Interesting Posts Tonight

Kansas bloggers (well, 2 of us anyway) spent their New Years Eve blogging. Marcia from Maize just posted three great calendar sites with fabulous lesson ideas. The first two she posted are free. Don't forget to check out the calendar feature in Discovery Streaming also.

On the Tech Crunch blog there's a post about a larger iPod coming out in the fall of 2009. Apparently it is a 7" or 9" iPod Touch. I think this looks like another amazing Apple innovation!

A Geeky Momma blogged 10 sites to help us all become healthier in 2009. These include apps for the iPhone, sites to help you keep track of your exercise, calorie counters, and lots more.

AND I love the collage on Diane Cordell's blog which showcases her life in 2008. What a great idea!

Thanks bloggers for helping me bring in the new year!

Pages

Pages is a word processing and desktop publishing application. In our district AppleWorks has been replaced with Pages.
If Pages is not in your dock, you will find it in your applications folder, inside the iWork '08 folder. iWork '08 includes Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. If you plan on using these applications on a regular basis, you'll want to drag the icon of each application into your dock so they are handier to get to.

Do you use Keynote? If the answer to that is yes, then you're well on your way to understanding Pages. You'll see some of the very same features in both applications: the inspector, media browser, masking, shapes, tables, charts, and lots more. So learning one of these applications will automatically qualify you as an expert in the other application!
Check out the wiki on Pages which includes tutorials and ideas for using Pages. Use the table feature to create bingo cards and trading cards. Use the shapes to create Venn diagrams and for masking photos. The poster template is great for creating 8 x11 posters and 11x17 inch posters. Several ideas are listed for using posters in the classroom.

Glossopedia

Elephants are the largest land animals. They can weigh over 6,000 kg, or more than the weight of four cars! Where do orangutans live? Did you realize Bald Eagles are native to North America? This kind of information can be found very simply at Glossopedia, an extremely kid-friendly encyclopedia. You'll also find many photos on each topic and in some cases small video clips.
By clicking on 'for educators' at the bottom of the page you'll see Learning Activity Guides. These are very thorough guides which include great discussion questions, thought-provoking worksheets, and very-timely extension activities.
"How do you think science affects your life?" This is the current question that students may respond to online.
Take a few minutes and explore this fantastic resource!

A Picture's Worth . . .

Aren't digital cameras wonderful? I love the fact that I can take tons of photos, trying different angles, different lighting, messing with settings on the camera, etc. and not have to pay a cent just to see how they turned out! Remember when we took pictures and had to wait 10 days to have them developed? I remember being disappointed so many times in the pictures that I took!
Thank goodness that has all changed! Now I'm amazed at the numerous tools we have available to enhance our photos! iPhoto on our Macs is one of those tools. In iPhoto you can easily edit your photos, removing red eye, straightening photos, changing the saturation, and much more. Within iPhoto, books, calendars, and cards can be published - either through Apple or on your printer!
There are many web-based applications that also provide more options for editing photos!
Take a look at Picnik. This is absolutely FREE and has lots of features to choose from. This photo was taken by Kathy E. at Dillon Nature Center and enhanced in iPhoto then embellished at Picnik.
Dumpr is another one of my favorites. I don't recommend putting students' photos and their names online. By using dumpr to change a photo to a pencil drawing, an avatar (computer representation of oneself) has been created. The avatar can then be used on classroom webpages, in VoiceThread, and other online settings. This is a great substitution for real photos of students.

This photo was edited with the celebrity paparazzi option.







How are you using digital images in your classroom? I have several ideas for you, but those will have to come in another blog post!

LookyBook

Teacher Printables

Well, the title says it all. This is a site where someone has spent hours upon hours creating awesome printables for teachers, from booklets to calendars t0 research organizers. The research organizers are my favorites! Even if these are not exactly what you need for your curriculum, you'll be able to get some ideas so you can design your own. If these spur on your imagination, open up Pages in your iWork 08 folder and get started. These are all in pdf (see earlier post: Pretty Darn Funny) so you will download them to your laptop and print them.
http://www.teacherprintables.net/index.html

Make sure you check out Rosemary's Blog: http://outoftheordinarywithrosemary.blogspot.com/

Constitution Day

Our United States Constitution was signed September 17, 1787. Since 2004, September 17th has been set aside as Constitution Day and schools all across the country must teach about the history of the constitution.
Here are some resources to help you:
Constitution Day Wiki - this has resources divided according to grade level. Be sure and look at the Barney Fife video. Students would love seeing that video in a Keynote presentation as an introduction to Constitution Day!
Constitution Day - Celebrate the Birthday of Our Government - scroll down to the section for Educators. You'll be able to search for activities, lesson plans, events, books and more for your grade level. Great resources here!
Signers of the Constitution - this is a mural of the signers of the constitution and their names. Wouldn't it be fun to create a mural of your students with those poses? Could your students write a constitution for your classroom?
Teaching with Documents: Observing Constitution Day - this has many activities for Constitution Day!
National Constitution Center - 4 interactive games that students will enjoy!
Congress for Kids - As you might imagine, this one is very kid friendly!
Interactive Constitution - This is pretty amazing! Students can choose the amendments to the constitution and see the original text along with an explanation. They can choose various court cases or search for topics. This site is more for grades 5 and higher.
Happy Constitution Day!