Course Goals
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Tagxedo
Here is a great tool: http://www.tagxedo.com/. Use this site to make amazing word clouds. This site allows you to copy and paste text from Word into Tagxedo and form them into a cloud or for fun, a shape. These can be saved as .jpgs and then uploaded to your blog, webpage, document, etc. In addition, you can use a URL and Tagxedo will create a cloud from all words on that specific web page. Here is a sample I made from the wiki page.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
KidBlog
http://kidblog.org/home.php
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Blogs
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Making Good Use of Google
1. Type in your search and the open the panel using the Show options link above your top result. Then use Google’s Wonder Wheel to find related searches and potential keywords to target during your keyword discovery. The Wonder Wheel can be found on the results page under “Show Options” and then “Standard View”.
2. You can also narrow a search by using the timeline in the options panel. Try sf earthquakes, and click on the timeline.
3. Also in the options panel, search images by color.
4. Use the Similar images link under image search results to narrow down your image
searches.
5. Use Google Squared www.google.com/squared to build a table of information about a topic. You can add a column if there's a dimension missing. You can drill into a cell to see where the information comes from. Great for fact checking.
6. Use Street View in Google Maps to answer questions we can't answer with
conventional Web Search or conventional maps. Questions like
"what does the entrance to this store look like?"
Or
"When can I and cant I park on that side of the street?"
(To use street view, open a Google Maps map, and then drag the little yellow stick figure onto the street you'd like to view.)
7. Visit Google.com/educators for
teacher resources
prepared lesson plans on how to search like an expert and how to spot reliablesites (developed with help from librarians!)
prepared lesson plans that leverage Google Docs and Spreadsheets
21st Century Reading
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org
The Mile Guide – for school districts help give guidelines on how to implement
Suggested Reads
The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch
The World is Flat - Thomas L. Friedman
A Whole New Mind – Daniel Pink
This Wisdom of Crowds - James Surowiecki
The Element – Sir Ted Robinson
Engage Me or Enrage Me – Mark Prensky