Group items tagged

"There has been a huge buzz recently on Twitter about the new YouTube Kids app. There are thousands of great videos to search for on this new platform. The app opens up in a very clean and inviting menu that breaks down content into four categories: Shows, Music, Learning, and Explore. Each of these sections has designated channels packed with amazing video content. The YouTube for Kids App is FREE and is certainly one that I will be recommending at future conferences I present at. Where we couldn't fit all of the great content into this post, we certainly welcome you to use the comments section below to share your favorite YouTube for Kids channels."

"Weebly, a popular website creation service, has offered an iPhone app for a couple of years. This morning I learned that they now offer a free iPad app too. Weebly's free iPad app allows you to create a new website from scratch. After creating your website with the app you will be able to manage nearly all aspects of your site from your iPad. The drag-and-drop website building process that made Weebly popular as a browser-based tool is found in the new iPad app. Select a site component from the menu of options and drag it into the editor to build your site one component at a time. Watch the video embedded below for a short overview of Weebly's free iPad app. "

"Sometimes, we may find ourselves in a situation where we want to make our presentation (at least the audio part) and slides available for viewing at a later date. Fortunately, Keynote allows you to do this, by recording your presentation with the appropriately named option in the "Play" menu. Unfortunately, Keynote will only take one recording. You can't piece multiple recordings together. If you're like me and you feel more comfortable in front of an audience than recording your talk, this can be a problem. If I want to be sure of a clean, error-free recording, then the only reasonable option for me is to record it section by section."

"Back in August I shared an infographic featuring search strategies that every student can use. Yesterday, Vicki Davis posted a great companion to that infographic. Vicki shared this Google Search Modifiers Poster (link opens a PDF). Many of the modifiers featured in the poster can also be used by opening the advanced search menu in Google and making search choices. "

"Just poking around looking for resources, I fell into this really interesting project carrying the logo from Bourne Grammar School. It's a project constructed by Marc Scott that lets you use Scratch to create your own LOL Cat.  It's titled "A Virtual Pet in Scratch" and released under a Creative Commons license. This isn't a simple, straight-forward project as the menu driving the project will attest."

"Microsoft today launched Office Lens, a mobile document scanner app that works with OneNote, for iOS and Android smartphones. The app, which allows users to snap photos of paper documents, receipts, business cards, menus, whiteboards, sticky notes and more, was first launched a year ago as an application designed only for Windows Phone devices."

" NASA's Solar System Exploration website contains interactive displays of the planets, dwarf planets, and moons of our solar system. To launch an interactive display just choose one of the planets, dwarf planets, or moons from the menu in the site's header. Each display includes little markers in it. Click one of the markers to open a side panel that contains information about that particular feature of the planet, dwarf planet, or moon. Below each interactive display you'll find additional facts and figures."

"The University of Florida's Digital Collections offers a huge library of digitized children's books. Thanks to Open Culture I discovered this collection this afternoon and immediately started to browse through it. The books that you will find in the collection consist of works that are in the public domain. You can search for books according to topic, language, publisher, genre, and publication date. All of the children's books in the collection can be read online. Reading the books online could be a bit difficult for some as there is a border with menus surrounding each page of the books. To avoid that, you can print all of the books for free. The printed version does not display anything but the book as it was scanned."

"Last year, I went to Nigeria with Mark Zuckerberg. One of the first stops on the trip was a program that taught kids how to code. When Zuckerberg entered the room, many of the young students had a hard time pulling themselves away from their projects, even to gawk at one of the world's richest men. Facebook's founder instead came to them. "What are you making?" he'd ask. And they would proudly say, "A game!" or whatever it was, and begin showing him how it works. Zuckerberg would stop them. "Show me the code!" he'd say, because, well, he's Zuckerberg, and any occasion is ripe for an ad hoc programming review. And that's when the kid would click on a menu that toggled from the game to the LEGO-like building blocks of a Scratch program. This happened several times, with kids ranging from ages 8 to 15. In every instance, the maker of a cool project could clearly show this famous visitor how he or she had methodically implemented a plan. Zuckerberg was clearly impressed. As we headed up the stairs to leave the building, Zuckerberg called out to me, "Scratch! Have you heard of this?" Oh, yes I had. Though it was not yet released to the world when Zuckerberg left Harvard to launch his quirky little startup, Scratch (developed just a couple of T stops away) is quickly becoming the world's most popular computer language for kids taking their first bite of programming. Last year, over 120 million people came to its site, and many of them built and shared projects, at a rate of a million a month. "It's the gateway drug for Silicon Valley engineering," says Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, a Scratch supporter."

"The latest major Windows update brought some new tricks for your browser, Start menu and more. Here's how to use them."

Article on Cellphones on pages 6 + 7

Wedge and Lever; Ramp and Pulley; Wheel and Axle Flash activities to allow student experimentation.