Spotlight

Print Resource:
Technology in the Secondary Science Classroom, edited by Randy L. Bell, Julie Gess-Newsome, and Julie Luft.
The featured technologies range from the easy to master (such as digital cameras) to the more complex (such as Probeware and geographic information systems). Each chapter includes a summary of current research on the technology's effectiveness in the classroom; best-practice guidelines drawn from the research and practitioner literature; and innovative ideas for teaching with the particular technology. (Source: http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Secondary-Science-Classroom-Randy/dp/1933531274/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1254507852&sr=8-1)

Technology Resource:
Google Books - Great for research papers!
https://email.elmiracityschools.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://books.google.com/
Search the full text of Books. Find the perfect book for your purposes and discover new ones that interest you.

SearchBook Search works just like web search. Try a search on Google Books or on Google.com. When we find a book with content that contains a match for your search terms, we'll link to it in your search results.
Browse books onlineIf the book is out of copyright, or the publisher has given us permission, you'll be able to see a preview of the book, and in some cases the entire text. If it's in the public domain, you're free to download a PDF copy. Learn more about the different views.
Learn more -- fast We've created reference pages for every book so you can quickly find all kinds of relevant information: book reviews, web references, maps and more. See an example.
Buy the book ... or borrow it from the libraryIf you find a book you like, click on the "Buy this book" and "Borrow this book" links to see where you can buy or borrow it.

Source: http://books.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/about.html

Spotlight

Technology Resource of the Week
http://bmsactivinspire.pbworks.com/
This is a wiki that Jill Eagen put together for ActivInspire users in her building. (ActivStudio will no longer be used in the district.) Her wiki is full of information and tutorials on switching over to ActivInspire

Book of the Week
Poems for Teaching in the Content Areas: 75 Powerful Poems to Enhance Your History, Geography, Science and Math Lessons
What happens when you pair one of the most vibrant, versatile children's poets with one of the best educators? 60 poems perfectly pitched to the needs of teachers, along with simple unique ideas for maximizing their teaching power before, during, and after learning. Topics include: Metamorphosis, simple machines, hurricanes; The Civil War, D-Day, The Vietnam War, immigration; The Nile, Fallingwater, The Great Sphinx; fractions, algebra, and much, much more! (Source: Amazon.com product description)

iTunes U

iTunes U is a great source for free content for your classroom:
"iTunes U is a part of the iTunes Store featuring free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more, that you can enjoy on your iPod, iPhone, Mac or PC. Explore over 100,000 educational audio and video files from top universities, museums and public media organizations from around the world. With iTunes U, there's no end to what or where you can learn."

There is content from American Public Media, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Edutopia, Georgia State University, Indianapolis Museum of Art, MIT, Penn State, Stanford, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, WGBH, Yale, among many others.

Here is a great introductory video to iTunes U.

Did I mention that iTunes U is free?! You will have to download iTunes to your computer. If you are interested in using iTunes U in your classroom and need help getting started, just ask!

Free Rice

Some of you may be familiar with the Free Rice game site that donates 10 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program for every correct vocabulary definition.

There is an expanded version of Free Rice which has games on various topics including famous paintings, chemical symbols, English grammar, identifying countries on the map, world capitals, language learning (including French, German, Italian, and Spanish) basic math (pre-algebra), and multiplication tables.

Check it out here:
http://www.freerice.com/subjects.php?t=32528793275

Wordle

What is Wordle? According to the Wordle web site, "Wordle is a toy for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

You can create a Wordle from text you input. Wordle will also analyze a blog, blog feed, or any other web page that has an Atom or RSS feed. (Not sure what RSS is? Ask me!)

Here is a Wordle created from the text of Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death."




In the September 2008 issue of the New Hampshire Society for Technical Education newsletter, Nancy Keane describes 50 ways for using a Wordle in your classroom.

I would encourage you to explore Wordle. Read the FAQ on the Wordle to learn more about its features. Keep in mind though that Wordle is not filtered so beware when you are searching the Wordle gallery. You may want to create your Wordle ahead of time. If you are using a Promethean board, this post from ActivEducator blog talks about Wordle. Here are some ideas from the Promethean Planet forum as well.

You Can Vote However You Like

As a Personal PDP opportunity, some SHS teachers are reading and discussing The Essential 55 by Ron Clark. Appropriate to Election Day, here is a video of students from the Ron Clark Academy performing "You Can Vote However You Like."

Blog the Vote

I vote because I feel lucky to be an American and have the right to vote (a right that was not awarded to women until 1920). I like to think that my vote counts. Some disagree, but read about these Americans who have gone to great lengths (and expense) to be able to vote in our election on Tuesday, November 4. Think about it!