Instructify

BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

Ever watch Pop-Up Video? Or have you noticed the first-down line that magically appears when you watch football on TV? These are examples of augmented reality — adding information to enhance a real-world view. Thanks to efforts like the American Civil War Augmented Reality Project, the concept is making its way into education. A few Pennsylvania teachers plan to use this technology to help visitors understand Civil War battlefields.

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BY JACKIE REGALES

If your students are anything like mine, then they will always salivate (figuratively, I hope) at the chance to make something, whether on poster board or a program like Photostory. In today’s classrooms, though, whipping out scissors and glue sticks can seem a little old-fashioned. Enter Smilebox, which offers slide-show and scrapbook-creation options, as well as the ability to make invitations, collages and greeting cards. Fair warning: on some of these pages, music will begin playing automatically, and it’s exactly the kind of digitized music you think it is.

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BY JASON DON FORSYTHE

Sometimes I struggle to find quality educational multimedia elements. They either aren’t well made or don’t have much tangible educational value. This, however, is not the case over at nature.com in their multimedia section. You’ll find video presentations here on everything from self repairing rubber molecules to a study of honey bee genomes. (more…)

BY JASON DON FORSYTHE

Let me just say it: I love PBS. From the documentaries, to the quality children’s programming, it’s one of my favorite channels to watch. But my love of Cookie Monster aside, did you know that PBS had developed a top-notch web resource for teachers? If the answer was no, then you owe it to yourself and your students to spend a planning period looking at the PBS Teachers website.

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