Linkinlogs

Webspiration

Inspiration, the popular outlining and concept mapping tool, has recently come out with an online version that works in your web browser. In addition to providing many of the same tools as the desktop software version, Webspiration also provides a web based environment for collaboration and sharing. Items can be shared through a simple email invite and users can collaborate on the same document adding content, posting comments and viewing edit changes. As with tools such as Google Docs, this is another example of the movement away from desktop centric computing to cloud based computing where students can access their work from any computer and just about any platform. Webspiration is currently in a free public beta program. Webspiration™ is the new online visual thinking tool that helps you capture ideas, organize information, diagram processes and create clear, concise written documents whether working individually or collaboratively. With integrated diagram and outline views you can think visually, structure your work effectively and express your ideas in the ways that communicate best. Create Diagrams and Think Visually Use Webspiration’s diagramming environment to create bubble diagrams, flow charts, concept maps, process flows and other visual representations that stimulate and reflect your thinking. With Webspiration, you focus on developing and connecting ideas, not the drawing. Outline and Structure Ideas and Information With Webspiration’s powerful outlining capabilities, you can take notes, organize work and expand ideas fluidly to develop your writing into plans, study guides, papers, reports, and other more comprehensive documents. Collaborate and Share Webspiration makes it easy to collaborate and share documents by simply sending an invite. Everyone works on the same document, contributing, posting comments, and viewing changes. Webspiration is ideal for team projects, study groups, reviewing and commenting on documents and co-authoring materials. Anytime and Anywhere Store and access documents online without discs, drives or email. Work at home, a friend’s house, the library, your office, or the local coffee shop. Webspiration and your documents are available anywhere you have access to the Internet.

Recent research on students with autism suggests that using technology in the classroom yields significant progress. Researchers at the Spaulding Youth Center in Northfield, NH, have found that SMART Board interactive whiteboards can help autistic students improve their communication, attention, computer literacy and participation skills while decreasing maladaptive behavior. The research project on autistic students’ learning, which began in the fall of 2006, was conducted as part of the Autism, Communication and Technology (ACT) project. Each classroom in the study received a SMART Board interactive whiteboard, SMART Notebook software and other online resources. At the end of the first year, teachers reported that their students had become more attentive and showed “positive, spontaneous social behavior” as well as increased literacy skills. A year later, students started to use tools to express their ideas and modeled positive behaviors for their peers, such as sitting quietly during lessons, without additional guidance from adults. The results of this study follow in line with similar studies conducted in 2005 in the UK and Australia. SMART’s CEO Nancy Knowlton believes that “engaging students with autism in learning is the first step toward developing positive social behaviors,” and the results of the ACT study add to the mounting evidence that students with special needs can benefit from technologies like the interactive whiteboard in classroom learning.

In the School District of Salupa, a small suburb of Tulsa, OK, 16% of children live at or below the poverty line and 80% receive free or reduced-price lunches. Many of the district’s buildings were placed on the “School Improvement List” due to the district’s low performance, and in 2005 Washington Elementary was the lowest performing elementary school (out of 7) in the district.

To improve its situation, Washington Elementary worked with Evans Newton, Inc. to start a school improvement program featuring Target Teach Assessment and iTARGETTEACH. The program focused on several strategies to assess the school’s curriculum compared to state standards, realign the curriculum and coach teachers on how to meet state mandates. iTARGETTEACH features online tools that can organize the data (such as lesson plans and reports) to show progress. The following are a few outcomes of the program:

• Within a year of implementing the program, Washington Elementary had the highest API score in math and the 2nd highest score in reading of the Salupa School District schools.
• 5th grade reading scores rose by 39% and math scores improved by 34%.
• 3rd grade reading scores improved by 113% and math scores improved by 82%.
• By 2007, the school was able to reverse its scores and became the highest scoring building in the district in nearly every grade level and subject.
• This past September, the US Department of Education named Washington a Blue Ribbon School.
• In less than 4 years, the school made room for growth and used research-based strategies to improve the level of education.

To read more about the features of iTARGETTEACH, please visit http://www.evansnewton.com/TargetTeach/TargetTeach.html.

Who will be the first to send an email of their creation this year?

With Spud Yourself! you can turn your image into a talking potato (or use one of the site’s pictures). By using the text-to-speech feature, English Language Learners can develop their language skills in a fun way through writing and listening. You can post the link to your talking potato on a teacher or student blog/website.

At the Candy Lab you can upload a picture, or use of theirs, to appear on an M & M candy. Then, using the site’s text-to-speech feature, you can have your candy talk or sing.

With Talking Pets you can choose a pet picture, or upload your own. Then, using the text-to-speech feature, you can have it say a short message, then email the link for posting on a blog or website.

Anyone can Sing with Juanes. Upload your photo, and choose one on the site, play the song, and sing along via telephone or computer microphone. Email your performance to a friend and post the url on a website or blog.

The KakoMessenger Singing Telegram lets you write a short song that is then sung by your choice of cheezy lounge singers. You can email it to a friend or teacher, and then post the url address on a website. Not only is it fun, but it’s good for English Language Learners because the words are displayed when they are sung.

Interested in a little Upright Piano Action? Then check out the resources available at The Visual Dictionary.

The Visual Dictionary

The Visual Dictionary can be used by teachers and students as a quick reference. It would be especially useful for ESL students for mastery of the language. The terms are categorized into six thematic topics: vegetal biology, animal biology, human body, music, transport, and clothing. The site uses images to explain objects and each of the objects defined on the site provides annotations that identify details of the object and a short description of each part at the bottom of the page. Visitors will find information on everything from the detailed structure of a tree to the description of a police officer’s uniform. Additionally, a few tips for using the site in an educational setting are offered in the help section.

Discovery Health Channel

Plenty of very good information including video on topics such as:

Diseases & Conditions
Diet & Fitness
Healthy Living
Mental Health
Pregnancy & Parenting
Sex & Relationships
Tools

Wordle

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. It’s very simple to use: you just copy text in any language, paste it into Wordle and it will sift through it and create clouds with the most commonly occurring words in the text. You can then edit the shape, the colours and the font in the cloud and even remove words you don’t like by right-clicking on them.

This is an excellent tool that can be used to illustrate concepts or ideas, develop poetry, or summarize the main ideas in a story. Check it out and I am sure you will come up with many ideas of your own

Thanks to Raymon for this Wordle from our EDFit website.

bNetS@vvy

Digital Saskatchewan

Digital Saskatchewan is a searchable database of over 8000 images. Some are very good and some are of poor quality and resolution. For most in school applications however they serve their intended purpose.

Photo archives

What are the goals of Digital Saskatchewan

• Provide a service to the educational community by making thousands of images, movies and sounds easily accessible worldwide for educational use.
• Provide a place where multimedia presentations, units and reports about Saskatchewan can be published and shared.

Who is Digital Saskatchewan for?

Digital Saskatchewan is designed for use by Saskatchewan teachers and students, although its contents are available to the world through the WWW. Teachers may use the resources of Digital Saskatchewan to stimulate interest in Saskatchewan studies and to create presentations and instructional materials for their classrooms. Students can use its resources to illustrate reports, to create multimedia presentations, and to see what other students and teachers throughout the province are doing and learning.

Digital Saskatchewan is a resource for the community as well. It can serve as an archive where materials about Saskatchewan and its resources can be stored and shared.

Online Stopwatch

Yes, the title is self explanatory. If you are looking for a stopwatch for your interactive whiteboard, look no further: this is all you will ever need. Just save it in your favorites in your internet browser and it will always be there at the click of a button. I know that interactive whiteboards come with their own timers, but I just find this one easier to handle. You can set it to time your exercises or to count down. It fills the whole of the interactive whiteboard and it even rings a bell when the countdown is finished. What more can you ask for? Click here to go to the website.

Essentials of Music

Music, like any subject, has its own terminology. At first the many terms that musicians use to describe music can seem daunting. But there is nothing mysterious about these terms; they merely use words to describe something we can all hear with a little bit of practice. This section will introduce you to the terms used most often to talk about music. All the terms are clearly defined and linked to other related terms. In many cases you will be able to listen to an example chosen to illustrate the term.