Blockchain and Bitcoin

Ryan Byrne posted the following enlightening videos about blockchain.  They come from Common Craft and Financial Post.  Take a look at the videos below.

Student Art Guide and Photography

If you are taking a high school photography class then this site will give you over 100 ideas to play with.  Pick up your DSLR and go to town.  To see the website click here.

Geographic Literacy

Max Wilbert talks about 9 reasons to study geography.  You can see this article on Brainscape by clicking here.  You may also want to have your students watch the following video.

Fake News

No I am not going to launch into some Trump bashing but I did want to point out this nice bookmark that Martha M posted on our boards Librarian Conference on Edsby, see below.  Also if you would like to see some of the previous posts on fake news I have posted, click here

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Photomath

From their website, "Photomath is a mobile application described as a "camera calculator", which utilizes a phone's camera to recognize mathematical patterns and to display the solution directly onscreen. It is available for free on Google Android and iOS"

I have utilized this app on my phone and it works well with typed questions and even on my hand written questions.  Not only will it show you a solution but will show you the steps used to get the solution algebraically and graphically.  This works from basic arithmetic through trigonometry and Calculus.  To see the webpage click here.  The downloads can be found for iOS by clicking here  and for Android by clicking here. 

Cueprompter - a free online telepromter

If your students are video recording themselves reading out a script they might want to consider Cuepromter.  It is a free online teleprompter that displays their script scrolling down on their screen.  You just enter the script into the dialogue box and then select the size of font, how wide the screen is, the speed of scrolling and other attributes.  To see the website click here. 

Brusheezy for Photoshop

Are you looking for some free Photoshop brushes and patterns? If so you should try Brusheezy, which is a community driven where you can download various Photoshop brushes and patterns.  The site is well categorized with many subcategories(see the pic below).  To see the website click here.

Panama Canal

I know you have heard of the Panama Canal but did you ever hear about the Nicaragua Canal?  Well the Nicaragua Canal  was a competing proposal that the US congress was considering.  To read about it click here. 

28 Boring Words

The corresponding infographic for some reason I could not get to size up correctly so I decided to post the link for it.  Click here.

20 Element Infographic

Here are 20 elements in a nice infographic.  Found on themetapicture.com

draw chat

Drawchat is a free collaborative tool that is similar to paint.  You can import pictures and modify them like paint.  The neat part is that Drawchat gives you a unique URL that you can share with a collaborator and they can then make changes and collaborate with you.  There is also a chat feature on this tool so that you can message each other.

From their website, "Draw.Chat is anonymous, online drawing board. You can create your paint chat in one click – without any registration. Every whiteboard has a unique, randomly generated URL which you can send to other people to start a real-time collaboration.

Get your personal chat room with the whiteboard where you can drop and paste Screenshots, Images and PDF’s. Use your camera to start a secure P2P video conference. You can also drag and drop images from your camera directly to the canvas. Use the bell for offline notification – when someone else open or write in the chat room. Draw.Chat delivers tools for annotating PDF’s, Maps, and Screenshots."

School Arts Magazine

If you are teaching high school art you might want to show this online magazine to your aspiring artists.  It is called "School Arts Magazine" and here is what they say about themselves, "SchoolArts is a national art education magazine committed to promoting excellence, advocacy, and professional support for educators in the visual arts since 1901."  To see the magazine click here.  There articles that might get the art teacher doing some coteaching with other departments as seen by the titles, "Art + Math = Awesome" and "The Art and Science of STEAM".

National Geographic Mapmaker Kit

If you would like some large maps for your classroom that you can printout on regular 8x11 paper and jigsaw them together then try National Geographic Mapmaker Kit.  According to their website,"Each kit enables the user to download, print, and assemble maps of the world, individual continents, and the United States in a variety of sizes. Mega maps occupy a large wall, or can be used on the floor; projector maps give you some flexibility about sizing; the tabletop map is good for small group work, and the one-page outline maps are perfect for individual work."

To see the website click here.

The Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic

If you are teaching a course that involves the Inuit you might want to look at the website "The Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic".  Keir Clarke describes the website as "an Esri story map about the peoples who have lived in the Arctic for millennia. It looks at where indigenous populations live in the Arctic, where indigenous languages are spoken and the regions of the six Permanent Participants of the Arctic Council.

As well as exploring the different indigenous cultures and languages and where they live in the Arctic this story map looks at the history of colonialism in the Arctic and more recent attempts to establish the indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination. It includes a detailed look at the Arctic Council and how it operates."

To see the Indigenous Peoples of the Artic click here.

Expii Solve

Expii solve has over 70 different sets of math word problems that are arranged by a theme.  Each theme has five problems along that theme.  To see the website click here.  If students need help, at the bottom of each page is a set of tutorials.

Symbaloo

Edshelf describes Symbaloo as  " a customizable start page tool that lets users add all their most important links in a format that is easy to use. The user’s webmix appears as sleek buttons with icons or logos. The user can drag and drop items to organize them in a way that is convenient and practical. The items, or tiles, can be searched so users can find those that are most relevant to the items they are adding. "

Here is an example below.  If you are a science teacher, you might have your physics tiles coloured red,  your chemistry tiles coloured blue etc. To see their website, click here.

March Reading Madness

Well it is March and I know you ballers are looking forward to March Madness.  In the library I have run March Reading Madness to  coincide with they 64 team tourney.  I have selected the top  16 books that have gone out in our library based on the books circulation.  To decide which book moves on we use a bit of probability.

  Let us assume book A has been taken out 30 times and book B has been taken out 20 times then book A should  get through to the next round 30/(30+20) or 3/5ths of the time compared to book B's 2/5ths of the time.  We then have a student use their calculator and the random number generator to pick a number between 1 and 50.  If it is 1-30 then book A advances and if it is 31-50 then book B advances.  Just working a bit of math in here for you.