For those at the secondary level teaching world languages and cultures, the REALIA (Rich Electronic Archive for Language Instruction Anywhere) Project offers resources to add to your toolbox. The focus of this project is realia: Materials which convey the everyday life of different cultures. Their mission includes this goal:

The goal of the REALIA Project is to develop and implement a searchable digitized media database which will provide instructors of modern languages with teaching resources accessible via the Web. REALIA will publish royalty-free, faculty-reviewed media for scholars and students, and be open to all disciplines that wish to contribute or use cultural materials appropriate for instruction at the college and secondary level.

Images are available for education use, copies may be saved on local computers for educational and research use provided due recognition is given to the REALIA Project.

In line with their mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, Google has partnered with LIFE to offer an online photo gallery as part of its image search function. Starting with about 2 million images, Google plans to add to the gallery to eventually include all 10 million images from the LIFE magazine photo library. The majority of the images (according to LIFE – 95%) taken from the 1750s to today have never been published or seen by the public. The collection can be searched using key words and browsed by decade or category to see works such as the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination; The Mansell Collection from London; Dahlstrom glass plates of New York and environs from the 1880s; and the entire works left to the collection from LIFE photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili, and Nina Leen.

Teachers are able to use in these images in face-to-face classroom instruction and student projects as long as they don’t republish that material online (or sell it, or anything else that falls outside of the boundaries of fair use). In their blog, Google states that users are able to print the images for personal use although there is a LIFE watermark on each image. There is also a link for each image for ordering prints.

Users can find the LIFE images within the Google image window or click here to go to the Google/LIFE web site.

OK, I have a confession to make…math has never been my favorite subject. Just one of those things I have always struggled with. However, with cool resources online, it makes it so much easier. Be sure to check out Create A Graph (http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/graphing/). This online tool guides you through five simple steps on creating a graph. First, you can select how you want the graph to appear (such as bars, lines, pie, area or xy). Next, enter the data, and finally, assign the labels. The fourth step is a preview, and the final step is an opportunity to print and/or download. Each step includes a help menu that explains the various options available in each step. There is also an icon that uses dice to teach probability.  

Ben Rimes, a colleague of mine on the MACUL Board, recently wrote about this tool on his blog, The Tech Savvy Educator. Thanks Ben!

If you’re looking for a way to teach searching the web to students, this might be the answer. Although the primary audience is elementary/middle school students, it could be used by anyone. According to the site,

Boolify makes it easier to for students to understand their web search by illustrating the logic of their search, and by showing them how each change to their search instantly changes their results.

Once you begin the process by selecting a puzzle piece, the software prompts you to enter a term. After that, you build the search by adding terms or using and, or, not. The user immediately sees the results of their search “string” below so they can see what happens as they add terms or use “not” to restrict.

Search results are presented through Google’s “Safe Search STRICT” technology. There are two important caveats: a) no filtering technology is 100% secure, as this blog posting astutely points out and 2) we are unable to control or modify the results that we provide, beyond the filtering settings available through Google.

A company called Custom Guide provides several training options primarily on software applications, but they have also included on their web site free quick reference guides on a variety of topics. Most of the QRG’s focus on Microsoft products such as Word, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Internet Explorer 7. However, you can also find quick reference guides on Adobe products (including former Macromedia applications), Firefox web browser, and QuickBooks. The QRG they created for basic file management and understanding Windows XP is one of the best I’ve personally seen. To obtain the free QRG’s, go to the Custom Guides (qr.customguide.com) web site. On the left, you will find a large button (see illustration to the left) promoting their product. Click once on the name of the reference guide you want. When the PDF file opens, click on the Save button in the upper left corner. Indicate where you want to save the file, and click OK.

Do you have students who struggle with the written word? Would you prefer to listen rather than read?…maybe while you’re mowing the grass or shoveling the snow?

In Muskegon County, educators and parents can take advantage of a special licensing agreement for Universal Reader. This software can be installed on every computer in the county – school and home – to help individuals who have reading difficulties. For more information about this project in Muskegon, contact the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District.

There are also free online tools to help convert text to audio. One that recently came to my attention is called Read the Words. After creating your free account, you submit what you want read using these options:

• Upload MS Word
• Upload Adobe PDF
• Upload HTML File
• Write Text Content
• Cut & Paste Text
• Website Address
• RSS Feed

You then pick the voice (out of 15 voices) that you want to have read your text, including Spanish or French. Finally, you listen to the audio of the text you entered. In addition to listening to your converted audio online, you can also:

• Download mp3 to your iPod
• Post Your Reading in Website or Blog
• Turn Your Reading into a Podcast

The conversion takes place quickly and the ability to save after conversion provides many options for the user.

Blogs are a great tool for educators. If you are thinking about creating a blog or are one of the hundreds of educators in Muskegon County who have just set up a blog and aren’t sure how to use it – the next free webinar on October 22 is for you.

Janni Black, an educator with 18 years experience in curriculum and classroom teaching, has spent the last decade incorporating technology into all content areas of the classroom. A strong advocate for the importance of digital literacy, she shares her enthusiasm for technology with other educators by leading hands-on presentations, serving on leadership technology committees and penning her blog,Transitioning to Web 2.0. Janni’s writing has even won her the distinction “Geek of the Week” by Women of the Web.

See the previous post on this blog for more info, including how to register.

Muskegon Area ISD has subscribed to a Season Pass for Technology in Practice, ISTE’s continuing Webinar Series. This series features thirty highly engaging Webinars over the course of 2008-2009. Each Webinar will feature a Web 2.0 tool or innovative technology of wide appeal to educators. Each session will be at least 60 minutes in length, with 45 minutes of presenter content. The balance of the session will feature interactive elements such as audience Q&A and polls, and previews of upcoming ISTE Webinar events.

Except where noted, all ISTE webinars take place at 4:00 PM at MAISD. Except where noted, all ISTE webinars take place at 4:00 PM at MAISD. Registration is FREE. You may sign up for any or all of the webinars in the series. For information on how to register, click on the Professional Development link on the ISD web site
(http://www.muskegonisd.org).

Click on this link iste-webinars.pdf to see the listing of all of the webinars in the series.

On occasion, you may want to obtain feedback from students, parents or even the community about your classroom or district program. There is a free online survey resource available from Zoomerang that suffices for a simple project. There is a limit of no more than 100 responses and you cannot add more than 30 questions. The survey results will be available for 10 days once the survey closes. However, in most educational situations, this is adequate.

There are some ‘templates’ you can use (although most appear to be business-oriented). You can also create a survey from scratch, and it is not that difficult. Once you have started a survey, you can pick a question type (such as multiple choice, drop-down menu, open-ended response, rating scale, or even yes/no). You can also utilize some formatting tools such as bold, font type and size, inserting images, and even spell check.

A nice resource for the classroom.

Vicki Davis has created a free online workshop, Seven Steps to a Flat Classroom, that is being offered through Atomic Learning for a limited time. What’s a Flat Classroom? According to Davis, creator of the award-winning Flat Classroom Project, it is “the expansion of your classroom to include global communities and different forms of communication like blogs and wikis.”

The workshop consists of over 70 short video tutorials to help you understand what a flat classroom is and how you can connect yourself and your students, create “prolearners”, and communicate. There are also videos addressing online ethics and character, citizenship, safety, and choice.