Rural Education Network

This animation from the Faculty of Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong nicely illustrates how a heart works. You can watch how blood moves through various chambers as well as seeing how it matches to an electrocardiogram. Check out some of the other resources Johnson Leung has made available by selecting Teaching Resources from his drop-down menu.

Thanks to Alan for this great site: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/ Grammar Girl is a series of podcasts on (not surprisingly) grammar. They are short, to the point and fun to listen to. Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. Covering the grammar rules and word choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers, Grammar Girl makes complex grammar questions simple with memory tricks to help you recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules. Whether English is your first language or second language, Grammar Girl's punctuation, style, and business tips will make you a better and more successful writer.

http://www.visiblebody.com/ Argosy's Visible Body is a great and comprehensive 3D human anatomy visualization tool, which includes 3D models of over 1,700 anatomical structures, including all major organs and systems of the human body. To access this amazing 3D human anatomy learning tool, you just need to register, and then it is FREE to use! FEATURES Complete, fully interactive, 3D human anatomy model Detailed models of all body systems Dynamic search capability Easy-to-use, 3D controls Seamless compatibility with Internet Explorer

The future figured prominently in my reading this week. Janet Clarey questions the future of physical classrooms based on Elliot Masie's question of Classrooms of the future . She asks: do we need physical classrooms for learning. While the comments to her (and Elliot's) post range significantly, the concept of classrooms as we know them is clearly changing. As trends in learning and technologies become more divergent, and thinking becomes more important, the walls of the classroom move out. Classrooms and the web. Blogs and LMS. Collaborative learning and blogging. A few additional resources: Learning technologies and schools of the future (.pdf)...and predictions for 2008 (coming in a bit late - it's cheating if your predictions aren't made at the end of the year or within the first few days of the new year.

Taken verbatim from the Students 2.0 blog: Twenty-first century education won’t be defined by any new technology. It won’t be defined by 1:1 laptop programs or tech-intensive projects. Twenty-first century education will, however, be defined by a fundamental shift in what we are teaching—a shift towards learner-centered education and creating creative thinkers. Today’s world is no longer content with students who can simply apply the knowledge they learned in school: our generation will be asked to think and operate in ways that traditional education has not, and can not, prepare us for. As we move into a world where outsourcing, automation, and the ability to produce a product, physical or intellectual, at the cheapest cost, become the cornerstones of our rapidly evolving global economy, the ability to think critically is no longer enough. The need to know the capital of Florida died when my phone learned the answer. Rather, the students of tomorrow need to be able to think creatively...

Visualizing huge numbers can be very difficult. People regularly talk about millions of miles, billions of bytes, or trillions of dollars, yet it's still hard to grasp just how much a "billion" really is. The MegaPenny Project aims to help by taking one small everyday item, the penny (on this site they use the US penny), and building on that to answer the question: "What would a billion (or a trillion) pennies look like?" All the pages have tables at the bottom, listing things such as the value of the pennies, size of the pile, weight, and area (if laid flat). All weights and measurements are U.S. standards, not metric. It's best to step through the project from start to beginning, but if you'd like to just jump in, links are available.

It’s virtually the real thing!! Interact with the educators and scientists at Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario and explore topics like biodiversity, conservation, botany, plant ecology and the environment through engaging, curriculum-linked, plant-based videoconferences. Some of the programs currently available: Creatures with Wings and Crawly Things (Primary): Is it an insect or not? Learn about the characteristics and needs of insects with the help of Pierre, the Praying Mantis puppet, through songs, poetry and live specimens. Discover their connection to plants. Seeds on the Go (Junior / Intermediate): How do plants move around and start to grow in new areas? Did you or something else help them? Plant Adaptations: Mediterranean Biome or Wetlands : (Junior - Senior): How do plants survive in extreme environments such as wetlands or the dry Mediterranean zones? We can look at the plant adaptations of either a wetland ecosystem or the Mediterranean biome or both. Wetland ...

Here is a site that allows you to draw and create visual effects online. If you've seen the art of the abstract artist, Jackson Pollock , you may appreciate the Pollock Simulator . Move your cursor over the screen and create a Pollock-esque painting. Click your mouse button for a new colour.

This wiki has been receiving a number of posts from teachers internationally. The creators of this wiki are hoping it will model the power of the connections that can be made through using the tools of the Read/Write Web. They invite people to leave a link, a resource, a "new" idea, or some encouraging words for the group of educators we're working with outside of Philadelphia today. And feel free to let others know they can contribute as well. So far there is a good annotated collection developing http://advis.wikispaces.com/

Many people use iTunes to organize and play their music. I recently found that I can use iTunes U to listen to free podcasts, lectures and streamed video from many different universities and colleges. One you have opened iTunes, go to the iTunes Store and select iTunes U. You can browse through the offerings of different colleges and universities, or you can select the Power Search tab to refine your searches. As well, at the bottom of the page you can view the Beyond Campus applet and view resources from several American museums, art galleries and public broadcasters. You can view a screencapture preview of iTunes U here .

Many teachers have brought experts into their classrooms. I'm sure you've all had your local mayor or an elder read to your class or host an art project, many have had visiting athletes talk about their experiences overcoming life's barriers and so on. Others have been able to bring scientists, astronauts and world-class authors into their classrooms using technologies such as Elluminate Live! (all registered users have access through a provincial site license coordinated by LearnNow BC ). I just came across two teachers in Colorado, Maura Moritz and Anne Smith , who have just begun an interesting project with four sections of their ninth grade honours language arts students ( Maura's class blog , Anne's class blog .) Their students are reading Daniel Pink ’s A Whole New Mind , discussing it in class, and then writing a thesis driven persuasive essay built around one of Pink’s six senses (Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, or Meaning).As part of their discussi...

Writers In Electronic Residence Launches 20th. Year - Jan. 14Linking Canada's Writers with Canada's Schools Imagine having Wayne Gretzky assess your stick work, or Elizabeth Baird test your butter tarts. Then imagine that their advice was part of a free exchange of ideas among other students, teachers, and the pros, culminating in everyone joining in a practice hockey game or sitting down to eat the final creation. This captures the reality of Writers In Electronic Residence, where the coaches are prominent Canadian writers, working online wth students and teachers in elementary, middle and secondary classrooms across Canada--Iqaluit to Toronto, Vancouver to St. John's. WIER's winter term will open with its usual two-week "introductory period" on January 14, 2008. Space is available in each of WIER's online writing programs--elementary, middle school, and secondary school levels. The term will run until April 5. Please visit http://www.wier.ca for program...

I came across an article posted on the ReadWriteWeb blog entitled Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students . The author tries to describe software applications that every student should know about. Entries are described in the following categories: Office Replacements Notetaking Mind Mapping Studying Bookmarking Collaboration Calendars Calculations Other Tools such as EasyBib and OttoBib to help with bibliographies.

As you've noticed, I haven't posted here since before Christmas. Its amazing how much living one can cram into several weeks, so let me try to summarize some of the lessons I've learned. When you rent a moving truck to move your family down from the northern interior, be aware they don't come with winter tires. The one I rented was licensed in Arizona, and caused us hours of delay because we had to chain up to get up slight inclines. If you really want an incentive to unpack and organize your house in a hurry, invite family over for Christmas dinner. Suffice it to say, our back bedroom turned into a temporary storage space so we could fit everyone in. Try unsubscribing from your RSS feeds if you're to be away from your computer for a while. I deleted over 3,000 unread articles. But enough - I'll get back to educational posts tomorrow. cheers