Hall-Dale School District | MSAD 16

Reaching for the Future

Scale

Here is a great tool for giving your students a sense of scale...

From 10^-14 to 10^27 meters.

Just click on the time-line at the bottom of the screen to zero in on a specific size.

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Scratch here!

As a little extra feature, I added “Scratch” to the Middle School laptop image this year.
Scratch is a great little program developed by MIT for uses in K-12 education for teaching basic math, programming skills, & story-telling in a fun and interactive environment.
Utilizing a ‘visual programming’ environment, students can easily control on-screen objects (sprites) through simple drag & drop, snap-together programming blocks.
Students can construct simple movements of graphics using polar coordinates, degrees of rotation, etc. or they can construct complete projects combining art & graphics, storytelling, simulations or even games.

Just show ‘em a few basic commands, and the kids will experiment, discover, and share on their own!

To get Scratch loaded on your laptop stop by the IT room to have your machine re-imaged, or we can just install the program on your existing laptop image.

For further information about Scratch:

A basic ”Getting Started tutoriall for Scratch”
A gallery of student work
Other How-to information:
A forum for discussions about how to use Scratch.

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Online Security sites

The anonymity of the internet is both a blessing and a curse. While It frees individuals to speak freely and explore alternative ideas, it can also encourage illegal, inappropriate and dangerous behavior.  Technical solutions like filters will never be enough to combat security problems; Students need to learn how to recognize these on-line issues and avoid problems. If you would like to learn more about how to educate students on how to avoid these problems there are several websites which offer advice and training.

iSafe.org has extensive cirriculum and community outreach programs for educators, students, parents and law enforcement on issues such as:
Cyber Bullying
Pornography
Piracy
Spam
Identity Theft

For students they provide student handbooks, current and archived video podcasts, and contests. For educators there is an on-line virtual training academy and certification programs.

NetSmartzKids.org is a site dedicated to teaching on-line safety in a fun and interactive environment. Designed for K-6 students, Netsmartzkids features games, activites, music and other free items which teach good online behavior.

Check it out.

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Collaborative Art

Here is a fun (and free) site provided by GE, which allows students to collaborate in creating art and graphics!

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Language Arts, & Foreign language podcasts

Are you familiar with all the language arts podcasts out there?

CoffeeBreak Spanish
French Pod class
French for Beginners
JapanesePod101
Learn French Daily Podcast
LearnItalianPodcast

oh, yes and for english there is:
Grammer Girl’s Quick and Dirty , tips for better writing

This is just a sampling. Check out these and many other titles!

Clue your students in on these resources for additional tutoring.

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Screencast tutorial on building maps in Google Earth and related apps

I just came across this podcast tutorial on how to make your own maps in Google earth
It covers issues like adding images, overlays, links; how to present information, etc.

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Where in the world is…

Here is a link to the Google Earth Community, a forum where individuals their intresting share links with Google Earth and Google Maps.

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Slideshare

Here is a site that Mrs Leimbach turned me onto...Slideshare

It sort of youtube for powerpoint slipeshows. Watch’em, and share’em!

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