Top Notch Online Museum Sites

The site, Museums of the Web, has an annual contest to single out and acknowledge online museums of particular excellence.

I'm going to post some information and links to winners in the 2005 competition which were announced today.

You Know Someone Interested In Chemistry?

Well, if they're a kid -- or a kid at heart -- you might point them in the direction of an enlightening and well-presented site called Chem4Kids. Put together by Andrew Rader, this is definitely kid-oriented but the presentation and content is there and not put across in a talking-down or condescending way. You, too, can learn a lot!

A Class Divided

During a two-day workshop I attended, the presenters showed a video that was extremely interesting and memorable. Called "A Class Divided", it chronicled the story of a 3rd grade teacher, Jane Elliott at the Riceville, Iowa, Community Elementary School and what Ms. Elliott chose to do with her class of 3rd graders.

A day after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Ms. Elliott felt it important to teach her students what it meant to experience discrimination. She prepared a lesson that gave and denied privileges to the kids in her class based on their eye color. One day the children with blue eyes were always at the front of the line, were able to use playground equipment, and were called on in class and reminded how smart they were. The following day roles reversed and the kids with brown eyes were the ones given a leg up.

A documentary was filmed about Ms. Elliott's experiment and that is the program we saw in our training. It was mesmerizing to watch the transformation in these kids as they gained or lost privileges, as those in the "down" position were made to wear collars that identified them as a member of the disenfranchised group.

A follow-up program was filmed some years later to track how this experience affected the children who lived it at the time and in the years that followed.

PBS's Frontline series has a website -- A Class Divided -- that shows this program and has other background materials about it. I strongly encourage you to watch it. It's probably a good idea for all of us to watch this powerful program every once in a while so as not to lose sight of the power of discouragement and disenfranchisement.

Got Any Issues With Your "Best Friend"

As many of you are, I'm the owner of the animal that is occasionally referred to as "man's best friend." That would be, of course, the dog.

In my case, it's a pure-bred chocolate lab -- Chip......get it...chocolate chip? Anyway, he's mostly a great dog but, whether due to his "pure" genes or just the luck of the draw in terms of the personality of the dog you adopt, he is quite excitable. Though 6 years old or so, he shows few signs of slowing down. Meeting new people (or canines, for that matter) puts him into quite a state of happiness, energy, and less than -- shall we say -- much self-discipline. He is trainable and is fine in the house and on casual walks, but visitors are always greeted with his terrifically energetic greeting.

For advice on some of the more challenging bits, I'm going to check out a site that might offer some help.....DogProblems. Looks like a winner!

April Fool's Day

Naturally, there is a website (well, not just one but about a gazillion) devoted to our hallowed tradition of April Fool's Day.

Check out Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes Of All Time. What a blast to read!

Old News!

What could be more interesting than Dinosaur News? There is a lot to learn about those ancient (and mostly extinct) critters. This website fills in many of the missing links.

A Truly Awesome Library

The Awesome Library has many, many resources for those of us looking for educational resources. If you explore you can find especially useful things like lesson plans and various tutorials (for example, click here for a page focused on useful materials for teaching technology).

Another terrific website!

Talk About Comparison Shopping

If you've ever wondered how what you're paying at the supermarket (or not-so-supermarket) that you frequent for those fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. (including chocolate!) compares with the prices people living in other cities in the U.S., then I've got a site for you.

The Global Grocery List Project invites students to submit prices for a wide range of edibles from the stores in their area. These prices are recorded by city & state. You pick the food item(s) you're interested in comparing, and up pops a list of places and prices.

It's quite fascinating!

EurekAlert --- For Kids

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has a great site for kids called EurekAlert.

Different aspects of scientific discovery and exploration are spotlighted each week in various scientific realms including Archaeology, Biology, Atmospheric Science, Chemistry & Physics, and Medicine.

A sub-site is called Science Reporting For Kids. One feature of this site is a weekly focus on a new subject. Some examples include:

• How Venus Flytraps Work
• Solar Fireworks Signal New Space Weather Mystery
• Satellites Study Deadly Dust Storms

Definitely worth exploring........

NCCE 2005 -- Seattle -- Day Three

Friday (Day 3) began with a presentation called: “Digital Photography in the Classroom.” This presenter was Jesse Starr (http://cdaschools.org/dalton/jstarr -- jstarr@sd271.k12.id.us). More focused on giving examples of projects he’s done with his primary grade students (including grade 5), he didn’t talk much about the hardware or software he uses. This was a downside for me because I was quite interested in hearing what he’s discovered by using particular hardware/software in the classroom and in projects using cameras and images.

The session I had really hoped to attend was by Leslie Fisher (http://www.lesliefisher.com) called “Your Introduction to Macromedia Flash.” But all the seats were taken and people were already lined up along the wall, so I went to the photography workshop. But after Mr. Starr’s sessions was over I thought I’d peek back in at the Flash session and saw that it had been moved to a much bigger space. So, I went in to see the final section of Ms. Fisher’s presentation. She was showing techniques for animating text (even as separate letters) and adding sound/music to the animation. It looked like it had been a well-received presentation and the number of people there was way more than would have ever fit in the original room. This is a very effective presenter.

I did get another chance to see Leslie Fisher in action. This was at the session she put on later on Friday entitled: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Taking Digital Pictures Effectively.” This presentation was a re-working on a presentation Ms. Fisher had done earlier for a company called BluePixel.com. She also strongly advocated the websites www.robgalbraith.com and www.dpreview.com for information about digital cameras and taking pictures.

As she advanced through a series of pictures, she pointed out examples of some fairly obvious techniques and things to work after/avoid. Some examples include:

• Not being close enough to the subject
• Picture not properly in focus
• Camera shake (producing indistinct or garbled image)
• Boring composition
• Things she recommended to try:
• Ignore the background (focus on what you’re actually taking picture of)
• Missing the moment – the “again” mode – “sports” mode which makes it possible to take pictures as fast as possible
• Avoiding too much flash (remember the flash is effective only for 3 feet from camera)
• Avoiding too little flash (remember the flash is effective only for 3 feet from camera)
• Avoid (or at least be aware of the limitations of) digital zoom – digital zoom is really only cropping the highest mag of the optical zoom – use optical zoom

Made mention of a new photo file type coming out -- .nef or “raw” image type – and seemed to suggest this might be a format to explore in terms of working with uncompressed images.

All in all, I had a great time at this conference and definitely glad I attended. Much appreciation to the school’s professional development support program that made it possible for me to be here.

NCCE 2005 -- Seattle -- Day Two

Today began with a workshop about using Google as a search engine. Titled "Google 201: Advanced Googology", this session was put on by Patrick Crispen from California State University at Long Beach.

His was a very effective (and entertaining!) presentation. Some of the search tools and methods are certainly beyond the basics, the fact that he took a few moments to begin with and try and describe (in quite understandable terms) how Google works was very helpful.

Patrick has a web site of his own -- NetSquirrel.com -- where he told us we could download the PowerPoint presentation that he showed us today. I've also discovered at his site a number of other helpful articles and presentations. A great discovery! (He also has, by the way, a presentation there called Google 101 along with a number of other resources for teachers available here.)

The subtitle of Patrick's website, by the way, is --- a free collection of Internet, PC, and classroom resources. I think his is a great resource and well worth regular visits.

The opening keynote speech this morning was given by Cile Chavez. She was a very effective speaker. Her talk was more in the inspirational vein but, again, very well presented and enjoyable.

Thursday afternoon included a visit to the Exhibitors area and a session on digital video. Presented by Deb Postlewait, the title was “Dreaming, Screaming, Streaming: Digital Video at its Best and Worst.”

The focus here was on examples of good video (which would mean good visual quality [sharpness, decent lighting, effecting framing and shooting angles, etc.]) and audio (sufficient volume, no distortion, etc.). Some samples of good and not-so-good video were shown. The importance of content over effects was also emphasized. The ability of video to immediately show audience context was another central point (she put up the word “trunk” and asked people what the word conjured in their mind. She got responses such as “elephant,” car trunk, tree trunk, among others. She then showed a short video of elephants as her example of how to immediately focus the discussion.) Ms. Postelwait is a consultant and part of a company called VividTech (www.vividtech.net) and she seemed quite knowledgeable.

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!