Instructify

The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is in the process of launching Carolina on iTunes U, which uses iTunes software to provide a common platform for the entire University to share digital media.  When the project launches, the entire campus community can share lecture podcasts, video tutorials, and other media-based course material for free.

The initiative blurs the boundaries between the classroom and the campus at large, and allows students to get their neuroscience lectures from the same place they get the latest top ten hits.  It’s an extension of iTunes U – a part of the Apple iTunes store filled with free educational audio and video content.  The material is available to anyone with iTunes software, allowing Joe Schmoe and Joe College alike to access fascinating material from museums, PBS stations, and universities.

The Apple website proposes iTunes U as a way for students to “go right on learning while they grab a meal, walk to class, or work out at the gym.”  When I’m on the treadmill, I need something with a more forceful beat than a dactylic hexameter – but if Longfellow’s Evangeline really gets your heart pumping, knock yourself out. Workout preferences notwithstanding, the possibilities offered by iTunes U are nearly limitless, for colleges and K-12 communities.

Bonus: Warner Music won’t sue you for sharing that French and Indian War lecture with your friends. -EMILY JACK

Carolina on iTunes U

Are you ready for your close-up shot? Are your students? If so, there are a couple of video contests out there to show off your filmmaking skills. First up is AFI ScreenNation: Claim to Fame Challenge which is open to students 13 and older to write about their hometown’s claim to fame. Requirements are that the film is five minutes or less, and that you interview at least three people. The prize? A Sony DCR-SR45 ~ HDD Handycam Camcorder w/ 30 GB Hard Disk Drive, Tripod.

Next up, a slightly different contest. From WatchKnow.org, make a video from a list of topics from K-12 education. The idea of this project is to build a library of instructional materials – sort of like this blog. Material submitted will be available under a creative commons license. Right now the project is in beta, and they are looking for input, but it should start in full force in the fall. -ALICE MERCER

WatchKnow.org
AFI ScreenNation: Claim to Fame Challenge

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Photo credit: kino-eye on flickr.

Sandra Day O’Connor Presents Our Courts
Former US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor wants to do for civics what John Madden did for video game football. That’s why she’s speaking on behalf of Our Courts, an still-in-development video game that will let students learn about government by tackling true-to-life legal issues online.

Discover the Undersea World with Ocean Explorer
There’s a whole world down there, and you can bring it to your student engagingly and easily with Ocean Explorer from NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).

Cook up Plastic out of Milk in Your Very Own Kitchen
Okay, have you ever wanted to make something out of plastic, but didn’t know how? Instructables has a nifty video for making plastic with milk and vinegar.

Beware of the 20 Deadliest Plants on the Planet
You’ll find the usual suspects like hemlock and deadly nightshade, some wolves in sheep’s clothing like the angel’s trumpet, plus a couple surprises – I knew poison ivy makes you itchy, but I had no idea if you burned it, the smoke can kill you if you breathe it in.

If you or your students ever take a walk in the woods on a field trip, it’s a good idea to know the potential dangers. I’m not just talking about bears, either. You can find a lot of plants that can harm humans through ingestion, or even by simple touch.

Before heading into the wild, arm yourself by reading this list of the 20 Deadliest Plants on the Planet. You’ll find the usual suspects like hemlock and deadly nightshade [editor's note: that's a really cool name for a plant], some wolves in sheep’s clothing like the angel’s trumpet, plus a couple surprises – I knew poison ivy makes you itchy, but I had no idea if you burned it, the smoke can kill you if you breathe it in. Don’t miss the doll’s eyes plant, which looks a lot like what it sounds like. The berries are chock full of cardiogenic toxins which can give you a heart attack, but the fact that the berries look like eyeballs will probably be enough to dissuade even the most curious (or hungry) eaters. -BILL FERRIS

20 Deadliest Plants on the Planet via PurpleSlinky

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Ever wanted to make plastic? Okay, have you ever wanted to make something out of plastic, but didn’t know how? Just curious? Instructables, recently mentioned here, has a nifty video for making plastic with milk and vinegar. This makes a “plastic” called casein (I think it makes a nifty knitting needle).

The nice thing about Instructables are the related videos, which have extensions like making “green” plastic toys. There are also comments, which with this video helped to explain some of the science behind the process. Teach your kids, and yourself something new with Instructables. -ALICE MERCER

Homemade Plastic via Instructables

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Sure, your phone plays music, surfs the Web, sends email, and has GPS capability (and you can, you know, talk to people with it, too). That stuff is cool, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve only scratched the surface of what these handheld powerhouses can do. Now, with one simple download, you can give your phone some extra power you can use in the classroom thanks to gWhiz.

gWhiz is a suite of mobile learning tools that includes a powerful graphing calculator, a personalized reference library, and a flash card application. If Little Johnny wants to email his friends the graph of a tricky equation, he can do it straight from his phone. Create custom reference guides for an upcoming test on state capitals. Students will be able to get a lot of mileage from these apps, and they’ll always be within easy reach.

Now, the bad news. Right now, gWhiz is only available for BlackBerry phones. They’re working on adding more phone compatibility, though, including Google’s upcoming Android mobile phone platform. Maybe by the time summer vacation is over I can add gWhiz to my Motorola Razr (or maybe not). If you don’t have a BlackBerry, you may want to check back in a few months to see when gWhiz will be compatible with your phone.

Schools can really benefit from enhanced phone technology, since these devices are small, increasingly powerful, and within the price range of many students’ families. Applications like gWhiz can leverage this technology to create a powerful learning tool within the palm of every student’s hand. -BILL FERRIS

gWhiz

No longer will you take hours and hours to put together picture presentations for Open House, awards ceremonies, or end-of-the-year graduations. Liven up any presentation with the use of Photo Story 3 and your digital pictures. The program is so easy you can have a professional-looking presentation in just moments.

Photo Story 3 is a free download for Windows users. All you do is import your digital pictures into the program with the click of the mouse and you are ready to go. The program instantly assigns a different transition to each photo to give it that made-in-Hollywood look, and you’re done. The small file size makes it easy to send your photo story in an e-mail.

If you’re not happy with your initial story or need to edit something, it’s not a problem. The program allows you the freedom to move pictures around once you have imported them to help tell your story or sequence your presentation just right. With just a click of the mouse you can touch-up, rotate, change the assigned transition, or crop your pictures. You can also liven up your presentation by adding music or personal narration. You can help tell your story by adding titles or captions. Once you have completed your photo story you can view it on your computer, TV, or a Windows Mobile-based portable device.

Throw out those boring old book reports and let your students use this program to create movie trailers to tell about the books they’ve read. Initiate lessons and inspire students in the areas of science, social studies, and reading. Allow your students to create a multimedia project to present what they have learned from thematic units you have taught.  You don’t need to spend a million bucks to make your presentations look like a million bucks. -MONIQUE ST. LOUIS

Photo Story 3

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Do your students need to study more? Okay, probably a dumb question. How about this one – do you have students who need to learn how to study? Some kids are better at studying than others. Fortunately, by imparting study skills, you can teach kids more effective ways to learn. A great place to start? How-to-Study.com.

Note: make sure to include the hyphens, as howtostudy.com is a much different site (I haven’t reviewed it, so I couldn’t tell you if it’s better or worse).

At How-to-Study.com you can find strategies for overcoming the most tricky subjects students face, including word problems in math, long spelling words, writing research papers, as well as abstract skills like setting goals, time management, and good listening skills. All the study strategies are thorough and free.

With How-to-Study.com, your students can learn to take more effective notes  so they’ll be ready for your upcoming multiple choice test (the site has strategies for those, too). -BILL FERRIS

How-to-Study.com

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Obviously, our civilization has now evolved well beyond the days of fruitlessly attempting to summarize our reactions to the many moments of a video with only a single comment and tagging our multifaceted videos with general terms that don’t capture the specific content that lies within.

Viddler is the new frontier of video sharing. For one, you don’t just tag your video, you tag specific moments in your video. This kind of tagging allows viewers to search for specific content within videos, not just for the overall topic. Also, you and your viewers can post comments on the video in the same way. The tags and comments appear right in the time line of your video – describing people, places, and things – and let viewers discuss specific moments, not just the video as a whole

Add super-fast upload and download times, and you can share your videos with your students, friends, family, and the world quickly and easily – all while having full control over your privacy settings. Also, if you don’t have a video camera, Viddler also has a neat little tool that let’s you record right from your webcam.

So go, watch the Internet’s evolution right before your eyes – check out the next generation of video sharing at Viddler! -LAUREN FROHNE

Viddler

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I loved playing with Legos as a kid. Trouble was, I was always a brick or two short of creating the perfect fort for my G.I. Joes, thus leaving them vulnerable to Cobra attack.

If only I’d had Lego Digital Designer back then, I could’ve designed the forts, plus helicopters and tanks for good measure. With Lego Digital Designer, you have access to hundreds of virtual Lego blocks of all shapes, sizes and colors (plus a wide assortment of little Lego people, too).

Lego Digital Designer lets you build from scratch as well as with pre-loaded kits. LDD will also walk you through the more difficult designs. The download is free, but if you’re willing to spend a few dollars, it lets you order a custom set of blocks to make your digital masterpiece a reality.

This is a great re-creation of a classic childhood toy, and is a good way to prime your students’ creative juices. Now that I’m an adult, I won’t be using Lego Digital Designer for childish pursuits like designing G.I. Joe fortresses. I’ll be using it to design my next house instead. -BILL FERRIS

Lego Digital Designer

There’s a whole world down there, and you can bring it to your student engagingly and easily with Ocean Explorer from NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). This site has a number of “explorations” based on actual work being done by NOAA scientists, with well-developed lesson plans (some even have adaptations for teaching deaf students). You can pick a lesson by subject, or by a specific exploration project. All lessons are correlated to national science standards.

An example is the lesson on the January 2008 Bonaire expedition in the Caribbean. The  lessons offered for Grades 5-6 include one on Pi by looking at surface area, or a more language-arts-oriented lesson where students design a public information campaign to save coral reefs.

Included below is a link to a video from Dr. Robert Ballard, famous ocean explorer and NOAA scientist. The video explains the motivation behind the Jason project and this site which is to publicize ocean exploration, and to engage and educate the next generation of oceanographers. -ALICE MERCER

NOAA Ocean Explorer
TED | Talks | Robert Ballard: Exploring the ocean’s hidden worlds (video)

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Photo Credit: Ocean Blue by Micah A. Ponce

Not too long ago, I wrote about Johnny Lee, who made a marvelous interactive whiteboard from a $40 Wii remote. This is a great example of how doing-it-yourself is a viable option when it comes to learning how something works, and how you can make it work differently. Not only is do-it-yourself learning fun and educational, it is inspirational, too. Edutopia, website of The George Lucas Educational Foundation, presents this great article about the different ways you can access DIY projects and the resources that will help you along the way.

Check out the growing communities of DIYers online, where aspiring hackers swap instructions for all kinds of projects. Web sites such as Instructables and Make offer project plans, videos, and tips any teacher can find useful. The excellent Howtoons has simple, inexpensive projects that kids would enjoy, presented in a fun cartoon format. These simple projects are not as elaborate as Lee’s, but the sense of satisfaction is the same.

If you’re wondering what to do with your students in order to help them use their creative and technical skills, this article has some great places to start. Who knows what they might be inspired to create, or as Lee did, re-create. – JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Hack Attack: Do-It-Yourself Projects Enhance Learning

Former US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor wants to do for civics what John Madden did for video game football. That’s why she’s speaking on behalf of Our Courts, an still-in-development video game that will let students learn about government by tackling true-to-life legal issues online.

In a recent Reuters article, former Justice O’Connor said students aren’t learning enough about how government works. “[O'Connor] said the only way to preserve an independent judiciary was through public education, which she said was failing to produce citizens with enough knowledge about the three branches of U.S. government — legislative, executive and judicial.” To help make up the difference, Our Courts will provoke student debate on issues such as the 1st Amendment rights of a student wearing a controversial T-shirt to school.

Though Our Courts isn’t yet complete, you can already find useful resources like information on state governments,the structure of the state and federal court systems, plus key definitions that will translate legal mumbo-jumbo into plain English.

Once Our Courts is complete, make sure to send your students there. If they play it even a fraction as much as they play Madden football, they’ll become veritable experts on the workings of government. -BILL FERRIS

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Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Briny Deep? Monsters of the Deep Sea
True to the site’s name, Monsters of the Deep Sea is swimming with ocean life that looks like it belongs on the Saturday night creature feature.

Produce an Educational Video in Your Classroom
If you think kids like watching videos, wait until they start making them. Creating stuff is at a higher level of Bloom’s Taxonomy than bubbling in a test sheet. But where to begin? This handy and easy-to-understand guide from Education.com on producing an educational video is a great place to start.

Read at Work: Act Productive and Get Educated
Read at Work is deceptive, underhanded and sneaky. Fortunately, its also very educational and fun. Designed to look and act like a Windows desktop, this application goes widescreen and mimics everything on a normal desktop, and presents folders containing various short stories, poems, and classic works.

Get Blogging with WordPress
Have you always wanted to have a classroom blog that allows blogging between parents and you, or you and your students? If so, WordPress has everything you are looking for and a lot more

Looking for a platform for a school or classroom website? Have you always wanted to have a classroom blog that allows blogging between parents and you, or you and your students? If so, WordPress has everything you are looking for and a lot more – plus it’s the platform that powers Instructify, so you know it’s high quality.

WordPress is a free publishing platform. This site is extremely user friendly – in addition to being a quick sign-up, the site has great tutorials to help walk you through setting up your blog or website. All you need is a computer, Internet access, and an email address to get started. WordPress has more than 60 different themes for you to customize your blog to fit your needs. You can switch between your themes at any time with a few clicks of your mouse. You can also add event calenders, links and pages. Upload your own pictures, or included images from Flickr or Photobucket. Don’t forget to add a stats collector to your site that will give you instant statistics on the different visitors you have to your site.

The choice is yours whether to share your page with the public or a selected few. As for interactivity, WordPress gives you the freedom and security to allow you to have comments posted on your site with or without your prior approval. You can even set your site up to not allow any comments at all.

Blogging is a great way to keep parents informed about what’s going on in your classroom. If you blog with WordPress, you can allow parents to become active participants in your class activities. WordPress is also a great tool to allow students to collaborate on group projects. You can have as many blogs as you want. The sky is the limit. -MONIQUE ST. LOUIS

WordPress

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