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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

History and Literature for Music Lovers


 How would you like to see a history lesson and a few literary works done to music videos.  The Trojan War sung to Tainted Love.  Napoleon sung to Gone Daddy Gone.  Martin Luther sung to Manic Monday.  Beowulf sung to 99 Luftballons.    They have produced 43 videos so far.  Take a look by clicking here.
Great job Mrs B and Mr J!  The following is for my wife who is of Macedonian ancestry.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Sports Illustrated and some Manga in

The April 29 S.I. is now in.  We also picked up a whack load of Manga (click here for an explanation)  that I was able to pick up second hand but only read once (like new) for next to nothing.  We now have Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles v.7 - v.11, Cardcaptor Sakura v.1-v.6 and Gravitation v1.-v.5.




Math is Power 4 U

From James Sousa,
This site has a searchable collection of math videos that is at the perfect level for high school.  I know Khan Academy is a great place to look for some help but here is another location if you need some help with some concepts.  You can look at the site by clicking here  or their Youtube channel by clicking here.

Friday, April 26, 2013

New Arrivals

The following are all Alex award winners.  The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.
For a title peek click here
For a title peek click here

For a title peek click here
For a title peek click here

Assessment Rubrics from Rcampus


iRubric (TM)
Well it is spring and I imagine Mr. Crowley will be on the  front lawn playing softball with his students when he comes back from his badminton hiatus.  I thought he might want a rubric for this unit.  There are many good sites for building rubrics but lets not reinvent the wheel.  Irubric from Rcampus has a huge database of rubrics for all different subjects and can be found by clicking here.  Here is one for softball.  You can take anyone of the rubrics from their site and modify/edit it to fit your needs.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Smart Board Slides for Music

The following Smartboard slides are from Andy Ramos.  The first set of 10 slides is for 5 different instruments.  One page labels the instrument while the next has the names whited out.  You just erase to uncover the part name.  The instruments included are: trumpet, trombone, saxophone, flute and clarinet.
Click here to download the file.
The next set of two slides is for the guitar.  The slides have guitar necks and the students can move the dots to where the fingers go for a particular chord.  Click here for the files.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Subways of North America

In 1989 I was fortunate enough to go see the University of Michigan beat Illinois by 2 in the NCAA semifinal and then in the Final game of March Madness beat Seton Hall by 1 in overtime when Rumeal Robinson sunk both free throws with just 3 seconds left.  What does this have to do with subways?  Well Randall Munroe of
xkcd.com logo
has produced a map showing all the subways in North America down through Mexico.  The map is not to scale or anything like that but it does show how things are interconnected.  According to his map I could of left Vancouver and eventually worked my way to Atlanta to watch this years game featuring the University of Michigan and Louisville. You might be able to use this in class if you are talking about public transportation. 



If you would like to see the original map click here.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Steve Spangler Science

Here is a great set of videos for your classes.  Steve believes bigger is better when it comes to science experiments.  These might give you an idea of something you and your students can do in class.  These videos are about 10-15 minutes long which is considerably longer than his "Sick Science" videos.



This is season 2 for him but season 1 had 45 episodes and he is at episode 6 as of now for this year.  At the bottom of his page you can pick "Older Clips" or "Newer Clips".   Maybe these will give you some ideas to use in class with your students.  Click here to go to his video page.


New Arrivals

We have  added a couple of teen help books: Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Tough Stuff and from the Teen Love Series on Relationships.
click here for a title peek

click here for a title peek

Monday, April 22, 2013

New Arrivals

The Michael L. Printz Award annually honors the best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit, each year.  Both of these books are Printz award winners  and came from our grant we received. 
The first is called American Born Chinese.  This is a graphic novel.  From Destiny, "Three seemingly unconnected stories come together in this award winning graphic novel. Jin Wang has moved from Chinatown and is struggling to fit into his new white suburban neighbourhood. The Monkey King, being the most powerful monkey in the world wants to increase his status to God. And Danny, a popular basketball player, finds his social status at risk when his cousin, the ultimate of negative Chinese stereotypes, enrolls in his school. These unconnected stories unite with a surprising ending."  For a title peek click here.

The second is called A Step from Heaven.  This is about a young girl who leaves Korea for the USA.  It follows her life from the age of 4 up to college.  For a review please click here.

Plagiarism Education Week

From plagiarism.org


Previously I posted about Plagiarism (see December 12, 2012 by clicking here).  One of the things I had posted on that day was Turnitin.com.  They are hosting webinars everyday this week.  To see what they are offering click here.   On our PD day last Friday, I popped into Mr. Loncke's seminar on Turnitin.com.  He has posted his slides on his website.  You can access them by clicking here.
college application plagiarism
Recently I had an elementary school teacher ask me about plagiarism so I pointed out the above article but there are many other helpful articles out there.  

New York Times
ran such an article in 2010 that is just as relevant today.  To see the article click here.  It has many links on the left hand side.


Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Noun Project

Here are some icons from the Noun Project. 
noun project
What is the Noun Project you ask?  Well it is non-profit organization that is simply trying to iconify every noun so it is universally understood.  The symbols are simple, bold and best of  all free.  Their licensing agreement is Creative Commons.  This would be great for an art class to do as a project.  Think of a noun that you love, for example for me it would be pinball.  Then come up with an icon that would represent it.

If you would like more information on the Noun Project click here.  They are also hiring.  If interested click here.  If you would like to hear what Core77 magazine has to say about the project click here

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Mission Map Quest

Last week we used for a fake text conversation.  They are at it again and have Mission Map Quest.

 This tool would be great as a review game for History, Geography or Travel and Tourism, etc.  The game is a virtual treasure hunt where you use the map based tool to answer clues by identifying  places on the map.  You can see an example by clicking here.  There is no reason to limit Mission Map Quest to you being the sole maker of questions.  Maybe you can have your students make their own Quest for  the class.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Eternal flame in the Hall of Remembrance

Holocaust Remembrance Day was April 8 and I missed the opportunity to blog about it on the actually day but here goes.  The day marks the anniversary of the ghetto uprising in Warsaw 70 years ago.  There are many good links dealing with with the Holocaust.  Here are some:
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum which has many resources for students and teachers that can be found by clicking here
The USC Shoah Foundation has many resources for teachers that can be found by clicking here.
The Anne Frank Center USA.  We also have the book "Anne Frank: A portrait in courage" in the library.


Monday, April 15, 2013

More Magazines In


Numberfile

If you happen to be teaching permutations and combinations or are just interested in Rubik's Cube then what is the fewest number of moves which can solve any Rubik's Cube?  It's God's Number.  The people at Numberphile have a bunch of video's relating to numbers.  You can check them out by clicking here.
 

Friday, April 12, 2013

New York Times Found Poetry Contest

New York Times is running a "Found Poetry Contest".  Sorry for the late heads up but I just found out  about it myself yesterday and it ends Monday April 15 at 5 PM.  The article with the rules can be found by clicking here.   Note rule number 3.  " The poem itself should use no more than two of your own words. The rest of the words and phrases should come from some article or articles published in The New York Times, past or present. (Note: We check. People have been disqualified for not adhering to this rule.)"

Again sorry for the late catch on this but at least you have the weekend.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Teacher Invaders Game Generator


 Teacher Invaders game screen
Using the following site it is quite easy to make up your own flash game that can easily test definitions or terminology.    Just type in your questions and press generate.  The generator is free but you must join a forum to have access to making your own game.  To make your own games click here.   You can see the game in action as shown below for a music class by clicking here.  
 
If you would like to see the same game for a geography class click here.  I tried to download the file but I could not do that at school so hopefully it will work outside the school firewall. 

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Street View of Mt. Everest and a documentary


Google has now has Street View for four of the Seven Summits (the highest point in each of the seven continents).  The summits they have now on Street View are: Mt. Everest, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Elbrus and Mt. Aconcagua.  To see the Street View page click here.  You may also want to look at my post on January 9th that had a very HD zoomable pic of Mt. Everest Base Camp and the Khumbu Glacier by clicking here.

Also you might be interested in Kraig Becker's BBC documentary about Sherpas on the mountains.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Fake Text Conversations

Previously I have blogged about Fake Facebooks and Tweets (see December 18 2012 by clicking here).

Our friends at are up to it again.   You could have students have a fake text conversations between two historical figures or characters from different novels or from mythology fairly easy.  Below is an example from Star Wars from their site.



It is very easy to use. Just click on the left button  and enter the text.  When you want to enter text from the other user, click on the right button .  The template for this can be found by clicking here.

Monday, April 8, 2013

New Books

These books are all from the grant we received.  This batch of books are all Graphic Novels.



News in Review

The March edition is now on our shelves.


Idle No More: A Protest for Aboriginal Rights
What began as an online conversation about native rights quickly put Canada into the international spotlight as a movement called Idle No More popped up across the country. It was prompted by the federal government introducing Bill C-45 which would have a significant impact on the lives of indigenous peoples. (Length: 18:49)


Flu Season: Winter’s Nasty Blow
Along with cold, ice and snow the arrival of winter also ushers in flu season. People across the country and around the world are hit every year by the flu bug. But how bad was it this year and what can be done about it? (Length: 14:02)


The Human Brain: Unravelling the Mysteries
This two-part story looks at recent advancements in brain research. Canadian scientists are at the forefront of developments that focus on understanding what motivates human behaviour. (Length: 16:51)


Super Rich: Decline of the U.S. Middle Class
It’s called The American Dream — a long held belief that if you work hard enough and long enough you can be successful. But that dream is no longer possible for many Americans and Keith Boag explains why. (Length: 12:39)



Self Check Practice Activity

This is like "I have, Who has" activity.  The following is from Mrs. H. from Math Tales From The Spring.  Even though this example is from math it could be used in French for translation or English for key literary terms or many other things.

"This activity is called a Star Chain. When you are tired of doing boring book work or worksheets, but your students still need a little extra practice, try a Star Chain!

Each student will get 12 problems of anything you'd like to practice. For me, it was solving linear equations."


""Next, have students cut the problem cards apart.  After the cards are cut apart, students will pick any card they want to begin with. I usually tell them to pick the one that looks easiest to them. They work the problem and then find their answer at the top of another card. They tape the cards together. Continue the process until a chain is formed. If they do all the problems correctly, the last problem will match the answer at the beginning of the chain."
"The next day, we connected all the chains and strung them up on the ceiling. I'll probably leave them there until the fire marshall gets me!"
If you would like to use this in your class, just click here and change the questions to what pertains to your subject matter.

Here is an example from MathCathy using quadratics functions and translations.  
IMG_2164
IMG_2151
If you would like a copy of the handout sheets in pdf, click here.  

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Choose What Happens Next

On January 23 I posted "Protecting Your Online Reputation", click here.  Today's post is a series of Youtube videos that are short 15 second clips that are all linked together by asking you a "Yes" or "No" question.  Based on your answer, it brings you to another video.   The first video is about a boyfriend asking his girlfriend for an inappropriate picture of herself.   It is all about making good choices.  This video should actually be seen by parents of high school age students.  Here is the first video.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Eduzone

Educational Resources Eduzone
From the Governor General, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, "I am delighted to invite you to discover Eduzone, a new online educational tool designed for you and your students.  Launched on October 1, 2012, Eduzone provides educational and multimedia resources that help in learning more about the role of governor general and the history of the position."  If you are interested click here.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

New Books

These books are part of our multicultural grant and are both graphic novels.  The Photographer weaves photographs with the cartoon part.
Click for more information on this title
Click here for a title peek
Click for more information on this title
click here for a title peek
We also picked up the following
:
Click for more information on this title
click here for a title peek
Click for more information on this title
click here for a title peek