Thursday, February 24, 2011

Interactive Skeleton Anatomy with eSkeletons

eskeletons.org is a site created by the University of Texas at Austin. It provides a great interactive environment for analyzing and interacting with skeletal structures. Their purpose is to provide...
...an interactive environment in which to examine and learn about skeletal anatomy...View the bones of both human and non-human primates and... gather information about them from our osteology database.
You can select the skeletal structure you wish to view by either clicking the name or selecting the figure.


If you click on the Comparative Anatomy link you can make various selections and view the images from the different species side-by-side.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Share a Snip from a YouTube Video

Have you ever wanted to share just a little part of a youtube video? snipsnip.it provides a service that allows you to insert a link to a youtube video and then shorten that link so that a specific part is shareable. Check it out by clicking here.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Min.us improved!

I've just found out that an already great site is now even better! If you don't know about min.us check out my prior post about it here. Basically the site provides a crazy simple setup for sharing. You can drag a pic onto the site and easily share from there. Brilliant right? Well now min.us has come out with new features such as being able to share music & documents, as well as images. You can also select multiple files on your computer (hold Ctrl on your computer as you click to select more than one) and drop them all in to receive one link to share. You just have to drag any file onto the window of the page and drop it in.


Min.us has released desktop versions for Mac, Windows, and Linux. I've just downloaded the Windows version and it seems to work great. It just puts a small icon in your system tray where you can drag your files to and receive a link to share from there. For more info and options you can view their FAQ page here.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Doodle 4 Google still open

If you're not familiar with the Doodle 4 Google program you can view more info here. The gist of it is that one lucky student will have their "doodle" featured as the Google logo for one day, and earn a $15,000 scholarship, plus more. Doodles this year must follow the theme, "What I'd like to do someday..." and registration will close at 11:59 Pacific Time on March 2nd. They've made some changes this year including parents can now register their children, and there is no cap for the number of doodles that a school can submit. That's just the basics though, if you're interested in more I highly suggest that you read through their contest rules.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Social Networking & more for this classroom

Edmodo.com is a great way to communicate with your students online in a secure way, and best of all...IT'S FREE!!!!. The platform was created by educators and made for the classroom. Some of the features of Edmodo include being able to post notes to students (they can respond back to you or the whole class), attaching files to your post, or posting links.

The way it works is pretty simple. As the teacher you register for an account. Once your account is created you can create your classes. This could be just one class (ex. Mrs. Burnett's) or multiple (ex. Math p.1, Math p.2...). With each class that you create you get a code. Students then sign up for their own accounts then enter the code for your class. It's good to note that students can have multiple classes associated with their account (Parents can also sign up for accounts so that they can view their child's account).

Once everything is created you can get started posting to your class. As the teacher it is important that you have conversations with your students before they start using Edmodo about appropriate academic behavior online. I would also make sure and mention to your students that what they post can either be a direct message to you the teacher, or to the whole class. There's no in between. You will have documentation for everything that students post as they will have to be logged in to access your class, and students can attach assignments to their posts to turn into you as well.

I think that this is a fantastic tool that could be a great use of social media with your classroom!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Prezi.com for Math!

I'm in Austin this week at TCEA and have been learning about so many cool tech tools and tips that I have to share some. Just today I heard from a 3rd grade teacher that is using Prezi with her students to map out "blueprints" of math problems. (If you don't know about Prezi go check it out at www.prezi.com and visit their "Learn" tab as it is a great & fun alternative to PowerPoint.) The idea is that students first map out their work of a math problem. Then after viewing a sample Prezi, the students create a mind map (she used paper & pencil) of how they would like to set-up their math blueprint in Prezi so that they can teach it to the class. The students then use Prezi and create their presentation that they can later share with the class.

To create an educator Prezi account you can click here. The free version is great! If you have any questions please let me know and I'll be happy to help!