Science images, videos, webcasts. Stop here when looking for content to engage your learners.

The National Science Foundation has opened up their Multimedia Gallery to educators for classroom use. You can check it out here, http://nsf.gov/news/mmg/index.cfm?s=2 
You will find many interesting clips which will explain the unexplainable.  The gallery is searchable by keyword or phrase.

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Virtual Worlds

If you are ready for a virtual world, check out http://www.rezed.org
RezEd is a comprehensive virtual-world resource for educators, students and those interested in learning about using virtual worlds.This site is funded by  MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning. You will find best practices, research, interviews and podcasts about this new type of learning. Bring something new into your classroom.

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How active are your students? Would they write to "win" a Green Computer Lab for their school?

Win a Green Computer Lab for your School!

INSPIRE your middle and high school students to be leaders in the Green Schools movement--and your school could win a state-of-the-art computer lab!

The "Green Light Contest" essay competition, sponsored by PC Mall Gov, in partnership with HP, InFocus and T.H.E. Journal, is seeking entries from students in two categories: grades 5 - 8 and 9 - 12.

In essays of 1,000 words or less students are asked to describe how they and their teachers can utilize technology to protect the environment, with the grand-prize-winning composition being awarded a 30-seat "green" computer lab for the author's school. Two additional first place winners (one from each grade-level category) will each receive a "green" laptop. Winning essays will be published in T.H.E. Journal and winners will be recognized at FETC, January 21 - 24, in Orlando, FL.

APPLICATION DEADLINE is December 1, 2008. Winners will be announced at FETC, January 21 - 24, 2009, and notified by mail no later than January 31, 2009.

Click here to view essay and submission criteria

This was taken directly from the Project Speak Up promotion.

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Looking for audio books?

Here is a great place I found Wired for Books!
This is just another alternative for your challenged readers. When designing differentiated lessons be sure that you ask yourself, is reading the text the purpose of the lesson or is doing the activity the purpose? If reading the text is the means to the end, then please allow your challenged readers to listen and read along, so they can get to the activity.
If your students are using Safari to research on the Internet, they can use a built in service which allows the text on most pages to be transcribed from text to audio. All they need are headphones to provide the audio without interferring with others who may be reading. These tools help to level the playing field while making the learner more independent.
For more tools for challenged learners check out these blogs for more resources.
Karen Janowski-  Free technology toolkit!
Joyce Valenza- Toolkit!
Beth Goodwin, Cheryl Oakes- Writingtools4all.pbwiki.com
Please share any good sites you have found for assistive technology or Universal Design for Learning.

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Google Sketch Up in Maine

What an awesome session I attended with Google Maps at the MainEd08 , ACTEM conference. Using realworldmath.org  you can use Google Maps and have students figure out real life problems. If you are an educator using Google Maps and lessons, then think about sharing that lesson on the Google Educator site.  Be sure to share the wealth! It is what I call open source learning. There are so many resources at  the Google Educator site. Get a group of educators, each take one tool, learn about it, incorporate it into a lesson, then teach that to your peers. In a matter of one hour, if each person learns one tool and shares, you could have a series of new tools in your educator toolkit!

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ACTEM presentation by Beth Goodwin and Cheryl Oakes

On Friday, October 17, 2008, Beth Goodwin and I presented at the ACTEM08 conference. It was a great opportunity to share some FREE webtools with other educators. The presentation can be viewed online. This is where you can follow the presentation by Beth Goodwin and Cheryl Oakes. You can listen to the audio and follow along with the website. Thanks to all the great participants. Thanks to Beth's students for giving us the photos and good information to share.
http://writingtools4all.pbwiki.com
Here is the link to the article by Bob Sprankle about Wordle one of the favorite tools of the students. http://bobsprankle.com/bitbybit_wordpress/?p=461