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Robert Ballard, the explorer best known for the discovery of the Titanic and other wrecks, has not only made deep-sea exploration more accessible for K-12 and college students, but he'll feed them updates through two of their favorite web sites: Facebook and Twitter. Ballard visited the Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration in Connecticut on June 23 to introduce his new Nautilus Live Theater, along with a new web site where people can watch his expeditions live.

"This week's Cool Tool, the new Pulse digital pen from LiveScribe, is still undergoing my evaluation since I've only had it about a month now, but it has already lived up to its predecessor, the now discontinued io2 digital pen from Logitech, which I nominated as a previous Cool Tool. I can see that this new Pulse pen has much more to offer, so I thought it worthy of bringing to your attention. "

Discovery Education has established a schedule for science lab demosntrations streamed live for use in classrooms.

Always on live web conferencing.

Geospatial" technologies--which include geographic information system (GIS), global positioning system (GPS), and remote sensing (RS) tools--are becoming increasingly important in our everyday lives. These technologies use "smart" maps that can display, query, and analyze geographic databases; receivers that provide location and navigation; and global-to-local imagery and tools that provide context and analysis. As these tools become vital to helping community leaders ask and answer questions with both local and global implications, the ability to think spatially is an increasingly important skill for students. Hundreds of jobs--in such areas as planning, law enforcement, environmental management, business, public safety, health, and agriculture--now require key geographic inquiry skills.

Just as a stormchaser uses available technologies, knowledge and skills to pursue and document an impending thunderstorm, storychasers use their tools and abilities to document stories of local, regional, national or international interest. In our classrooms and after-school programs, as educators we can empower learners of all ages to become digital witnesses and responsible citizen journalists as storychasers. Whether on a school field trip, conducting research for a class project or school journalism assignment, or interviewing local residents to share about their lives and experiences, storychasers can and are utilizing a rich array of new media tools to create, communicate, and collaborate. Come learn how to join the storychaser's communication revolution, and catalyze the development of a diverse array of 21st century as well as traditional literacy skills with students in your local community who can become empowered storychasers!

"Convert Microsoft Word to plain text Most of the time when I'm writing content for the web (for this blog, or a forum comment, or whatever), I'll write in Microsoft Word for the spell check and other features that aren't in a standard textarea widget, and then I'll cut and paste into the form on the site. The problem is that this carries all of the high characters ("smart-quotes" and the like) that MS Word makes straight through to the site - and most sites aren't set up to handle them. They expect plain ("Latin") text. A solution: this script converts text copied from MS word into plain text. Paste your input into the top box, press clean, and the input will be scrubbed and sent to the lower box."

"At first glance, the winning images from the 2010 Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition--put on by the camera company's U.S. arm--look like distant worlds or psychedelic moon landscapes. But take a (much) closer look, and you'll see the images are of life science specimens that surround us every day: seeds, insects, plants, animals, and eyes... "

Share stories and pictures using MapSkip to collaborate with others.

The American Revolution Center interactive timeline.

Microsoft's suite to offset Google Apps for Education