Thursday, October 8, 2009
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Web Tool One-Stop Shopping
You know there are alot of Web tools out there. Whether you're looking for a potential blogging site for your class or podcasting software to create multimedia projects -- there are so many of them!
There is one place you might want to investigate, one that organizes, rates, and shows you which ones are free. The Top 100 Tools for Learning PDF actually lists 143 different Web tools and gives the following information:
- Rankings for 2007 and 2008
- Popularity votes
- Web site or software type
- Cost (free or commercial)
- Availability (hosted, download, PHP code insert)
Trend Toward Powerful Images, Away From "Death by PowerPoint"
Slideshare recently announced the winners of their World's Best Presentation Contest '08. In third place was this troubling and informative presentation on Zimbabwe.
While PowerPoint has been loved and despised almost since its start, there is a trend to reinvent the look of presentations, often harnessing the techniques of photojournalism and advertising.
A guru of this movement is Garr Reynolds, author of blog and book Presentation Zen. One of the techniques he recommends is looking at billboards and imagining standing in front of them as presentation slides.
While PowerPoint has been loved and despised almost since its start, there is a trend to reinvent the look of presentations, often harnessing the techniques of photojournalism and advertising.
A guru of this movement is Garr Reynolds, author of blog and book Presentation Zen. One of the techniques he recommends is looking at billboards and imagining standing in front of them as presentation slides.
One of the best visual arguments Reynolds makes for slides with fewer and bigger words and powerful images in his talk for authors @ Google, is an image of Al Gore in front of a typical presentation with a clip art globe and tons of bulleted facts about global warming compared with an actual image from An Inconvenient Truth.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Everything is 2.0. Now What?
We were featured in Chad Mairn's presentation "Everything is 2.0. Now What?" at SPC's VIP Library Workshop. The presentation looks at how libraries have taken advantage of Web 2.0 technologies to better serve their patrons with offerings like blogs, customized library tool bars, local library cues in Google Scholar results, and more.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Try These Interactive Graphics on Your SmartBoard
On Sunday The New York Times printed a visual representation of common expenses and their recent price fluctuations called All Inflation’s Little Parts. The online version of this is a really cool interactive graphic that not only indicates amount of change by color, but shows you the amount of change when you hover over the name of the good or service (milk, bicycles, housing, etc.).
On Tuesday, they ran another interactive graphic called Mapping the Human ‘Diseasome.’ It shows diseases linked by the genes they have in common.
These and many of the paper's other interactive graphics and slide shows look like they would lend themselves to SmartBoard activities. For your convenience, we've linked several of these on our del.icio.us account under the heading NYT_Interactive_Graphic.
On Tuesday, they ran another interactive graphic called Mapping the Human ‘Diseasome.’ It shows diseases linked by the genes they have in common.
These and many of the paper's other interactive graphics and slide shows look like they would lend themselves to SmartBoard activities. For your convenience, we've linked several of these on our del.icio.us account under the heading NYT_Interactive_Graphic.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
National Science Digital Library
The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) was created by the National Science Foundation to provide free, organized access to high quality resources and tools that support innovations in teaching and learning at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.
You can search for appropriate materials targeted to grades 9-12, which you can limit results to include any or all of the following: text, images, audio, video, interactive, and data resources.
You can view the partnering organizations for more information.
You can search for appropriate materials targeted to grades 9-12, which you can limit results to include any or all of the following: text, images, audio, video, interactive, and data resources.
You can view the partnering organizations for more information.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Loss of K-12 Planet Databases Makes Public Library Cards Crucial
We’ve recently lost the databases we had through K12 Planet: Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center, Student Edition, and Student Resource Center. K-12 Planet was purchased by Pearson and it does not look like they will renew access to these products.
Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center is the most painful loss. Not only does it offer magazine and newspaper articles, it also includes well-written opinion pieces from books in Greenwood Press’s Opposing Viewpoints series. This database is available through Clearwater Public Library, but you must have both a library card number and a PIN to access it. We would love to see students continue to use this database. It would be great if you could encourage them to go to the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative site to apply for a card and then get a PIN by registering their card in person at Clearwater Public Library and requesting a PIN. If you already have a library card that is registered at Clearwater Public, you can call the circulation department at 562.4970 ext. 5200 and request a PIN.
We continue to subscribe SIRS, ProQuest Literature, CQ Researcher, and World and I. While we would love to purchase Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center ourselves, we've found that it's rather cost-prohibitive.
On our Student Resources and Faculty Resources pages, we’ve added links to the login page for the Gale databases available through PPLC. The three we’ve listed are Academic OneFile (good for finding magazine articles and peer-reviewed research), Literature Resource Center (a place to find DLB, CLC, and journal articles), and Biography Resource Center (a place to find articles from biographical almanacs and magazines).
Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center is the most painful loss. Not only does it offer magazine and newspaper articles, it also includes well-written opinion pieces from books in Greenwood Press’s Opposing Viewpoints series. This database is available through Clearwater Public Library, but you must have both a library card number and a PIN to access it. We would love to see students continue to use this database. It would be great if you could encourage them to go to the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative site to apply for a card and then get a PIN by registering their card in person at Clearwater Public Library and requesting a PIN. If you already have a library card that is registered at Clearwater Public, you can call the circulation department at 562.4970 ext. 5200 and request a PIN.
We continue to subscribe SIRS, ProQuest Literature, CQ Researcher, and World and I. While we would love to purchase Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center ourselves, we've found that it's rather cost-prohibitive.
On our Student Resources and Faculty Resources pages, we’ve added links to the login page for the Gale databases available through PPLC. The three we’ve listed are Academic OneFile (good for finding magazine articles and peer-reviewed research), Literature Resource Center (a place to find DLB, CLC, and journal articles), and Biography Resource Center (a place to find articles from biographical almanacs and magazines).
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