What does renewable energy mean to you?

Since Canada is 60% water, Canadian Geographic has decided to do a photo contest  on "What does renewable energy mean to you?"  There are some cool prizes available.  To see the website click here.

Banned Book Week in the US

September 27 - October 3 is Banned Book week in the USA.  Here is a top 10 list of challenged books in 2014 and one for 2013 according to the American Library Association  that we have in our library.

The top ten most frequently challenged books of 2014 include:

click here

1)      The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

Reasons: anti-family, cultural insensitivity, drugs/alcohol/smoking, gambling, offensive language, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, violence. Additional reasons: “depictions of bullying”

Click here

2)      Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi

Reasons: gambling, offensive language, political viewpoint. Additional reasons: “politically, racially, and socially offensive,” “graphic depictions”

Click here

4)      The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison

Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “contains controversial issues”

Click here

7)      The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited to age group, violence

Click here

8)      The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “date rape and masturbation”

The top ten most frequently challenged books of 2013 include:

Click here

2)      The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison

Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “contains controversial issues”

click here

3)      The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

Reasons: anti-family, cultural insensitivity, drugs/alcohol/smoking, gambling, offensive language, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, violence. Additional reasons: “depictions of bullying”

Click here

5)         The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

Click here

7)         Looking For Alaska, by John Green

Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

Click here

8)      The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “date rape and masturbation”

Click here

10)      Bone (series), by Jeff Smith

Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence

E Skeletons

This site is produced by the University of Texas.  It is an interactive site that allows you and your students to examine and learn about skeletal anatomy through their extensive database.  

To see the website, click here.  Under the Resources heading you can find some crossword puzzles and word search.  

Highbrow

A five minute lesson can be delivered to you everyday in your email on a selected topic.  Some lessons are: "Most Famous Works of Art",  "The Most Influential Speeches in World History", "Great Surrealist Painters of All Time" and "The Most Powerful in History" to name a few. 

To sign up go to Highbrow.

Music Tech Teacher

If you are a music teacher you might want to check out this website.  There looks to be many resources that you could use in your elementary and middle school music classroom.  To see the website click here.

History Cartoon Analysis

This online active from "Active History"  is so that students can work on understanding political cartoons in a historical context.  You can choose from:  The Peace Treaties after WWI, League in the 1920s, Nazi Germany and others.  To see the website click here.

RefME

On the Kennedy Portal under the Learning Commons, under Student Resources I have many links to Referencing and Bibliographies.  To see that page click here

If you would like to use your phone to do your citing by using the books ISBN bar code you can try using RefME.  

RefME also has a Chrome extension that you can use right on your toolbar on your computer.  To see RefME click here.

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Mathchat

Edusurge says "MathChat helps students help each other. Teacher Sam Woodard noticed that when students didn’t understand a math problem, they would text a photo of it to a friend to get help. On MathChat, students can enter or draw a math problem, add friends to it, and collaborate by drawing, typing, and asking each other follow-up questions"

The app is free for the iphone and ipod.  It can be downloaded from the Itunes store by clicking here.

Dustbin

This is a nice little review quiz maker for your students to play.  You can find this by clicking here.

I have prepared a little video on how to use this tool.  I think this would be great to use on a classroom webpage or on your classroom blog.  Maybe students could make up their own as a review for the class as part of their evaluation.

Miniature Art

Ever wonder how everyday items would look like from your cats perspective?

Now I just posted pictures of Tatsuya Tanaka's miniature art that appealed to my track and field sense, but there are many other interesting pics that can be seen on the website by clicking here.
This could make a cool project for students in an art or photography class.

Quizzity

Quizzity is a geography game.  You will be given the name of a city and you have to place where it is.  To see the game, click here.   If you want another geography game, I posted on November 13 2013 about  Geoguessr.  To see that post click here.   I also posted some other links for Geography Awareness Week on November 19 2012.  To see that post, click here.

Technology in the FSL classroom workshop

Not sure if your board will supply you with the cash for the $120 registration fee but if you can make it up to Toronto on some Saturdays, Sylvia will be running some workshops.  To see the information, click here.

Rocket Science 101

If you are teaching Rocket Science here is is an iphone and ipad app from NASA.  It is available for free at Itunes by clicking here. 

 If you would like more information about launching rockets you might want to go the NASA website by clicking here.

If you are a teacher you may want to go to their educator site by clicking here.

Memrise

Memrise is a tool to learn many different subjects.  It is part flash cards for review or learning.  It is part quiz.  I like this tool.  There a many premade categories with subtopics ranging from languages to science, math, history etc.  You can even make your own.  For example I looked under languages and found Ukrainian.  There are many science ones.  For example there was one on parts of the cell which fits in nicely with grade 9 science.

Here are the terms the student can learn.  Then when you start it will give you one term with a definition then when you are ready you will get a second term and its definition.  After that you will be quizzed.  More terms and more quizzing.  You get the picture.

Some of the slides I saw included pictures, pronunciation and sound.  There are many uses for the class room educator.  First students can go on there own to review.  Even better there is Memrise for Teachers.  Memrise for Teachers allows you to add students to your account.  You can then assign review material for them and track their progress.  To go to the Memrise site click here.  To go to the Memrise for Teachers site click here.

Financial Soccer

This was made for the 2014 FIFA World Soccer in Brazil but still is just as good.  It is produced by Visa and is a multiple choice game.  

To play the game, click here.

HSTRY

HSTRY is a tool that lets students and teachers create interactive timelines, integrating primary source materials.  This website offers interactive timeline creation tools--think audio, video, and quizzes--that are relevant in any class. Use material from the HSTRY team, create your own timelines or use the site as a jump off point for student assignments.  To see the website, click here.  (I just noticed that HSTRY is now called Sutori but everything else is the same)

Hstry at Steve Jobs school from Hstry on Vimeo.

Non-Fiction Reading of Current Events

Would you like to have your students read articles on current events that are differentiated by reading level.  Each article has the same content but is differentiated at 5 different reading levels by Lexile.

To see the website click here.  You will have to register but the service is free.