Ok Teachers - Post #1 to put you on the road to a more organized tech life

For those of you who already know this - please be patient - when I'm done with this series I will go back to posting useful things for your students. However, I have decided to post some things that will be really useful for teachers (although your students would probably benefit as well).

Bookmarking is a topic that seems to come up frequently in my technology related conversations with teachers. I have seen bookmarking done every which way - some I would consider quite creative, some pretty crazy, and some downright scary, as in, I would rather just not bookmark than do it that way!

We can all agree that bookmarks are EXTREMELY useful in helping us to keep all of this information organized. My problem a year or so ago was that I simply had too many. My Firefox bookmarking capabilities were stretched to the limit and even though I tried to be very organized with my folders, I simply could not find things any more. Also, on the occasions I was on someone else's computer, I felt almost blind without access to my bookmarks - I couldn't do anything!

Social bookmarking was the answer. Social bookmarking doesn't actually have to be "social", although that is a helpful aspect of it that you can always explore later. If you use a social bookmarking service, you simply "tag" a page you want to bookmark. The service will pop up a little window for you to add tags (like cross referencing in the old library card catalog).

There are many social bookmarking services out there, and many offer other services besides just bookmarking, such as newsfeeds, blogs, and social networks. Even if you don't care at all about the social aspect - the web-based bookmarking is just too handy to ignore. Two of the most widely used social bookmarking services are Diigo and Delicious (which I use). I strongly suggest that whatever service you use, download the add-on (either on Safari or Firefox, whichever browser you use) to your browser toolbar. When you are on your own computer, this makes adding, tagging, and searching extremely simple because it adds their buttons right to your toolbar. This is what my Delicious buttons look like installed on my Firefox toolbar;

Let's consider a previous post from this blog - the YouTube video of "Did You Know". When I found that video, I hit the Delicious Tag button in my tool bar, and then this little window popped up. I skipped the description (usually the tags are enough of a description) and entered my tags at the bottom (often there will be suggested tags - just click on them to add them).

Now, I keep my bookmarks in my sidebar view so that I can always find things when I want to. If I can remember the name, I simply search alphabetically through the bookmarks themselves. If I can't remember the name, but can only remember what it was about, I search through my tags and can easily narrow my search that way.

Another nice feature is that when I am on a different computer, I can just go to Delicious, sign into my account, and there they all are.

I now have over 700 bookmarks in Delicious, so you can see how this helps me to keep things organized. Using the Firefox based bookmarking system seems unwieldy now. I could never do it with this many bookmarks!

Here is the important classroom connection - have your students (junior high and high school) get social bookmarking accounts! I cannot stress this enough! How many times have you written looooong URL addresses on the board (several times) only to have students ask you for it again and again when it comes up in class. If your students have Delicious or Diigo accounts, they can access them on any computer at home or at school, and there are no more excuses for forgetting a URL or writing it down incorrectly. My French students all have Delicious accounts and it is a LIFESAVER!

Did You Know?

This video by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod made a big splash when it came out a few years ago. Some of you may remember I showed it at at an inservice in 2007. Anyway - it has been updated slightly and I think it is worth viewing again.



*NOTE - two things that struck me in this version -
1. It doesn't mention the semantic web - which is fast bearing down on us and will soon come to represent "web 3.0".
2. It mentions the amount of news in a New York Times - this is also ironic considering the Times in its print version perches precariously on on the brink of extinction - as do many print newspapers.

Things are changing even more quickly than the "Did You Know" video can keep up with!

Take your kids on a Dinosaur Dig

This is a fun site I used recently in class with my 3rd graders as we were studying fossils - it's called Dinosaurs and it's on the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History site. This tidy looking little site is actually jam packed with information about dinosaurs that is very accessible to kids from 2nd grade through high school.

On the Dinosaurs site, kids can learn just about anything they ever wanted to know (and never knew they wanted to know) about dinosaurs. There are tons of great pictures from the museum's archives as well as the many digs and expeditions that supplied the information.

There are some slideshows documenting some of the various digs, as well as some of the more prominent dinosaur collections at the Smithsonian NMNH.

What my 3rd graders were enamored with was an interactive "dinosaur dig". After we studied fossils, looked at some real ones, and then did a little play simulation with some clay and toy skeletons, they were ready for the dinosaur dig. The interactive takes kids through the basic procedures of a dig - from the first clearing of the surface to determine how big the site is, to the use of finer and finer tools to carefully get to the skeleton, to the plastering and transportation of the bones to the museum. Once they have successfully cleared, covered, and transported their "specimen", they then clean it and protect it in the museum's lab. After that they are ready to assemble the skeleton - they can use the clues about the various bones to help them find the proper placement. Once their model is finished, they can see different drawings and representations of what that dinosaur (a Stegosaurus) might have looked like.

This is a really engaging site and very easy for kids and their teachers to navigate. What I really liked was that none of the links take you away from the site - they are all built by the Smithsonian NMNH, so all of the information flows and connects really well.

Look out it's....TIMEZ ATTACKS!

If you happen to be looking, you will know how hard it is to find a really good simulation game that is educational for younger kids. There are obviously the Sims games (SimAnt, SimEarth, SimFarm) and the like, but they are so multifaceted they require a lot of time investment for teachers and students. We know these games are engaging, but our inner critic is not crazy about letting kids spend a lot of time on them unless we know there will be a definite academic benefit too.

I think I have found a good one - Timez Attacks. Timez Attacks is a simulation developed by Big Brain Software. It is usually available for purchase, however, they are offering free downloads to teachers for multiplication facts 2 to 12. Teachers get one free download per email address (so I have actually gotten 3).

In Timez Attacks you (the player) are this little mutant-ish creature who is in some castle-type thing. The object is for you to always be trying to get out of the chamber you are in. To do this, you must master some multiplication facts. The cool thing about Timez Attacks is that it is not merely fact memorization - your character is presented with a troll or something bearing the symbolic representation of the problem, say 2 x 2. It then releases 2 snails. Your player must catch each snail. When you catch the first snail you will see a "2", and when you catch the second snail you will see an "4". Your player can then throw the snails and when you do, 2 items will splat on the cave wall. Each will be a box containing 2 dots - you are now conceptualizing the multiplication problem as "2 two times". You may then post the answer "4" on the troll's chest or the dungeon wall or whatever.

It's actually quite simple - and fun! Kids love this and it goes beyond just memorization of facts. As you learn more facts and break through more chambers, you are constantly challenged on the facts you have already learned.

For teachers who have students learning multiplication facts (anywhere between 2nd grade to middle school kids who still need practice), Timez Attacks is great - they will BEG you to let them practice their math facts! I have a few third graders who are already getting addicted!

The free download only takes a couple of minutes and then that little green creature head on your desktop will always be there - ready to play!

A model of the solar system - better than papier-mache!

Gunn Interactive Web Design has built a fantastic visualization of the solar system. Simply begin this Planets site and the clock starts to tick! The slide arrows at the bottom give information about what is happening and explain how the model shows different perspectives of the solar system. As this commentary is going, the model is still moving along with the time and date ticker going.

Planets would be a great visualization to use with any class from elementary to high school that is studying any aspect of astronomy or the solar system. For elementary students it is a great way to see how the earth and the other planets orbit the sun. For other students it can present lots of great problem solving "quests" where the students can use the model to try to determine how many rotations other planets make in comparison to earth, and other such relative questions about orbits, speed, and time.

Planets is one of the best visualizations of the solar system I have seen online - you can control lots of elements about the model, such as the speed of the orbits, the scale of the planets, and best of all, which object you are following. This really will give some great perspective on the movement of the planets relative to each other and to the sun.

You have to try this - as soon as you get to the Planets site the visualization begins!

Read this for me! Quick tools for text-to-speech help

Do you have younger students who need to have things other than stories (like certain texts or class info) read to them? Do you have older students who still struggle with reading independently? Do you have students who need to have directions read to them?

Those of you who have ever experienced these situations in your classroom understand the frustration a teacher may face because ultimately, we can't be 10 places at once. As much as we may want to individualize our instruction, it's not possible to always do it to the extent we would like all the time.

Well - as you might expect - I'm going to tell you about a couple of tools that can help you out with this reading dilemma a little bit.

The first is an extremely simple online text reader called ItCanSay. Simply copy and paste the text you want aloud into the box and click the "read" button. A fairly boring sounding computer voice will read it in a surprisingly understandable way. You can even download it as an mp3 file with the click of a button. ItCanSay is a site created for English language learners, but I'm sure it's obvious it has many other applications. There is nothing fancy about the sight - and I've just described it's only bells and whistles. There some ads on the page for wrinkle removers, but if you don't like that, just download the mp3 file to your computer to avoid it.

The second option is another online text reader called Expressivo. Expressivo uses text-to-speech technology called Ivona Voice. You can actually choose different voices (male or female with different accents) that you want to read your text. Same thing as ItCanSay, but slightly nicer computer voice. For short pieces of text - up to 200 characters - Expressivo is free - just use section #1 and go no further. If you want it to do long pieces you have to purchase it.

Of course there are other options for text-to-speech that are fancier, but I found these two in particular to be about as simple as possible, and FREE.

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!

Got an identity problem? Try using a Voki!

Vokis are like an avatar on steriods! Voki is a free web tool where you can select a "Voki" - they can be people, weird cartoon characters, animals, digimons, etc. Once you pick your little alter-ego, you can customize them a little - with the people you can change hair color, skin color, eye color, nose and eye size and also pick out clothing. For all Vokis you can pick from a wide selection of backgrounds. Kids absolutely love creating their own Vokis. The best thing about Vokis is that they will speak either computerized text that you type in, or your recorded voice for 1 full minute. Their lips move, their heads move - it's hilarious! Making a voice recording on Voki is called an "oddcast". What in the world would you ever use a Voki for? Well, I've included my own Voki here - note - be sure to roll the cursor around her even when she's not talking. See what she does:


I use them with my third graders so that they can give oral reports without having their faces appear on our blog - here are links to some of the Vokis my students have made - Check out Voki's from Allen, Kiara, Kade, Kevin, Megan, Melissa, Marrin, Jessie, or Hunter. (I had to list them all or there would have been hurt feelings!). Take it from any of them - Vokis are great. Now for every project we do the first question is "Are we going to get to make a Voki for it?".

That's what I call motivation!