Free coloring pages!

Here's a great site for finding free coloring pages for your class.  What's so great about Edupics is that you can find coloring sheets for any student.  There are pictures of cute little scenes as well as dot-to-dots that would entertain any PK-3 student.  But, there are also pictures that are a little more intricate for students in middle and high school that may be coloring pages, or possibly images for a project.

To give a better example of the variety of this site, here are a couple of pictures that I found this morning:

Pretty neat, huh? So, either print directly from the website or download a copy of the picture right to your computer.  Have fun!

Bald Eagle Live Camera

I just had this website shared with me this morning courtesy of Beth Williams and her mother (Thank You!).  The site is a project maintained by The George Miksch Sutton Avian Research Center that has two cameras set up to watch over a bald eagle pair's nest 24/7.



The female has laid 3 eggs and one has hatched just yesterday!  You get a view over the Momma and her nest as well as a view of the entire tree that Poppa is usually perched on top of! It's so exciting to see the mother nestling in with

 her eggs and feeding the hatchling.  Check it out every day!  Click here to see the live feed.

NOTE: The video may appear to load incorrectly, just showing a black screen, but it takes a bit to show the picture.  I had to wait for about 20 seconds before the black screen switched to the video view.

HOLY COW!

But in other news.....I changed my blog!  Tell me what you think!  :)

Gapminder

Today's site is Gapminder, an online collection of extremely interesting statistics that show the facts of the world. As they are today,  but also as they have changed over time.  Browse from many different comparisons such as average life expectancy vs. income per person and then "play" the information to see the change over time from the 1800's to today.  Students are able to analyze the data, offer opinions, and closely examine the bubbles which represent the countries of our world.

Also check out the "For Teachers" tab that has quick links to the most educational uses of the site.

Own Your C

I found a pretty neat site for today...it's called Own Your C (the "C" stands for "choice" I'm guessing).  You can choose to sign up for an account or stay completely anonymous, but once you visit the site you will be presented with a question asking you your opinion (agree or disagree) on a health topic.  For instance, some of the statements I weighed in on were, "Chewing tobacco is no big deal." and "Using my cell phone while driving does not affect my performance."  Once you answer agree or disagree, you can see the results of other peoples' answers displayed in an attention-grabbing layout.  Then you can choose from different demographics (collected from only those who have signed up for a profile) to analyze the data in correlation to gender, age, etc.

I imagine that this would be a neat exercise to do with a health class or possibly a social class talking about current events.  Each student could use their own computer or the teacher could present this on the whiteboard.  Share any other ideas you may have for using this interesting site!

Time Explorers....become Indiana Jones!

Yesterday, I was alerted to the existence of a website for The British Museum by Kristin Swanson, keeper of an awesome Ed. Tech blog, Teachers as Technology Trailblazers.

So, The British Museum has a section of their website dedicated to Young Explorers that is a fantastic place to find fun facts, games, pictures, and events that have to do with world history.  One of the best games, also the one that Ms. Swanson highlighted, was Time Explorer. Students are transported back to a period in time to recover precious artifacts while learning fun facts about the civilization they are visiting.  Some of the adventures include Ancient Rome, or the Mayan pyramids at Teotihuacan.  Don't forget to check out the other games, as well as the other areas of the main site!

Museum Box Creator

UPDATE JANUARY 2013:  Museum Box is no longer a free tool.  Schools must register for an account and pay for services of this site.  While still a great tool for education, teachers must now pay to use any features. :(

Real quick post today, but still a good one!  Here's a website called Clarksons Box Creator Museum Box.  Students can use this site to make their own museum box by browsing pictures, sounds, and videos.  Have students highlight an event, or person using the appropriate items.  You can also sign in (for a free account) to save your work.  Have fun!

Trig Spinner

Hello!  Sorry for my lack of posts last week.  It was a crazy five days!  I'm going to try to be better this week.

Today I am posting a game that was emailed to me called Trig Spinner.  It's a fun flash game developed by Greg Lieberman an undergraduate student at the University of Southern California.  He is a computer science student, but apparently, he also likes math!

Trig Spinner is a fun way to practice finding the sine, cosine, and tangent of angles on the xy plane.  You can play it online, or download the flash file to your computer.  Check out Trig Spinner.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well now, I'm a bit ashamed of meself fir not postin' fir ya.  But I might as well make up fir it now?

...Ok, ok that was supposed to be me speaking in an Irish brogue to you, hence the mispellings.  But now on to business! As you may have determined, today is St. Patrick's Day!  I have some neat links for you to check out:

Want to know a bit more about Ireland?  Apples for the Teacher has an awesome eBook that was created by a 6th grade class in Ireland as well as read aloud by the students of that class.  You can learn about Ireland (just a note however, that this was made in 1999) and listen to the wonderful accents of Irish children.  Listen and learn here.

Another link, or links rather, that I wanted to share are some clips of the Chicago River being dyed green to celebrate everybody's favorite Irish holiday.

MSNBC
Time lapse photography video done by artist Anthony Stewart

Africam

 The site today is called Africam.  It's a site that has live feeds to four different cameras overlooking the African Plains.  You can take your class on a live safari!  Keep an eye peeled for all sorts of African species, but don't worry if you miss anything because the site keeps an on-going list of any sightings.  Your students will love it!

Prezi, make amazing presentations!

This is a bit of a late post today....sorry.  I was working on creating a nice example for today's website while running around the school this morning, and the day had begun to get away from me!

 Today's site is called Prezi.  With this amazing tool, you can create moving presentations that will absolutely captivate an audience.  Think of taking your predictable one-slide-after-the-next PowerPoint and making it into a zooming, moving, presentation!  I really can't even describe it....you have to see it!

So, here's one I made: Amber's Solar System Prezi:
(just click through by using the arrow)

Our Solar System on Prezi

Learn Something New Everyday.....what a novel idea!

Today's site is one I learned about through a blog I follow maintained by Anne Marie Corrieri.  She posts some great sites and activities that you can use with your interactive whiteboard at the elementary level in her blog, Talking SMART Boards and Much More. *shout out!*

Anyway, this particular site, Learn Something New Everyday, posts daily facts that can be used at any level of Education.  The site is maintained in the UK, so I have found some of the language to be a bit different, but the main point is still obvious.  Whether or not all of them are true is another question, but they offer up a fascinating bit of info that might be shared as part of a morning routine, or some other motivating technique. And hey, if your students feel that the fact is false, encourage them to research it!  Nothing wrong with inspiring a trip to the library, right? ;)

Oh, and I forgot to mention that if you really like one of the facts, you can order it on a t shirt, hoodie, or canvas bag!

Glogster

Hello all! I hope everyone had a great weekend!  If not, I have got the website to make your week!  Ok, so that might be overdoing it, but Glogster for education is one awesome site.  When you sign up for an account on Glogster (the free one) you are able to enroll up to 100 students under your teacher account.  Their passwords and usernames are completely controlled by you. 

So, what is it that the students can do once they are signed up, you ask?  They can make kickin' online posters, that's what!  With Glogster, students can sign in and create colorful and interactive posters using clip art, pictures, and backgrounds that come included with your account.  They can also upload their own pictures, videos, and sounds.  They can even add in links to websites outside Glogster.  Your students can save their work and come back to it later.  Once they are done, you can embed the glog into a webpage, email them, or print them! 

The site is really fun and offers a new way for students to display work.  I would love to see any examples if you choose to use Glogster.  I will even gladly help you set it up!

FotoBabble

Check out Fotobabble, a site you can use to upload pictures and record your own voice to go with them.

 The finished products are embeddable, so you can paste them into your website or blog.  Have students talk about a picture of a famous historical figure, or a species of animal, etc.

Here's one I made....

Abby Sunderland, a teen explorer!

16 year old Abby Sunderland is on a journey of a lifetime right now.....SOLO!  She has had the dream of sailing around the world since she was 13, and she's in the process of chasing her dream right now!  Use these sites to follow her progress and ask questions.  This is an excellent example to start learning about longitude, latitude, circumnavigation, past explorers and their routes, reading maps, and more.  She is truly a brave soul and can be a great role model for your students.

Her Official Site: http://www.abbysunderland.com/
Her Blog, which is maintained right from her craft, Wild Eyes: http://soloround.blogspot.com/