Instructify

Happy Thanksgiving from Instructify. We’ll be back on Monday. If you simply can’t stay away during the long weekend, revisit these great posts:

What are you waiting for? Manage Your Time!
The folks at Manage Your Time have plenty of good ideas on how to accomplish more in less time. You can be sure that whatever time you devote to reading these articles will be time well spent.

Wired Magazine’s Top 10 Amazing Animal Videos
This collection of videos from around the web will let your students get an up-close look at hippos, lions, sharks, polar bears, and…well, a hamster.

Celebrate Thanksgiving with Plimoth Plantation
You may not be able to make it to Massachusetts this November, but you and your students can learn a lot from the website at Plimoth Plantation without ever leaving home.

Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian
Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian from Northwestern University and the Library of Congress’s American Memory collection is a collection of over 2200 photographs of individuals from over 80 American Indian tribes taken by Edward Sherriff Curtis in the early 20th century.

SUMO Paint: It’ll knock you off your feet
SUMO Paint is a free online image editor and paint program that offers a bunch of sophisticated features usually found in expensive drawing software like Photoshop and Illustrator, but with the ease of Microsoft Paint.

Find historic photographs from LIFE magazine
One wonderful thing about the LIFE photos is that they’re works of art as well as of American history; the magazine’s photographers routinely collected entirely justified awards. But why not look around for yourself? A search is worth a thousand words.

Photo credit: LarimdaME on flickr

If the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh is too far for a field trip, you can still see what’s new by visiting their new blog, cleverly titled Untitled. This new blog promises “to free the reader from preconceptions of stuffiness sometimes associated with art museums!” at Untitled you’ll find behind-the-scenes look at exhibits, such as an account of the museum’s in-depth study of their Egyptian collection.

The content is scarce for now, but that should change as they get the hang of this whole blogging thing. If you really can’t wait, check out the NCMA on Flickr to tide you over. For the time being, add Untitled to your RSS feed and let the museum come to you. -BILL FERRIS

Untitled from the North Carolina Museum of Art

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The National Museum of the American Indian

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Sometimes it seems as though the main thing kids (and adults) need to learn about history is that it really happened, to real people, people not so different from us. Never in all of history has it been easier to make this point with primary sources, more of which go online every day. One recent historic addition to this global archive at our fingertips is the LIFE magazine photo collection, now on the web courtesy of Google.The front page of the LIFE photo archive gives some terrific introductory browses, by decade or by a few chosen topics. To search only the LIFE photos, you can visit this page or else enter “source:life” in a regular Google Images search. Perhaps best of all, all the pictures seem to be available in large, high-resolution versions, and all of them seem have useful information prominently displayed, such as the date the photograph was taken and the name of the photographer. It would have been nice if copyright information about the photos were as easy to find; under the current copyright laws, it is a fair use for educators to put any of these photos in classroom-only materials, but it’s not clear whether they can be reproduced on an open website or in a book, for instance.

One wonderful thing about the LIFE photos is that they’re works of art as well as of American history; the magazine’s photographers routinely collected entirely justified awards. Some of the gorgeous photos I found by browsing include a picture of a bare-chested Picasso with a flower behind his ear, a picture of children of Japanese ancestry on their way to a WWII internship camp, and a picture of famed socialite and photographer Lee Miller in full soldier kit sitting on a piece of rubble. But why not look around for yourself? A search is worth a thousand words. — AMANDA FRENCH

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google

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The holidays are nearly upon us, and so is all the stress that accompanies them. I don’t just mean the stress from exploding turkey fryers or engaging in hand-to-hand combat with other holiday shoppers. I’m talking about midterms, research papers, and presentations—and you get to grade them!

SlideRocket isn’t really going to help you with the midterms or papers, but it will go great lengths towards making your students’ presentations look awesome. Delivering professional quality design through a web-based application, SlideRocket makes PowerPoint look like a joke. Since it’s a web app you won’t have to use up space on your hard drive and you won’t have to mess around with all that payment and registration business. Boasting an impressive library of image effects and stylish options for representing data, SlideRocket also lets you import media from Flickr, YouTube and other sites with ease. That’s World Wide Internet interconnectivity.

How many times have you thought to yourself, “If I watch one more PowerPoint, I’m going to claw my eyes out”? How many times have you taught from a clunky, outdated PowerPoint slide show? I’m certain you felt a sneaking suspicion that people were about to claw their eyes out.  Its not always what you’re saying so much as how you’re saying it. Add a little style with SlideRocket. -NICK YINGLING

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Taking a group of students on a field trip to Rome may be financially unrealistic, and taking them to Ancient Rome is physically impossible. Fortunately, an international team of researchers worked more than 10 years to provide the next best thing: a three-dimensional model of Rome in the year 320 AD.

Enter Ancient Rome 3D and witness the best view of Ancient Rome in over 15 centuries. Brought to you by Google Earth, this digital glimpse into the past is simply awesome. For those of you who have never used Google Earth, the two-minute instructional video on the intro page is helpful. You will need to download the program itself, which will run the simulation. A word of caution: slower computers (like mine) may have a hard time running Ancient Rome 3D without freezing up. I suggest closing all other programs and exercising a little patience. You should also note that the directional control at the top of the screen adjusts your horizontal perspective. In other words, the control allows you to see buildings as if you were walking towards them, as opposed to the default overhead angle.

Once you’ve become familiar with the program, the next step is to introduce Ancient Rome 3D into the classroom. Google is sponsoring a Rome Curriculum Competition, “accepting curricula from all grade levels and K-12 subject areas including art history, math, social studies, physics, and philosophy.” Contest winners will feel like they’ve achieved gladiatorial victory, without the risk of getting torn apart by wild animals. –JIMI RADABAUGH

Ancient Rome 3D

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I’ve got to be honest: one thing that bugs me (perhaps too much) about Soshiku, a brand-new web site that helps students keep track of their homework, is that it’s ad-supported. Must students constantly be marketed to while they’re trying to learn? It’s bad enough that some schools make deals with fast food franchises. But to be fair, the “Ads by Google” that appear at the bottom of the assignment list are discreet, and so far they point to sites that seem relatively legitimate (learninghub.com, tutor.com) instead of to paper mills. And there are many pluses to Soshiku.

For one thing, the interface is big, bright, clean, and simple, with both a calendar and a list of assignments that show when assignments are due. Although Soshiku’s site says that the tool is for “high school or college assignments,” even first- and second-graders could probably use Soshiku, and that might help them develop good organizational habits early. For another thing, Soshiku allows students to have partners for homework assignments, and it can send assignment reminders by e-mail or text message. Assignments can be either “public,” “private,” or “partners only,” which is a good range of options.

Also, whoever develops Soshiku seems to be responsive to user requests, as is apparent from the very active Soshiku blog. There are only about a thousand people using Soshiku right now, which on the one hand means that it’s a relatively untested product, but on the other hand means that you can easily make your voice heard.

One potential obstacle to using Soshiku is that all courses and assignments have to be entered manually, which will probably get old very quickly. But otherwise the site might be a very good option for web-savvy but organizationally challenged students. And who knows? Maybe they’ll appreciate the opportunity to spend some money to “Get Help Now From an Online Tutor.” -AMANDA FRENCH

Soshiku

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When I think of sumo wrestlers, I don’t generally think of online image editing and paint programs. But after checking out SUMO Paint, from now on I probably will.

SUMO Paint is a free online image editor and paint program that offers a bunch of sophisticated features usually found in expensive drawing software like Photoshop and Illustrator, but with the ease of Microsoft Paint. And unlike most online image software that focus on image editing, SUMO Paint is geared toward image creation. Among its sophisticated features, it offers layer functionality and various filters and effects like opacity, blend mode and lots of brush variations, but without the heavy cost. Plus you can save your work online and access it everywhere.

Because of its online access and that it doesn’t require you to purchase any software, SUMO Paint is a great tool to use in your classroom to let your students get creative with digital media! — LAUREN FROHNE

SUMO Paint

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Teaching students how to research often involves what not to do as much as what they should do. That is, don’t take credit for ideas that aren’t yours. Today we have unprecedented access to information, which can make it tempting to not credit a source, or to commit unintentional plagiarism. You can find lots of information to help you teach about this form of cheating at Guidelines and Resources for Avoiding Plagiarism, a website from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The site has definitions of plagiarism, policy guidelines, plus information tailored specifically for teachers, students and parents. Naturally, like any good plagiarism resource, this site properly credits its sources in its works cited section. -BILL FERRIS

Guidelines and Resources for Avoiding Plagiarism

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Photo credit: cheesebikini on flickr

Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian from Northwestern University and the Library of Congress’s American Memory collection is a collection of over 2200 photographs of individuals from over 80 American Indian tribes taken by Edward Sherriff Curtis in the early 20th century.  Curtis’s photography emphasizes the theme of native people as a “vanishing race,” a belief that was widely held in his time and that has contributed to damaging stereotypes since then.  An excellent series of biographical and short historical essays, Edward S. Curtis in Context, provides background on the series of photographs and on Curtis’s views of native people and includes a very insightful article by David R. M. Beck on the myth of the vanishing race.  Be sure to read these essays before venturing into the photographs — they will provide tremendous insight!

While viewing the collection, visitors can search by keyword or browse the collection by the volume of Curtis’s original collection of books, by American Indian tribe, or by geographic location. Digital records for each photograph include Curtis’s captions, bibliographic information, and large JPG versions of each photograph, allowing the user to view them in great detail.  These photographs and the issues, interpretations and controversies that surround them, have the potential to spark interesting classroom discussions on more than just American Indian history. Students should also consider photographs as primary sources (are they untainted documentary evidence of the past, or can the photographers beliefs, choices, and staging present a false record?), and the complexities of ethnographic encounters.  Teacher resources from the Learning Page at the Library of Congress include ideas for using this collection to teach U.S. history, critical thinking, and arts and humanities.

Edward Curtis: Dialogue, a website from PBS station WNET, which produced an episode of American Masters on Curtis, focuses on the controversies surrounding Curtis and his photographs of American Indians.  The site focuses on five key issues surrounding Curtis’s work.   Curtis Photography: Stealing the Soul or Preserving a Legacy? considers American Indian responses to Curtis’s work. Dressing Up, Whose Idea Was It Anyway? addresses why Curtis chose to represent native people as he did and whether or not photos were staged to present a stereotypical image. Shooting the Sacred explores the controversies surrounding Curtis’s photography of sacred objects and ceremonies. Did He Show Us What Was Happening? questions the accuracy and completeness of the views of American Indian life presented by Curtis, and Who Was Edward Curtis? delves more deeply into the life of the photographer himself.  In each section, visitors can watch video clips of experts discussing Curtis’s work and the reaction to it in American Indian communities, participate in online discussions (which teachers should note are open to the public), or take part in a poll on the issues raised.

Collaborative Arts Resources for Education, a program of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Museum of Photographic Arts, and San Diego Museum of Art, presents a lesson plan on ethnographic photography for high school art students that uses Curtis’s work as the starting point for student photography projects. -KATHRYN WALBERT

Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian

Edward Curtis: Dialogue

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Why see a movie this weekend when you can watch the International Space Station? Just cast your gaze upward on a clear night within the next few days and you’ll see it.

But wait, you say, the sky is a big place. How am I supposed to see an orbiting hunk of metal floating miles above my head? Allow me to point you toward NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information page, which will give you the skinny on where and when you can find said orbiting bungalow, as well as any space shuttles that happen to be passing through. Just enter your country, state and city and NASA will give you the upcoming showtimes.

You’ll definitely want to share this information with your students. Since the station is only visible after school hours, perhaps a homework assignment journaling their observations would be appropriate. It’s also a great excuse to have them read up on what, exactly, they’re up to up there.

The ISS will be visible in North Carolina throughout this weekend.  Find out when it’s visible in your city, and get your popcorn ready. -BILL FERRIS

NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA’S Satellite Sighting Information for North Carolina

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You may not be able to make it to Massachusetts this November, but you and your students can learn a lot from the website at Plimoth Plantation without ever leaving home.

With Thanksgiving coming up, be sure to visit You Are the Historian, part of Plimoth Plantation’s online educational resources.  There, you can explore myths about the first Thanksgiving, read or listen to the only written eyewitness account of the harvest feast (including commentary from a historian), learn more about the English colonists and the Wampanoag people, view a time line that looks at events in Plimoth from both English and Wampanoag perspectives, and show what you have learned by writing a museum label or creating a museum exhibit.  Students can select images and add text to them in this activity, printing out their finished projects before navigating away from the page.  At any time, click to the Glossary to read definitions of words used on a given page, click Visit the Expert to hear the perspective of a historian, educator, or other expert on the documents and ideas that you’re exploring, or click on Teacher’s Guide for lesson plans and other ideas that will help you use specific resources with your own students.

The Kids area of the website features coloring pages, recipes for succotash and stewed pumpkin, instructions for making a Wampanoag toss-and-catch game and a colonial game called Fox and Geese, stories from Wampanoag and English perspectives, a “talk like a Pilgrim” feature where students can learn (and hear) how colonists might have spoken to one another, and a Homework Help area with detailed information for students on many aspects of Wampanoag and colonial life in the 1600s.

In the Discover More area, you can delve more deeply into the interesting history of Plimoth Plantation through archaeology, behind-the-scenes blogs, and a number of very useful articles and essays on a range of historical topics. Other resources specifically for educators include bibliographies, printable maps from Wampanoag and English perspectives, a timeline, and a list of helpful internet resources. -KATHRYN WALBERT

Plimoth Plantation

You Are the Historian

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Nothing beats animal videos for getting students fired up about biology. From Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom to Shark Week, animal videos provide countless hours of educational entertainment. Thanks to the magic of the interweb, you can see animals in action anytime, and a great place to start is with Wired Magazine’s Top 10 Amazing Animal Videos. This collection of videos from around the web will let your students get an up-close look at hippos, lions, sharks, polar bears, and…well, a hamster.

These videos show the exciting, funny, and at times, ruthless lives of animals in the wild. Some of the videos (”Amazing Mimic Octopus Camouflage”) are more educational than others (”Hamster Eating Broccoli for the First Time”). Nevertheless, engaging your students with “Ninja Cat” may be a good warm-up for more substantial videos like “Magnets Might Repel Sharks.”

The number one video, and deservedly so, is “Battle at Kruger” which depicts a struggle between a herd of water buffalo, a pride of lions, and a pair of crocodiles. Survival of the fittest at its best. Wired’s Top 10 Amazing Animal Videos shows that the world is both a fun and dangerous place. And if nothing else, it’ll tide them over until Shark Week 2009. -BILL FERRIS

Top 10 Amazing Animal Videos via Wired.com

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Like Joseph Heller once said, “Every writer I know has trouble writing.” Writing doesn’t come easy, and I’m not just talking about writer’s block. But it’s one of those fundamental skills that every student should grasp. Sometimes, though, as a teacher, it takes a little more work and some fresh strategies to help your students become better writers.

The Writing Teacher is a blog maintained by the the creators of eFolio and written for teachers by teachers, writing experts and academics dedicated to improving students’ writing skills and encouraging students to write more. It’s a great resource for teachers because it not only provides tips for improving in-class writing exercises and generally teaching writing, it also discusses modern theories on writing and education. In addition, they have a great interview posted about how to teach writing in a diverse classroom that includes students with disabilities.

You can also check out their Events section to find upcoming writing workshops, conventions and webcasts. The blog seems to be a fairly new project, so add it to your RSS feed to check out the new content they’re producing, or contact them to share your own knowledge and experiences! — LAUREN FROHNE

The Writing Teacher

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For a long time, there were really only three ways to become a capable musician: be born with natural talent, practice hours upon hours, or just simply sell your soul.  I trust you’re familiar with the following joke:

Person A: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Person B: Practice, practice, practice.
Person A: Very funny. No, I’m genuinely asking. See, I sold my soul for brilliant musical talent and now I have to perform at the most important show of my life. If I miss this gig the devil wins my soul and this turns into one of those lame “careful what you wish for” stories.
Person B: That’s what she said?

Now, however, we live in a brilliant age when all computers are connected at all times, ever-seething and growing self-aware. TrainEar.com opens up a new option for improving musical knowledge, allowing us to use the web to learn to play any simple melody by ear. The Free Online Ear Training program available here uses examples from familiar songs to help teach musical intervals, regardless of your prior music experience. The program looks intimidating, and you’ll definitely be lost if don’t watch the tutorial video first. But once you figure out how to use it and start practicing things really start falling into place.

Funding for many school music programs is on the chopping block—if it hasn’t already been chopped. And you only have your students for a set amount of time each day, let alone time for one-on-one interaction. Online Ear Training from TrainEar is a great tool to bypass these roadblocks. Plus, you know your students use the internet webs 23 hours a day anyway. -NICK YINGLING

TrainEar.com

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This Will Knock You B Flat

When will Google quit? They seem to want to invent everything that hasn’t been invented yet and reinvent everything that’s already been invented. One recent contribution is Google Notebook, which, as you might guess, is an online note-taking site.

The main advantage to using Google Notebook might not even be considered an advantage by some teachers: it gives the students the ability to share and comment on each others’ notes. Maybe Google Notebook could integrate with PayPal so that bright, unscrupulous students can more easily sell their notes? Horrors. But personally, I’d bet that a bright, scrupulous teacher could get great results by using this tool with an entire class or with more than one class studying the same subject. (Overseas collaborations, anyone?) Even if students don’t share them, however, web-based notes will still be conveniently accessible from any computer or smart phone, as well as searchable.

Google Notebook will work best for Firefox users who are willing to install and use add-ons (also called “extensions”), because the Google Notebook Firefox add-on makes it very easy to “clip” pieces of text from websites: all you have to do is highlight the text and right-click to save it. This functionality is duplicated by the Zotero Firefox add-on, however, which unlike Google Notebook can also handle images and generate a properly formatted bibliography.

Google isn’t the only one to have invented an online note-taking site: plenty of other non-behemoths have had the same idea. If you’ve used one or more of the note-taking services below, why not throw us a comment? We’d love to hear what you think.

• Fruitnotes
• Luminotes
• Notefish
• UberNote
• WebAsyst Notes
• Zoho Notebook

-AMANDA FRENCH

Google Notebook

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