Here are some interesting sites that I’ve found this week, thanks to my PLN. As a teacher, I feel we have to keep up to date concerning research in our field and current issues in the education system. I hope some of these inspire you, inform you, and even have you asking questions. Thank you for coming by and visiting!
Note: Each resource is labeled with a level and subject area to make it easier to use.
Levels: E: Elementary; M: Middle; H: High; G: General, all levels; SN: Special Needs; T: Teachers
Subject Areas: LA: Language Arts, English, Reading, Writing; M: Math; S: Science; Health; SS: Social Studies, Current Events; FA: Fine Arts; Music, Art, Drama; FL: Foreign Language; PE: Physical Ed; C: Career; A: All
Smithsonian Learning Lab – “The Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access created the Smithsonian Learning Lab to inspire the discovery and creative use of its rich digital materials—more than a million images, recordings, and texts. It is easy to find something of interest because search results display pictures rather than lists. Whether you've found what you were looking for or just discovered something new, it's easy to personalize it. Add your own notes and tags, incorporate discussion questions, and save and share. The Learning Lab makes it simple.” (L:G; SA:A)
Music Crab – free iPad app; “Music Crab is an educative application to learn music notes by having fun with an innovative and playful learning method! It allows to all how read music on a sheet music in a fun environment through a new learning method. With Music Crab, learning music and music notes has never been easier!” L:G; SA:FA)
Skyview Lite – free app; “SkyView® Lite brings stargazing to everyone! Simply point your iPhone, iPad, or iPod at the sky to identify stars, constellations, satellites, and more!” (L:G; SA:A)
The True Size of – “It is hard to represent our spherical world on flat piece of paper. Cartographers use something called a "projection" to morph the globe into 2D map. The most popular of these is the Mercator projection. Every map projection introduces distortion, and each has its own set of problems. One of the most common criticisms of the Mercator map is that it exaggerates the size of countries nearer the poles (US, Russia, Europe), while downplaying the size of those near the equator (the African Continent). On the Mercator projection Greenland appears to be roughly the same size as Africa. In reality, Greenland is 0.8 million sq. miles and Africa is 11.6 million sq. miles, nearly 14 and a half times larger. This app was created by James Talmage and Damon Maneice. It was inspired by an episode of The West Wing and an infographic by Kai Krause entitled "The True Size of Africa". We hope teachers will use it to show their students just how big the world actually is.” (L:G; SA:SS)
The Physics of Skiing – “The purpose of this page is to summarize frequently asked questions about the physics of skiing. The physics of skiing is a recurring topic on rsa. These calculations and interpretations were contributed to by a number of regulars, and some not so regulars, on rsa.” (L:H; SA:M,S)
Original photo by Pat Hensley
