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Reading is an essential skill that every kid should get excited about. Unfortunately, reading is often seen as a chore and busy work by students everywhere. If only we could find a way to harness tools on the web to get kids excited about reading. If only. BookWink is ahead of the curve, fortunately. BookWink is a site that uses podcasts and videos to present reading materials for students in 3rd to 8th grade. Search for books based on subject, grade level, title or author, where you can read reviews of hundreds of books.

You can subscribe to the video or audio podcasts, and for those of you who are new to podcasting, there is a handy and explanatory guide to setting up your iTunes so you can listen to and view all the info you can hope for. If you just want to check out some of the videos without subscribing, you can also look through the archives of previous subjects. The videos feel like a modern day Reading Rainbow, as books are reviewed and explained in groups of various themes such as popularity, Sea Adventures, and Museum Mysteries. Not only does BookWink harness the availability of internet video and audio applications, it’s a great way for students and teachers alike to discover new books that might not fall into the required summer reading lists. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

BookWink

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Story time: Storynory

In my own geeky world of talk radio programs, This American Life adds a little bit more of a storytelling element than most programming on National Public Radio. To me, anyway, the TAL team’s stories can arguably be considered more accessible than NPR. Now it time for me to sit back and let my inbox fill up with a whole bunch of hate. But I will concede this: NPR’s Planet Money podcast has been on fire lately.

So when Planet Money’s Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson made this episode for This American Life, it was the best of both worlds. They do an excellent of job explaining the breakdown in banking that has occurred and the problems that banks currently face. The acting sounds a bit hammy sometimes, but I think its also hammy on purpose, as though they’re subtly being a bit derisive towards the bad borrowers and lenders.

The Bad Bank episode is a good starting point for students who have questions about what started this whole recession mess. The best part is that Blumberg and Davidson make it understandable for people like me, who — while incredibly smart — still have difficulty getting past the language barrier of business and finance. -NICK YINGLING

This American Life: Bad Bank

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Want to know what strikes fear in the hearts of many a student? No, it isn’t the mystery meat in the cafeteria. In fact, it is the verbal section of any standardized test. I mean, how often do high schoolers use the word pertinacious in everyday conversation? Luckily for your students, VerbaLearn is here to make learning that vocabulary list much less tedious.

Once you create a free account, you can build a vocabulary list for the SAT, ACT, GRE, or General Vocabulary. Like any good teacher, VerbaLearn begins with a pre-assessment of your knowledge. It gives you an online quiz in which you either select the best definition, or the best synonym for a given word. It also allows you to specify whether your answer was “just a guess,” or if you’re “pretty sure.” If it was “just a guess,” it automatically goes on your study list. If you were “pretty sure,” you’ll see the word again in the quiz to give a synonym or definition, whichever you didn’t do the first time you saw the word. If you get it right the second time, you won’t see the word again. If you get it wrong, off it goes to your study list.

Once your study list is full, there are several options for study and review. You can continue to review online via fill-in-the-blank sentences, or you can review offline by subscribing to your personal vocabulary list podcast. You get an audio version downloaded to your favorite podcast aggregator that says the word, the definition, and a sentence using the word. All of the aforementioned features are free, though there are several other features such as video flashcards, crossword puzzles, and printed flashcards that you can get if you subscribe to the premium version.

Hopefully, this post has piqued your interest so that you will examine VerbaLearn punctiliously. Your students’ verbal fears will be assuaged as they become verbal gourmands using this website. -REBECCAH HAINES

VerbaLearn

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I wasn’t able to get back to the NCTIES conference today, but I’ve still got some material from Thursday. Tammy Worcester talked about a topic near and dear to my heart in her presentation “Cell Phones in the Classroom.”

Worcester began by asking us if we had our phones with us. In most social situations, this question is followed by “Please turn them off,” but she said we’d be using them during the presentation, so we should get them ready. I did, eager for an opportunity to show off my geektastic Android phone. (I kept hoping someone would notice it so I could bore them about how cool it is. Nobody noticed, which is probably for the best.)

Worcester first demonstrated GOOG-411, which Instructify has reviewed before but is worth bringing up again. It works like a free, automated 411 service. Ask for a business or business category, say your city and state, and Google will connect you for free. As a bonus, you can say “text” and Google will send you a text message with the business’ address and phone number. Slick, huh?

Speaking of Google, check out their SMS page for how to get lots of info by sending a text message. You can send a text message to 466453 (GOOGLE) to get weather updates, word definitions, movie showtimes, all kinds of stuff. For a full list of Google phone fun, no matter what sort of smart phone you use, head to  www.google.com/mobile.

If you have email on your phone, try making blog posts via email on your Blogger account (other blog services may also have this feature, but I’m unaware — let us know if they do!). On the Dashboard, if you click on Settings and Email you can set up an email address that, if you send an email to it, will post your emails directly to the blog. You’ll probably want to keep that address a secret, but Worcester set up a demo blog and gave us the address so we could try it out. If you’ve got a camera phone, it’ll also post pictures. This would be handy for a photo assignment for students — ask them to take a picture about, say, an indigenous animal and post it to the blog with comments, for example.

Worcester also pointed out the mobile podcasting service Gabcast, which lets you make a podcast directly from your cell phone. It costs around $10 for 100 minutes of recording time, which isn’t bad but you can probably find a free service somewhere online.

Finally, Worcester covered Poll Everywhere, a service that lets you set up live polls in which students (or whoever) can vote via text message. You can embed the poll results in your blog, website or PowerPoint presentation. Poll Everywhere is free so long as you have 30 or fewer poll respondents. However, those 30 people can take as many polls as you’d like to set up. Alice Mercer covered this one back in July, but once again, a friendly reminder never hurts.

All in all, it was a very informative presentation that explored what cell phones can do for education. So even if I didn’t get to show off my geek phone, I now know a few new tricks it can do. -BILL FERRIS

For more info, check out Tammy Worcester‘s website

Online handouts from her NCTIES session (which technically aren’t handouts, but are technically useful)

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Ask the readers: phones in class

Top 6: Using cell phones in school

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Photo credit: Milica Sekulic on Flickr.

Walden, and 99 other Free Online Books Every Student of Humanity Should Read
The Universities and Colleges blog presents this list of 100 classic works of literature in the public domain (that is to say, free). The books are available at Project Gutenberg, which has even more books, once you and your students get through these 100. Piece of cake, right?

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better
A lot of your students have iPods. You may have even confiscated a few. Use those gadgets for education with this list from the Online Education Database. You’ll find study guides, tutorials, podcasting tools and more.

The 15 Clearest Benefits of Gaming
We all knew gaming developed hand-eye coordination. It can also help students develop empathy, assist in dealing with post-traumatic stress, and spark their imaginations. Kris Graft of Edge Online provides a thorough listing of the upside of video games, but the author unfortunately neglects obvious benefits such as saving Princess Toadstool or PWNING your friends.

10 Best Practices for using wikis in education
You’ve spent hours putting together a wiki that you know will allow students to learn and produce lots of valuable content. You send them the link and…nothing happens. Don’t let your wiki go to waste. Technology Teacher has 10 tips on how to use wikis to engage your students.

This site, and others, feature lots of great places for your students to create content, and to locate materials like audio, photos, and videos to mashup, or include in their own creations. We have reviewed sites that have photos that have a creative commons license, but what if the picture or audio clip you want to use is copyrighted (not in the public domain, or licensed in Creative Commons)? Now we’re going to talk about legal concepts, but since we aren’t lawyers (we just may pretend we are in our classrooms), this is not legal advice, yahda, yahda…

First the good news: there is a legal concept called “Fair Use” that allows educators to use snippets of copyrighted material. Fair Use applies to educators, journalist, and satirists (us and Jon Stewart, yipee!). It says you can use copyrighted materials, BUT the use is governed by these four principles:

1. Purpose and character of the use – Why are you using this material?
2. Nature of the material – In what form are you using the material?
3. Amount of the portion used – How much of the original work are you using?
4. Effect on the potential market – Does your use hurt the original owner financially(1)

Now the not-so-good news. Naturally enough, the law on this is purposefully vague to leave it up to the courts to decide on a case-by-case basis. I know it’s never been my dream to be a Supreme Court test case (maybe a nightmare). Because of this, there have been two responses by educators, we play it safe and avoid the use of copyright protected materials, and/or we have come up with some “rules of thumb” to guide our use of copyrighted materials (e.g. you can use 10 seconds but not more than 10% of copyrighted audio, you can excerpt a paragraph from a chapter, etc.).

I’m going to finish up this article with a list of some guides that give some rules of thumb, but I will be following up with another piece about different approaches to this copyright conundrum. -ALICE MERCER

(1) Tony Jongejan’s Presentation on Copyright at NECC 2008 – Where I got the principles listed above

TechLearning Copyright Guideline for Administrators – A guide with a handy-dandy chart from Hall Davidson

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15 Awesome Tutorial Websites You Probably Don’t Know About
A couple weeks ago I decided to take up juggling. Right away I was amazed at the high quality tutorials I found online. If you have a random hobby you’d like to try, or you’re looking for a project during these summer months, check out this list of sites.

100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of
Here’s a great big list of sites you can use to find everything from literature to library references to health care. You can also find fun stuff like the Dialectizer, which can translate your text to sound like Elmer Fudd. Who doesn’t need that?

10 Brain Training Tips To Teach and Learn
Keep your brain fit for optimum learning potential. The folks at SharpBrains have these ten tips to turn you and your students into efficient thinking and learning machines.

Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources
Need to edit a class video project? Want some advice on how to create a video podcast? Or do you need to convert video to a different file format? Mashable has all that and more in this great post. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit:  zen on flickr

I know, we’ve all seen ugly examples of cell phones being used to message in class, start fights, and film teachers behaving badly, BUT you can use cell phones for the forces of good in education. I’ve recently upgraded my cell phone to a “smarter” model, so I’m discovering lots of cool things, many of which are not limited to smart models.

Instructify has compiled a list of educational uses for your cell phone. Today we’ll look at how to turn your phone into a mobile podcasting studio.

Mobile podcasting (recording audio from your cell phone) is great on field trips, or any time you’re away from your computer. To get started, you’ll first need to find a podcasting service.

Services to use:

1. Record by phone with Gabcast.com -Use your cell to call Gabcast’s toll-free number and start talking. It’ll save your call as a podcast, which you can upload to your blog or website. Gabcast lets you record conference calls, too, so you can do remote interviews, or get your whole class involved.

2. Gcast – Another service we’ve previously reviewed that lets you call their toll-free number to record your podcast

How and why:

Still not sure about this podcasting stuff? Check out these links to see how other teachers are using mobile podcasts in their classrooms.

1. Intelligenic » Post Topic » Kidcast 53 – Podcasting and Fieldtrips
2. Wendy Goodwin of R.A. Mitchell Elementary School in Gadsden, Alabama students’ GCAST podcasts about their field trip to Space Camp in Huntsville Alabama
3. Wes Fryer shows how to do it

Hopefully now you have an idea of how to use your phone for podcasting. Next time we’ll talk about how to use your cell to take photos and record videos for class. -ALICE MERCER

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Sound Field Trip Advice from Kidcast

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Tune In: Education Podcasting Network

Photo credit: Steve Roe on flickr

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

20 World Geography Facts That Might Surprise You – If the world were flat, we would all be spinning out of control right now, because 90% of the world’s population lives in the northern hemisphere. See, there are facts like that about our world’s geography that you did not know, but you soon will thanks to Boots-n-All. Also, did you know that France is about 30% larger than the state of California? No, you did not.

43 Amazing Resources for Writers – I know, I know, I write about writing a lot, but I think it is important. Also, as it turns out, there are a lot of resources out there for writers. In fact, here are 43 of them from Cath Lawson and they are all very amazing.

100 Free Podcasts from the Best Colleges in the World - Stanford, MIT, Berkley, and other colleges are embracing the wonders of podcasting and making them available to you. Who needs to break the bank on expensive tuition when you can just plug in your eardoos and listen your way to knowing Engineering Ethics. Cultivate Greatness has compiled this list that has some great colleges to choose podcasts from… even (shudder) Duke.

The Top 101 Websites for Teachers – Thank me later– or now, if you want– for these 101 websites just for you. This blog is not terribly unlike our own, but you know, not as snarky. Presented by AssortedStuff.com, a site that is just as valuable as this list, but not quite as compartmentalized. There are some great resources here, but if you really want the tools and sites that will help you teach at your best, there is only one source you need. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

The only specific memory I have of a field trip I took as a student was an elementary school trip to the local planetarium. Why? Because it was the first time I experienced astronaut ice cream. It tasted like regular ice cream…but…it was crunchy…??!! My mind was blown.

In retrospect, my teacher probably dreaded these trips at least a little bit – most of us students probably climbed back on the bus whirring with sugar buzzes. To reflect further, wouldn’t it be great it my most vivid school field trip memory wasn’t a fond reminiscence of something I’d encountered in a gift shop? Wouldn’t it be better if my mind had been blown by something that had actually happened inside the planetarium? Like, say, the notion of our lonely little planet spinning at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, perhaps one galaxy of millions in the universe? Shouldn’t that be more intriguing than the idea that some guy in a food lab figured out how to dehydrate ice cream?

Your students deserve better than this. To help make sure you maximize the educational value of your trips outside the classroom walls, you’d be wise to read this Kidcast blog post about podcasting and field trips. The post offers eight excellent suggestions on how to use podcasting to engage your students in the learning process before, during, and after the field trip. Each one is a great application of podcasting that uses the technology to scaffold learning: having students create a quiz show about the field trip location, for example, or recording a public service announcement to advertise the site.

Many thanks to Kidcast for reminding us there’s more to field trip preparation than permission slips. -EMILY JACK

Kidcast 53 – Podcasting and Fieldtrips

Do you struggle to explain Web 2.0 to interested but clueless administrators? Social networking, blogging and podcasting can be tough to describe to the uninitiated. If you need succinct explanations of social media to convince your principal to open the school’s firewall for you, show him or her a video by Common Craft.

Common Craft videos are free mini-tutorials on everything from wikis to RSS, and even what to do in case of a Zombie attack (that was a Halloween video, but zombies probably don’t know what day it is, so it’s good advice to heed year-round). Each video discusses a topic in plain English using a white board and simple paper drawings for visual aids. The simplicity of the production is Common Craft’s greatest asset – nebulous concepts like social bookmarking don’t look so daunting in a paper doll context.

Watching Common Craft videos may give you a few ideas for some class projects. Your class can make this type of video without much more than a white board and a Web cam. Making your videos as engaging and pithy as Common Craft, however, may take some practice. -BILL FERRIS

Common Craft

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ReadTheWords.com is a great text-to-speech site that allows users to upload or copy and paste just about any text and have it read aloud by one of several computery voices. You have to create a free account in order to access all the features this site has to offer, but its actually quite a simple process for what you get. You can upload any sort of file you’d like to have read, even HTML or PDFs. Simply wait for the audio to render, and you’ve got a neat little embeddable player that you can preview right then and there. Also, you can download the file as an mp3 for use in your iPod or other portable device.

This is a great resource for the visually impaired, but it has the potential to be a great learning tool as well. I’m not saying you should, but you could possibly make your own audio books, if you were so inclined. It could also be a great way to break into podcasting or be a great addition to any blog. Once your recordings are saved, they are then stored in an online file management system, appropriately titled “My Recordings.” Here, you can manage and download what you’ve done, or try out some more of the 15 available voices. Personally, I like Elizabeth. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

ReadTheWords.com 

Welcome to your romantic and eerily educentric Valentine’s Day date. But will it end in love, tears, or possibly food poisoning from an undercooked Valentine’s dinner? These kind educators were gracious enough to share their Valentine’s Day experiences:

Dinner and a Movie: Benjamin Baxter at On the Tenure Track invites you to a live recreation of Saving Private Ryan in his own classroom.

Dining by Candlelight: Larry Ferlazzo at In Practice and Eric at Teachers Call say teachers should include more modern means of illuminating young minds.

Set the Mood with Music: Alvaro at SharpBrains says musical training stimulates the brain. Meanwhile, Creating Lifelong Learners tells you how to make the most of your iPod in class.

Send a Valentine’s Card: Ms. Cornelius says principals who care, trust and lead by example are sooo her type.

Like Romeo and Juliet, Minus the Suicide: The Bard Blog knows there’s no better way to woo someone than with poetry. Learn how to read Shakespearean verse like a true Romeo.

Even More Poetry: Eduwonkette has the same idea. Send your Valentine a funny poem.

On a Budget: American Consumer News has tips on how to get great books for cheap. Speaking of books, Money Blue Book talks about a few things you didn’t know your library could do.

On a Budget, Part II: Uncle Joe’s Leadership Blog tells parents and students how to get a free college education. And Thursday Bram at Wise Bread tells students where to shop when they have to start buying their own textbooks.

Propagating the Species: GrrlScientist at Living the Scientific Life has the skinny on a guide to teaching evolutionary theory.

Lovers’ Quarrel: Mr. Walker, The English Teacher, prompts a heated discussion on tracking.

Kiss and Make Up: Resolve conflicts with colleagues by employing these strategies, courtesy of Pat at Successful Teaching.

Share a Few Laughs: Scenes from The Battleground pokes fun at the idea of blaming the victim in education.

Spend Some Time with Your Kids: TutorFi‘s Colleen Palat asks, “Does My Child Need a Tutor?“If so, not to worry. The kid can still excel in school.

Find a Special Someone where you Least Expect It: Joanne Jacobs dishes on Principal Shimon Waronker, a Hasidic Jew, ignoring potential culture shock to turn around a prominently black and Hispanic school.

Watch the Sunrise: Circle Time “Lead From The Start” discusses teaching with both sides of the brain to usher in a new tomorrow in student learning.

Remembering the Way We Were: The Tempered Radical’s Bill Ferriter asked beginning teachers to remind older colleagues they’re still learning how to do this job.

Stand by Your Man (or Woman): Nancy Flanagan, a Teacher in a Strange Land, sticks up for teachers in the face of claims that the professions isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Get Some Alone Time: Dana at Principled Discovery doesn’t like the idea of the federal government butting in and bossing around local schools.

Remembering it’s the Thought that Counts: Like many parents reared on New Math, NYC Educator struggles to help his daughter at math. But he’s a dear for trying.

Fending off Suitors: Ms_Teacher isn’t interested in ETS’ insultingly low wages.

Dumped: To MasterPapers.com and CustomEssays.co.uk – We both knew this was coming. Selling essays to students is just wrong, wrong, wrong. And your advice on essay writing is pure fluff. I don’t think we should see each other anymore.

Photo Credit: Candy hearts at cryptogram.com.

Whether you’re an ESL teacher looking for a new way to teach English or a student of the language, ESL Pod is a user friendly way to hone your skills.

Podcasting has taken the world by storm, and in doing so, has created a new way of teaching. ESL Pod is a database of ESL and TOEFL podcasts including everything from medical and health terms to travel and dining. You can find different episodes for each subject, and the content is updated regularly. The audio files are easy to search and download, and the readers are well spoken and educated.

Perhaps best of all, you can easily preview the files, so you don’t have to dedicate yourself to downloading a file if it’s not what you’re looking for. All the audio files are free to download in mp3 format, but with a $10 monthly membership, you can get supplemental material in the form of learning guides. These include transcripts, definitions and other helpful learning tools. –JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

ESL Pod