Two Great new GIZMOS

GIZMOS, a piece of OSAPAC software, that is much loved and used by teachers and students in the WECDSB, and in Ontario, has released 2 new GIZMOS for Science, including one that will be very beneficial in the Mathematics classroom as well. 

As with all new GIZMOS, resources include:

• a Student Exploration Guide & Key (in Word and .pdf format)
• a Teacher Guide (in Word and .pdf format)
• a Vocabulary Sheet (in Word and .pdf format)
• Assessment Questions

 The DIGESTIVE SYSTEM GIZMO allows students to arrange the organs and structures of the human digestive system in any way they like. By measuring how well different nutrients are digested and absorbed, students can discover for themselves the important role that each organ plays in the digestive process. Perhaps somebody can use this Gizmo to improve the design of our own digestive system!

The second new Gizmo focuses on an important skill in all areas of science and math: the ability to convert a measurement or value from one unit to another. The UNIT CONVERSIONS GIZMO allows students to answer questions such as "What is the height of Mount Everest in kilometers?" or "How fast is sprinter Usain Bolt in miles per hour?" With 55 preset problems (and 12 additional randomized questions) to choose from, students will get plenty of practice converting distance, time, speed, mass, volume, and density units. 

For more information, please read the latest edition of the

GIZMOS and REFLEX newsletter.

Please contact Joe Sisco for Registration information for GIZMOS and all OSAPAC software.

Printing POSTERS for your classroom... inexpensively



PosteRazor



Many teachers and students have discovered infographics and find them to be a wealth of information displayed in a visual-pleasing way. Most of these infographics are large images that would be cost-prohibitive to print and display in your classroom.



An inexpensive and easy option is to 'cut up' the image, print individual pages, and glue or tape them together. After laminating the assembled image, the final product is a 'seamless' poster without the hefty pricetag.



PosteRazor is a free website that splits up any image into a printable .pdf in no time. 

The infographic at the left, about CYCLING INJURIES, is a large image that I brought into PosteRazor,
which created a 20-page .pdf, that may now be printed on 8.5 by 11 paper.





I have provided another example with a FACTORING infographic, at the right, that PosteRazor converted into
a 6-page .pdf that, when assembled, is more than a metre tall!

If you love information communicated in a visually appealing and simplifying manner then Infographics are for you. Infographics illustrate how information can be spread and understood in a graphic manner,
usually much easier than pure text.

Find hundreds of Infographics online at the
INFOGRAPHICS SHOWCASE.

* Please note that some material may be for mature viewers only.



Join the Conversation about Professional Learning Communities

Catholic Central History teacher Chad Barrette has been chosen by the folks at ALL THINGS PLC to host their weekly PLC chat on twitter.
Please join in Thursday April 19th from 9 pm - 10 pm at #atplc.

The topic is Secondary PLCs - Trials and Tribulations,a multi-disciplinary approach. 

Join Twitter today!



The format is as follows: Chad will begin the discussion by posing tweets such as,

What are some of the challenges of starting
a Secondary PLC?
How did you overcome them?

How do you instill the moral purpose of being
an educator in a PLC?

　

Staff need to celebrate success in PLC,
how do you celebrate your success?

What has been the focus of your Secondary PLC?
Did it change? Why?

What books or articles have you used
in your secondary PLC?

Any advice to offer a new Secondary PLC School?

You may participate in a couple of ways:

#1. You can join the conversation live if you have a Twitter account, simply follow #atplc at 9:00 pm on Thursday, April 19th. If you are new to Twitter, creating an account takes only a few minutes at https://twitter.com/signup.

#2. You may simply be a spectator and follow the conversation using Twitterfall (no account is needed, but please be advised that Twitterfall is not moderated and may contain inappropriate material)

Post Content Quickly and Easily

Embedit is a free website that allows users to embed any file into your website. I have embedded examples of files below - in different formats (.pdf, .docx, .jpg).

Embedit makes it convenient for your viewers to see and interact with your content right in their browser with no need to prompt for any software download or account for variability in user experience. Experience never-before-possible control over the documents and files on your website.
I have provided examples of the 3 ways that you can choose how your viewers experience your documents...
#1. Embed the document directly in your webpage


#2. Create a thumbnail in an overlay on top of the page








#3. Create a link that opens in an overlay on top of the page


After opening any file, you will notice that viewers can easily zoom, view full-screen, scroll through, print and download any document.

Another great feature is that Embedit allows users to control the level of access they provide for viewers. When you embed a file you may choose a combination of any of the choices below.

Thank you to Ian Cullion at Catholic Central for this contribution.

101 Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers You Should Know About

Erik Schreefel spent a month looking at over 2000 tools and came up with this list of 101 tools that you might want to try as a teacher. 

When looking at the list you will notice that there are often more than one site listed for the same thing (eg YouTube, TeacherTube, Vimeo, or Flikr, Photobucket, Picasa etc). However, if there was one clear winner it was Google, which showed up with the most tools. 

Have fun finding new stuff to use.

Pinterest in the Classroom

It seems that the fastest growing social network site is Pinterest. To give you a sense of how fast, in September 2011, there was about 350,000 users. In December there was about 1.3 million and now just over 3 million. Sure, that's no Facebook but that is a 1000% increase in users in about a half a year. And by all accounts, the users are like junkies.

If you are not sure what Pinterest is, then you are in the same boat as me. It has been compared to a cross between Delicious and Facebook. Delicious is a social bookmarking site and Facebook is MySpace Ver 2.0 (You can Like that if you wish). Full disclosure: I joined Pinterest a couple of weeks ago and haven't done a thing with it. I have been a user of Delicious for about 3 years and have over 1000 links now (mostly about math - go figure) so moving to a new social bookmarking site might be a lot of work. I am not sure why I joined Pinterest but this video has actually inspired me to give it a closer look as a collaboration tool in the classroom.

The Philosophy of Computer Programming

• If you have ever done any computer programming, you should watch this seminar. For it shows how simple tweaks in our programming languages could make creativity flourish.
• If you have ever been interested in the history of computing, you should watch this seminar. For it shows that there have been visionaries in computer science that think of the computer as something that can transform us.
• If you have ever considered yourself a visual learner, you should watch this seminar. For it shows the power of how seeing immediate feedback can accelerate your knowledge.
• If you have ever been interested in science or math, you should watch this seminar. For it shows how the merging of analytic thinking and real time feedback can make solving equations and the scientific method so easy a 4th grader could do it.

Bret Victor is a software pioneer and artist. He has worked for Apple and Al Gore (among others). He has also shown that math does not have to be abstract with his Kill Math project. In this seminar he starts off fairly dry, showing some software coding but quickly shows that by exploiting the tools available, programming creativity explodes.

He then shows how intuitive animation production could be on the iPad and then finishes off by using the example of Larry Tesler (the guy who invented cut, copy, paste - really) that invention can be so much more than just making new stuff.

In the end, this seems like the perfect fit for a blog that is called "Don't fight tech, use the right tech". I mean if you look at how programming is still done, it's ironic that it hasn't changed much in 40 years. Sure there are new languages but the fundamental process is the same. Bret shows that it doesn't have to be.

Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle from CUSEC on Vimeo.