My roommate for the week turned out to be fantastic. We got along great!

I learned so much at the Institute that I have enough “stuff” to post for a month or so.
Discovery Headquarters is incredible. It’s on the red metro line about 30 minutes out of DC in Silver Spring, Maryland which apparently was a pretty sleepy place until Discovery built its headquarters there. When it was built, an agreement was made that they wouldn’t have an employee cafeteria so that people would go out into the neighborhood for lunch. As a result, they have great restaurants surrounding the building. Next week (July 27 – 31) is Shark Week and the whole place was shark crazy. They had a large shark head on one side of the building and a shark tail coming out the other side but they had to take it down because of the traffic problems it caused.

Now they’ve quieted things down to what you see when you’re in the building…everywhere you look. You can even give yourself shark’s teeth – http://www.sharkyourself.com .

Am I learning a new language? Have I been typing with my hands in the wrong position on the keyboard?

Neither.

These were tools that my DEN Star colleagues were discussing as we were riding from the airport to Discovery Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. I wanted to believe that the confusion about the terms was only due to the fact that I had left for the airport at 5:00 a.m. Who was I kidding? I had no clue what they were talking about.

I was headed to the Discovery Educators’ Network Institute for STAR Educators for a week long session and I was already lost. Not cool.

And…I was rooming with someone I’ve never met. What did I get myself into?

Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms

Historic Maps focuses on the history and background of the United States from discovery to the present day. Be sure to look at the Instructions for Teachers section including the Map Analysis Worksheet.

Primary Source Materials Resources

Primary Source Materials Resources has gathered a vast amount of high-quality material and provided teachers with a host of instructional guides and teaching tools for how to use it. A highlight in the collection of resources is the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. New to this source are Rumsey Map Island which opens in the virtual world of Second Life and the 3D GIS (Geographic Information System) Viewer, a unique 3D browser based viewer that lets you fly through historic maps in three dimensions.

NationMaster

NationMaster compiles thousands of statistics on nations around the world and displays them in tables, graphs, maps, and charts so that they may be read and interpreted with ease. According to the Developer Luke Metcalfe, he created the site, “to promote education and understanding about the world. To make it easy to engage with the indicators that shape global commerce, health, politics and ecology. To make the facts easily accessible and meaningful.”

Thinkport

The Thinkport site was developed for Maryland educators and families but is available online for free to everyone. One of the many resources focuses on GIS (Geographic Information System) and its use in the classroom. This could help teachers address the GIS component in the Social Studies GLCEs for Grades 6 and 7.

Last week at the National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio, Apple Computer unveiled that newest component of its iTunes Store, iTunes U, providing free access to over 50,000 educational audio and video tracks. This content is available to everyone, not just students, using a Mac or PC and an internet connection.

iTunes U is being populated with podcasts and movies from museums, universities, PBS stations, and educational institutions from across the country. Michigan is one of seven states currently participating in this project to share resources for K-12 educators around the world.

MACUL (Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning) is a proud partner with the Michigan Department of Education in identifying and developing content for Michigan’s MI Learning, a part of the iTunes U site.

There are several ways to explore this new content after clicking on iTunes U from the iTunes Store window:

• Check out the top download
• Choose a category
• Browse New and Noteworthy
• Find an educational provider or featured providers
• Choose specifically from K-12 resources
• Use the Search Feature in the iTunes Store.

Once you locate the content you would like to see or hear, download it into iTunes on your computer. You’re then able to listen to it on your computer or sync your iPod or iPhone and take it with you. Learning is no longer confined by the four walls of the classroom!