Ed Tech Review » Internet

Windows 7 can wait!

MrYardley — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:53:46 +0000

I have been very impressed by the rave reviews I’ve been hearing for the Beta of Windows 7. Unfortunately, reviews and reality are two seperate things. I was quick to join the beta program when it became publicly availible because I was excited to try out the “Vista that works”. After trying a few times, with some aggrivation I got it installed. It was late so I let the install finnish while I went home to bed. The next morning I launched the beautifull new Windows 7. After clicking through several nags for not having an antivirus, and permission for my Amazon Unbox app (I had to do this every time I boot about 6 times before it quits popping up) I finally lauch my first application. I use a Promethean Digital Whiteboard and I started up the software for the first lesson. It started great! I opened the slide show for the Mornings lesson and it came write up. I clicked on the X to get rid of the splash screen, and my screen went black. This does not look good, then I notice that my machine is rebooting. I have had a few crashes in my day. Sometimes when a machine gets a virus attack it will get overloaded and crash. Sometimes there are hardware malfunctions or the processor overheats and it will immediately shut down. This is the first time I’ve been running a program where it is perfectly reproducable every time. I must have this application as part of what I do, so I realized that I needed to downgrade back to Vista. I decided to do somthing productive on 7 before I bailed ship, so I launched IE 8 to make this post on Ed Tech Review. When I tried to log into the admin, IE 8 Beta also crashed. To be fair both applications are Beta and as such you can expect problems, but, I personally don’t have the time to play when two of the applications I use most consistantly crash my machine. I put Vista on the machine about two weeks before I tried the upgrade and it seemed to be working fine, but it looks like I will be waiting for Version 7 sp1 before my other XP machines will see an upgrade.

How to learn, 77 tips to improve memory.

MrJohnson — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:40:04 +0000

http://oedb.org/library/college-basics/hacking-knowledge

OEDB (Online Education Data Base) produced a great article that compiles a lot of the data about learning to give you a handy guide on best practices for learning. Many of the suggestions are tailored for personal learning, that we as educators have little control over. Even with this focus it has many suggestions that we could teach kids and implement in the classroom.

Picturing History “US History as seen through the artists eye”

MrYardley — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:13:56 +0000

http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/index.php?sec=home

Picturing History is a site develped by the National Endowment for the Humanities that has a collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures that have a connection to historical events. The pictures themselves are great, but the are brought into context as you click on a picture. You get a descrition of the historical event that inspired the artwork as well as a brief bio of the artist. The thing that sets this site appart from others is it’s amazing interface. It uses a very well designed flash interface that makes viewing and researching the paintings easy and fun. It is well worth taking a look.

Free Photoshop for Teachers and Students Online

MrYardley — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:33:47 +0000

https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

Adobe has just released a great tool for basic editing of photos. The best part about it is that it is free and does not require installation. Photoshop Express is a free online application that lets you do a variety of things to photos, including: Cropping, Rotating, adding effects, correcting blemishes and more. This is not Photoshop CS3, The advanced tools and layers functions are not available in this version, but in reality for teaching middle grade students and perhaps even primary grade students how to do basic photo editing it is very cool. If you an advanced Photoshop user looking for a new version you will have to wait for Photoshop CS4.

Investment Simulation for Teenagers

MrYardley — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:33:56 +0000

http://simulator.investopedia.com/

In one of my high school business classes we did an activity where we got to buy and sell stocks on paper for a quarter, and it was a great expierence. The down side to that expierence is that it was limited to the major stocks listed in the local paper, and we had to hand calculate all of the transactions. Today with new technology this experience has been greatly enhanced. One of the best systems available is on investopedia.com. The investopedia.com solution starts you with 100,000 in virtual cash and lets your students trade on there website in real time, so they can have a great virtual stock trading experience. The down side is that each student must register for an account.

If you are ready to teach students about investing I would also recommend The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens.

Flash Cards online

MrYardley — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:55:17 +0000

http://www.flashcardexchange.com

Using flash cards does not really seem like it belongs in a technology blog, but I have found a site that makes great use of the internet community to take this old educational tool to a new level. Flash cards are still around because they are very effective. The challange is finding flash cards that match your content well. FlashCardExchange.com is a web based community where thousands of flash card sets are shared. Regardless of the subject you are bound to find a set of flash cards that will meet your needs. If you happen to need a more specialized set it is easy to create and share your own set of flash cards. It seems that most of the files availible are text based, but you do have the capability of uploading pictures. The site is free for online use, and $19.95 for the ability to print, or download the cards sets. The $19.95 provides you with a licence for life.

Great Science Project Site!

MrYardley — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:44:19 +0000

http://www.hunkinsexperiments.com

The science fair season is upon us, and we are always in need of fun and easy science projects. This free site has a wide variety of science fair projects availible. It is well organized and broken down into categories making it quick and easy to find just the right projeect for your students interests.

Special Education Websites

MrYardley — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:33:52 +0000

http://www.edtechreview.net/best-special-education-websites/

We have begun our directory of special education directory. This will include general information sites and sites for Special Education Technology.

The 10 Best Math Activity Pages

MrYardley — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:30:19 +0000

There are many great sites out there for better teaching students about math skills. Here are a few
of the best sites I’ve found and use on a regular basis. I must admit I have not visited all of the
math sites on the web, so to say they are the 10 Best Math Sites on the Web may be a stretch, but
they are the 10 Best Math Activity sites that I have found so far. If you have a site that you think
should be mentioned please leave a comment and share.

Enjoy the Ten Best Math activity pages!

http://www.aplusmath.com/ – The A+ Math site helps students learn mathematics
interactively with a mathematics game room, flashcards, and practice sheets.
http://www.coolmath4kids.com/ – Coolmath4kids is a colorful Web site (how did they
make that dangly cursor?!) that has fun mathematics activities for children and adults age
3 and up.
http://www.edinformatics.com/kids_teens/kt_math.htm – Edinformatics: Information for
the Information Age offers many links to online mathematics sites for instruction, practice,
and games. Descriptors tell the age level (kids, teens, mature teens) of each site.
http://www.figurethis.org/index.html – Figure This! Math Challenges for Families has a
teacher’s kit complete with a PowerPoint presentation and blackline masters to introduce
this series of family problem-solving mathematics challenges to parents. The grade levels
of the activities range from grades 1 through 6.
http://www.kcw.org/reprek6.htm – This site has resource links for parents and educators
of children grades pre-K to 6.
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/technology/babbitt_math_tips.html – This site
presents 10 tips for selecting mathematics instruction software for students with learning
disabilities.
http://mathforum.org/arithmetic/arith.software.html – The Math Forum @ Drexel Web
site offers arithmetic software or sites, some for purchase, some for downloading; other
lists of links; and descriptions of the programs.
http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/nav/index.html – This virtual library of interactive
manipulatives for interactive mathematics for pre-K to grade 12 comes from Utah State
University.
http://www.netn.net/14113.htm – This site has many interesting science, early education,
activity, and organization links for elementary school teachers and for parents of
elementary children. Some of the sites are free and some charge a fee for their materials.
http://www.kidsnumbers.com —The Exciting Math Website For Kids providesmath
skills development programs are research based, and seem to work well.

Conversion Calculator

MrYardley — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:22:16 +0000

http://www.worldwidemetric.com/Measurements.html

Have you ever wondered how many yards the 100 meter dash is, or wanted to figure out how many inches, or centimeters your 23 mile commute is. Well OK maybe I’m the only one interested in some of these trivial bits of information, but we often find it necessary to make conversions between different units of measurement. Worldwide Metric has made this process much easier with there easy online calculator. It includes conversions for length, weight, volume, pressure, and temperature.