Have students create their own descriptive maps

I have been playing with Scribble Maps off and on throughout the summer with my original plan being that I would somehow use it for map quizzes. Well I haven't been able to do that yet because it always gives the names of places, BUT - I have found a lot of other uses for it in class.

Scribble Maps is a mashup - that just means it's one big application - in this case Google Earth - that is "mashed up" with something else to make another specialized application. I have blogged about these before.

So here is what I am doing with Scribble Maps right now - my 8th grade World Geography students are doing a small project to learn more about economic indicators. After they learned about a few indicators and gathered some data, one of the steps in the project was to represent their data on a map.

Scribble Maps has been great for this - the students use different colors for different countries, they circle a particular country and then use the text box to make buttons for the different economic indicators. They also use the pinpoints to label centers of industry and government within the country, as well as points of recent conflict. It's unbelievably easy to use and there's no registration or sign up for the site.

Their Scribble Maps are just one part of the project - they can then use these maps in an online slide show they are putting together that they will narrate and explain the status of several chosen countries using the economic indicator data they have gathered and illustrated.

Scribble Maps can be saved and emailed, printed, or embedded into a wiki or blog.

International Migratory Bird Day

International Migratory Bird Day is coming soon so mark your calendars and start planning your lessons with an eye to this great educational event! Officially IMBD takes place the second Saturday in May - however, it is recognized that that date doesn't always work well for organizations wanting to plan celebrations around the event. Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge is hosting their Migratory Bird Festival in celebration of the even on the 3rd Saturday in May - the 16th, in Tok.

So far their website doesn't offer any specific information on the project, however, Kay Lynn Odle-Moore and Mary Timm have emailed fliers and offers of their assistance with educational activities for the Bird Festival. You can contact either of them by email - just type their first name, underscore, last name @fws.gov (I'm "coding" their email addresses so they won't get spammed).

You can find out more about IMBD at birdday.org. This great IMBD site offers a lot of resources for educators - lesson plans, art projects, and great links to sites like BirdIQ for virtual field trips. You can also order some teaching resources and very reasonably priced merchandise from their site. I couldn't resist ordering this t-shirt with fantastic artwork for only $12.95.

If you are looking for online resources to use in your classroom, you won't be able to find much better than the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's "All About Birds" website. You can search out information about any bird you can think of - and many you never knew about. Information is complete with pictures, tons of information, some video, and a great feature right on the site - mp3 audio files of the bird song! It's a very user-friendly site for kids as well. Another cool feature of this site is eBird - which is where birders - even amateurs - can submit their pictures, data, and observations! It's like the Wikipedia of birding!

So mark your calendars, contact these educators at TNWR, and check out these sites for a great science and social studies educational opportunity right here in our area that your students can look forward to and participate in!

New history textbook =$60: ushistory.org=free

We've surely all seen this day coming - the day when our textbooks become obsolete. Not just in the sense that they are old or outdated, but obsolete as in GONE - we don't need them any more.

I think that, theoretically, we could teach courses now without texts, but that would be a pretty big leap for some people who are still not comfortable with the technology. However, comfortable or not, I think that day is coming - and it will arrive more quickly than we probably ever guessed.

Many teachers already rely heavily on web resources to supplement their texts. In some cases the web IS already the text - the teacher must be a critical reader, compiler, and organizer of a wide range of information - but it is completely possible to put together a rich course curriculum this way.

A year or so ago I became aware of a site called Connexions. People (educators mostly) can contribute and freely use all of the content there. It is set up so that it is mostly scholarly in nature and meant to be used as a textbook type resource comprised of "modules". When it was first developed, there were were very few such sites of that magnitude. However, during the past couple of years, these types of shared sites have exploded. The content - and most of it very good content - is free and there for the taking.

A good example I recently heard about is ushistory.org. Their website has expanded considerably since first put up in 1995 and serves approximately 3 million page views monthly to almost 1 million visitors. The site receives approximately 22 million hits monthly.

Their latest addition is the U.S. History Online Textbook, which includes 60 chapters "From Pre-Columbian to the New Millenium".

This is a well-reviewed resource, and quite frankly, I have trouble seeing why schools and districts strapped for cash would be dishing out $60 for a quickly outdated textbook when all of this is FREE FREE FREE!

The current economic conditions may push schools and districts in this direction faster than any technology initiative ever could!

How well do we know our own minds?

Awhile back, while reading Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, I was introduced to the IAT - the Implicit Association Test. The IAT is a kind of test that measures implicit attitudes or beliefs that people are either unwilling or unable to report. Here is an excerpt about the background:

Psychologists understand that people may not say what's on their minds either because they are unwilling or because they are unable to do so. The unwilling-unable distinction is like the difference between purposely hiding something from others and unconsciously hiding something from yourself. The Implicit Association Test makes it possible to penetrate both of these types of hiding.

Gladwell discusses the IAT in Blink to illustrate some points about "thin slicing" - those split second assumptions or conclusions we come to almost unconsciously. He discusses in particular the "Race IAT" because people who take it and say they do not have a preference for one race over another are often surprised or disturbed to find after taking the test that the data indicate they do in fact have some preference, even if it is on an unconscious level.

There are other IAT tests too, such as the "weight IAT", the "religion IAT", the "gender IAT", the "Native American IAT", and several others - even an "Obama/McCain IAT"!

These sets of IAT's that Gladwell refers to are from the Project Implicit site. You can read more about that at their site.

How can you use this in your classroom? This, to me, is really fascinating - and I think that high school students could definitely benefit from the discussion this would generate. Some carefully structured lessons, debates, or role plays and discussions, along with an IAT test, would really be a rich study for students in exploring not only the attitudes of the particular society and culture in which they live in (American, Alaskan, community, family, affiliations, race, etc), but how that has shaped their own attitudes, whether they think it has or not. In junior high and high school, it is not uncommon for our coursework, somewhere along the way, to come across the issue of stereotypes. This is an opportune time (teachable moment) to use the IAT as a springboard for that discussion.

You can take any IAT as many times as you wish - the results usually don't vary much with re-takes. If you answer too slowly the test will simply say the results are not valid.

CAUTION - although I would really encourage the type of discussion, tied in with some relevant curricular study that this would generate, I would strongly recommend that teachers follow these guidelines;

1. Don't require students to take the IAT, although they can certainly participate in the discussion. They can always take it privately at home if they wish.

2. Don't publicize results of anyone's IAT. I personally think it's best if you tell the students specifically NOT to share their results with anyone - even you.

3. Coach students on how to discuss and respond without being judgmental. This is a good time to reinforce the idea behind the IAT - to bring out attitudes that we sometimes don't know ourselves that we have.

4. Don't dwell on it - the main point is the self-awareness and further thinking this will generate. Know that even though the activity and discussion may be short, those wheels are a-turning!

No Really - How much is a trillion???

We all know that a trillion of anything is quite a lot - and I for one just love when someone comes up with a good analogy, metaphor, or visualization that really brings those kinds of numbers home. I used to have a professor in college who always had one of those in his back pocket - about how many times a million dollars would circle the earth, or go to the moon and back.

A few years back, Paul Harvey had a good one that explained the difference between a million and a billion, but I haven't heard or seen anything new or interesting since - until now.

I happened upon this little gem called "What does one TRILLION dollars look like?"


In these times of a tumultous economy and the words "billion" and "trillion" being thrown around so often - it is difficult for adults to really get our minds around this concept - let alone our students. Pop this slide show up on the overhead or the SmartBoard and have a good discussion!

It's Iditarod time again!

Those of us here in Alaska Gateway know dog mushing season is here again. On Saturday, March 7, Tanacross had their big dog races, the Great North American is coming up next week, and the last weekend in March is Race of Champions - and that's just in our neck of the woods!

As most of you are well aware, the biggie, The Iditarod, had its official start this weekend in Anchorage and then the restart in Wasilla. I know there are many classrooms here in AGSD that follow the race and run lesson plans and learning activities to coincide with the race.

For the EdTech portion of your classroom Iditarod experience, here are a few extra resources.

Of course there is the Official Site of the Iditarod complete with history, photos, live broadcasts, and current race standings. For classrooms who are doing activities with mapping race progress or graphing distance and speed of certain racers, this is race central - check it daily or several times a day as the information is always current.

For some ready made lesson plans and their accompanying resources, check out the Alaska Educational Program's "Alaska: Learning Taken to Extremes". They have a great Mushing in Alaska Unit with some nice looking resources.

The Discovery Channel Site has a nice selection of video shorts on the Iditarod. Last time I checked, there were over 30 of them to choose from - checkpoint info, caring for the dogs, interviews with the mushers, trail conditions, etc.

One other nice online classroom resource I will list here is Idita-Read. I know several teachers in AGSD have used this over the last couple of years and reported that the kids really enjoyed the competitive reading activities and the tie-in with the race. Idita-Read students rely on reading minutes to travel the distance along the trail from Anchorage to Nome.

*Flickr photo of husky by ozczecho

How much do YOU know about the Nobel Prize?

We hear about Nobel Prize winners once in awhile - we might even be able to name a few if we think about it for a minute. But many adults and most kids don't really understand what the Nobel Prize is or what kinds of people get it. NobelPrize.org is a pretty cool site that breaks down the actual prizes (physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, economics, and peace - the one we probably hear the most about), includes information about past winners, and features many educational games associated with the prize winners and their fields.

Here is a little blurb about the actual founder:

At the age of 17, Swedish Alfred Nobel spoke five languages fluently. Nobel became an inventor and businessman, and at the time of his death on 10 December 1896, he had 355 patents worldwide – one of them was the patent on dynamite. Furthermore, he had started 87 companies all over the world. According to his will, Alfred Nobel's enormous fortune was to be used to establish prizes to award those who had done their best to benefit mankind in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, five years after Nobel's death.

The rest of the NobelPrize.org site is the really interesting part - the games! These are not just silly games either - they are interesting for junior high and high school students, as well as adults. All of the games have to do with ideas developed and promoted by Nobel Prize winners. One that I checked out was, of course, Lord of the Flies - one of my very favorite books! The game brings out the themes that the author, William Golding, was celebrated for when he won his Nobel Prize. I played and guess what? I do know that book pretty well! The other was Pavlov's Dog - it was a pretty simple demonstration of how his experiment worked but included a lot of other interesting information about his experiments.
There are a lot of games on the site like The Blood Typing Game, Tuburculosis, The DNA double helix game, The Electrocardiogram game and the Malaria game, just to name a few. As you can tell by their titles, there is a lot more "educational" than "game" going on here.
This is a really interesting way to engage students in the field of study pursued by any particular Nobel Winner, and to introduce kids to the Prize itself and the kinds of innovation, creativity, and possibility it promotes.

A different way for students to view the U.S.

SHOW USA is an online tool launched by Mapping Worlds. The website offers users a new way to look at the world by resizing countries on the map according to a series of global issues.

SHOW USA is ready to use - just select a subject from the top menu (People, Planet, Politics, Business, Living and their subcategories) and watch the states on the map change their size. Instead of land mass, the size of each state will represent the data for that subject--both its share of the total and absolute value. Roll you mouse over each state for a quick pop-up of state by state data. Underneath the map is a short explanation of the results, as well as a link to at least one book related to that subject.
After you select the subject and sub-category of interest the map immediately begins to change. For example, when I selected the Living category and the sub-category of Bigfoot Sightings, the map interestingly morphed to this;
Washington has the most Bigfoot sightings? Who knew?

SHOW USA can be a great way for teachers to visually show students data when studying ideas in geography, economics, current events, the environment, etc. It can easily integrate into any subject area as a useful and infomational supplement.

Students could certainly find SHOW USA a useful resource for research - each new map has an option to download or embed into a blog or website.

Young students beginning the study of U.S. geography often find it difficult to grasp the concept that Alaska is the largest, yet the smallest state. A quick click on the People tab and choosing Demographics very quickly morphs the country in front of your eyes - Alaska shrinks, while geographically tiny Connecticut dwarfs it. What better way for young students to really get this concept? Older students using SHOW USA as a research tool would find many ways to use these maps for comparison/contrast studies.

Lots of possibilities here - worth a quick trial run. Easy to play with, no registration or sign-in. Next to the title of this page is also a link to their other site SHOW WORLD, which offers a similar tool for viewing the world map.

Have a web-based Valentines Day!

Of course, we can't let a holiday like this pass by without the opportunity to sneak in some edtech - that's right - "educational" technology about Valentines Day.

I'd like to use this post to list a few great site links for all ages to play a little and learn a little on this relatively uncontroversial (for schools) holiday.

First up is, of course, the History Channel's offering on The History of Valentines Day. This special page has lots of information from the frivolous to the factual. Students can learn about how this holiday got started, look up famous love quotes from Aristotle to Anais Nin, learn some historical facts such as who are generally recognized as the greatest couples in history, some commercial facts, and even read some of President Truman's love letters to his wife, Bess. If you can get them to work at school (I didn't test them out under the GCI filter), there are some pretty interesting video clips on the St. Valentines Day Massacre, how to make Valentines candy, as well as some video histories. There are of course a few games too.

For intermediate students - have them test their knowledge of Valentines Day and also their vocabulary with this quiz. This is an ESL site, but the activity is appropriate for any students aged 10 and up depending on their reading level.

All kinds of puzzles, wordscrambles, and other Valentines Day worksheets on this site.

Younger students will like this site where they can make a virtual Valentines Day cake. They can email it to someone when they are done, or just save it to the site to show to whoever they want.

The National Zoo has put up some really cute images that kids can print off or send as Valentines Day ecards. It would be fun to do an activity where the students had an opportunity to learn a little more about these animals, and then include the Valentines ecard as an ending activity for the holiday.

High school students might enjoy this MSNBC article on the 5 Worst Valentines Day Gifts - some really great humorous writing pieces with a heavy dose of irony! There is also a little poll they can take.

Another good current events/economics article for high school students by MSNBC - Businesses loving Valentines Day ever more - commentary on the heavily commercialized holiday.

And finally, one for the younger students - they will really enjoy this fun site - My Punny Valentine - which is a sort of animated slide show of the old fashioned Valentines cards with puns - a great opportunity to teach a litte bit about the varied uses of our language! Let them use it at the computer center, or pop it up on the overhead during your Valentines Day party and let them try to figure them out and explain them to their friends.
I'm sure many of you have some great sites as well - I would encourage you to add them to the comments section of this blog post. If you keep checking back and see comments to this post (a number other than zero by the "comments" line at the bottom), hopefully that's where you will see suggestions and links put there by others.

Alaska History - anything you need to teach it!

For anyone teaching any portion of or any subject matter related to Alaska's cultures, geography, history, etc. - this is your site! Alaska History and Cultural Studies was a site Becky Gallen, the English and Social Studies teacher at Northway, recently told me about. She says she has been using it for her Alaska Studies/History class, and I can see why.

The site was created by the Alaska Humanaties Forum. It can be taught as a course - it has 6 specific units of study with plans and activities that cover geography, Alaska's cultures, Russian territory, the purchase and time as Alaska Territory, government and the state constitution, and modern Alaska.

Within each of those units is a wealth of resources that is easy to search. There are videos, interviews on mp3 files, maps, pictures, slideshows, virtual tours, you name it. Students will have no trouble finding scholarly research information for their studies and projects.

Environmental science teachers will also find many good resources and references here.
Although much of the material is for older students, kids as young as 5th grade could easily use and enjoy many of the interactive activities, as well as the informative videos and interviews.

Whenever I see a site that is put together this way, I think how cool it would be for students to create a site like this to show their learning - a web page with links to searched or created multimedia, good research accompanied by pictures and maps, and appropriate links to sites that give further information. This is an excellent example for our students of what they should be doing!

Anyone who is an Alaskan will find the Alaska History and Cultural Studies site a fascinating search to check out - Thanks Becky!

A great, comprehensive American History resource

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History for Teachers and Students is a sort of prepackaged US History curriculum that is free online. It has some great resources, lesson plans, and interactives for teaching US History. You can get online quizzes, primary source documents, and TWENTY (yes twenty) very quality comprehensive units of study complete with visual aids and links to additional resources. They've done much of the leg work for you!
One very neat feature is their series of podcasts called Historians on Record, which has famous authors speaking on their favorite US History topics.

Many of the activities and resources on this site not only inform, they also help students find ways to create their own projects for learning.

Add Interest to Economics and Social Studies

The site of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) doesn't sound very exciting, but within are a few cool finds for teachers - who knew?

A nice middle school resource I like is a game called Where in the World and What in the World is Money? The game includes some basic economic and monetary concepts, as well as incorporating history.

For high school students Monetary Mania is a game in which students can test their knowledge of economic theories.

Beyond these games, teachers will find complete sets of pretty quality lesson plans and other interactives for teaching economics/social studies to middle school and high school students.

MetaCarta maps current events

MetaCarta is one of the new "mashup" sites that combines RSS feeds from Associated Press and Reuters with Google Maps to show current news on a map. On the left screen you'll see the most current headlines from AP and Reuters. A click will show the article and a map with all of the places referenced in the article. This is a handy way for history/geography/current events classes to do their reading and comparison activities that teach the interconnectivity of these events.

Good online resources for teaching about the inauguration

Here is a compilation of some of the most talked-about resources available online for teachers on the upcoming Presidential Inauguration.

• The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have prepared several lesson plans.
• National Geographic has an article and slideshow about the history inaugurations.
• EL Civics has a lesson on Presidential Inaugurations.
• The Washington Post’s Inauguration Central has multimedia resources on just about every aspect of this upcoming inauguration and the ones that came previously.
• The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies also has a number of resources. One feature is on the theme of this year’s inauguration — A New Birth of Freedom.
• Another is an explanation of Inauguration Day Events.
• The Presidential Inaugural Committee has materials, including a slideshow on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible, on which President-Elect Obama will be sworn-in.
• The city of Washington, D.C. has a gallery of photos from past inauguration day parades.
• The Washington Post has a slideshow on the History of Inaugural Balls.
• The McClatchy Newspapers have two interactives — one is a game about famous lines from previous inaugurations and the other is a simple virtual tour of the White House. They also have some other resources on the same page.
• Here’s a slideshow on Yahoo detailing the preparations being done for the inauguration.
• The St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper website has an interactive feature that provides images and and short descriptions of each presidential inauguration since Washington’s time. Plus, they have a map of the parade route with images.
• Inaugurals Of The Past is the title of a slideshow from the McClatchy Newspapers.
• The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has a page on the upcoming inauguration.It includes some interactive graphics.
• A slideshow from The New York Times on the Inauguration Rehearsal.
• Inauguration Practice is a slideshow from The Washington Post.
• The New York Times also has an online video called Inaugurations In Times Of Peril.
• Preparation For The Inauguration is a series of photos and simple captions from the Sacramento Bee.
• These are from The Washington Post: A Photo/Video Collage called The Preparers and focused on preparing for the event, and a neat Panorama of the event’s stage.
• An Inaugural Timeline is an interactive from the Associated Press.
• Washington Preps For The Inauguration is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.
• Top Inaugural Speeches is an interactive with short highlights from past key inauguration speeches.
• I Do Solemnly Swear… is an interactive from The Wall Street Journal that highlights biblical passages each president used in their inauguration, along with showing images.
• Capitol Crowds is a slideshow from the Wall Street Journal about the large crowd the inauguration is anticipating to draw, and similar large events that have occurred in the past at the Capitol.
• A Peek At The Official 2009 Inaugural Ball Sites is a slideshow from the L.A. Times.