March
1
February
6
I know some of you are using Pinterest for your personal use. I think it has some fun use for students, as well, as a way to find and collect material on a topic you’re studying in class. It is invite-only, but supposedly it’s not hard to get the invite.
If you took a look at the presentation I did for the FWISD tech conference, there were some examples given on using Pinterest with students.
This article has some Pins of interest 37 Ways Teachers Should/Could Use Pinterest. Follow through on the people who “pinned” the items to see “Boards” related to teaching. Also, check the Related Posts below the article for more.
February
6
musicForProgramming
February
3
Sting 23 Walking in a Webby Wonderland
New resources for the New Year!
(this one you’ll have to check out at home)
from the Lawrence Hall of Science
Original Science videos from Science
Where in the World? A Google Earth Puzzle; part 2 is here
Fun, engaging resources for the independent learner of Spanish
The Best Online Sources for Images per Larry Ferlazzo (looks like he continues to update this list)
“The site offers the answers to homework questions in most major high school level math textbooks, and depending on how much you use it, there’s a fee. Students can pay for answers. Answers to all the questions, not just the odd ones. And answers with explanations and “proofs.” But it’s not as straightforward a transaction as it looks.” – get the rest here
September
29
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
September
28
Weekly Sting #12
I’m preparing my Fall Book Order; Request your material now 🙂 Due Friday, Oct 9th.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dFUwQU1BcVFiR3dWYnRacmd0aTZ3SGc6MA..
LINKS:
Magazine and Newspaper Directories:
http://magazine-directory.com/
http://www.themagazineboy.com/
http://www.thepaperboy.com/
http://www.allyoucanread.com/
Google Fast Flip
http://fastflip.googlelabs.com
Health Map
http://www.healthmap.org/en
“HealthMap brings together disparate data sources to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. This freely available Web site integrates outbreak data of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization)”
Time Magazine: Top 10 Doctored Photos
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1924226_1949526,00.html
September
4
Weekly Sting #10
Welcome Back!
I’m looking forward to continuing and improving my work with the fantastic staff at South Hills. I hope that you have received my brochure about the library services I provide. I would like to see an increase in circulation and research this year. In our research activities, I will be seeking to improve our methods of instruction utilizing the Big6 process in the hopes of instilling in our students greater information skills. I have materials on that process that I would be happy to share with you. The library and your librarian are at your service.
Email / 003 South Hills folder
Please be sure to check email at least every day. Rather than add to your email with all the things and ideas I find and want to share, I attempt to send you one email a week with a link to this blog where I will have a post with all the info. Take a look at previous posts, too.
Scheduling the Library and Computer Lab
Contact me to schedule time in the library or computer lab. The library schedule is now online in the 003 folder of email. There you can view availability and email me your requested time. To request time you will need to fill out a request form, also in the 003 folder. The computer lab schedule is still paper-based. The computer lab has 26 computers. You need to complete a seating chart for each class you take. We will have training again that you need to attend before using the lab.
Research in the Library
As I mentioned, I would like to utilize the Big6 method for conducting research. I feel we are doing our students a disservice when we tell them we are doing research, yet are not really teaching them the research process. They are not prepared for college level research expectations. There are some relatively easy things we can do to help them. They will however, require some extra time; consider whether you can adequately conduct research in one class.
Fort Worth After School Program
We’re continuing the after school program this year. Please check that your students are aware of this; there are some great classes being offered. In addition, the library will be open from 7:30-8:30 on Mon, Wed, and Fri. I will offer some short tutorials on various web-based technologies and more. See Mr. Cardoso or Ms. Phillips for more info.
The Newspaper
We do not receive the newspaper. However, it is available in an online version of the print with the nice capability to pull up individual articles and print them, as well as ads. Several students came in today looking for a newspaper ( I think they hadn’t done their homework) You can set up an account with a password for students to access the newspaper anywhere. Go to http://nie.startelegram.com, set up your account and classes. Remember the password you set up for each class. Give students the username and password. A perfect use of the activboard would be to demonstrate accessing the newspaper, pulling up an article and printing the article. I will gladly show you what this looks like.
FORT WORTH ISD COLLEGE FOUNDATIONS PROGRAM
http://www.fwisd.org/News/Pages/2009-09-02_collegefoundations.aspx
Art Cyclopedia: The Fine Art Search Engine
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/
OWL at Purdue
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
Occupational Outlook Handbook
http://www.bls.gov/oco/
http://www.visuwords.com/?word=library
Reverse Dictionary
http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml
Resources for Learning
http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/index.php
“Resources for Learning, a site from the American Museum of Natural History, is a collection of activities, articles, evidence and analysis and more, for educators, families, students and anyone interested in teaching or learning about science. There are over 1137 resources to choose from.”
FBI History: Famous Cases
http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/famcases.htm
“Since its founding in 1908, the FBI has been involved in many famous cases. Inasmuch as inquiries often are received about them, the Office of Public and Congressional Affairs has prepared monographs on some of the most frequently requested, closed investigations. The monographs listed have been made available for your use. You may download them for any noncommercial use without obtaining permission from the FBI.”
April
21
Weekly Sting 9
Overdue Library Materials
This is not my favorite part of the job, but a necessary one. I need your support in encouraging students to
return overdue materials. We lose a lot of books each year; the longer they sit at home the more likely they get lost or not returned. I’ve sent the list out in email.
Student Research
If you are having your students conduct research it is important that you select appropriate resources for them to use. I would direct you to our subscription databases as a starting point. If there are websites you want to use, be sure to evaluate them first (authority, bias, timeliness, etc.). There are two tools I use to collect Internet links for use with student research: Krunchd.com and Agglom.com.
In both cases, I am happy to search and collect appropriate resources myself to save you that time (and to fulfill what I think is part of my job description).
At any rate, both of the aforementioned tools allow you to easily consolidate links on one page. This saves
students the time it takes to type in the URLs and also helps to keep them focused. You can see two examples of
what I’ve put together using each tool:
http://www.agglom.com/set/50905/Biomes
http://krunchd.com/animals
If you would like assistance in learning to use these tools, please let me know.
List of Online Drawing Tools
http://www.allgraphicdesign.com/graphicsblog/2008/05/16/online-drawing-tools-free-online-painting-sketching-tools/
13 Ways to save at the supermarket
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/may-2009/food/supermarkets/13-ways-to-saveB/supermarkets-13-ways-to-save.htm
BookRags
http://www.bookrags.com/
from the site: “BookRags is the premier research site for students, with over 8.3 million pages of literature
summaries, biographies, literary criticism, essays, encyclopedias, and eBooks sourced from over 100 respected education databases.”
SciVee
http://www.scivee.tv/
from the site:”SciVee is changing the pace at which science is conducted and communicated. As the first Web 2.0 site that enables researchers to combine video with documentation and data in a media rich format, we enable scientists to make their research more visible, shareable, and accessible throughout the research cycle. Using our patent pending “virtual studio” technology, scientists can easily enhance their journal articles with “pubcasts” by linking and synchronizing video explanations to their published text. Similarly, video summaries can be associated and synchronized with scientific posters to create “postercasts” highlighting the key finding of the research. We also provide easy upload and hosting of videos on topics in all areas of scientific research.”
Twitter in Plain English- video
(may have to watch from home) it will buffer a bit before playing
Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo
MapEcos
http://mapecos.org/
Google Maps/EPA data mashup
New York Times Newsroom Navigator
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/technology/cybertimesnavigator/index.html also find a link there for their Business, Politics, and Helath Navigators
State of the Birds- 2009 Report
http://www.stateofthebirds.org/
EarthCam- search webcams worldwide
http://www.earthcam.com/
Getting Through Tough Economic Times
http://www.samhsa.gov/economy/
Science Bulletins- Current research about the Natural World
http://www.amnh.org/sciencebulletins/
March
30
Weekly Sting #8
Please continue to assist in reminding students to return overdue library material. You’ve received an overdue list in your email.
South Hills Library Catalog– Search for materials in our library
https://fwisd.follettdestiny.com/common/welcome.jsp?site=102&context=saas01_4233689
Academic Earth
http://academicearth.org/
Video lectures by top scholars (videos seem to be blocked, but check it out at home)
Memidex
http://www.memidex.com/
“Memidex is a free online dictionary/thesaurus with extensive cross-referencing, complete inflections, simple interface, and frequent updates.”
The Book Cover Archive
http://www.bookcoverarchive.com
(I have a thing for book cover design)
English Companion
http://englishcompanion.ning.com
Social networking group for English teachers
FreezeFrame
http://www.freezeframe.ac.uk/home/home
“over 20,000 photographic negatives from 1845-1960, representing some of the most important visual resources for research into British and international polar exploration”
Zunal
http://www.zunal.com/
Zunal is a website that lets you create a webquest.
Poll Everywhere
http://www.polleverywhere.com
Earth Image of the Day & Earth Image Gallery
http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/index.php
Satellite images- weather and environmental
CIA World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook
Probably the most up-to-date country profiles
Portals to the World
http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html
Links to electronic resources on nations and areas of the world.
GovEngine.com
http://www.govengine.com
Links to government sites
Visions of Earth
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/visions-of-earth/visions-earth-2008
The State of the News Media: an Annual Report on American Journalism
http://stateofthemedia.org/2009/index.htm
Flags of the World
http://www.fotw.net/flags/index.html
PDF to Word
http://www.pdftoword.com
convert a pdf file to a word document for editing
February
16
Weekly Sting #7
Please continue to remind students about overdue material. I rely heavily on your assistance.
Materials for Black History Month are on display in the library.
“The American Presidents,” by Genevieve Madeline Ryan (A song to learn the presidents, in order.)
http://www.whitehousehistory.org/podcast/whha_americanpresidents.html if this link takes you straight to the home page, click on The ‘American Presidents’ on the lower right side of the page.
Energy Information Administration- World Oil Price Timeline
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/timeline/oil_chronology.cfm
Language of Local Government
http://www.cityofpsl.com/city_clerk/language_local_gov.html
Encyclopedia Britannica’s Guide to Black History
http://www.school.eb.com/blackhistory
Charters of Freedom
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/
8 Tuition-Free Colleges
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22573
Science Fair Central
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/sciencefaircentral/index.html
Discovery Education Streaming February Newsletter (*if you need help setting up your account, just let me know)