Watermark Your Images

I stumbled across PicMarkr which is a web2.0 tools that allows you to add watermarks to you pictures.  You can upload pictures from your computer or connect to facebook, flickr, or picasa.  This is a lot easier than using Adobe Photoshop or GIMP.  I watermarked a picture from my computer in about 30  seconds.  Plus, you can do it from any computer.

You have options to use black and white text and/or backgrounds and you can choose from multiple locations for the watermark.

Kahn Academy - Free Classroom for the World

 The Khan Academy is a non-profit organization which provides video tutorials for just about everything from developmental math to calculus to physics. Show your math and science teachers.  Everyone should know about this site.

Here's the example for Derivative of a position vector valued function

Global Data Sets in Google Earth

Someone shared kmlfactbook.org at Pete&C.  I looked at it at the moment and had totally forgotten about it.  Then, as I was getting caught up with my twitter feed, I saw many people have been tweeting about it.  So I took a second look.  This is an incredible tool for Social Studies teachers.  I am actually a Technology Education teacher but I am planning to use this when I teach about energy. 

kmlfactbook lets you view global data sets in Google Earth or with the Google Earth browser plug-in.  You can view everything from birthrates to energy consumption to internet users.

First, you choose the category and the data set you want to view.  There are seven categories:  People, Economy, Transport, Military, Geography, Government, and Communications.  

 Once you have picked the data, you can click "Preview in Map". This will show the data in the map.

   Then, if you click on a country, the data window will appear.

You can also click the "Download KML file" button to save the data file and open it directly in Google Earth.  Now, you can save it for later use without an Internet connection.  This will open it under your temporary places.

If you want to add it to your places, simply drag it to your "My Places" and rename it.

Now, you can have a bunch of data preloaded to show to your classes. 

Discovery Education Pete&C PreConference Notes/Recap

Hall Davidson

Hall showed us how we can use Wordle and chromakey together. He had us use PollEverywhere to share examples of successes we have had in the last year.  He copy and pasted the results into wordpad and elimated any unnecessary information (timestamp, etc).  Then, he paste it into wordle and captured the image.  Finally, he showed us how to use the image as a background for video in which we could point at the most important words and explain them.

Teach Smarter Not Harder - Porter Palmer

I've used SurveyMonkey for professional development for teachers but I never thought to use it this way.  Use survey monkey as part of your pretest to check the students' comfort levels about a topic before you begin. You use choices like  I don't know how, I need a little more help, and I know how.  You can use the same survey throughout the unit to keep checking the comfort levels to see where you need to make changes to your instruction. Here is an example I made about robotics.

She also showed us Quizlet.  It allows you to make online flashcards students can use to study.  They can also play it as a game or take in  a test format.  Another alternative I frequently use is classtools.net. Here is a quick example I made with Quizlet.

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study science flash cards

One thing that stuck with me is that Porter said Data Driven Decision Making should be called Data Informed Decision Making.  DDDM is like following your GPS and driving into a lake because it told you to. DIDM is like seeing that there is a lake and realizing your GPS is about 500 feet off.  You adapt.

Junior Doodle

This project was shared by Maryann Molishus from Council Rock School District.  It is based on the work of http://fablefolk.blogspot.com/ . She has students tell a story about a word with a picture, video, or drawing that is then posted on her school website.  Here is one example a 2nd grade student did for the word Storm.  It seems like a good way reinforce the idea that words often have more than one meaning.
 

Here is the main site for the project.

http://www.crsd.org/5037092710394/blank/browse.asp?a=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&c=89466&5037092710394Nav=|&NodeID=7230