Friday, November 20, 2009

Creatve Commons & Searching for Resources

Search By Creative Commons is not a search engine but works like a search engine offering access to search services provided by other organisations.This site is particularly helpful in identifying websites, resources and links that make use of the Creative Commens licensing which can be used to make it easier to share information and resources withing copyright rules and is particularly useful in education.

More detail can be found about Creatve Commons licenses on their website.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Free Images

The Pics4learning website provides thousands of images which have been donated for the use of teachers and students. The pictures cover a wide range of topic areas and are worth looking at if you need pictures to support or or enhance your teaching resources.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Open Learn - Free learning materials from Open University

Drawing on their expertise in distance learning and with the help of funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Open University has developed OpenLearn a website which provides the general public with access to some of its learning materials. These include free study materials and open education resources.

These resources do not constitute a recognised OU qualitifcation. Never-the-less, there are a range of subject areas covered at different levels of difficulty and these are worth looking at if you want free learning resources or to see examples of online courses.

Monday, October 12, 2009

National Learning Network Resources

The National Learning Network have made available a host of learning resources. These were funded by the LSC and are available free to all authorised organisations in the post-16 sector.
They describe the resources as "small, flexible 'bite-sized' episodes of learning". Designed to be fun, the activities can be attempted over and over again and cover many different topic areas (including core skills, mainstream school subjects and vocational areas). These are definitely worth looking at if you want online activities for your students to increase their knowledge and to check their understanding.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Screen Toaster - Screen Capture

I have previously mentioned tools for screen capture. Screen Toaster is yet another tool that can record what is on your screen with audio voice over. This tool is entirely online and easy to use. The site permits users to record then store the video (webcast) online either publically or with access via a URL. There is also the offer to download the video as a .mov or .swf file or to upload to YouTube or ScreenToaster.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Hairdressing Training

The Hairdressing Training website offers a range of downloadable resources to support the teaching of hairdressing. These include "photographic step by step guides combined with lessons and handy tips and techniques". The site also provides a discussion area and student self-tests.

If you teach this subject the site could be a really useful resource.


Sunday, September 13, 2009

Saving useful links - Delicious

The Delicious website enables users to save links to useful websites which can be accessed over the internet form anywhere at a later time. This social bookmarking tool enables users to share their bookmarked list with others and to view those created by others.

Given its nature as a social bookmarking site, it is worth checking that you can access this through institutional firewalls if you wish to access it at work.

Monday, August 31, 2009

News Map

News Map offers new way to see the news - a visual representation of news which you can customise to your own particular interests (such as business, technology, health, soirts, entertainement, naional and world news). This site, powered by Google, provides a colour coded tree map of the most recent news stories which can be previewes by resting the mouse on the link of interest.

Illusions

Things are not always what they appear to be. Mighy Optical Illusions offers a wide selection of interesting and fun optical illusions.

Quotations

If you are in need of an intersting quotation, try thequoteblog.com. This interesting blog offers a wide range of quotes covering many different topics. The blog lists people quoted but provides, near the bottom of the site, a search engine to help you find quotes on a topic of your choice.

Virtual Panoramas

360Cities provides access to many different virtual panoramas. It uses interactive photographs which users can explore looking in all directions or zooming in or out by clicking and dragging a mouse around the image.

360Cities has panoramas from around the world. On the site you can select a country and view a map and selection of thumbnail images each leading to panoramas and a written description of the city.

The site also enables users to create their own virtual tour or embed existing tours in non-commercial websites.

The example below is from the 360 website…


Amedee Coral Reef New Caledonia in New Caledonia

Friday, August 21, 2009

BBC Learning Zone

The BBC have a vast number of useful resources for teaching and learning.

The Learning Zone is a good place to start. This page can give you access to:

Class Clips which are short video clips which may be useful in the classroom to make a point or start discussions. The are suitable clips for all levels (primary, secondary and college).

Schools Television - providing a schedule of programmes coming up and a link to Bitesize Revision resources and teacher's notes.

Language and Travel - providing a schedule of programmes coming up and links to some useful language websites.

Sorry

Apologies to everyone who has accessed my blog in the last month - I have been ill and unable to post. I am back now and will try to make up for the missing time!

Monday, July 6, 2009

Screen Capture - Jing

I have mentioned screen capture tools in the past but JING is another free alternative. Easy to use, you need to download the software to your computer and register for an account then set an area of your screen that you want to capture and record your screen. Once finished you can upload this to the Jing server and you will be sent a URL to access the video at any time.

Monday, June 22, 2009

World Atlas

Discovery Atlas enables the user to zoom in on a country of choice and then to learn more abpout that country with text and videos covering the themes Culture, Governmnet, History and Natural World. This is a fun way to learn more about the world.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Free Online Courses

As summer is approaching some of us may be thinking about how we can usefully spend a few spare hours. CoursesForFree offer links to a number of free online IT related courses that are worth looking at if you have time on your hands.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Avatars - Doppelme


There has been an increase in personalisation of websites and one of these additions is personal avatars.

The Doppelme website enables users to create their own avatar which can be added to their website, forum or blog.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Wikis

This weeks blog is about Wikis. A wiki is a website that facilitates the creation and editing of linked webppages. These are often used by groups of people for collaborative work.

There is a wealth of wiki software available and I do not propose to say which is the best merely to an example and highlight some uses for these.

One popular and easy to use site which provides wikis is Wetpaint.com which is free to use. Although advertisements are placed on wetpaint wikis, these can be removed from education sites. Wetpaint has links to some sample wikis for education which can provide examples of how these can be used. I particularly liked the Knowledge Media which has some interesting links.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Interactive resources

Classtools.net was created and is maintained by Russel Tarr, Head of History at the International School in Toulouse. This site provides free, customisable templates which users can edit to create educational games and activities and then these can then be embedded into blogs and websites.

Click here for full screen version

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Free Images

Finding appropriate copyright free images for teaching resources can be very time consuming. Today's site started life as a project in 2005 when tourism lecturers were asked to contribute photographs adn similar digital media that could be used freely in education.

The Image Enriched Learning in Tourism Project provides a vast database of images relating to tourism, links to alternative images sites and also provides guidance in the use of imagery in lectures.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Online Courses

Hewlett-Packard provide free online classes covering a range of topic areas. These classes are usually 4-8 lessons long and can be completed at your own pace within the time-frame set by HP.

The lessons can be completed at your own convenience and include activities, reading, quizzes and assignments. HP also provide a Discussion Board for participants to communicate with each other for the duration of the course. The courses offered change over time so even if you do not want to do one on offer at the moment it is worth looking back later for new courses.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Free Poverty - Geography Game which Donates Water

The FreePoverty website seeks to help users donate water to people world who live in extreme poverty. Users play a game which tests their geography knowledge by locating places on a map. The more accurate the attempts, the more water is donated on their behalf.


FreePoverty's stated aims are "to:

- Provide clean drinking water to those in need
- Make users realize that they can make a difference
- Let users learn something about geography that they may have not known before"

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Screencast.com (resource hosting)

Alongside the need to create teaching resources, there is also the requriement for file storage that can be used to access these resources on demand. Screencast.com offers this facility. Created by TechSmith, Screencast.com provides free online hosting for screencasts, videos, images and documents. Users can control how, when and to whom their content is distributed. Definitely worth trying if you have limited storage space. A free account provides 2GB storage and 2GB monthly bandwidth or if you want more from it there is the option to pay $9.95 for 25 GB and 200GB monthly bandwidth.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Fastone Capture (Screen Capture and more)

Some time ago I discused Snippy which allows you to take a snapshot of a selected part of the screen. Fastone Capture is an alternative (freeware) screen capture programme. In addition to copying the screen this software enables the user to further edit it by adding lines, arrows, shapes and text, captions, pictures, croping, rotating and to zooming in and out. This is particularly worth exploring if you may need to produce documentation based on screen views.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Prevent It (Health & Safety Advice)

Prevent It is a Canadian website which provides information about safety procedures at work. The site was created by the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board in Canada but has useful information for other countries.

The site provides interactive scenarios covering a range of health and safety issues at work. Each of these also provides links to advertisements, testimonials and additional useful information.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Flowgram - interactive presentations

Flowgram combines the functionality of screencasts and slide presentations with an interactive experience for the user.

It allows users to mix video, audio, text, presentations, photos, and web pages and then to add voice recording and annotation. These views are presented in a similar way to a slideshow presentation except that viewers can interact with any of the pages by clicking on links, and playing and pausing videos.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Temporary Email Account

There are times when you may need to provide your email to access a site or recieve a link but do not want to continue to recieve further communications. Meltmail can provide you with a tempory email address for a set period of time (you decide how long for). During this period it will forward any emails recieved to your permanent email address. At the end of the designated period, the account is deleted and the record of your permanant address is also deleted.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Create your own Movies

If you have ever considered producing your own movies but do not have the equipment, have a look at xtranormal.com. This site provides an opportunity to produce a video: you can select the characters, setting, voices, movements, camera angles, sound effects and music.

Although this is quite intricate to do, with a little practice it is possible to produce a reasonable effort.It does highlight the problems with filming - selecting camera angles and some of the other things a producer needs to take into consideration.

Have a look at one I made earlier...

Monday, March 9, 2009

Snippy & Screen Prints

Copying the image from your screen can be done by using the Print Screen key on the keyboard and you can then paste the screen image into a document.

However if you just want a small part of the screen to be copied, you can use Snippy. Snippy is a small programme which youc an save to your computer. By clicking on the snippy icon in the toolbar you start the programme which enables you to draw with your mouse around the section of the screen you want to copy. This is copied to the clipboard and can be pasted into a document.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Statistics - Data Sources

A few days agao one of my colleagues asked if I knew of any websites containing data that would be useful for her teaching. Swivel seems to fit the bill.

The website creators, Dmitry Dimov and Brian Mulloysay say "Swivel is a place where curious people explore all kinds of data.... Swivel's mission is to make data useful so people share insights, make great decisions and improve lives".

This site provides access to a vast array of data sets on a wide range of topics which can be explored graphically. Data comes from both official and non-official sources. People can add their own data and make it public (for free) or keep it private (at a cost).

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Dynamic Pictures


Today, a fun site but I'm sure it can be used creatively to amuse and make useful points. Hetemeel.com provides 'dynamic images'. Pictures that you can add customised text or captions to You can save the pictures and then use them (like the one on this post).

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Task Management Tools Online

Remember the Milk is an online task management tool which helps you to manage and keep track of your tasks quickly and easily. I have come across this many times as a recommended site over the last few months and finally decided to add it to this blog. A free hosted service which offers fee based upgrades to additional services, Remember the Milk enables you to manage and organise tasks, recieve reminders to you email, SMS or Instant Messanger, locate tasks on a map, share to do lists and much more. If you do not have these facilities on your mobile phone or PDA, this is worth checking out.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Video Search Engine

Blinkx describes itself as "the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine". It uses "a unique combination of patented conceptual search, speech recognition and video analysis software to efficiently, automatically and accurately find and qualify online video".

I have tried searching for appropriate videos for some of my teaching on many search engines but this really did find more than other search engines. If you are looking for a video and are not finding it easily, try Blinkx. You can search by category or use your own search terms.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Research Statistics

Onlinestatbook is a very useful site if you are seeking to understand statistics or if you needto teach statistics to students. Developed at Rice University, University of Houston, this site proides an online statistics book, simulations, case studies and links to other statistics resources on the web.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Photographs store & share

I spent some time today searching for a website that would allow me and my students to upload and store photographs and share them. One that seems really easy to use is FotoTime.

This site will allow users to store and organise photographs into folders and then to share individual photos or photo collections. You can add captions to photos and tag them to loactions on a map. Photographs can be shared by emailing a link, copying html code which the site can generate and embedding it in a website or blog or by using the site generated URL. All this and more for free.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Creative Software

Creative Docs .NET offer a powerful design tool which can be freely downloaded from the internet. This software can enable users to quickly create a range of documants including manuals, posters, illustrations, schemas, plans and diagrams.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Survey Monkey

If you wish to conduct surveys (either for student feedback or as part of classes) SurveyMonkey is a really good survey site. You can design your own survey, selecting from a range of question types, and make it available online for people to complete by emailng a link or adding a link to your website. It will then summarise your results and enable you to analyse them in a number of ways.

This site offers a free basic service but you can upgrade for additional features.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Advice for students about Food and Survival

A group of university students reflecting on their first-year experience came up with the idea of writing a cookery book for students. In addition to their book, the students have launched a website offering recipies, tips, videos, downloads and advice for students.

This may be of use or interest for students (or even those of us who are not students!)

Monday, February 23, 2009

Online File Storage

If you are like me, you are likely to find yourself working from more than one computer location and so accessing files at these different locations requires the use of a disk or memory stick. However, it is possible to store your files online so these can be accessed from anywhere with internet access. Kevin Purdy offers a good list of possible online storage sites with a feature comparison chart on the Lifehacker site.

Friday, February 20, 2009

British History

British History Online offers a digital library of printed primary and secondary sources for the British medieval and modern history.

It has been created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust, and aims to support academic and personal users around the world in their learning, teaching and research.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Free Teaching Resources - MIT

MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) publish many MIT courses' resources online. These free lecture notes, exams, and videos are accessible from the site without the need to register.

There is a very wide choice of course subjects covering:

* Aeronautics and Astronautics
* Anthropology
* Architecture
* Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation
* Biological Engineering
* Biology
* Brain and Cognitive Sciences
* Chemical Engineering
* Chemistry
* Civil and Environmental Engineering
* Comparative Media Studies
* Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
* Economics
* Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
* Engineering Systems Division
* Experimental Study Group
* Foreign Languages and Literatures
* Health Sciences and Technology
* History
* Linguistics and Philosophy
* Literature
* Materials Science and Engineering
* Mathematics
* Mechanical Engineering
* Media Arts and Sciences
* Music and Theater Arts
* Nuclear Science and Engineering
* Physics
* Political Science
* Science, Technology, and Society
* Sloan School of Management
* Special Programs
* Urban Studies and Planning
* Women's and Gender Studies
* Writing and Humanistic Studies


Definitely worth looking if your subject area is within this list.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Plimoth Plantation Website

The Plimoth Plantation website supports and promotes their museum. Their intention is to provide a bicultural museum providing "personal encounters with history built on thorough research about the Wampanoag People and the Colonial English community in the 1600s". The site also provides links to interesting historical resources for education including videos, blogs and articles.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Screen Video

CamStudio software can be downloaded free and will enable you to create a video of activity on your computer screen with audio. I have used this to demonstrate how software can be used to analyse data to support some of my teaching but there are many uses for this screen capture software.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Mind Maps - Mindomo

A couple of months ago I mentioned the bubbl.us mind mapping website. Today I offer an alternative site. Mindomo website will enable users to create and share mindmaps online without downloading any software to a PC (although there is now a desktop version you can download if you wish). The basic account is free and lets you add symbols/icons to your mind map as well as notes and hyperlinks to websites and you can save 7 private mindmaps free (more than this and they must be publically available). The website has shared mindmaps from other users, a blog and a forum for help and advice.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Nobel Prizes & Educational Games

Games can be a really useful tool in education and so today's post is a link to games based on Nobel Prize winning research. The games on the site relate to physics, chemistry, physiology, medicine, literature, peace and economics. You can find these on the official web site of the Nobel Foundation.

In addition to educational games, the nobelprize.org/ website has information for every Nobel Prize since 1901, with biographies, lectures, interviews, photos, articles, video clips and press releases.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Online chart creation

The Lovely Charts website enables you to create a range of professional charts online (site maps, flow diagrams, organisational charts or network diagrams) which can be saved (exported) as .jpg or .png files. This is very easy to use and flexible. This site has symbols and images that can be used in creating the charts and is free to use but, it is also possible to pay for a few additional features.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Mapwing Virtual Tours

Mapwing website will enable you to create your own virtual tour from your digital photographs. You can link photographs to points on a map for viewers, friends and family to explore or you can browse tours already created. You need to sign up to create your tour but it is free for basic tours with up to 20 points of interest, an interactive map and a comments area. Alternatively you can pay for professional tours that are advertising free.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Blabberize - talking pictures

This post is really a bit of fun but can be used to liven up a website or blog. Blabberize websie will let you upload a picture and make it talk - you can identify the mouth and add sound so the mouth on the picture will move with the sound you record.

This is an example by Techlady: the baby has a message for you...

Monday, February 9, 2009

Personalised home page

Have you ever thought it would be helpful to have everything you are interested available whem you first switch your computer on? A persoanlised home page might be the answer. There are a number of different tools that will enable you to set up your own opening screen or home page.


Netvibes
is one such site - a free and impressive site that will allow you to create your own startup page with links to anything you want on the internet. This site can be customised to suit your preferences and offers the opportunity to share some modules too.

An alternative, but equally impressive, startup page is provided by Pageflakes. This site also offers similar personalisation and soical features.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Free Video Lectures (Academic Earth)

Academic Earth is "an organization founded with the goal of giving everyone on earth access to a world class education".

Their website (currently in Beta version) provides a wide range of lectures given by some of the top scholars in USA. You can select what you watch by University, Instructor or Subject.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

British History

History.UK is dedicated to providing information about British history. Among the information provided are an online directory of people, organisations and places associated with UK history. The website includes specialist information and fun history basics and has something to offer all ages.

This site provides 30,000 directory listings of British history related venues, organisations and experts in the UK. Regular editorial features, historic recipes, DIY history, competitions, a timeline of British history from 10,000 BC, news updates, a selection of helpful weblinks and a free monthly newsletter.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Careers Database

Whether you are advising someone about possible career or ooking for a change yourself, it is worth looking at the Jobs4U careers database. The site gives background to a vast number of jobs including what the job involves, hours, environment, salary, benefits and advice on opportunities and training. Alternatively you can enter your interests, subjects, qualitfiation level and prefered working hours and see a series of suggestions you could consider.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Dissertations & Research Projects

The Companion for Undergraduate Dissertations website has a wealth of useful information and resources for academic staff and students who are undertaking a dissertation.

It offers sections on:
* What is a Dissertation?
* Getting Started
* Help with Finding Literature and Research
* Formulating the Research Question
* Finding Appropriate Methodologies
* Responsibility in the research process
* Research Ethics
* Supervision of the Dissertation
* Writing the Dissertation
* Developing your Academic Style of Writing
* Plagiarism

Monday, February 2, 2009

Online Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia.com provides access to 49 encyclopedias (including Oxford University Press and Britannica) and 73 dictionaries and thesauruses. It offers acccess to articles from more than 3,500 credible reference works and publications, including newspapers, journals, and magazines.

Whether teaching staff, business people or students need access to information, this is a good place to look.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Studying English

Describing itself as "A Place to Study English", this web site is designed for people studying English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL). It offers a range of fun activities including quizzes, word games, proverbs, slang expressions, anagrams, and more. If you are an English speaker, you may also find it a fun site to explore.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Free Photographs

Today's site Cepolina photo offers over 5,000 free photographs for private or comercial use. There are some terms and conditions which include crediting the website, not using the photos to clone the site and not linking directly to photos on the site. The supports image searching in 17 different languages.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Classroom Polls

One way to interact with students in a class is to ask then to vote on an issue or something you have been discussing in the lesson. Polls Everywhere is a website which enables you to get immeduate feedback in the form of charts as people respond by texting or on the internet. This can be displayed in the lesson and so form the basis of the continuing discussion. Alternatively, the poll can be added to a website or downloaded in a PowerPoint or Spreadsheet file. As long as you want a maximum of 30 responses, the service is free but you can pay varying amounts for additional features and votes.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Photography School

Whether you use a camera to produce images for fun, teaching resources or as a subject in it's own right, the Digital Photography School is a website worth visiting. It offers simple tips to help digital camera owners get the most out of their cameras.

The site is owned by a photography enthusiast Darren Rowse who describes it as "a learning environment where I think out loud about what I know and where in our Forum we share what we’re learning by showing our photos and ask and answer each other questions."

Monday, January 26, 2009

Hospitality Resources

The Barkeeper website offers a wide range of hospitality information, resources and reference tools. For members, this includes more than 200 Checklists, Spreadsheets, Forms and Templates to establish standard operating procedures in your bar, restaurant and kitchen, expert 'how-to' articles, human resource advice, food & beverage, health & safety help, marketing advice, job descriptions, training manuals, and guidelines on UK hospitality law and Irish law.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Geography at the Movies

Geography at the Movies is a non-profit making free site for geography teachers to share their films. Topics covered include agriculture, climate change, coasts, development, environment, industry, places, population, resources, rivers, rocks, settlement, tectonics, tourism and weather

Originally set up as a blog intended to collate movies made by geographers, its popularity has seen it developed into this website.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Primary Source Information

AwesomeStories is a fascinating website which provides access to a wealth of primary-source information. Designed and launched in 1999, it aims to help educators and individuals find original sources, located at national archives, libraries, universities, and government web sites.

If you are interested in history, literature, movies, biographies, law, archaeology, audio stories, or just have a few minutes to pass it is worth having a look!

I you want to view more than the first few chapters on any subject you need to register but this is easy and free. You can also sign up your educational institution and receive a password that can be used by a group of students for free.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Office Software

In addition to using specialist education software, most students and teaching staff use a range of standard office software. While Microsoft Office is probably the most common, it can be expensive. However, there is currently an offer for students and teaching staff to purchase it at a much reduced price. Microsoft is offering Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 for £38.95! Follow the link for more details and conditions.

For people who are not in a position to purchase Microsoft Office, there is a free version of office software called Open Office which offers similar functionality.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Flickr for photo sharing

I joined Flickr to enable me to upload and share photographs. In order to sign up I needed a Yahoo account (Yahoo have owned this site since 2005) and then followed the Flickr link from the yahoo page which enabled me to sign up for my Flickr account.

The sight offers clear instructions about how to upload and share photographs and videos and has a range of privacy (or otherwise) options to facilitate sharing and organising of photographs.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Psychology

Started in 1992 by a graduate student called Chris Heffner (now Dr Chris Heffner), the AllPsych website has dramatically expanded into a large and comprehensive psychology website.

The site offers links to setions covering psychology texts, references, psychiatric disorders, a journal, online tests, psychology forums, research information and fun and games.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Wanderlust

Rather than just look at geography or history sites, why not try a new perspective - travel the world with the explorers. Wanderlust website enables you to go on some of the most famous historical journeys - whether you want to travel the Old Silk Road, Around the World in 80 Days or another of history's greatest journeys. Select your journey and follow the route around the world with pictures and information on route. Happy travels.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Excel is Fun

Excel is Fun Channel on YouTube is a website worth looking at if you want to learn more about using Microsoft Excel software. You will find over 400 hundred videos offering advice, tips and tricks for using Excel. Whether you are a complete beginner or regular user, you should find something of interest. The site also provides a link to downloadable workbooks which support the videos.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

How Stuff Works

A great site for inquisitive minds is "How Stuff Works". You can use this website to learn how pretty much anything works with straightforward explanations and videos to help you understand. If you cannot understand or need a clear way to explain something to others it is worth looking it up on this site.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Visual Geography

Created by Boris Kester (a photographer, webmaster and writer) and Nana Bjørnlund (a photographer, editor and writer), Visual Geography is a website dedicated to to those studying and teaching about the world. The site places more emphasis on visual than textual information and lets you explore the world through images, flags, money, language, maps and other information. The site also offers a "Did you know" announcement which is updated each time the site is accessed, quizes aimed at different levels of knowledge and the opportunity to share your own photographs.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Talking Avatar

There may be times you want to pass on information in a different way. For example to liven up a web page or blog. You could try creating your own avatar. With Voki, you can customise what you look and sound like or even record your own message.

Get a Voki now!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Teaching Techniques

A fun video with some serious points about teaching techniques that I came across some time ago. The video "The Educational Adventures of Brent and Joel" is based around The Sound of Music.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Dictionary.com

Today's post was prompted by a discussion with some of my students about academic writing and the difficulties they have with this.

The Dictionary.com website is a very useful tool for those wishing to check the meanings of words or search foar alternative vocabulary. However is has much more to offer than this including

a translation tool and multilingual dictionary

language and grammar guides and podcasts

puzzles

and much more.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Cartoon Creator

Sometimes it is helpful to present teaching materials in pircure or cartoon format. Makebeliefscomix.com is a very easy to use site which takes you through the stages of creating a short comic book cartoon. Once created you can email the cartoon to yourself (or others). Easy to use, I have made use of this in my online modules to emphasise key points I am making.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

National Geographic

The National Geographic Society is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. It provides wide ranging information about geography, archaeology, natural science, environmental and historical conservation, and world culture and history.

The National Geographic website has something to offer all age groups.

Of particular note are the geography quizes which are updated daily and record scores to enable competition.

There are also daily news updates, photographs and videos and many articles and quizes covering a wide range of topics including animals, science, health, astronomy, geography, history, environment, people, culture and much more.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Historical Timeline (of art)

Happy New Year!

Reflecting on the start of a new year and as the old year passes into history, the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, seemed like a topical website to explore in my first post of the year.

This website explores the history of art based on chronology, geography or themes. In addition to a useful history of art, this site provides more general historical timeline which can supplement other non-art-based teaching resources.