5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds

5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds in the History of Religion. The March of Democracy, WWII, Iraq, Terrorism - these are examples of the other very effective interactive maps that capture the sweep of history in an incredibly dynamic way. Thanks to Maps of War atlases will never be the same.





Try 4,000 years of democracy in 90 seconds. "Where has democracy dominated and where has it retreated? This map gives us a visual ballet of democracy's march across history as the most popular form of government. From the first ancient republics to the rise of self-governing nations, see the history of democracy: 4,000 years in 90 seconds...!"

So cool!

VocabGrabber : Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

Roget (of thesaurus fame) is rolling over in his grave, because VocabGrabber is in da' house! I copy/pasted text from a few recent blog posts and got a visual map of my word usage, analysis, relevance, and I can dig into specific words for richer interaction with my vocabulary.

This is a powerful tool for a student to analyze work in a non-threatening way. Kids invest a lot into their writing, and live under the pressure of grading and the whole "my grade=my sense of self-worth dynamic." (OK, I am writing this on Sunday afternoon, and I am ready for a nap.) I can imagine this might also be a powerful way to study the classics and the word choices of the great authors.

I love tools like this because they are relevant to how students process information. This relevance also means they have the opportunity to view their work as relevant, and not something to be turned in and forgotten. Analysis like this is critical to intellectual growth. The colors are pretty, too. Time for a nap ;)

Playing with Words

How about this for a twist on meeting minutes? I used the library department minutes from 4.29 to try out this new tool.

Word Sift is a nifty little application that allows you to paste text into a window and generate a visual analysis based on frequency and other little algorithm bits. Words that are classed as academic show up in orange. Click on any word for a definition, related web sources, and the location of the word in your text.

Project research, access, demonstrated - orange and high frequency.
Student, laptop, library, noodlebib, english - high frequency.

Over the past two weeks we have had a large number of English classes booking in for research, using the laptops, and getting lessons in how to use NoodleBib for citation and note taking. Very accurate!

There is also a visual thesaurus, as can be seen with the word "student". Plug in a more sophisticated word, and the thesaurus really gets interesting. At the bottom of the page you can click on a recent Obama speech for a demo. Cool.

Why is this important? Word Sift is another way to visualize writing, another way to evaluate, and another way to understand words and language. More important, it is fun. I'm going to copy/paste the subject lines from my spam account. That should prove interesting!

Another plug for Wordle

Wordle is one of those cool little applications that is fun to play with, fun to browse, and is perfect for looking at things a little differently (and it is free!).

"Wordle is a toy for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

Obama's Inaugural Address is a great example. The optimism, inclusiveness and and seriousness of purpose are very apparent. I used it to analyze my tags from LibraryThing and it clearly showed my preference for YA fiction and coming-of-age stories. How else can it be used to look at data that doesn't always lend itself to analysis?

Google Earth

MassCue - Google Earth
Notes from two presentations



Awesome Integration of Google Earth
Kevin McGonegal, Tech Specialist, Cambridge Public Schools
kmcgonegal@cpsd.us
www.newtechteaching.com

Google Earth - Makes a World of Difference in Your Classroom
Carol LaRow, Google Certified Teacher, Apple Distinguished Educator

I went to two presentations because I really want to get some vision about what is possible, and some depth in the range of this application. How are teachers and students using this? Google Earth, Google Sky, Lit Trips, layers, this thing is like Aladdin's Cave! I want to show it to Foreign Language, English, Social Studies, Earth Science - this is so far beyond enhancement. This is transformative.

Google Earth is a geographic information system. Google's goal is to make information universally acceptable and useful. Over half of the world's population can see their home!
Google Earth Pro - free to educators, but you have to go through an application process. Can get a lab license to install on every computer. Benefit is there is a dedicated Google server so it is a little faster and can embed extra media.
Can use any embedable code.

Historic Tale Construction Kit

Historic Tale Construction Kit
This is the coolest site I have seen in awhile. It makes me want to re-read The Canterbury Tales. Inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, you can create your own, embroidered, medieval legend. It has great music, too. What a wonderful way to create alternate assessments or review elements of character or plot. You can save your historic tale, add panels, email it to someone, or upload it. It is fun, easy to use, and free.

The Video Republic

Camera phones and YouTube have changed the terrain. Students are visual learners, they create visual content with ease and skill. Statistics show we live in a visual world, with most adults getting their news in digital formats. This video (three and a half minutes) speaks to this point very well. Britain is far ahead of the U.S. in the integration of different forms of media into the educational system. We need to do do the same.