JUST FOR FUN

Enjoy!

TONY BUZAN

Tony Buzan is the inventor of mind mapping and its use in education. In this video he talks about creativity verse curriculum and how it shouldn't be creativity verse curriculum or curriculum verse creativity. I've watched it several times and still am amazed at the new things I pick up from each each time I hear it.

I also was reading the blog Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and he had some interesting things to say about it too.

Tony Buzan on creativity and learning how to learn
The reason I bring this up is because of this video (below) by Tony Buzan, who you may recall is the father of Mindmapping as we know it today (or at least the first to market it by that name). Buzan's presentation is perhaps not the most exciting, but hang with it, it's good. I think you will find the content very interesting.

So enjoy the video and let me know what you think.

SMILE

Here's another post just for fun. I can really relate to this guy.
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INSTANT POETRY FORM

A few posts ago I introduced you to a place called INSTANT POETRY FORMS. It's got about 35 different templates to help you kids write poetry. I've used two now and I and the kids like it a lot.

I figured out a new twist. First I have the kids go to our class blog THE SKINNY, and read the directions I have left directing them to the site and which poem I want them to take a shot at. By the way, I usually share some examples of that poetry style a few days earlier to get them thinking about what they'd like to write about. After they compose their poems, I have them copy and paste the poems into the comment section of that blog and now they are published authors. I also pick two or three of the most interesting and podcast them. We are in the middle of completing that project now and when we are done I will link to it.

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HUMAN BRAIN CLOUD

OK, I am not sure how to use this in an elementary classroom but it sure looks cool. If you come up with a way to incorporate it into a lesson please let us know.

It's called THE HUMAN BRAIN CLOUD. Here's what the site says:

About Human Brain Cloud

Thanks for reading this! I wanted to quickly learn Flash and Javascript while taking a break from making this game, and the result was Human Brain Cloud - a massively multiplayer word association "game" or experiment ... or something. The idea is that given a word, a player types in the first thing that comes to mind and the results are combined into a giant network.

Virtual Stopwatch and Virtual Timer

Now here is a handy little gizmo that I can't wait to try it in my classroom. It's from Google and it's actually two cool items in one. I cut and paste all the information from their site for you. And the best part of this deal is that it's free.

Click for online... Stopwatch Click for online... Timer

Our Virtual Stopwatch and Virtual Timer lets Internet users use their PC as a virtual timing device. The Stopwatch counts up from zero, and the Timer counts down to zero. The stopwatch and timer are both based on your PC's internal clock, so we can't guarantee their accuracy.

What are they for?

Use the Virtual Stopwatch or Virtual Timer to count down an ebay auction, time a meeting, experiment, speech, phone call, game, test, etc. Since the stopwatch and timer digits are large, they can be used with groups of people.

What's the Cost?

They're Free. The Virtual Stopwatch and Virtual Timer are ad supported, so they cost you nothing. Bookmark them for fast access.

TimeMe - contact@timeme.com - www.timeme.com

Copyright (c) 2007 TimeMe, all rights reserved, more...

PAUL POTTS

OK, I know this isn't a new tool or anything you could you in your classroom (but then again who knows). This is an amazing two minute video of the winner of the English version of American Idol. His name is Paul Potts and a more humble guy you will never meet. Enjoy

Paul Potts Sings

MORE TEASERS

The K12 Online Conference people have been putting some cool two minute teaser video on their site. They asked all the presenters to put together a short blurb about their presentation. After watching them I think the conference is going to be a hit. You need to click on over and take a look at a few of them.

Let me know what you think.

K12 Online Conference

I'm about to embark on something a little bit different. I've been invited to get together with a cool group of people and share my thoughts and questions on different presentations that I watched online.

I am actually pretty excited about it. The conference is called the K12 Online Conference They have a great cast of presenters lined up. As a matter of fact I copied and pasted the list of who's presenting what and added it to the bottom of the blog. I am amazed not only at who's presenting but also by the wide range of presentations.

The conference is being held over two weeks. They are October 15-19 and October 2-26, 2007. If you would like to know more about the conference just click on this link and you will be whisked away to their site.

Announcing K12 Online 2007 Presenters
July 7th, 2007

The 2006 K-12 Online Conference provided outstanding opportunities for free, collaborative, accessible professional learning for educators around the globe. The 2007 conference is shaping up to provide more exceptional learning opportunities in the same spirit of collaboration and sharing!

This year’s fantastic line up of keynote presenters will create an inviting and welcoming introduction in which the sharing of ideas among diverse learners working in diverse contexts continues. These distinguished folks will not only extend the conversations, but also invite each of us to stretch and grow as they share their expertise and wisdom in their respective strands. We are delighted they have each agreed to accept their roles as keynote presenters.

The presentations accompanying the keynotes for each strand have been selected by “blind” peer review committees coordinated by each strand convener. The committees’ tasks were extremely difficult as the quality of proposals was again outstanding. We thank everyone who submitted a proposal. We are elated to announce the K12 Online 2007 presenters whose creativity, depth of thought and innovation promise to make K12 Online 2007 exemplary.

The presenters by strand are:

Classroom 2.0:

Silvia Tolisano
“Travel Through Space and Time”

Drew Murphy
“Step by Step- Building a Web2.0 Classroom”

Chris Harbeck
“Release the Hounds”

Vance Stevens, Nelba Quintana, Doris Molero, Sasa Sirk, and Rita Zeinstejer
“Motivating Student Writers by Fostering Collaboration through Tagging and Aggregating”

Wendy Wolfe
“If All My Classes Did This”

Konrad Glogowski
“Assessment and Evaluation”

Anne Davis
“Putting the Pedagogy into the Tools”

Dean Shareski
“Design matters”

Jeff Utecht
“Sustained Blogging in the Classroom”

New Tools:

Liz Kolb
“Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools”

Frank Pirrone
“Collaborative Concept Mapping - Breaking the Bounds of Location and Time… for $0.00 per Seat”

Cheryl Oakes, Bob Sprankle, Alice Barr
“Flat Agents of Change”

Anne Davis
“Learn to Blog : Blog to Learn”

Jason Hando
“LMS 2.0 - Engaging Learners Using More Advanced Techniques and the Odd Mash-up inside Moodle”

Sharon Betts
“Oodles of Googles”

Kevin Jarrett and Sylvia Martinez
“Second Life: K-20 Educators Exploring Virtual Worlds - Panel”

Kurt Paccio and James Gates
“The Electric Slide! Twenty-First Century Style”

April Chamberlain
“Trailfire”

Professional Learning Networks:

Jen Wagner, Cheryl Oakes, Vicki Davis, Sharon Peters
“Webcasting for Educators: Expanding the Conversation”

Brandi Caldwell
“Creating PLE’s with TLC”

Kevin Hodgson and Bonnie Kaplan.
“The Collaborative ABC Project: Using Technology to Tell Stories”

Lee Baber, Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim and Thomas Locke
“Building Online Communities for Youth”

Jeff Utecht
“Online Professional Development”

James Folkestad
“Changing a System: Network Centric Learning Communities”

Sharon Peters, Vincent Jansen
“Building a Yardstick for PD Success: Establishing Key Performance Indicators for Web 2.0 Personal Optimized Learning Environments”

Vinnie Vrotny
“Expanding Horizons - Engaging the Adult Members of your Community (Teachers, Administrators, and Parents) through the Use of Personal/Professional Learning Networks”

Alex Ragone and Arvind Grover
“EdTechTalk: A Network of Homegrown Webcasters”

Obstacles to Opportunities:

Patrick Ledesma
“The Technology Specialist as Teacher Leader: Strategies to Ensure Successful Technology Integration and Student Learning in Schools”

Ben Wilkoff
“Starting From Scratch: Framing Change for All Stakeholders”

Karen Richardson
“Crossing the Copyright Boundary in the Digital Age”

Shawn Nutting
“Creating a Paradigm Shift in Technology”

Lisa Durff
“Pushing the Envelope or How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools on a Shoestring”

John Pearce
”Me blog? No way!!!”

Sylvia Martinez
“Web 2.0 Share the Adventure”

Joseph Bires
“Acceptable Use and the Web 2.0”

Sylvia Martinez
“Challenging Assumptions about Technology Professional Development”

INSTANT POETRY FORMS

I really like sending kids to gigglepoetry.com to create poetry.

I just found another poetry site that looks pretty good too. I am going to try it out this week with my class. It's called Instant Poetry Forms It's very user friendly and I think the kids will like it a lot.

As you probably have guessed from its name, it provides on line templates and directions to help kids create their own poems. After the kids supply the words the program creates the poem. All they have to do is highlight it, hit print, then selection and its ready to hand in.


Here is a 5W poem I created:

Jim
played tennis with Dan,
at the middle school,
yesterday,
because it was a beautiful day outside.

It has lots of different style and forms to choose from. It doesn't have a spell checker, and maybe thats a good thing.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

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POLLDADDY.COM

Here is another tool to jazz up your blog with.

Take a look at the poll that's at the bottom of this post.


I created and up-loaded that poll to my blog in about two minutes. It is fun, easy to do, and best of all , its free. There are a lot of polling sites on line for you to choose from but the one I like the best so far is POLLDADDY.COM.

My fifth graders love to take polls. I put them on my class blog all the time. Some of the polls are about things happening in the news, some about what we are studying at the time and some are just for fun.

All you need to do is go to POLLDADDY and start an account. Then follow their goof proof directions and you will be up and running in just a few minutes.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

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TED Talks

I found an amazing site. It's called TED Talks. I haven't figured out what TED means yet but here is a place you need to check out.

Basically its a storehouse of videos of amazing lectures by the top people in a wide variety of fields. Free for us to download and watch. You can see the the leaders in field of technology, science, arts, global issues and many more.

The one I want to share today is by Sir Ken Robinson. I have not heard of him but I know who he is now. His talk is titled: Do Schools Kill Creativity? He combines humor and challenges in just the right mix. Here is the blurb from the TED page.

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize -- much less cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant people. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: "If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk, please stop whatever you're doing and watch it now."

Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

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The Free Automatic Bibliography Composer

Now here is a neat program. Your students need no longer worry how to site a source with The Free Automatic Bibliography Composer. All they need to do is answer a few questions and the program puts the source into the correct format. I am reading Walter Isaacson's Einstein. I put all appropriate information and this is what it gave me back.

Isaacson, Walter. Einstein. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. 1-12

It will format books, emails, articles, and about 20 other sources.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

By the way, the book is a fascinating look into the life of an amazing man.

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