This is an interactive math website that places math fundamentals in a galactic interplanetary battle. With a variety of mathematic concepts at in a wide range of subjects, the website prompts the user to perform mathematical operations in timed duals versus a computer opponent. The theme of the website as well as the layout of the activities make it a resource that appeals to student desires to play and compete.  While the website does not really provide students with a learning opportunity, but it is a great way to assess student understanding of concepts. While having a battle in quadratic functions, I quickly realized that I am not as strong with the equations as I was with the graphic representations of functions. This site provides quick activities that could be highly valuable in adjusting and refining teaching units. 

This is an interactive activity called the Weather Maker from the Scholastic online activities page. It allows you to manipulate the temperature at the equator and at the Earth's poles as well as to control the humidity. Based on the selected inputs, an animation of your home is exposed to the resulting weather conditions.  This could be a fantastic tool for the elementary science classroom as the students explore weather change. Various weather and precipitation outcomes can be inquired about and the students could control the weather maker and adjust the various elements to create the desired climate. Based on exploring the weather maker students can make observations and draw conclusions on seasonal climates, temperature change, and weather patterns. 

The website artbabble.org is a great example of the alternatives to youtube that the freetech4teachers article discusses.  It is a video sharing site devoted to inspiring creativity through art. I navigated to an abstract expressionism page and watched a pretty cool video on how different artists came to find their passion for the style and medium that they employ.  I understand the need to have alternatives to youtube available as classroom resources. The school that I currently work at has a block on youtube at all school computers. You can temporarily bypass the block as a teacher, but the process never fully works when you need it to during a class. In addition to firewall issues, sights like artbabble provide a more focused and efficient search than youtube. The search options are specifically designed for finding art related media, so you don't have to scan through tons of irrelevant information.

I found this an interesting article seeing as I have taken other career paths prior to education and I know many of you have as well. With the state of the economy, many older Americans are looking to the field of teaching for a new chance to start a career. This influx of teachers from the baby boomer generation must adapt to a new era of educating students for a tech savvy future. Are the 50+ additions to the teaching pool more valuable with their real world experiences than the grad student half their age with the latest methodology and research.