Content Literacy

Killing two birds with one stone. Here are some interesting facts about social networking and use among 35-54 yo age group growing by 60% recently according to Forrester. Also, if you are looking for a read-aloud to do with math students, here's a great example to use with them. The topic is social media, the content is proportional reasoning, data analysis, and interpreting real-world data. For example if usage among 35-54 yos has grown by 60% what does that mean among the sample of 4500, what does that mean among the sample of the US population, if previous usage was 15% of that age group, what percentage of that age group now use it? Etc. Good math/science reading is as close as your local USA Today/Yahoo homepage/iGoogle/news RSS

A tool for looking at information differently than we've ever done so before. Next step in web browsing? Just remember that things don't always stay the same in the virtual environment.

I guess the original link I bookmarked changed. Here is another one from the museum

When you want to make your wiki do things that aren't necessarily easy to do this is a great site! I added a background graphic to a wiki with the help of this site. It was very helpful in getting the basic code added and with a little tinkering it did the things I needed it to do! Great resource

Great post about teachable moments and what that looks like when you are an astronaut and your child asks you where you are going for work... beats Hazard! Read through the post and make sure click on the "checked" link for a great way of giving students some perspective on a shuttle flights speed and location.

A project called 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast received an appreciation by being hailed as the Best Infotainment 2009 given by the Parsec Award.

"While there are still some educators who dispute the importance of technology in the classroom, there is no dispute over the fact that technology is here to stay in schools. Whether you are one of those tech-savvy teachers who can't get enough of technology news and ideas or you are a teacher just learning to embrace technology in the classroom, these blogs offer a wealth of information straight from teachers and other professionals in the education field themselves."

Follow-up to the BEAR-4 near space video from amateur radio enthusiasts from Edmonton, CA. These students (yes, MIT students) capture still photos from space for $150 worth of equipment. Again, it's all about letting students solve problems, using technology that is available to them, and sharing it! Talk about engaging!!!!!

I know the Hubble is not new, but the addition of the new spectroscope adds new life to this old tool (yes it's almost 20 years old). If nothing else exposing students to the different pictures that Hubble generates would be an addition. If you can use the pictures to help develop math/science connections then what a powerful tool. Take one picture a day and ask students to calculate how long it would take a human to get to that point in space traveling at 100,000 miles per hour (twice as fast a any human has ever gone) or at 1,000,000 miles per hour (way faster than we can currently travel)...

Always looking for reading resources to share with the Striving Readers group. Here is a great online resource that has short readings that are applicable and topical. May not be user friendly for students 2 years or more behind grade level, but very applicable to the content area classrooms! Very interactive, combine pictures with text, updated constantly.

A group of amateur radio enthusiats launch an HD video camera into space and track it back down to earth. I think it's incredible and a great example of what people with an interest in something can do. What could we do if we gave students goals like this to accomplish? Any thoughts about how we use this incredible example of curiosity with students? Also, note that they send it to space, share their work via YouTube, blog about it, get picked up on the Discovery channel for relatively little cost!