Doodle 4 Google 2012

Doodle 4 Google is back! If you aren't familiar with this program here's the gist. It's open to US students in grades K-12. The theme for the drawings is "If I could travel in time, I'd visit..." Submissions can be drawn with pencil, crayon, paint, or with the computer (just no 3d images). Doodles must be received by March 23 to be considered and only one submission is allowed per student. If you want to know more, view the video below and/or view the Doodle 4 Google info page.


Doodle 4 Google 2012 is Open For Submissions!

Bullying - Info on the Outbreak

I came across the following infographic yesterday from @k_ferrel on his blog, Ed Tech Ideas. The infograph was created by USC's Master of Arts in Teaching program and I think it does a great job of featuring information that I believe is important for all educators to know. Bullying Awareness Week took place a month ago, but I think it is so important that this topic does not veer far from our minds.

 
Via MAT@USC: Masters in Teaching

Educational Apps

I've had several people (some teachers, some parents) question me lately about educational apps. There are many great resources out there for educational apps so I thought I'd share a few of them. All of the following sites provide a directory of apps, often sorted by age and/or subject level. I've included the Twitter name for the blogs when I could find them. Twitter is a great way to keep up-to-date with new posts from these blogs.

Best Apps for Kids (@bestappsforkids) - This is a great site that sorts apps by age/grade and by device. They also post "Free App Friday" each week where you can see apps that are free for a limited time or are offered in partnership with the next site in the list...

Moms with Apps (@momswithapps)- I learned of this site from @dkapuler. It is updated on a pretty regular basis and the purpose of the site is to "promote quality apps for kids and families".

SNApps4Kids (@SNApps4Kids)- This is a wonderful site who's purpose is to "...explore practical, useful, and educationally sound ways to use the iPad and similar devices with children of all ages and ability levels". SNApps4Kids stands for Special Needs Apps for Kids.

Appitic - I learned of Appitic from the Future Education Tech blog. It provides over 1,300 apps for education. What I really like about this site is that the apps here are broken down by topic and when selected give you a review of the app along with screenshots.

Best Kids Apps - I love the tagline on this site, "We play all the iPhone, iPad, and Android apps so you don't have to". The apps are given a grade, age rating, and the price is displayed.

Apps 4 iKids (@Apps4iKids)- This site was created to share apps that a mother has found for her son. Lists are included from various perspectives including her son's (5 yrs old) top 10 picks.

Great Holiday Activity

I was going through my Google Reader recently and came across a wonderful post from @EdTechSandyK. Her post is titled The Gift of Kind Words and she describes an activity she used with her students before getting into the field of Instructional Technology. So while I know I typically post about a web resource on Wednesday, I really think this is a wonderful idea and couldn't help but share her information. 

The idea is that each student draws a gift bow on a piece of construction paper and puts their own name on the "tag" of the present. The gifts are then passed around the room, with everyone writing kind words about the person on the present. She read through all of the words on the presents before returning them to the students. The wonderful thing is that she discovered her students always found something nice to write about each and every person. She describes the look of joy of that she saw on each students face when they received their "Gift of Kind Words". 

What a wonderful activity. Her post gives much more information and great insight to the activity. Please view her original post for more information.

Forvo | A Pronunciation Guide

Forvo is a site that provides many words in many languages, pronounced. Keep in mind that this is not a translation site, but rather a pronunciation guide. If you know a word, but aren't certain on how to say it, this is a great place to visit.

All you have to do to get started is search for a word, by default it will search all languages for the word, or you can select the language. You will then see a display of pronunciations, including a map of where these words were recorded...pretty cool. Click the play button next to a word to hear it (view example, this search was for the word "school").

If you want to see more about the languages with pronounced words on the site view this page. The site currently states that it has "1,094,357 words 1,169,294 pronunciations 281 languages" and this number is growing by the minute (see what it is when you visit and compare!). Check it out by clicking here!

Earth Time Lapse from the ISS

So I know it's a little late, and I'm sure many people have seen this video by now, but I couldn't let this "Webby Wednesday" pass without spotlighting it. What a great opportunity to discuss the world/time zones/weather in the classroom! If you view the video from Vimeo, and scroll down a bit you will see the shooting locations in their order. Super helpful indeed! =)


Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Virtual Tours with Photosynth Panoramics

I want to share a super cool tool that I have come across that provides a great platform for virtual tours. It's fast, easy, and would be wonderful for classroom tours and creating virtual field trips. Microsoft Photosynth is a free tool that I have known about for a while, but recently I found an aspect of it that makes it even better to use than before (at least to me =).

Photosynth's purpose is to stitch together pictures in order to create virtual environments. This can be done by making a regular synth or a panoramic. See this page for more of an explanation of the difference. My new (to me) finding is the panoramics. They create a smooth environment where you can rotate 360 degrees around a room or space. See some awesome samples here or check out my (not quite as cool but still neat) panoramic below.

There is one little bobble in this panoramic with the trees in sky, but I thought overall it did great, 

and I literally did this in no more than 2 minutes!!

1. To get started with Photosynth you do need to create an account using a Windows Live ID (you can also create a Windows Live ID from this page). Just go to Photosynth's main site and click Create Account at the top of the page.
2. Once you have an account you have a couple of options on creating your Panoramic. You can either use pictures taken from a digital camera and upload them using Microsoft's Composite Editor. After creating your Panoramic just click the Publish to Web button to have it publish to the Photosynth site.
   
   OR - If you have an iPhone or iPad - by far the easiest option is to download the FREE Photosynth app (they say a Windows Phone app is coming soon, but for you Android users that just went awwww try using this app instead (thanks Ricky!)).
   The iPhone app for Photosynth is so easy to use (it is what I used for the panoramic above). You just launch the app, tap to start, and then start moving your phone, holding still briefly when you want it to snap a pic (the Photaf app for Android looks to work similarly). Easy peasy!!
3. When you're done making your panoramic it will publish to your Photosynth account and you can view it there by logging in. You can also choose to make your panoramic listed or unlisted (use this option if you don't want people to be able to search and find your panoramic), add highlights, and share your panoramic through email or Facebook.

I hope you try it out and have some fun!