NCCE 2005 -- Seattle -- Day One

Today is the opening day of the annual Northwest Council of Computer Education (NCCE) being held in Seattle. I've attended a NCCE convention since last time it was held in Seattle (I think the conventions alternate between Seattle, Portland, and Spokane).

The site for NCCE 2005 is here.

The convention is set to last through Saturday and I'm looking forward to learning a great deal.

The first workshop today is called "Surveys and Hotlists and Blogs, Oh My!" As suggested by the title, the presenter has walked us through some free online surveys (Zoomerang, SurveyMonkey, and ProfilerPro), free online hotlist creator (Filementality), and blogs (she chose to focus on Blogger.com). The three-hour session flew by pretty quickly! There are probably tons of other resources to do these things online but I hope to try using at least the survey and hotlist tool soon when I get back to school

Another 3-hour workshop I attended today was "Technology in the Classroom: SmartBoards and Classroom Performance Systems (CPS)." The three presenters were: Jeredene Mayfield (Coordinator of Technology Integration, Golden Triangle Cooperative, Montana), Lisa Legare (Middle/High School teacher, Glasgow Public Schools, Montana), and Michelle Harrell (Coordinator of Technology Integration, North East Technology Consortium). I was there mostly interested in learning more about SmartBoards, particularly since we have one now at the Middle School for trial purposes. Theirs was a very effective demo and I learned a great deal about SmartBoards. Watching one in action was, once again, kind of exciting. I hope our experiment at the Middle School turns out well! In any case, a couple resources they included were Jere's professional development site, a geography/map site (Sheppard Software), and the North Central Montana Technology Consortium (NOCENTC) page....all of which have great resources including some for SmartBoard use, tips and tricks.

Ask A Scientist

The Cornell Center for Materials Research has a really cool site and service called Ask A Scientist. Take a look at the question of the day but then start scanning the archive of questions. I couldn't resist seeing the answer to a question about whether spontaneous combustion was real or not. The answer was by our local (famous) science guy, Bill Nye.

The answers seem both informative and entertaining. This is a winner!

Check Out Those Book Reviews

If you're interested in a site that collects complete book reviews for a number of published works of literature, go the The Complete Review. Well over a thousand books are reviewed here with links to reviews from other publications.

Flutter Byes

I don't know if it's true that some monk way back when, while writing in some tome that was setting out definitions or words to describe things -- and who must have been dyslexic -- codified the word "butterfly" instead of the up-until-that-time-commonly-used "flutter by" as the word to describe the oft-times indescribable beautiful insect. Even if it's not true, it makes a good story and explanation for how such a non-relevant word like "butterfly" would apply to that insect. I mean..."butter" & "fly". "Butter" has nothing to do with it and "fly" doesn't really conjure up the image of this gorgeous, and sometimes elusive, set of wings.

The Florida Museum of Natural History has a nice website dedicated to their exhibits having to do with butterflies and I encourage you to visit Butterfly Rainforest.

Christo & Jean-Claude's Exhibit in Central Park -- The Gates

Over the weekend, the two renowned artists -- Christo and Jeanne-Claude -- opened their newest adventure with fabric, color, and spectacle as they opened The Gates. If I remember correctly, there are over 7,000 gates from which saffron-colored fabric sways in the breeze installed on the paths in Central Park in New York.

Visit their website, The Art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, where they have complete information about their latest project (some 26 years in the planning and permit-gathering) along with a number of their other exhibits.

Amazing and, in the best sense of the word,......Spectacular!

Hearing Voices?

In yet another amazing thing the Internet can do -- along with the hard work, insight, and inspiration of great ideas -- the BBC has made available a wealth of audio interviews of just about anyone you can think off.

Start here to go to the beginning of the alphabetical list. Chose the beginning letter of someone notable's last name and see what they've got. This page starts you out at the letter "A's" and here's sample of who you could hear from the BBC archives: Maya Angelou, Ansel Adams, Robert Altman, Eve Arnold, and David Attenborough.

Prime History

As someone who is not exactly a mathematician, I would say that the whole notion of prime numbers has held some fascination. For example, prime numbers seem to hold special importance to the folks who eat and breathe numbers.

In case you're interested, I ran across a site that sets out the History of Prime Numbers. I think you'll find some clues here.

Endangered Languages

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is concerned about the possible loss of spoken languages worldwide. It has a site to help highlight this concern called the Interactive Atlas of the World Languages in Danger of Disappearing. Some of the goals of this site include:

1. Contribute to the safeguarding of languages in danger of disappearing with a view to contribute to the preservation of the world's linguistic and cultural diversity.
   
   
2. Share knowledge on endangered languages through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
   
   
3. Promote public awareness and international debate concerning languages in danger of disappearing through the development of an interactive on-line tool.
   
   
4. Foster intellectual cooperation with local, regional, national and international organizations in order to combine efforts to promote and preserve the world’s endangered languages.

A very interesting site and laudable goals.

The History Of Valentine's Day

Leave it to the History Channel to have a whole site devoted to the History of Valentine's Day. Not only do they give us the history (and sometimes guesses) about the genesis of Valentine's Day but there are stories of great romances. You can even visit a Valentine's Day Gift Shop.

Check it out to your heart's content!

Pasta! Pasta! Pasta!

Pasta is definitely not in keeping with our carbo-aware world these days but I can't honestly claim to have kept pasta out of my diet. Quite the contrary!

Well, if you also find those tasty noodles ending up on your plate, you might be interested in discovering more about all the ways you can turn eggs, flour, and water into more than spaghetti....into pasta!

Though I associate the Hormel company with meats (especially Spam!!!) and not noodles, they have a part of the "Knowledge" area of their website devoted to giving you all you need to know about pasta.

Check out Types of Pasta!

Got Vitamin A?

If you are in need of just a bit more of good ole vitamin A, one place you're bound to find it in abundance is the CarrotMuseum. It won't take much digging around to find just about all you'll ever want to know about this orange munchie!

Everything Google -- Oh My!

I've only begun to scratch the surface of what author Nancy Blachman has put together with her GoogleGuide site, but, my oh my, there is a lot here to learn about this most common search engine. Can it do a lot of things!

It's gotta be that anyone -- yes, anyone! -- can learn something new about Google thanks to Ms. Blachman. Give her site a test drive! You'll be amazed!!!

Find Those Bloopers In The Movies

Although not obsessive about it, I have to confess to be a person who will spend some time at the movies trying to catch the mistakes in shooting, continuity, or just plain bloopers up there on the screen.

Lo and behold, there is a web site that tracks and compiles "mistakes" from the silver screen (and some from the small screen, too).

Check out MovieMistakes. It's good for a chuckle sometimes with an occasional "how did they think they could think we wouldn't notice that???"

Strawberries!

For those of us who are already looking ahead to warmer days, perhaps a visit to the website devoted to that fruit I always associate with early summer -- the strawberry -- would warm your heart.

The strawberry growers in California have a website dedicated to this popular fruit: CSC -- The California Strawberry Commission.

Just think......it won't be that long before we'll see those baskets of strawberries in the store or at the market. Can summer be that far away???

Oh Yeah, There Are Blog Catalogs

There are so many blogs out there now that sites have popped up to catalog all those weblogs out there.

One is found with the obvious name: BlogCatalog.

Blogs are listed by category and can be searched for. Also, for those of you who have a blog of your own, you can request to have your blog added to the catalog.

Google Directory Search also offers a tool that can help you find blogs in various listed categories. Some sample categories include: Personal, Collaboration, News, Regional, Science and Culture, Using Weblogs in Education, and Webrings. Click here to check out this Google resource.

Who knows whether weblogs are a sort of tech fad that will fade? In the meantime, these two tools will help you find a blog that matches your interest.

Browser Alternatives

Check out this article from the Circuits pages of the New York Times for tips on options for browsers, how to customize, and otherwise make better use of this specialized (but very important) program.

AFAIK, WYSIWYG, B4, TLC, TTYL, E2EG, B3

Okay, so what do all the above have in common? They are acronyms!

So what does one do if one can't figure out or remember what the acronym stands for? Two top alternatives would be to check either

Acronym Finder

or
The Canonical Abbreviation/Acronym Finder
or
Acronyma

One of these will help you out, including abbreviations used these days in the world of Instant Messaging and cell phone text messaging.

The Beauty Of The Heavens

I can remember a number of blissful spring and summer afternoons when I was (much) younger. I would notice the fluffy clouds set against the brilliant blue clear sky. I'd lie down on our green grass in the backyard and stare up at those beautiful constantly evolving clouds.

Taking a visit to The Cloud Appreciation Society site has brought back many of those memories. Check it out!

Blogging About Incredible Blogs

I've been pointed to this site -- called Blogging About Incredible Blogs -- as a web presence that does a great job of pointing one toward good blogs and other online resources.

Blogging About Incredible Blogs is the work (actually it's a blog itself using a Blogger.com site!) of Ken Leebow of Atlanta, Georgia.

You might give it a visit.

A Car Before Its Time -- And One That's Disappeared...Almost

According to family legend, one of my grandfathers plunked down a bit of cash to get in line for a heralded new car back in the late 40's -- the Tucker.

I don't remember the details of how the business failed but fail it did. Many, like my grandfather who had been sold on getting this "advanced" new automobile, lost whatever money they put as down payments. I can still remember my grandfather talking about the fact that, believe it or not, the Tucker had headlights (actually only one) that turned as the car did. That seemed so amazing to me as a little kid!

Only 51 of the "Car of the Future" touted by Preston Thomas Tucker were ever built. Those still extant are reputed to be worth between $250,000 to $500,000.

A site exists that is dedicated to the notion of keeping the history of the Tucker alive. If you'd like to take a look at automobile (and American cultural) history -- particularly of the mid-20th century -- visit Tucker Automobile Pages, "Keeping the Legend Online".