying $1.10 an hour or $4.00 a day charged in the University car parks. The Uni is surrounded mostly by bush and I had already tried the only adjacent suburb and found unfriendly 1/2 or 2 hour parking zone for the entire suburb... not sufficient for my purposes.

That is where Google maps came in handy.

I looked at the suburbs that abutted bushland which surrounds the Uni. By using a the overhead view I located a lovely bike path not shown in a street directory that went right to the Education Building.

However it was Street View that was the real bonus, I looked up and down the street... not a parking sign in site.

Not only is there free parking, but a lovely 10 minute stroll along a bike path through bushland. This may not seem like an education post... but it is important to show students how technology can be utilised to provide real world solutions.

Happy Pi Day!

2011-03-14T08:35:00.002+10:30

Hooray it is Pi day! If that isn't exciting enough it is also Albert Einstein's birthday. It is the perfect day to make a pie, providing it is circular.

Pi to 16 decimals places made with Spell with Flickr

To celebrate Einstein's bday this Einsteinch clip explains why time slows down in a spaceship travelling at relativistic speeds relative to another reference frame. The entire Einsteinch series can be found here - they are an excellent resource. If you wants to know what to understand a bit more about Einstein's theories... this series explains his world changing theories in understandable terms.

Student Laboratory Safety Assessment

2011-03-12T07:52:00.002+10:30

These day school labs are in OHWS overload. So it is a great idea to get the student do their own safety assessments before doing the practical. I use the following document, it forms part of their assessment and ensures students think about safe operating procedures before starting the experiment.

In the new SACE it forms part of the evidence I use when assessing I3:Uses well-organised safe and ethical investigation procedures.
Free to download and edit, not for commercial use.

Curriculum in Context

2011-03-11T10:50:00.001+10:30

How often do you teach a unit that is not instantly recognisable as have a context? A topic title of "Motion in 2D" or "Kinematics and Dynamics" may not have the same instantly recognisable real world context as "Rocket Science".

I took this approach when reorganising my year 11 Physics curriculum last year. In middle school science the benefits of a thematic unit are even greater as you can make links across disciplines: Biology, Chemistry, Physics and even Psychology in units such as "Forensic Science" "Medical Science" and "Sports Science". Science studied in isolation does not reasonate and pique interest in the same way studying science through the lens of a real world situation.

There are some excellent examples of thematic units in the NSW syllabus.

Their Senior Science course contains

Core Units

Lifestyle Chemistry
Bionic
Information Systems

Optional Units

Disasters
Polymers
Pharmaceuticals
Preservatives and Additives

Their Physics course contains

Core Units

Space
Motors and Geneators
From Ideas to Implementation

Optional Units

Geophysics
Medical Physics
Astrophysics
From Quanta to Quarks
The Age of Silicon

The optional units give the teacher the ability to choose the most relevant content for their strengths or situation, or maybe even give the students some autonomy over what interests them if you put it to a vote.

Biology and Psychology Practical Resource - Serendip

2011-03-10T07:30:00.001+10:30

Serendip is a site that has over 30 000 web pages devoted to biology and psychology education.

The site can be a bit overwhelming to navigate. The most useful pages I found are the "Hands-on Activities for Teaching Biology to High School or Middle School Students" and "The Playground".

Hands-on Activities for Teaching Biology to High School or Middle School Students contains a series of practicals in word or pdf form. There is also a comments section where you can view the comments of teachers that have already tried them and contribute your own comments.

The Playground contains interactive exhibits such as "The three doors of Serendip" which is an analogy for the "black box" theory of psychology, and "Time to Think" which could form the basis of formative investigation.

Google Image Swirl - Grouped Images

2011-03-09T09:01:00.001+10:30

When looking for images it is frustrating to find an image that is similar, but not quite what you are looking for. Imagine a button that you could click that says "I want an image that looks like this" ... that is Google Image Swirl.

"Google Image Swirl organizes image search results based on their visual and semantic similarities and presents them in an intuitive exploratory interface."

I tried "circuit board" and indeed the images were grouped by similarity of the images.

The interface looks like it could use some polishing, but it is a very powerful image search engine that can help you find that picture or diagram with a specific look. Tag Galaxy is prettier!

A Raft of Practical Ideas

2011-03-08T12:20:00.000+10:30

RAFT stands for "resource area for teaching" which contains hundreds of practical ideas for teaching downloadable in pdf form.

"RAFT provides innovative project ideas, hands-on learning materials, professional development and teaching support to pre-K-12 classroom and after- school teachers, child care providers, and nonprofit community service groups."

You can search the "idea sheets" by subject area and grade level. To give you a sample of the science sheets (there are also Math, Social Studies, Art and Languages) here are a few I liked

Black Box (this is very similar to an activity I do call "what's inside the atom?)
Craft stick catapults (a simple trebuchet)
Foam Tipped Stomp Rocket
Force meter
Leonardo's Arched Bridge

There are hundreds more - a fantastic resouce.

Photosynth - Photo stitcher

2011-03-07T07:35:00.004+10:30

Photosynth is a site by Microsoft that mashes images together and allows a complete stitch of multiple images. I was a bit disappointed because it doesn't flow smoothly from one image to the next like Clevr. It stitches images of varying perspectives which makes for a disjointed viewing experience if you click on the photos to navigate.
The space shuttle photosynth is composed of 246 photos and I was hopeful that the experience would mimic being there in real life. That being said if you were looking for a particular image or aspect of the space shuttle like I was a year ago (I needed to show the attitude thrusters for a momentum question) Photosynth is a good resource.

The best way I found to navigate is by pressing the advance button.

The Sphinx from National Geographic.

This is Flinders University, the uni I am studying at from the air. It has a more pleasant viewing experience as all the images are roughly from the same perspective.

What Photosynth does have going for it is that you can view other people's photos without a log in and it does have a professional interface. Some great pictures have been uploaded, so have a poke around the site.

Sweet Search Engine for Students

2011-03-06T09:08:00.004+10:30

Sweat Search is a search engine that will only point to websites that have been evaluated and approved by research experts, librarians and teachers. Rather than ranking the results by popularity, they ensure their results are ranked by credibility.

This ensures that students search more efficiently, as the search results are not cluttered with educationally irrelevant results.
Their blog site says: "We do more than merely exclude spam sites; we also exclude marginal sites that read well and authoritatively, but lack academic or journalistic rigor, and thus are not cite worthy."

There are multiple search engines provided by Sweet Search, there are searches that cater for

emerging learners
librarians
teacher's and students
biographies
social studies

The first search results are provided by the parent companies websites, Dulcinea, then past that there are high quality websites.

The search results give you a sneak peak of relevant content inside the website which you can then select by the check boxes and save directly to bookmarks or google docs amongst other options.

Although I am somewhat irked by the ranking of their own website above other sources, it does return results that are more relevant to students than searching the entire web. I am also disappointed that Wikipedia doesn't make the list for a credible site. A study that was published in the peer reviewed journal Nature showed that Brittanica had the same degree of accuracy as Wikipedia. This is a useful search engine to share with your students, however there is a huge wealth of resources on other sites such as YouTube and Wikipedia that is missed.

Create a Motivational Poster

2011-03-05T07:51:00.001+10:30

The Motivator site from Big Huge Labs lets you make your own motivational poster. Students could use it to make a poster quickly in class or for homework. It doesn't need to be motivational, it could be demonstrating a science concept or portraying a historical moment in time. This poster uses a screenshot from ChemEd DL.

For South Australian educators...

Biology Animations

2011-03-04T07:17:00.001+10:30

I have previously posted about the Dolan DNA Learning Centre, they have a collection of self paced learning flash animations on an array of topics such as:

cloning
restriction enzymes
gel electrophoresis
PCR
stem cell lines

All very suitable for year 10 -12 biology, they can even be downloaded. The animations also have related content listed below, great for students to extend their learning.

The Benefits of Chewing Gum While Studying

2011-03-03T08:20:00.001+10:30

I started tutoring students over a decade ago and always recommended that my students chew gum for several reasons. It stopped them from yawning as it kept them more alert with the secondary benefit of curing any breath problems they may have had!

Researchers at Swinburne University have examined the effect that chewing gum has on stress relief and focus and concentration. In the 40-person study of gum chewers (average age 22) the participants engaged in a multitasking task that induced stress while chewing and not chewing gum. Anxiety, alertness and stress levels were measured before and after the task, as well as measuring task performance.

It was shown that chewing

Relieved Anxiety: Gum chewers showed a reduction in anxiety as compared to non-gum chewers by nearly 17 percent during mild stress and nearly 10 percent in moderate stress.
Increased Alertness: Gum chewers showed improvement in alertness over non-gum chewers by nearly 19 percent during mild stress and 8 percent in moderate stress.
Reduced Stress: Levels of salivary cortisol (a physiological stress marker) in gum chewers were lower than those of non-gum chewers by 16 percent during mild stress and nearly 12 percent in moderate stress.
Improved Performance: Both gum-chewers and non-chewers showed improvement from their baseline scores; however, chewing gum improved mean performance scores over non-gum chewers by 67 percent during moderate stress and 109 percent in mild stress.

Reported in New Scientist a similar study conducted in Cambridge found increased activity in the hippocampus, the area of the brain important in memory. They found that people who chewed throughout the tests performed significantly better in a measure of both long-term and short-term memory.

Additionally peppermint has been found to enhance memory.

So chewing peppermint gum enhances alertness, memory and task performance while reducing stress making the activity the ultimate study companion.

Physics Resources Sites for Students

2011-03-02T08:51:00.003+10:30

Two sites: Khan Academy and Learn Physics blog.

I often give students links to tutorials and other resource materials so they can conquer an area of difficulty in Physics. I takes time to find good resources and so it is great to see a compilation of different resources that students can access over the internet.
The Khan Academy has ramped up their YouTube tutorials since being recipients of a Google Grant of $2 million USD to further their not for profit education work.
Maths, physics, finance and even history topics are explained in the Khan tutorials.

Even if YouTube is blocked at your school the Khan academy have a mirror site at archive.org.

Another useful site which assists physics students is "Learn Physics through notes and study material" which contains notes, problems, conceptual questions, all tagged for easy browsing (tag cloud is at the bottom of the blog). The purpose of the blog is to prepare Indian students for the physics component of their tertiary entrance exam into engineering and medicine.

Students can mix the two sites... watch a tutorial and then test their understanding with questions from the blog.

Construct a Stirling Engine

2011-03-01T06:53:00.007+10:30

I was intrigued when I saw a clip on the instructables website of a Stirling engine. Instructables have all sorts of projects and may just be the place to direct a science minded student to if they have to do the Personal Project (IBMYP) or the Research Project (new SACE).

I am looking forward to having a go at making one of these when teaching an energy topic.

Keep on track with an online timer

2011-02-28T07:11:00.001+10:30

The Online Countdown Timer is easy to set and plays a YouTube when the time is up. Suggest it to your students to use it to keep them on track. It even comes with a snooze button.

It says you can set any clip as your alarm, however I could only get the four suggested videos to work. I desperately wanted Sonny and Cher "I got you babe" as in Groundhog Day... but it didn't work:-( Number three is "Clocks" by Coldplay; not alarming enough to startle, but sufficient to catch your notice.

The timer is a useful time management tool - students can use it to set a goal for study or as a limit for time spent (wasted?) on facebook. Time management is one of the biggest challenges your students face in the computer age as it so easy to lose yourself in technology.

Creative Commons Search

2011-02-27T09:32:00.001+10:30

Creative Commons Search is way to ensure that you and your students use material that is free and legal.

The best way to prepare your kids for the intellectual property minefield is to teach them good practices from the start.

Graph Paper - download and print

2011-02-26T08:10:00.001+10:30

Free online graph paper from incompetech is just that. Give a link to your students as well.... as a teacher you will lessen your chance of seeing a graph on hand drawn grids in a lined exercise book. Many different types of graph paper, almost any type you can think of, and you can also customise them if desired. The paper downloads as pdf's. Have printer, will graph.

Spezify - Social Media Mashup

2011-02-25T08:13:00.001+10:30

Spezify is a great way to examine how soical media is portraying an event or phenomena. It draws together photos, tweets, youtubes, music and snippets from websites about whatever it is you are spezifying. For instance if you were discussing Lady Gaga, it gives a glimpse into current buzz on the internet.

You don't have to use social phenomena, I typed in cold fusion, einstein and buckyball. Here I used it purely as an image search.

Everything is clickable and will take you to the original source.

Physics Interactives - Forces and Time

2011-02-24T11:25:00.002+10:30

If you liked "Who Wants to live a Million Years" then you will also love this interactive on Newton's Laws that covers all three laws as well as including a quiz.

Build Your Own Time Machine
is a bit more advanced but explains the nature of time - both interactives are very engaging.

I have used the Newton's law interactive and it is a great way to consolidate the concepts learnt.

Scitoys and Science Toy Maker websites

2011-02-23T08:20:00.001+10:30

In 2003 I was in a tiny school that had next to no equipment teaching year 11 and 12 Physics. I discovered the Scitoys website and with the year 11 students we made a steam boat and a film cannister rocket. Scitoys has great ideas and projects to do with your students to demonstrate some of the principles of science in a constructive, practical manner, however some of the instructions are a bit complicated or the materials are difficult to obtain.

A similar site is Science Toy Maker, it has fewer projects but has youtubes/teachertubes that support the making of the projects, which makes the instructions and finished product much more accessible. I definitely will be using this site in the future!!!

Here is my steam boat (with simpler materials) on science toy maker which also includes the physics and history of putt putt steam boats.

These foam gliders would make an unforgettable lesson...

Qwiki the Multimedia Search Engine

2011-02-22T06:51:00.002+10:30

Imagine the love child of a search engine, World Book and the Discovery Channel.... that is Qwiki. It contains the same kind of range of topics you would find in an encyclopedia, each entry has a script that is read by a computer voice while a pastiche of images plays in the background. I can see this has huge potential in primary and secondary classrooms. It may take a bit to load... I think 30 students all accessing qwiki at the same time may be a problem - but a great resource for a small class, group work or homework.

This is a Qwiki on the Naked Scientists - my favourite podcast, as you can see there is a huge range of topics. Press play when it has loaded, you will need your speakers on. You will see as the words scroll down some are blue hyperlinks which sends you to other pages.

This website was given a hug thumbs up by my children 9 and 13, they will be using it for school.

Silk Art

2011-02-21T07:12:00.000+10:30

If you have a few seconds, visit Weave Silk and make a work of art.

BrainPOP with Tim and Moby

2011-02-20T09:36:00.004+10:30

You can join the BrainPOP site which costs, or you can watch these science ones for free.

Metamorphosis
Ecosystems
Plant Growth
Photosynthesis and Respiration
Mitosis
How Joints Work
Bone Structure
Respiratory System
Eye
Fertilization and Birth
Circulatory System
Heredity
Immune System
Digestion
Six Kingdoms
What is Weather?
Bacteria
Protists
Scientific Methods Seed Plants
Sponges
Invertebrates
Vertebrates
Cell Structures
Radiation
Tides
Relativity
Acceleration
Acids and Bases
Rock Cycle
Water Cycle
Thunderstorms
Atoms
Batteries
Big Bang
Compounds Mixtures
Crystals
EM Spectrum
Eclipse
Electricity
Energy Sources
Gravity
Heat
Life Cycle Of Stars
Light
Magnetism
Mass Vol Density
Periodic Table
Printer
Radio
Rainbow
Relativity
Scientific Method
Solar System
States of Matter
Static Electricity
Telephone
Temperature
Thunderstorms
Waves
pH scale

There are a lot more brainPOP movies than this, over 400 in language arts, math, science, social studies, technology and health. I found these free ones either on the site or by searching using the filetype:swf limiter. It shows what you can find if you know how to search effectively.
Each movie is accompanied by a 10-question interactive quiz, experiment, comic strip, timeline, and printable activities (example), so you may want to go on the brainpop site... there is a free trial. Check it out, get your students using this valuable resource.

Genochoice Designer Babies

2011-02-19T09:06:00.003+10:30

You can pose ethical dilemmas to students, but playing an interactive game is more fun. Genochoice is a realistic website which lets you create a child. With enough money you can have the perfect blonde, blue eyed child free from any genetic abnormality.

The site "scans" your DNA and gives you the likelihood that your child will suffer from any range of genetic "defects" - ADHD and homosexuality is amongst them. (this alone provokes debate).

Then choose to correct genetic susceptibility to disease

For a tidy sum you can correct the defect to create you perfect child. Spend a bit extra you can buy enhancements - more intelligence for example.

You are then "billed".

You then supply your email address to get updates of your child - unfortunately this feature of the website doesn't work. Last year I had made cheques made out to "genochoice" (monopoly money would work as well) and was planning to create a classroom of genetic haves and have nots, but ran out of time. Some students would have more money, some less. I would have then let the students decide the attributes of their offspring and defend which one they chose.

GenoChoice is actually a project by artist and filmmaker Virgil Wong. It isn't real, or intended to be real. It was originally exhibited as an art project at the Alterniative Museum in NYC.

Natural Selection Game

2011-02-18T06:12:00.001+10:30

"Who wants to live a million years?" is a very engaging interactive. I have played it with year 10's and 12's and it brilliantly shows how genetic variation and selecting pressures result in changes in the gene pool or extinction. Survival is the name of the game.

Evolutionary Biology in a Flash

2011-02-17T08:28:00.001+10:30

Here are two sites I have used when discussing comparative physiology/ evolution.

Becoming Human is an interactive documentary I have used over the years, it utilises stills and music to create a majestic atmosphere of enquiry and discovery. You can launch the documentary online, or you can download it for use on your machine without internet connection. It is hard to believe that this is over ten years old.. it is still an awesome resource that hasn't dated. There are some worksheets available here and here. There are excellent classroom activities, perfect if you are a laptop school. Download it and put it on your server, make sure you students have headphones.

eSkeletons is a comprehensive comparative anatomy site made by the department of Anthropology at the University of Texas. The comparative anatomy section allows you to select a particular bone (or bones) and as many species as you wish to compare.

The linked site eLucy has plenty of teacher resources.

As you can see, there are lesson plans and resources like crosswords and puzzles. Bookmark both these sites.

Carrot Search - a new way to display search results

2011-02-16T07:56:00.002+10:30

Tired of your everyday search engine? Want something new with flavour and high in fibre? Try Carrot2, this clustering search engine just might help you see in the dark! I stumbled upon this last night by following one of my blog's referring sites and I have been playing with it ever since.

The search results return as regular text as well as a flash graphic that you can interact with. It gives you a selection of terms associated with your search term which you can click on for further refinement.

Let's start with with searching for "floods"

When you click the visualise tab that you can see the visual "cluster" of search results.

A click of the joining arrow in the ring yields more clusters...

Mousing over the dots yields small grabs of the site which appear in the centre of the ring. Clicking on the dots opens the search result in a new tab.

It also offers several different types of searches - web, bing, yahoo, wiki, images, news, jobs, pubmed, put, blog. I am sure this visual way of interacting with search results will be useful with an IWB!

YouTube videos without the other stuff

2011-02-15T07:11:00.000+10:30

You can strip away all the other stuff in youtube... the ads, the comments etc etc with safeshare. Great for the classroom, minimising any potential distraction. You have to make sure you have searched for the video beforehand - but you definitely should be previewing all content before showing anyway.

Just paste the youtube link into the box and it will generate a safeshare link to play your video.
The safeshare link looks like this http://www.safeshare.tv/v/GaSRRXWCBtQ and works a treat.

Biological and Medical Animations

2011-02-14T07:14:00.001+10:30

When I taught medical science last year I would have loved to have stumbled upon Penn State's Medical Animation Library. Here is a huge catalogue of flash animations to aid students learning. My medical science students' understanding and retention was greatly enhanced by using flash animations I incorportated into lessons.

The animations are grouped into topics which makes finding the right one a breeze:
Allergy and Immunology
Cancer
Childcare
Dermatology
Ear, Nose and Throat
Endocrinology
Eyes and Vision
Fitness
Gastroenterology
Neurology
Ob/Gyn
Orthapaedics
Pregnancy and Embryology
Pulmonary
Surgery
Urology

The range of topics makes this site useful for science, biology, health, P.E and child studies. They all come with captions so if you have a room of laptops and no headphones, the students can read the commentary.

Physics Videos

2011-02-13T09:52:00.000+10:30

This 5 part video is from NASA on the Electromagnetic Spectrum.

This youtube is really good too, visible light is such a small pat of the spectrum!

Professor Jim Al-Khalili is a favourite physics presenter, this series is called "The Atom". I used parts 1 and 2 for relief lessons for my year 11 Physics class - also very relevant to chemistry. They are 44 minutes long each (I have only embedded the first part of each video)

Part 1 - The Clash of the Titans

Part 2 - The Key to the Cosmos

Part 3 - The Illusion of Reality

If you discover any of these links broken, please email me using the "Email the Author" form in the right hand column - thanks.

Psychology Drug Videos - Brain and Behaviour

2011-02-12T10:29:00.000+10:30

National Geographic Drugged Series.
This video is not blocked outside the US (sadly most of their stuff is) and if you watch my embedded videos you don't have to watch the ads. (you do if you watch on the Nat Geo site) If you click on the "High on ..." links and click on the tabs there are particularly good infographics like this one.

Drugged: High on Marijuana

Drugged: High on Cocaine

Drugged: High on Ecstasy

This is an American 60 minutes story on students boosting their performance with ADHD drugs.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Spicynodes Mind Map

2011-02-11T07:54:00.002+10:30

Spicynodes is another web 2.0 mind mapper, similar to Bubbl.us and Popplet. The finished mind map is engaging, but I don't find the interface as simple. There is some extra functionality, like the ability to insert hyperlinks. You can click on the nodes and it will open my most popular posts.

I would probably use spicynodes myself when I need a mindmapper that has hyperlink capability, however I probably wouldn't use it directly in the classroom.

Simulations from PhET

2011-02-10T06:34:00.000+10:30

The University of Colorado have been making their PhET simulations (Physics Educucation Technology) since 2005. What make these sims particularly engaging is the sense of fun in some of them - for example in the projectile motion sim you can blow the pants off the statue of David. It never takes long for my students to figure that out!

You can run them straight from the web page, download individual sims or download the entire suite.
If you haven't looked for a while there are some excellent new sims - Build an Atom and Reactants, Products and Leftovers are two brilliant simulations that enable students to see the unseeable. I would definitely use them with year 9's and up. The sims come supported with teacher guides and worksheets, you can even submit your own worksheets.

There are all manner of science and math simulations. In total 99 simulations available in an amazing array of languages. Subscribe to their newsletter.

Virtual Art Tour via Google

2011-02-09T07:19:00.000+10:30

Google have used their StreetView technology to make some of the world best art galleries accessible to anyone with a computer connection with Art Project. You have a choice of just viewing the art work or virtually touring through. You can look at a floor plan so you won't get lost. The interface gives you a view of how the paintings appear in the gallery. The level of zoom is quite amazing, you can see every brush stroke. (see zoom below - not even at full zoom)

Starry Night - Vincent van Gogh

There is also information with every painting.

You can even create your own galleries, I can see this would be a very very cool toy for an art teacher.

How they made Google Art Project

Alice and Bob in a Physics Wonderland

2011-02-08T11:50:00.000+10:30

Alice and Bob are two engaging cartoon characters that answer some of the mysteries of Physics in short videos - all downloadable thanks to the Perimeter Institute.

Why doesn't the Moon fall down?

Why is it dark at night?

There are others, see this page and download them.

The Power of Ideas page is very engaging, use the slider to flow through the ideas and click on videos and pdfs.

Check out all the Perimeter Institute's Teacher Resources for classroom videos, activities and worksheets on subjects as diverse as dark matter, GPS and quantum reality.

Paper Rater - Essay Checker

2011-02-07T12:07:00.001+10:30

Paper Rater is an excellent resource for students and teachers. It is 100% free and works like this:
1) You paste your essay/prac/letter/email/job application/whatever in their search box
2) Fill in some boxes, year level, type of text, your reference list
3) Click "Get Report"

and you get a full report that highlights any problems (in a very engaging interface!)

It checks your title, for plagiarism, spelling, grammar, word choice, style, vocabulary words and grade.

It even can help you increase you vocabulary by sending you to Vocab Builder.

Their blurb "PaperRater.com is a free resource, developed and maintained by linguistics professionals and graduate students. PaperRater.com is used by schools and universities in over 46 countries to help students improve their writing.
PaperRater.com combines the power of natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, information retrieval (IR), computational linguistics, data mining, and advanced pattern matching (APM). We offer the most powerful writing tool available on the internet today."

I tested this blog post and it gave me a B, however on the plus side it noted:
"Excellent work! Your usage of sophisticated words is on par with other well-written papers! Nevertheless, you may still wish to use our Vocab Builder to maintain your edge."

Test it and tell your students!

Psychology Perception and Attention Videos

2011-02-05T17:41:00.000+10:30

This series of videos have been produced by Simons and Levin. Enjoy.

I love Derren Brown's extended take on this.

DNA Videos and Animations

2011-02-05T10:08:00.000+10:30

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the amazing depth and breadth of resources I find that I don't know where to start. But cyberspace is a lot like travelling the globe, there are so many places to visit and experiences to have you can't possibly do it all at once; you can only really scratch the surface in a lifetime.
There are so many excellent DNA/Biology sites

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) site has really excellent animations and video (download wmv or mov)

DNA tube has brilliant videos and animations sorted in topics and categories, fully searchable (not just DNA - chem and physics too).

Dolan DNA learning Centre

I have used several of their sites, like Genes to Cognition when teaching the brain in Psychology - the 3D brain is very impressive.

The Your Genes Your Heath site could be easily set for an assignment as an investigation into genetic diseases.
The DNAi site allows you to compile a "lesson" using Lesson Builder in the myDNAi site. You lesson is assigned a link which you can go back to again and again. This is something that I compiled as part of a relief lesson back in 2006 and it is still there! Or you can choose a premade lesson.

Do you remember the series DNA that came out in 2003 with ground breaking visualisations of transcription and translation? Watch the series on DailyMotion. (53 minutes per episode)
DNA - The secret of life
DNA - Playing God
DNA - Human Race
DNA - Curing Cancer
DNA - Pandora's Box

You can download them using the keepvid site.

Wolfram Alpha - The search engine that knows stuff.

2011-02-04T08:42:00.000+10:30

Imagine a search engine that doesn’t know where websites are (like Google), but instead it knows stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. It knows how many, how far, where, what – it knows people and places, science and math. That is Wolfram Alpha.

What stuff do you want to know? Maybe....

Biology: You want to know the genetic relationship between roundworms and flatworms or the nutritional information of a Big Mac
Chemistry: You want to know the structure of benzene -type "benzene"
Physics: You are setting a physics problem and you need to know the mass of an average car - type "mass of car"
Geology: You want to know about recent local earthquakes - type "earthquakes in Australia in the last 5 years"

This page has lots more examples.

There is real time data as well - "Adelaide weather" provides more info than you can poke a stick at.

The most powerful features of this search engine is in maths - it is a computational knowledge engine - it can do all manner of maths and physics problems, AND show all the working steps. This "(x+5)*(2*x-3)" yields the graphs, roots and all sorts of information. Students doing homework may never have to think EVER AGAIN. That there is an iphone app means that students can solve problems instantly at their desk without having to think. I know a lot of maths teachers who would be unhappy with this revolution - but we must embrace change, work with change. Show students how to use the tool to check their work.

Introduction to Wolfram Alpha

View more presentations from Julie Starr.

60 Second Science video competition

2011-02-03T13:59:00.000+10:30

The 2011 COMPETITION OPENS ON January 31 2011
REGISTRATION Deadline - Friday 16 September 2011 5pm A E S T
UPLOAD VIDEO(s) - by Friday 28 October 2011 5pm AEST

The 2011 60 Second Science video competition is open! Free entry and over $10000 in prize money. Get your entire class to submit an entry, or with the new open category - make a video yourself!

Eight categories

• INTERNATIONAL OPEN : (any age, for non-school-age entrants, professional, amateur film-makers welcome)
• INTERNATIONAL PRIMARY/JUNIOR/ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Students
• INTERNATIONAL SECONDARY/ HIGH SCHOOL Students
• INTERNATIONAL LOTE -- (Produce a video with spoken soundtrack in a Language Other Than English - AND with English subtitles) - school students only

• AUSTRALIAN OPEN : (any age, for non-school-age entrants, professional, amateur film-makers welcome)
• AUSTRALIAN PRIMARY/JUNIOR/ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Students
• AUSTRALIAN SECONDARY/ HIGH SCHOOL Students
• AUSTRALIAN LOTE -- (Produce a video with spoken soundtrack in a Language Other Than English - AND with English subtitles) - school students only

Move to the cloud

2011-02-02T21:56:00.000+10:30

Schools spend thousands of dollars on learning management systems/intranets/servers … comprehensive solutions for schools to manage an internal online environment. Some LMS are free (like Moodle), some cost thousands.

Coming back to school in 2010 was chaotic as our eLearning portal crashed. All backups that were meant to easily resurrect the system in the event of such a crash - failed. It was then that I decided to ditch the eLearning portal once and for all and move to the cloud - for me that was Google Sites.

Benefits of moving to the cloud:

1) Your choice of portal to communicate with your students – blogger, google sites, wikispaces whatever.
2) Access to all your precious resources when you have moved on from your school. It must be heartbreaking to spend countless hours setting up on your schools LMS only to have to walk away from your hard work. Also all those emails lost to the schools server!
3) Your choice of the degree to which you wish to share your resources… your students, colleagues or the world. That most LMS are completely closed to the external environment does not help teacher to share beyond their school.
4) Promotes collaboration - it doesn't matter what operating system or software other people are using, anyone can collaborate with anyone else on the cloud.
5) Access from anywhere - the cloud is on the internet so can be accessed from anywhere - intranets are not always accessible.
6) The cloud is here there and everywhere - a single system failure will not cause you to lose data.
7) Small clouds are free ;-)

The time when the cloud saved my butt

My email is in the cloud. Sure every day when I log on my email comes into my inbox to reside on my machine - but if my computer dies all my messages I ever received live somewhere in one of Google's servers stored in perpetuity. I had a request last year for an exam written in 2005, that I couldn't locate on my machine. I remembered I had emailed it back then - and hence was preserved in perpetuity. Found in the cloud!

So if schools throw away their servers and learning management systems and move to the cloud and use solutions like Google Apps for Education, they no longer have to maintain their servers and software - saving time and manpower. If you organisation doesn't move to the cloud, your class can with wikispaces, google sites, etc - all for FREE!

Documentaries for the Classroom

2011-02-01T21:33:00.000+10:30

Here are some documentaries I can thoroughly recommend. If they have a asterisks next to them I have shown them to a class. I found them all online - download them for class viewing.

A brilliant madness (about John Nash – maths/psychology)

The race for absolute zero* (about breaking the temp barrier - physics)

Who killed the electric car* (about the ev1 – environmental)

An inconvenient truth* (Al Gore doco – environmental)

How Kevin Bacon cured cancer (about network theory - maths)

My Brilliant Brain series – Born Genius, Make me a Genius*( intelligence- psychology)

The boy with the incredible brain* (about Daniel Tammut, autistic savant - psychology)

Free eTextbooks - go paperless!

2011-02-01T09:35:00.000+10:30

Amazon has reported that it has sold more Kindle ebooks than paperbacks in the US during the final three months of 2010. This is a trend that will continue; so what are the ramifications for education?

eTextbook benefits:

you can have copies at home or school.
you don't have to lug around multiple large textbooks.
easy to update to the latest edition.
multimedia support - hyperlinks, videos, simulations.
they can be FREE if you know where to look.

eTextbooks drawbacks

you require hardware, either computers or eReaders to view the textbooks.
if using computers to view eTextbooks you need to ensure students have access to powerpoints.
not all people are comfortable reading on screens.

As schools shift to electronic devices they have significant challenges - cost, technical support, powerpoints availability, provision of secure lockers etc.

Many paper textbooks come with CD's and I have discovered that leaving them in the book is a bad idea as they do have a tendency to snap. I make sure I copy the CD onto my hard drive and I have a special folder set up in Documents called Textbooks.

In 2009 the Governator decreed that Californian students would no longer lug around textbooks The California free digital textbook initiative has chosen CK-12 to be the portal for their text books.

"CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide. Using an open-content, web-based collaborative model termed the "FlexBook," CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational content that will serve both as core text as well as provide an adaptive environment for learning through the FlexBook Platform™."

Benefits of Flexbooks: You can create your own library where you can edit, delete, share, and print your FlexBooks. You can download them for computers, iPad or Kindle. There are even teachers editions!

watch CK-12 video demo.

I used cK-12 as a textbook for my year 11 psychology class in 2009 in the topic of intelligence.
Other than cK-12, I have also downloaded the Light and Matter series by Benjamin Crowell for Physics classes.

My big tip - when viewing pdfs on a laptop -

Ctrl Shift + turns the page sideways
Ctrl L makes the screen full size
Use arrow keys to turn pages.

Much better for ebook reading on a laptop!

Picasa Photo Manager

2011-01-31T07:53:00.000+10:30

I recently rediscovered a program that I use to love and recommend, Picasa. I had Picasa recommend to me by a friend long long before they were acquired by Google. However Google knows a good product when they see it, and they snapped up in 2004. I used it to manage my images from my first digital camera, Kodak's mc3.

It goes to show how far (and how fast) we have come - I clearly remember the amazement of people in 2002 as I turned the camera around to show them the picture I had just taken... even more amazement when they saw and heard a video of themselves! Now I don't think many children in secondary school can remember a world without digital cameras.
Digital cameras are an underutilised device in science classrooms, use them for

taking photos of experimental set ups
excursion reports
constructing a taxonomy
constructing a food chain
creating a virtual tour of your science facilities
a digital photography science competition.

Here is an example of how the Victorian AIP used blogger to showcase a digital physics photo competition.

My students' leaf disc experiment, year 12 biology, 2010.

Why use Picasa? It trawls through your drives and locates photos AND videos. It creates thumbnails for the videos so you can easily locate them. With one click you can upload a whole folder to the cloud to make sharing pictures and videos with anyone easy.

I am going to test out the geotag feature on my recent road trip along the Great Ocean Road.

Cassiopeia Project

2011-01-30T14:42:00.001+10:30

The Casseopia Project have a motto "No science teacher left behind." Their videos are free to use ... download, remix (like I did in my google teacher application - see previous post) and have some really excellent explanations. I used the video about complexity theory in my google teacher application. Their videos cover all areas of science.

Google Teacher Academy

2011-01-28T00:24:00.000+10:30

I have just finished my application for Google Teacher Academy - the day it was due in. The main part of the application contained a 1 minute video on "Motivation and Learning" The hardest thing was to squeeze my message into sixty seconds!

Statistics

2011-01-27T08:16:00.000+10:30

Most people find statistics are boring I hear you say? There is probably a statistic for that. As a student pointed out to me once, 56.7% of statistics are completely fabricated. If you want to know how boring students find school the numbers are all there on NationMaster.com.

Perhaps you want to find some interesting education facts. Not as animated as Gap Minder, but fascinating reading.

Quizlet has audio!

2011-01-26T07:49:00.000+10:30

Quizlet have just implemented several new functions- audio and embed will be very useful. With audio you can choose the language of pronounciation, so if you teach a language, quizlet will help your students pronounce the words. The embed function means that students can have your flash cards right away in your site or blog, without having to naviagate away.
Try my scientific terms Quizlet.

Study these flash cards | Study science flash cards

Out of existing features I love the "most missed word" feature.

Year 12 Biology Video Resources

2011-01-25T19:20:00.000+10:30

Last year I took a different tack with my year 12 class to stimulate them to choose their own topics in the Human Awareness Essay. I gave them a series of films to view in their own time, to give them some insight into current issues in Biology. This gave them the confidence to choose topics that we had not yet covered.

The World According to Monsanto (Macromolecules/Cells)

GATTACA (Macromolecules- no longer available on youtube :-(

Supersize me (Organisms)

Home (Ecology)

Essential viewing in my class during the genetics section is the PBS documentary “Cracking the Code”. The streaming video would never work at school, so I would “load” each chapter in multiple browser tabs at home, hibernate my computer and it would all be there when I got to school. This is a way a teacher with a laptop can get around all a sorts of ridiculous blocking!!!

International Year of Chemistry 2011

2011-01-24T21:06:00.000+10:30

2011 is the International Year of Chemistry. Go to the site, register and get involved.

An example of an activity a school can get involved in "Water–A Chemical Solution: A Global Experiment" which you can register to particpate in, fully resourced with worksheets -Water: No Dirt, No Germs and pH of the Planet, which gives classes the opportunity to share their results in a truly global experiment.

Visit the Australian site to see what events are happening locally.

Have a look at the teachers page that contains some great worksheets.

Teachers' Domain

2011-01-24T17:13:00.000+10:30

Teachers in the US would be well aware of the resources on Teachers' Domain, lesson plans, flash animations and video clips, but local teachers may not be aware. Registration is free! The short clips (mainly PBS) provide an excellent resource.

A tiny sample of the clips I have used:

Yr10 Forces: Neil Armstrong dropping a hammer and feather on the moon. (also available on youtube)

Yr 10 Genetics: One Letter Wrong (about Tay Sachs disease – quite emotionally charged)

Yr 9 Earth Rocks: Dating Lava Flows.

The videos are both quicktime and mp4 format, both play in VLC. However you have the added benefit of subtitles if played in quicktime, helpful for hearing impaired students. A significant portion of their video resources are downloadable and the mp4s embed well into powerpoints.

Searchable and well sorted, although their obscure filenames when downloaded are extremely annoying eg ess05_vid_solarwind_300-raw OR tdc02_vid_singlecell_300.

Embedding Youtubes into Powerpoints

2011-01-21T20:34:00.001+10:30

Once again a pleasure to present at the SASTA Psychology Conference. This year I discussed the benefits of integrating Psychology into year 10 science, the task sheets and resources are all available on the psychologySA site (made with Google Sites). Make sure that you share the URL of the psych site with your Psychology colleagues. I used slideshare to put the video in, however Derren Brown has banned embeds.. it does mean you can click on the link and watch it in youtube.

2011 sasta psych conference presentation collins

View more presentations from cyberspaced educator.

So how did I embed that video? Firstly I snagged the video using this technique, making sure it was an mp4. (powerpoint doesn't like flv files) and placed it where I could find it (if you can't find it, it is in your downloads folder).
In a new slide there are some content options.... select the icon that looks like a film spool.

You then find and select the mp4 you want in there.

Then choose whether you want it to play automatically or when clicked. Then you need to tick the box that says "play full screen", and voila, you are DONE!

One word of caution... if you copy the powerpoint to somewhere else, eg a USB, it won't work because the mp4 is not really "embedded", it just creates a link.

Astronomy STARters

2011-01-20T12:26:00.000+10:30

I love teaching astronomy. Here are some slideshare powerpoints to explore.

Younger kids intro
Year 10 astronomy
Planets
Spectacular space pictures
Space shuttle

If you like them "favourite" them.

Tagexdo tag cloud

2011-01-19T09:09:00.001+10:30

Similar to Wordle, Tagexdo has tag clouds that come in many shapes. Here are my deli.cio.us tags.

Blog to Zine

2011-01-18T11:10:00.001+10:30

This is what I love about the web. I think to myself - "I wonder if anything can turn my blog into an e-zine?" type "turn blog into e-zine" and surely enough someone out there has a tool at the ready, in this case Zinepal.

Why?

It is one thing to view a blog, but it doesn't convert well into paper.

Reason #1 :Let's say you have a favourite blog that have numerous posts that you think would be relevant to your staff. You can print those posts that are relevant and place them on a pin up board, circulate it at a faculty meeting, or stick them up on the back of the toilet door so you can catch a captive audience. (professional development by stealth!)

Reason #2: Your students are blogging and you wish to have a hardcopy to mark/critique or submit for moderation etc.

Reason #3:Perhaps you have a class blog and you want to send hardcopies home to parents to showcase student work.

How?

1. Make an account with Zinepal.
2. Put the URL for the blog in the window

3. You select the blog posts you want, then you can rearrange them in the order you prefer.

4. Then the blog is made into a lovely looking pdf which can be read on the screen, emailed or printed.

Any drawbacks?

The free version can only contain 5 blog posts, and has Zinepal branding. If you want to have more scope for your zine you need to pay $5 which is a reasonable price for the professional looking product.

Naked Scientist experiment resource

2011-01-17T11:16:00.001+10:30

Last year during Science Week I had the pleasure of taking my year 9 class to see Chris Smith of The Naked Scientists radio program (he was fully clothed) at the RIAus. They have the mantle of promoting science communication, which they do via their weekly podcast, their website and my favourite, their "Kitchen Science" segment.

The Kitchen Science segment has experiments that anyone can do with household equipment. Experiments I have used in the classroom are extracting iron from cereal, making a trebuchet (we did this on peace day while examining instruments of war!) magnets and TV's and making a toaster hot air balloon. The great thing is that all the experiments come with clear instructions and video clips.

Their new video segment Science from the Sporan is silly but fun and their Science Scrapbook is good for kids.

I subscribe to the kitchen science RSS feed so get to scan their experiments from my iGoogle page.

CleVR panoramic photos

2011-01-16T12:32:00.001+10:30

You don't need a fancy camera or software to stitch together numerous side by side photos to create a landscape, the easy to use site CleVR can do it for you (note the VR is for virtual reality). If you do have a fancy camera that does it for you, you can still upload your panoramas and use the CleVR interface to display it on your website, blog or wiki, just by embedding the html code.
This was my effort after visiting Uluru in 2009 (note:Oprah is not in the picture). Zoom in, zoom out, restart the pan by right clicking and pressing play. You can even make a complete 360 degree view!

Panorama of Uluru on CleVR.com

What makes CleVR really clever is the ability to make hotspots that will take you to other images. With a tripod you could get the students to make a VR tour of the school! Perhaps that could consitute a new SACE research project for a student.

This is what the CleVR guys had to say: Most people have seen panoramas embedded on sites, whether this is on a real estate site or something like Google Street View. However it can be really hard and annoying to create and share them. The best stitching software is very expensive, and even the free ones can be very fiddly to use. Sharing them is even harder, especially if you want to link different locations together into a virtual tour. CleVR makes all of this very easy by having a very simple stitcher which integrates with the site, and an embeddable viewer. CleVR does for panoramas what YouTube did for video.

Annenberg Resources

2011-01-15T09:25:00.000+10:30

There are many sites on the web that have the brief to improve the quality of teaching and learning - Annenberg Media's Learner.org site is one of them. It has diverse resources in most subject areas, videos, interactives and articles all sorted in disciplines and grade level.

The interactives include "Amusement Park Physics" where you can design a rollercoaster. For my money the best resources are the psychology resources. I set up some launch sites for the last SASTA Psychology Conference to give teachers an overview of the Annenberg resources. Essential viewing for psychology teachers!!!

Watch "Discovering Psychology" with Philip Zimbardo
Watch "The Mind"
Watch "The Brain"
Watch "The World of Abnormal Psychology"

Science Podcasts

2011-01-14T12:43:00.001+10:30

I would like to recommend three outstanding podcast series to every science teacher or anyone interested in science, which you can listen to on your mp3 player as you walk, in your car - WWW stands for - Where ever, Whatever, Whenever!

The first two are from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), firstly "Chemistry in its Element" which has their podcasts laid out in an easily navigable periodic table. This would make a brilliant chemistry assignment - choose an element, listen to the podcast and make a summary of the audio information OR just a homework where students list 3 interesting facts.

Check down the bottom of the page if you want to download them rather than listen to them on the page, or use itunes.

New is the RSC's "Distilling the Compounds the Count" which is a still evolving series, both series are brilliant.

The last series is a physics series which uses a similar format to the podcasts above, called E=mc2 explained (I can't superscript!) from Nova. Ten top physicists—two Nobel Prize winners among them—describe Einstein's equation to curious non-physicists.

Popplet Mindmaps

2011-01-13T09:23:00.000+10:30

I love mind and concept maps in the classroom. They can be used to

gauge student knowledge before teaching a unit
help students link concepts together
summarise content in a unit
assist retention and recall

I have used bubbl.us successfully in the classroom, both as a teaching tool to whiteboard information, as in my medical class ...

or for students to generate their own maps. Students enjoy using technology and producing a professional looking concept map.

Popplet is in its beta phase, it has the simplicity of Bubbl.us but has some similarity to Prezi, in that you can play a sequence of popplets. Even though I like the interface of Prezi, Popplet is so simple anyone can just start poppleting! Available for both the web and the ipad.

Wikipedia - Good or Evil?

2011-01-12T11:28:00.000+10:30

Last year I did some professional development and engaged in a conversation with some experienced and regarded teachers. The topic of Wikipedia came up and a quite a lively discussion ensued. Most teachers there seemed against Wikipedia as a source of information for students. The statement that really surprised me was the contradictory "We send our students to Wikipedia first, but we don't let them use it as a reference."

It is the often cited reason that "anyone can edit Wikipedia" which makes teachers discourage their students from using this valuable resource. Wikipedia is like a living organism in that it is self healing. If someone "wounds" Wikipedia with erroneous or biased information the community which monitors it, fixes the wound.

Deli.cio.us to close?

2011-01-12T08:12:00.000+10:30

Deli.cio.us is the utility I use to remember and organise all the fantastic sites that I happen upon in my journey through cyberspace. Yahoo owns the social bookmarking site and in December rumours surfaced that in an act of corporate pruning they were taking the shears to Delicious which isn't turning a profit. This has been met with outrage from the Delicious community and Yahoo has stated that they are selling, not closing. However when your information is contained in the cloud, there are no guarantees.

One solution is to safeguard your information by exporting it somewhere else and there are several options. You can move to another cloud... Diigo, Yourversion and Xmarks (and probably others) have the facility to import your bookmarks. Quite a few articles rate Xmarks quite highly as a Delicious replacement.
The other is to move from the ephemeral cloud to your machine, and import to Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Explorer.

Go here and then hit export/backup bookmarks. Ensure that you’ve included all tags and notes.

Then go to your favourite browser and simply import the HTML file.

So whether it is closing or just changing ownership it doesn't hurt to back up your precious bookmarks! Do your research, make sure your tags are preserved and that you have all the functionality of Delicious.

Top Tools

2011-01-11T14:02:00.000+10:30

Youtube has number one spot for me!

Top100 Tools for Learning 2010

View more presentations from Jane Hart.

Instant crossword using Quizlet terms

2011-01-11T09:07:00.000+10:30

Crosswords are excellent for improving students familiarity with new terms. It enhances definition retention and spelling. However generating a crossword takes time, even with a crossword program as you have to input in all the words and definitions. But with Quizlet and Free Crossword Puzzle Maker it is a snap!

Firstly find or make a Quizlet set - very quick with their autodefine function.
When you have your quizlet set press "Export".
All the terms and definitions are then in a box, click "Select All".
Ctrl C to copy all the selected terms.
Open Free Crossword Puzzle Maker and paste all the terms in the box.
Don't bother with their questionnaire... then hit "Create Puzzle"
Then click to see your "puzzle as a web page".
I then take a screenshot of the puzzle, paste that into a word document, then a screenshot of the clues. With some arrangement get them on the same page in the word document.
Do the same for the answers. If only Quizlet had this function!

Step 2

Step 3

Step 5

Step8

Teaching in a flash

2011-01-10T12:30:00.000+10:30

Last year I had the opportunity to write and teach a year 10 semester science subject called Medical Science. As there was no textbook I primarily used the internet as a resource to support teaching and learning - this started with my Medical Science website which I created with Google Sites.
My main sources of internet resources were interactive flash websites, fantastic medical animations abound in cyberspace. It is amazing the level of understanding and engagement that can be generated by well constructed flash interactives.
To give you a taste of some of the resources I discovered -

I usually generated a worksheet that accompanied the flash animation to ensure that students had to summarise and synthesise the information presented. I have set these as relief lessons and they were very successful in the students using the internet as a teaching tool.
So how did I find these flash animations?
Using google I put in "shoulder replacement filetype:swf" to see if anyone had made any useful flash animations.

Here is a screenshot of the Physics in Medicine site where you can perform a colonoscopy.

Feel free to use my worksheet which accompanies the Physics in Medicine flash site. There are many biology flash biology resources, go searching!

Neave's Planetarium

2011-01-09T21:09:00.000+10:30

I have been a great fan of Paul Neave's site for sometime, which is choc full of visually inspiring and quirky flash fun. Imagination is quite beautiful as is the Mandelbrot set.
Now he has added some more educational offerings like a Planetarium which is a browser-based virtual planetarium of stars and planets customizable by location (latitude and longitude) and time of day.
However the standout for me is Flash Earth which is like a Google Earth or Google Maps.

Easy to use and move around, awesome on full screen mode. This is my screen shot of Uluru... I put Yulara in the search box to find it. I went to Uluru, aka Ayres Rock, six months ago... an amazing place.

If you want see any of my images full size, just click on them, then hit the back button to return to the blog.

Advantages are the speed at which the images are rendered (super quick) and the ease of the interface. Select "Bing with labels" and you have an instant interactive atlas!

Size and Scale

2011-01-08T09:39:00.000+10:30

There are some great flash apps which visually give you an appreciation of the microcosm and the macrocosm. Universcale by Nikon is visually dazling as you zoom from the scale of the Universe to the scale of the proton. I used Universcale in my Physics class as an exercise in scientific notation, unit conversion and light years.

Cell Size and Scale by the University of Utah is also an excellent site that trips through the biological word from a coffee bean to a carbon atom, useful in teaching about cells in Biology.

Scale of the Universe by Primax Studio is similar to Universcale, spanning from the scale of the Universe to quantum foam.

Lexipedia

2011-01-08T09:20:00.002+10:30

Lexipedia is another visual dictionary which is similar to Visuwords. Hover over the word and the definition appears, then click on the speaker button and the word is pronounced for you.

Digital Library

2011-01-07T10:36:00.001+10:30

The paperless reading revolution started with ebook readers like Kindle and has landed firmly with Apple's ipad. The ipad has some limitations, however it has the touch and feel of the future. Reading a document is very seductive on such a crisp screen, I look forward to the deluge of machines and the price plunge on equivalent technology.

Most magazines are going with digital versions, and Cosmos has a free edition for perusal. Cosmos using the zinio interface loads much quicker than Nature. Digital editions are replications of the paper version, rather than web pages with the same content. The benefits of digital over paper is not only saving trees, and greenhouse gases in production and transportation; it is searchable and interactive, delivering audio and video content as well as hyperlinks.

Using a limited trial of three zooms, try out New Scientist (which has its digital offering which touts $125 for 52 issues), National Geographic, BBC Focus also Popular Science.

Get a free trial edition of National Geographic or Popular Science's The Green Home Guide. There are some interactive features in the Nat Geo, but the Green Home Guide has awesome interactives throughout... if this is the future of publishing bring it ON.

Free digital edition of Nature

2011-01-06T11:01:00.000+10:30

Nature is the preeminent scientific magazine, to get your paper published in Nature is the scientific communities stamp of approval that you have made it. It also has great news articles and pictures and recently Nature released it's new digital edition. For a limited time there are free subscriptions available and I signed up in October and have been getting regular deliveries via my inbox.

The pages do take a few seconds to download in the iBrowse interface, but the interface is easy to use. It is tough viewing on my 11.6" screen at times, I think a standard 15" would be better. You can change the amount of zoom in the preferences button which is on the bottom right hand side of the screen.

This weeks edition has an article on nanotubes, graphene and fullerenes. I saw Sir Harry Kroto speak at Adelaide Uni about his nobel prize in discovering the fullerene, and he described it as "...the super model of the chemical world. Very pretty to look at, but essentially useless."

So to subscribe >click here< If you don't subscribe at least have a quick look of their photo gallery of 2010 in science.

Happy reading!

Science Practical Resources

2011-01-05T14:04:00.000+10:30

Thought I might blog about a few of the many resources I have encountered and used. The UK give their teachers a lot of web support, these sites are chock full of practical ideas.

Practical Biology
Practical Chemistry
Practical Physics

Super searchable sites that detail the experiments with perhaps one thing missing... video support.
Another UK site that does have video support and some great ideas is teachers.tv.

However you can always find your experiment then jump on youtube to see if some keen teacher has uploaded a clip of the prac. Mr Sully is an example of one teacher who has shared his experiments with the world via youtube. His clips have attracted a million views and has over 400 subscribers to his channel. Anyone can participate in the web 2.0 revolution!

Wall Wisher

2011-01-05T09:42:00.000+10:30

Wall Wisher gives a grafitti style wall that anyone can add their comments to. It is a little restrictive in that there are no choice of fonts which lacks visual appeal, however it has some real positives in that you do not have to register (your email address suffices) you can name your wall what you want, and you (the wall creator) can opt to vet all the posts on your wall.

Once you have created your wall an email is sent to you giving you a password so you can adjust your wall settings, and a suggested invitation.

Invitation Template:
Hi Guys n Gals

I have created a Wallwisher wall. It is a simple webpage where we all can post our messages easily.

So simply go to http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/cyberspaced and post your message there.

You could use this tool for students to post useful research links so students can research collaboratively, or perhaps feedback on an assignment. Students don't need to register to post on the wall, just double click anywhere on the wall! Maybe math students can post useful youtubes they have found on rearranging equations, or and english class can all post a short poem! If you have a sick student or a student with a birthday this could be used as a virtual card.

You can even embed walls on a website or blog.

Web based Flash Cards - Quizlet

2011-01-03T13:34:00.001+10:30

There are several flash card sites on the internet, Quizlet is the one I like to use and I recommend it to my students. I stumbled up on it when teaching the topic of Memory in psychology and the students love it.
Making an account is easy, however if you are on facebook even easier, just login with your facebook account - students love this feature.
Then you can use other peoples flash cards or make your own. There is no need to type in reams of text either, the site asks if you want to "auto-define", which gives suggestions for definitions of your word. Just scroll down to find the one you like, or type your own definition. You can make a set in minutes.
You set the priveleges for the cards, who can view them, who can edit them.
The students can either learn the cards, print them or play games like scatter and space race. Then when they have played with the terms they can test themselves. The site then shows the words that students had most difficulty with.
You as a teacher can see who has played with the cards the most. There is also a cheap app for the iphone/ipod touch that students can download to have the flashcards on their gadgets for truely mobile learning.

I would definitely recommend this for students that struggle with terminology, especially in language intensive subjects like biology and psychology or even foreign languages. Fantastic for ESL students.

Searching the web for tests, pracs and ppts

2011-01-03T09:44:00.000+10:30

Have a test on cells coming up? Search for "cells test filetype:doc". That limits the results to word 2003-2007 documents. No luck? Try "filetype:docx" and "filetype:pdf". If you are having trouble finding what you want consider key terms you would expect inside your test like "plant" and "animal".

Perhaps you are looking for a practical activity on surface tension. Try "surface tension" and "practical" or "lab" or "experiment". Then for a worksheet you can add the filetype you are looking for, of course doc or docx files are the best because you can adjust them to suit your needs.

Perhaps you are about to teach a unit on the periodic table. Try "periodic table filetype:ppt". I have yet to find any one PowerPoint that I have used without editing. I usually download several and then cut and paste, alter some text here and there and end up with something that looks like it took me hours and hours instead it took me a fraction of the time. I also use slideshare which I have found some excellent PowerPoints. Just try "periodic table" and see the wealth of resources available.

There are some excellent self-teaching flash resources on the net. Try searching for "filetype:swf" with whatever topic search terms to look for interactive flash animation.

Searching the web

2011-01-02T09:40:00.001+10:30

Searching the web is definitely an art. Most students (and some teachers for that matter) don't know how to effectively search the web. Commoncraft do many excellent videos and if you want to know more about web 2.0 either go to the commoncraft site or look on youtube for their clips. Play this clip for your students and improve their skills.

Tutorial on Google Sites

2011-01-01T20:16:00.000+10:30

Mary Fran has compiled an excellent tutorial on using Google Sites. Click on Video Tutorials in the menu and there is a tutorial on how to do most things. There are also lots of examples on how google sites can be used in education.