Digital Passports

Did you know that you needed a Web 2.0 source for quotes?  Of course you didn’t.  But now you have one!  Quotation Books is a website that lets you search for quotes by keyword or by category.  Type in your subject and inspiring, humorous, and stirring quotes will pop up in your browser window.  If you register, you can bookmark them, which will make it easy to find them later.  I do have to admit this is very handy.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve searched for the source of the same ol’ quotes.

You can also embed quotes into web pages and blog posts as you can see below.  Do you really need a widget to do that?  Probably not, but it does make it easy. 

It does have some social networking features in there too.  You can see who else has bookmarked a quote and then raid their quotes list to see if they found some nuggets you’d like.  I was hoping there’d be individual RSS feeds as well, but they haven’t extended it to that point yet.

On the whole, not a bad site, and a good place to go get inspired.  Enjoy!

Using graphs to find a downed power generator.  Triangulating where a fallen teammate lies.  Calculating angles and trajectories needed to bombard the enemy base.

Is this what you do in math class right now?  I don’t see too many hands in the air.  But I bet your students are probably drooling.  This is the approach that Tabula Digita takes with their new educational game, Dimenxian. It may look like a game of Halo, but players use math concepts to tackle the missions.  It isn’t all fun and games.  In fact, the tagline is "Homework just go harder." 

There’s a PC and a MAC free demo to try, I’m real curious to hear what you think.  Download the demo and then share your thoughts.  Would you install this on your classroom computer for your students?  Can doing your math homework get your heart rate pumping?

This site has nothing to do with education.  Instead, it’s all about saving money and getting techie geeky things for really cheap prices.  In other words, if you enjoy reading this blog, then you just may become hooked on Woot!

Woot is a website that has a different deal every day.  One day it might be a solar powered flashlight, another day it might be a Roomba, and yet another day it might be a calculator watch that plays MP3’s.  The one thing you do know is that the price is going to range from fair to dirt cheap. 

Take today’s Woot as an example.  It’s a pair of pink 512 MB MP3 players.  You may be asking yourself why anybody would possibly want a pink MP3 player that only holds 512 MB of music.  If you’re a classroom teacher who has ever considered podcasting with your students, then I think you’re looking at the deal of the year.

Did I mention that it has a built in microphone?  So your students can use it to record their podcasts.  Did I mention that 512 MB is enough to hold about 8 hours worth of voice recordings?  And did I mention that the price for this pair of mp3 players is $25?  And, as I’m fond of saying during my podcasting presentations, if a student steps on it you won’t be brought to tears.  So what if it isn’t shiny and white?  At $25 for two, you could buy an entire class pack for about the price of a single iPod (and you’d still need to buy a microphone).

Not every day is going to be a winner, but I’ve found some incredible deals at Woot in the past.  It’s one of those sites I often start the day with.  Happy Wooting!

I have to admit, I’m not exactly sure how to describe Kartoo.  It’s essentially a search engine that maps out the results graphically and shows the connections between them.  Does that mean you’ll get better results?  Well, not necessarily, but you’ll understand how they relate to each other. 

Whenever possible, Kartoo also inserts keywords in the paths between connected sites.  For example, ThinkLink is connected to Discovery Education by the keyword of assessment. 

It’s definitely one of those sites that you have to try for yourself.  But if you do, try it with some basic searches that students might do.  For example, search for Ecuador, or mammals and you can get some very relevant results organized in a fashion that I think would be beneficial to a budding researcher.

Do you feel a buzz?  If you do, it just might be the flurry of activity that’s happening in Second Life!  After a great meeting last week to talk about what the DEN’s presence in Second Life should look like, we’ve got a fantastic group of STAR’s who have volunteered to take the reigns and make it all happen.

So where do things stand?  Well at this point we have a construction crew who have chosen a new house for the DEN to reside in and are in the process of customizing it to our needs.  The events chairs are busy planning a DEN kick off event, dates and details to be forthcoming.  And there’s a freebie cube in the DEN house right now where you can get T-Shirts, laptops, and other Discovery schwag that you can wear proudly!

If you have a Second Life, don’t forget to join the Discovery Educator Network group.  Then IM me (Demb Oh) and let me know who you are so I can promote you to STAR status!

Here’s a few shots from some recent activity within Second Life:

I’m not a math guy.  My wife pays the bills in my house because I’m sloppy.  But I do like to geek out over a good set of numbers.  You should have seen me when I was trying to figure out which car was the best deal to lease.  Spreadsheets out the wazoo. 

So even though this may not be as pretty as some other Web 2.0 sites, I really dig InstaCalc.  They’re pitch is that its faster and easier than excel, you can write equations in natural language, and there’s roughly one zillion advanced commands to choose from.  NO cost, no install, and the equations are embeddable, as you can see below.   

One serious downside to it though is that you can’t embed charts into other sites.  I understand that it’s because they want to drive traffic back to them, but for a lot of things created on the site, the chart is the most important piece.  Rather short sighted of them methinks.

So all you math nuts out there, think this one is hot or not?

instacalc_embed_height = 300; instacalc_embed_width = 425; instacalc_embed_url = ‘http://instacalc.com/embed/?d=RW50ZXIgeW91ciB3ZWlnaHQgYW5kIGhlaWdodCBhbmQgZ2V0IHlvdXIgW0JNSV0oaHR0cDovL3d3dy5jZGMuZ292L25jY2RwaHAvZG5wYS9ibWkvYWR1bHRfQk1JL2Fib3V0X2FkdWx0X0JNSS5odG0p&c=cG91bmRzID0gMTUwfGZlZXQgPSA1fGluY2hlcyA9IDh8Qk1JID0gQk1JID0gNzAzICogcG91bmRzIC8gKCgxMiAqIGZlZXQgKyBpbmNoZXMpICogKDEyICogZmVldCArIGluY2hlcykpfGF2ZXJhZ2VfYm1pID0gMjcuOXxpZiAoQk1JIDwgMTguNSApIHtkaWFnbm9zaXMgPSAidW5kZXJ3ZWlnaHQifSBlbHNlIGlmIChCTUkgPCAyNC45KXsibm9ybWFsIHdlaWdodCJ9IGVsc2UgaWYgKEJNSSA8IDI5Ljkpe2RpYWdub3NpcyA9Im92ZXJ3ZWlnaHQifSBlbHNlIHtkaWFnbm9zaXMgPSJvYmVzZSJ9&s=ssshhh&v=0.9′;

If you’re even REMOTELY thinking about how mobile devices can be used in education, then this will have you giddy as a schoolgirl.

Via The Bionic Teacher, iTunes is now offering a game called iQuiz that allows people to download and take quizzes on their iPods.  By using the free software iQuiz Maker, you can create the quizzes for free!  Yes, a windows version is coming soon. 

Way too cool.  Someone remind me again why we shouldn’t be using that in schools?

Sometimes, you just need to interject a little bit of fun.  Voki is a website that lets you create an animated avatar that you can customize and supply your own voice to.  Yes, they’re a little wacky, but who says education can’t be fun?

There are several ways you can get your voice recorded.  You can use a microphone and record it directly, you can upload an audio file to their server, you can type out a message and have a digitized voice read it, or you could even do it by phone.  There are two options for phone recording, you call them or they call you.  I have to admit, I got a kick out of having the service call up my cell phone and say "Hi!  Leave your Voki message at the beep!"

It seemed that there was a limit of two or three minutes when doing it via phone.  I do wonder whether that limit is increased if you upload your own audio.  Be nice to be able to use it to post a full podcast.  I’ll have to try that later.

Until then, this could be a fun way to animate class announcements, recaps from the end of the school day, reminders for students, and so on.  What else could it be used for?

AC_Voki_Embed(300,400, ‘abcde4877df0d2ef1f609e6fc3794133′, 2179, 1, ”, 0);
Get a Voki now!

Ok, it’s about time for the DEN to get rolling in Second Life!  Based on the feedback from my last blog post about it, and the results of the survey that are trickling in, it sounds like some of you are really looking forward to exploring this world with your fellow STAR Discovery Educators.

We’re in the process of setting up shop on EduIsland II right now, so I’m looking for some STAR’s who would like to help take a lead on getting us established within SL.  In particular, I’d like to talk to people who want to help get our headquarters set up and decorated, as well as plan out our official launch party. 

Some experience required for this opportunity!  If you’ve never used SL before, then hold off volunteering until we have ourselves established first. 

So if you’re interested in helping the DEN get launched in SL, leave a comment here with your SL name!

When I was presenting the EdTechConnect Widgetizing the Builders, one of the widgets I wanted to share was a chat box that could be embeded into assignments or quizzes.  Now, you might wonder why anyone would want to embed a chat box into an assignment.  After all, don’t most schools have IM’s blocked within school grounds?

So let’s brainstorm a little

    * Students can ask questions that you or their peers could answer
    * Group discussion is possible even after school hours
    * Teacher can hold evening office hours from his/her own sofa while watching Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
    * Students can collaborate for group work
    * Chat is behind a passcode, so private to that specific class
    * Discussion can be saved and used in class the following day
    * Students can get instant feedback from each other, rather than waiting until class the next day

And so on.  You get the idea.  Unfortunately for me, the site I had chosen to show off, ChatCreator,  was down during my webinar!  Horrible example.  ChatCreator is back up, but I figured it’d be good to have a backup handy, just in case.

This morning I found GeeSee.  It’s the same sort of thing, instant chat box for your web site, blog or unitedstreaming assignment/quiz.  It’s MUCH prettier than ChatCreator, and has some nice features.  Unfortunately, it’s kinda bloated, and has a minimum width of over 450px.  This blog theme max’s out at around 370, so I can’t embed it well into this blog.  Instead, I’ll just provide you with this obnoxious smiley, which will open the chat in a new window.  But if you’re looking for a chat to embed into your own blog or website, then GeeSee is worth bookmarking!