Monday, April 30, 2012

Ted Ed Examples

If you saw Ken's post the other day, then you know that Ted Talks now has a way for you to flip any You Tube video and ask questions about the video after its viewed. I tried it with a John Green crash course video about the Dark Ages and then made up a series of about six multiple choice questions for students to answer after viewing the video. The site (which is in beta form) does not allow you to make clickable multiple choice questions yet. But they do exist for some featured videos. For regular users like you and me, we're stuck with either open ended questions or multiple choice that is not clickable. Here is my effort with the John Green video.  And here is another effort--Karen Armstrong talking about the roots of religion during the Axial Age. I used open-ended questions for this video.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

How do we Swing Honor Around


In this three minute video, philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah questions whether we can make the world a better place by changing our ideas about honor. He offers several historical examples like foot binding in China, dueling in the United States and England, and honor killings in the Middle East. Foot binding and dueling lasted hundreds, maybe thousands of years but stopped after a few decades. Why? Appiah argues that we need a fundamental dialog based on respect.

Gaming for Understanding

I've read a lot about using games in education and generally paid little attention to the articles. But this video by Brenda Brathwaite changed my mind. She clearly shows the power of gaming in understanding some tragedies in history, such as the Middle Passage, with which she deals in this video.

Ted Talks Manipulated For the Classroom


By going here, I can take any Ted Talk, or for that matter, any video on Youtube and create a lesson with multiple choice and short answer questions to go with it.  When that is done you will be given a unique url which you can then give to your students.  The videos will then be aggregated into one social studies page.

So here is a video on how the invention of ship containers has changed the modern world.  When you click on it, you will see multiple choice and other thoughtful questions, as well as the video.  One great use would be to take the John Green overviews of world history and create questions for your students to answer as a way of review.  By the way I learned about this idea on Edudemic

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Here's Sal Khan explaining the concept of flipping and how he thinks that it can liberate the classroom for creativity. I found it on Edutopia.

Songhai, Mail and Ghana Information

Here is a nice Powerpoint on the Songhai, Mali and Ghana kingdoms as well as Nubia that comes from JB's Classroom.  I really like the comparison to other continents that it begins with (above).   Now here is another excellent Powerpoint on the same subject except it has no pictures but excellent graphics on the information and is put together by Holt. 

History Simulations

The HS "History Simulations" webpage just upgraded their page in time for your classes to look at their simulation on the Cold War.  If you like that one, you can also get one from each of the two world wars.  As everyone knows, one retains information better when one interacts with the information rather than just having it presented.  

Friday, April 27, 2012

Terra Cotta Warriors at Discovery times Square

Only 9 of the 8000 figures actually made the trip, says the New York Times, but notes that they are in great shape and come with a great narrative, part history and part archaeological.  The Times article is interesting and might serve as a good review of the Qin dynasty before SOLs .

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Cloud Storage

To continue Ken's blog about on line storage, you might check out Amit Argarval's blog in which he compares the three services and also does a price comparison of the three services (Dropbox, Google Drive and SkyDrive). He offers a lot more detail than the Post.  Here is his price comparison chart and here is his comparison of services.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Illuminated Manuscripts

I'm teaching the Middle Ages, as you may have guessed from my recent posts.  One of the things I'm covering tomorrow is the popularity of illuminated manuscripts during the period.  This British Library site allows you to choose any number of medieval texts-- from a William Blake text to a Renaissance masterpiece, to Anglo-Saxon art-- and actually open and turn pages using your mouse and shockwave.  It's really cool, though it takes a moment for the manuscript and shockwave to load.  I added the site to my web-quest on medieval art and architecture. 

Cloud Storage

So I have every single course and its contents and all my personal items in Google Docs and was only using 45% of my free space.  Now (as of a few hours ago) I am using Google Drive and have an additional 5 gigabytes (with more coming soon) so I have TONS of space.  But having said that there are plenty of other places where you can put your content such as Dropbox, Amazon (where Netflix stores all of its movies), the iCloud, Skydrive (Microsoft)  and two other lesser known ones.  Here is a very thorough account of all of them in today's WashPost.

The video above, from Dropbox, does a great job of explaining cloud computing.  

20th Century Heroes and Villains from the National Archives

My colleague, Jeff Feinstein, who teaches US and European history, sent me this awesome link to the UK's National Archives.  It deals with 20th century heroes and villains: Winston Churchill and the  bombing of Dresden, John Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,  Joseph Stalin and the industrialization of the USSR,  Benito Mussolini  and the invasion of Abyssinia, Harry Truman and the atomic bomb,  Martin  Luther King and the civil rights movement. 

Click on each name and you'll find a treasure of sources, photographs, charts, graphs, and posters. The site's design is great and the sources for each individual are quite manageable for the kids.

I think that this site along with the curriculum sources  from Stanford are among the best for their ease of use in the classroom.

Medieval Art at the Met & Getty

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an interesting exhibit on Medieval art.  I developed a simple  lesson, which you can see here, in which the kids examine the artwork, watch a short video explaining the exhibit, and create a five-slide google presentation, using three images from the exhibit and analyzing each one, and writing a brief paragraph explaining how the art typifies the Middle Ages. Since much of the art focuses on religion, the lesson will serve as good  preview of the next lesson on the development of the church in medieval Europe.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Google Drive


Google just announced that you will soon be able to soon upload 30 different types of digital media into Google Docs.  You will then be able to manipulate and share them with others.  So, forget about having to e-mail large files as you can just share it in Google Drive.  Here are more details. You can also download the Google Android App (did I say that I am so glad I bought Android and not iPhone?!).  If you want to be e-mailed when you can get Google Drive, go here.

Finally WeVideo will be integrated with Google Drive so you can create your videos in the cloud and be able to share them with even more people using Google Drive.   Here are my posts on WeVideo.

Blank Maps

Adding on to George's post, one of the first sites I wrote about on this blog was about outline maps which you can print out and have your kids write on.  They are political and physical.  No, wait, don't print them out!  Now you can import them into a Google Docs Drawing and have your students write all over them.  My kids now have it down where they can trace the map and then delete the original so only their creation is left.  If you want blank maps of every country in the world, go here

Ghana, Songhai, Mali


Tomorrow I will be at a chairs' meeting and my students will be doing a fairly traditional e-learning assignment from viewing this PowerPoint on Ghana, Mali and Songhai and then making sure they understand the connections between the three eastern African areas.  Here is a webpage where I found out much of the information in addition to our e-book.  What I like about the webpage is that it also has several graphic organizers that connect the three entities together.  (By the way, we are not using the PowerPoint for Mesoamerica as the kids had a chart to work on instead). 

Six Examples of IPad Integration in the Classroom

Andrew Marcinek,an instructional technologist at Burlington High School, in Burlington, MA has a great article in Edutopia with six examples of IPad integration in the classroom. He includes an interesting lesson on the Enlightenment using blogs and also talks about flipping. It's a great story with great examples. Thanks to Alex Case for sending me the link.

Educational Technology

Mohamed (Med) Kharbach, an educator and tech geek, has a great website with all kinds of technology for teachers. It includes goggle tools, video tools, organizing tools, search tools, and sharing tools. The site won't win awards for design, but its got a lot of good stuff and well-worth exploring. For example, here he offers 8 ways to use Goggle Circles.  Thanks to Jeff Feinstein for sending me the link.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Homework App That Has A Reminder Alarm

I have been looking for a homework app for my students which will set an alarm for them to remind them to do it (forgetting that most of them have also signed up for a text from me from Remind101.com).  Well, thanks to Android4Schools, I have finally found an Andoid App called Studious which does just that.  It also allows one to enter in each class as well as when they meet and then lets students set the time for each assignment and set the alarm. Unfortunately it is not yet available for iPhones.   The video below shows you how to use it.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Khan Academy: Best Posts

California teacher, Larry Ferlazzo has aggregated on one site all the best posts about Khan Academy. He linked about ten such articles, from the wrath of Khan Academy to the wonders of Khan Academy.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Outline Maps


Arizona State Universityhas a great collection of outline maps--physical, political, regional, continents, rivers, etc--that might come in handy for many units in both world and US history.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Study Blue Flashcard App


I have blogged about Quizlet before, but here is a new app called Study Blue which lets you do the same things as Quizlet except you can also speak the flash cards instead of just typing them out (as you can see above).  Also, it lets the card hang between front and back so you can ponder the answer (it that is any incentive!).  You can also add pictures which is important since so many state exams have lots of them.   Here is the Android app and the iPhone one.  I found out about the app on Mindshift

My Homework App


I have become an avid user of Evernote from everything for notes teachers give me in the hallway to   shopping lists from my wife.  It can be accessed from iPhone, Android and the web.  But for my students I think they need something that looks like their course schedule.

So today I noticed that NotAnotherHistoryTeacher had a reference to MyHomework.  So I checked it out! It, as you can see from the video, allows students to set up their classes with pertinent information (subject, place, etc.) as well as giving them a calendar to set the information (although I am still waiting for any group - even Evernote - to attach to it an alarm (can anyone help me) so, for example, the homework would go off to remind the kids (although I do use Remind101 to do this, but it doesn't come from their calendars).

At any rate, MyHomework can be accessed from an iPhone and an Android and when the kids are home they can look at it on their laptops.  The video shows one how to set up the app on one's phone.  There is also a blog - probably a feature more for the teachers, but it is nice for students to look at when setting up an account. 

More Free Classes From Princeton, Stanford, and others

A History of the World from 1300, from Princeton, no less. But you have to wait until the fall when it will be available to the public. In the meantime, especially with summer on the way, you can console yourself with the other 450 free courses available on Open Culture. My thanks to Jeff Feinstein for sending me the link. Next fall, I can tell people I took a few courses at Harvard and Princeton over the summer.

Conclusions So Far On Flipping The Classroom

In my 27 high school county, there are only five of us (that I know about) who have tried flipping the classroom.  We collaborated and came up with a document that might help those looking to do the same.  It includes lessons we have learned, sites that discuss flipping the classroom (and in great detail) as well as the videos we have created so far.  It, though, is still early for us, so any thoughts you can add to the discussion (in the comments below) would be much appreciated. 

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Interactive World History Timeline for Conflict

Here is a timeline that shows world history's major conflicts.  Click on the time frame and then all of the individual wars will appear.  For example we just finished the Byzantine and the Seljuk Turks.  When you click on an item a smaller screen appears and you get more details. The timeline covers your entire world history course. 

Inside a Flipped Classroom

Another story about a flipped math classroom. This one is in Minnesota.. Waiting to see more stories on flipped history classes.

Even More Interactive Quizzes

 Years ago I taught in Loudoun County, VA and when I left I was replaced by Mike Fitzgerald (who is now an AP).  While he was teaching he created these great interactive quizzes for world  history

Djenne: A tribute to Islam

If you're studying Africa, the New York times has an interesting story on the mosque in Djenne and its history as a central point for the diffusion of Islam. There is also a great slide show of the inside of the mosque.

Great Video on Using Mobile Devices in the Classroom


I will be soon highlighting some of the sites mentioned in the video above, but it is well worth the six minutes to watch it for the new learning ideas.  It goes through using sites like Instagram, Twitter, PollEverywhere as well as many ones I haven't mentioned before on this blog.  Additionally it discusses how to use the smartphone, tablets and computers in the classroom.  I found it on a site I have marked on my iGoogle page called Mindshift.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Start the Video Where You Want

Up until now I have used Splicd to set my Youtube videos to where I want them for student viewing.  Splicd still is useful if you want to have a beginning and an end of the video.   As you can see above you need only go to the video, click on "share" beneath it and then hit the tab besides "options."  Then you enter the time you want the video to begin.  If you want a truncated url (perhaps for sharing on Twitter) do not click besides "long link."  Then copy the link in the box above the word "close" (see above picture).  Now when would you use it.  Well the worst thing that social studies teachers do is show long videos.  This lets you show a short snippet and then move on.     If you want more tips on how to use Youtube, you can get them from the Google+ page for it.

Mayan, Aztec and Incans

I am getting ready to teach the Mayan, Aztecs and Incans and found this comprehensive overview of the three empires, complete with images, descriptions, art, history etc.  I also found the PowerPoint below in case you prefer that format of teaching.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Standard World History Review Page

I have done a number of posts recently to help your students study for the AP exam, but I have also put together a page for my school (and a lot of schools in my county) for standard (ie, non AP) students taking world history I (through the Renaissance) and II (Renaissance to the present).  There are a ton of interactive (only one of which I have posted about) sites for students to review as well as study guides and other goodies for preparing for the standard end of the year exams.  I actually have my students use them for their unit tests as well. 

What was the Holocaust- Two Websites

My colleague, Jeff Feinstein sent me these great links. Two museums about the Holocaust, one in Israel and one in the US at the Holocaust Memorial. Both are outstanding. I explored the the one in Israel maintained by the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. It's got a digital collection, a photo archive with thousands of photos, video lectures, and podcasts. In addition, it has a great history of the Holocaust by event. If you are teaching this part of World War II, you should check it out. It could make for a great web quest.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

SparkNotes App

A few posts ago I wrote about the SparkNotes website for world history which your students can use for review.  Well here is the Android app and here is the iApp

Chrome on the Cloud


This weekend when I took my daughter to her gymnastic meet (where she qualified for the state meet!) I used a Google Map direction and then pushed "Chrome to Phone" on my browser which I then opened on my phone and it directed me (with a voice) successfully to the meet.  Well if you watch the short video above you can see how Google Chrome (and even more so with Chrome Beta) can be synched between smartphone, tablet and computer.  This means all of the apps you have added to the webpage will come up as well. It also means if you leave your browser open on your laptop, you can open it on another device (and close it remotely if you choose).  In other words cloud computing is letting you be anywhere and everywhere and not miss a beat. 

Primary Sources: Teaching Students to Think


Stanford University has created over 75 lessons for high schools based entirely on primary documents. No textbooks, no lectures. The lessons are all about diaries, journals, pictures, documents, speeches, songs and photographs. The lessons are all in American history, although the World Wars and the Cold War lesson could work for world history.  I looked at the documents for the Cold War and they are terrific--short, in a easy read 14 point font and come with clear directions on how to use them in class.


The curriculum was introduced in 2008 in California but is now available to any teacher who wants to use it. You can check out the lessons here

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Establishing Relevance to Enhance Student Learning

I found the link to this site, Faculty Focus, through a tweet by Larry Ferzzalo, a California teacher. The article, Establishing Relevance to Student Learning, is interesting because it strikes a chord that we are told about when we get our teaching licenses. What I especially liked about the article were these suggestions (and I am quoting directly from the article):
  • What? What are we doing in class today? What questions will we try to answer? What concepts will we address? What questions will we answer? What activities will we do?
  • Why? Why are we studying this? How are today’s content and activities tied to the course learning outcomes? What should I know or be able to do after today’s class? How can the information and skills be used in everyday life?
  • How? How are we going to address the content? Will we use lectures? Activities? Discussions? How will different learning styles be accommodated?
I sometimes try to tie relevance within my lessons (like comparing piracy in the Indian Ocean today with similar obstacles in the postclassical period) but I never post relevancy with the agenda. But after reading the article, I like the idea and will start trying to incorporate relevancy statements and questions with the agenda.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Sinking of the Titanic


The National Geographic just released this animation of how the Titanic sank, at least according to the director, James Cameron. This is a clip from The Titanic: The Final Word With James Cameron.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Learning Through Spatial Organization

Any good teacher will tell you that students learn best when connecting items together rather than when learning one after the other.  Thus studying vocab words by themselves is less effective than using them (as do my 4th grade daughters) to tell a story.  Well Doug Kerner, one of my now former  teacher-students, sent me a link for Visuwords which lets you input a word and then builds a word cloud.  But it goes further than that.  When you click on each word cloud, it then gives you a meaning.  All it needs is a picture and it would be the complete learning tool.  Above, for example, is part of what came up for World War II.  

Online Interactive Tests For Your Students

I have never met Tami Maloney, but have followed her work for years and it keeps getting better.  She has put a tremendous number of questions into databases so that your students can take practice tests in civics, US and world history and instantly get answers back.  She has done it for the old VA Standards of Learning (yes we DO refer to them as officially as SOL test - someone wasn't thinking on that one!) as well as a ton of NY Regents exams.  Truthfully there are so many that your students won't be able to get through them all.  Thanks Tami! 

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Regents Exams Released Tests (review idea #2)

I live in a state (VA) that started a new type of state exam last year and will not release any guiding test questions until 2014 (no wait that is not fair, VADOE did release 14 (WHI, WHII questions!).  But a nice place to find test questions to give your students and for them to review world history is from New York state which somehow can release three test versions each year.  

New Google Changes


Google has been making a lot of changes recently to streamline all of its offerings into one area (part of CEO Larry Page's design) and in turn get people to join Google+.  I've read that it is up to 100 million, but my sense (and it is just that) is that people are using it as a souped up Twitter.  That, of course, is not a bad thing.  I, for example, get a lot of items from others that I follow in Google+ that I use in the classroom.  But recent inventions also allow you to have video chats with 9 others and be working on a shared Google Docs item.  Think about the fact that you can have a virtual meeting with other educators (for free) and work on common documents.  G+ is now also connected to the new Google Play that synchs your Internet devices (assuming you have an Android smartphone).  So when I have my free periods at school I turn on my Google music (where I have my entire collection uploaded for free), pony up my Google Docs and get to work.  When my students come in they share their assignments with me and I split my screen so I can record the grades in my gradebook (which unfortunately is NOT on the cloud - yet!). 

Spread of Islam

In our next class my students will be drawing and labeling a map on the spread of Islam.  This site does a great job of showing Islam's spread over a period of time.  You can add or subtract things such as names, borders, topography and do it for three different dates. 

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Bayeux Tapestry Animated

Many of us in World 1 will soon be teaching the formation of national monarchies and this animation of the Bayeuz tapestry about the Norman conquest of England will amuse the students. The Open Culture site where I found the clip says that the animation starts half way through the narrative around the time of Halley's comet and ends with the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Five Best Practices for The Flipped Classroom

For all you flippers out there, Andrew Miller has just compiled (and published in Edutopia)a list of what he thinks are the five best practices for flipping the classroom. He clearly does not believe in flipping for the the sake of flipping and offers some interesting insights.

How Fast is Your Cellphone Dataplan Being Used Up?

Since I have written so much about cell phone apps and their usage in the classroom, this site might be useful for you to look at to understand how much a gigabyte (most plans give you two) can give you in terms of video and music.  Additionally this and especially this one is helpful as they tell you how many things you can do for one gigabyte on your smartphone (10,000 webpage views, 2 hours of video, streaming of 200 songs or 2000 e-mails).  You will note that there is some discrepancy between the two sites, but hopefully it will help you tell a bit of how fast you are using your data. If you want more background, here is a helpful article from today's NYTimes. 

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Primary vs. Secondary Documents


This is a very nice example on the difference between a primary and a secondary document.  Thanks to Shelly Arlen of the of the Univ. of Fl for the heads up and for creating (w. her colleague) the very helpful video on Captain Kidd.  In addition to this video, here is a great written and video resource on the differences which you could use with your students.  

Everything About the Titanic

Larry Ferlazzo is a teacher who does amazing things online.   He tweets, Google+s and even has two blog pages which include his "Best Sites."  With the Titanic in the news I thought it would be a good way to introduce you to his resources as well as everything you'd even want on the HMS Titanic

Saturday, April 7, 2012

More about Google Docs

Amit Agarwalis is an IT professional, India's first blogger, and a writer for the Wall Street Journal. He blogs in this country about everything digital. Here at this site are more than 50 or 75 entries about different things you can do with Goggle Docs. If you use Google Docs, put it in your favorites because it's likely to be a great resource whenever you have a question. Thanks to Kyle Pace's tweet about the site.

You can find Argarwalis's blog here.

World War II Database

Thanks to Ron Peck in Twitter for the link to this Worl War II database. You can search it by country, people, events, and through other filters. The site has tons of photographs of ships (carriers, cruisers, subs, etc), aircraft (bombers, fighters, others) people, and events. It's really cool if you're studying World War II. The site is maintained by a group called Lava Development LLC and their goal is to offer information about World War II and showcase Lava's technical abilities, which you'll find quite good.

Quest Garden for WebQuests

Quest Garden allows you to create web quests with tools and forms to help you through the creation process and then publish it online. You can share your web quest with the Quest Garden community so other teachers can use it. In fact, you can search existing web quests, edit them, and use them with your students. I looked at a Rome web quest that had a long list of great links. Many of the existing web quests are for elementary school but there are enough for high school to make a visit worthwhile.

A site called edtech teacher has some how-to video clips that might be helpful. I had trouble embedding the video here.

You can get a 2 year subscription for just $20. That gives you access to a few features that the free trial does not.

Download Youtube Videos

If you have RealPlayer on your laptop, when you run your cursor over the top right side of a youtube video, a little line will appear asking if you want to download the video.  However if you do not then you need an alternative.  If you do not want to download another program (only a small java file) then Saveyoutube is a great alternative.  You simply put in the youtube url and then decide what format you want and you can very quickly download the video onto your computer. 

Rome, Christianity and John Green's New Films



There are two new John Green (of Crash Course) films above.  Unfortunately I finished Rome two weeks ago, but it would be great for review when we get closer to our state exam.  If you put all of Green's films together you do have a nice world history course in review.  I would probably do them at the end of each unit as opposed to all for review at the end of the year - but hey that is just me! 

Friday, April 6, 2012

Review for the AP World Exam

In just over five weeks some of your students will be taking the AP exam.  Of course the others will be taking their state exam in late May (or at least mine will on May 21st).  So I will be doing a series of posts highlighting some of the review sites out there.  One of the ones I will be mining is this one from Mrs. Ruland who has links to a ton of sites.   This one, for example, has some nice summaries of all the parts of the AP World class. 

The Titanic and the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has a nice blog (and you can receive e-mails as well) which gives you updates on how to use the online resources they have.  For example, this week, they have a great post on how to study the Titanic using the Library of Congress

Managing Goggle Docs in the classroom

I hate to say it, but here is still more on goggle docs! But this, I promise, is very cool and will make your life easier if you collect all your papers through goggle docs. This site shows you how to organize your documents so that you grade them by scrolling through them rather than opening and closing 90 documents (if you have 90 kids). I haven't actually tried it yet because you need the kids to do part of it when they create their documents. The process looks a bit tricky but the reward should make it worth it.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Everything You Need To Know About Google Docs

I've given you various versions of how to use Google Docs, but I just received an e-mail from Online Colleges and they have put together a very nice e-sheet of 52 secrets about Google Docs.  It has a summary of the various options as well as links to the how to pages.   If you are like me and home for spring break, it might be a useful thing to do to go through the list (hey it beats grading as I was doing yesterday!).  

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

How To Set Up A Flipped Classroom


Hindu Gods and Prezis

Yes, I know that we've all covered Hinduism but you should see this Prezi (and above), not just for the great review of Hindu gods, but for the neat things you can do with Prezi like embedding video. Here's a link to another one on Hindu festivals by the same author as the one above.

Google Glasses


If there is one main idea I want to get across in this blog it is that teachers should be changing all the time (and I assume in coming to this site you probably are).  While Google's glasses are still a ways away (as are the contact lenses that are also being developed), it does beg the question how will they (esp. the latter) change our classrooms.  My hope is that they will push more educators (be they teachers, administrators or policy makers) to the upper reaches of Bloom's taxonomy and get us to more interactive assignments that focus on using the Internet as a resource to allow our students to create and truly think and not just spit back facts.  Until that time, though, please watch the video above and think how you are working towards a different classroom with our current tools.  If you want more, here is the Google+ page for the project and an article

Prehistory: Largest feathered Dinosaur

This is a little late in the year for a prehistory entry but here is one anyway. This fossil discovered in China is over 125 million years old and is the largest feathered dinosaur every discovered. Scientists say the adult was at lest 30 feet long and weighed over a ton and a half. And I thought an elephant stepping on my toe might hurt! According to the Journal Nature, these fossils provide " direct evidence for the presence of extensively feathered gigantic dinosaurs.”

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

More on Evernote and Reminders


As I said a few posts ago I am really starting to enjoy Evernote.  I asked them if they were contemplating putting an alarm system on smartphones (no answer on that one), but they did give me a great answer.  For those who like Windows and Outlook, the video above will help you tie in Evernote into your calendar so you can have reminders and/or see when you put your items in by each date.

If you have g-mail, then here are ways to tie Evernote into that (and I am quoting now):

There is a way to integrate Google Calendar with Evernote.
  1. If you have enabled the Add gadget features in Gmail and Google Calendar, just input the URL below in the “Add gadget by URL” box and click on add button.
    http://sites.google.com/site/vikitech/EvernoteGadget.xml
    You would get a window that shows you the information about the Evernote gadget that you are about to add to your Calendar sidebar panel.
  2. Click on “Yes, add this gadget” to enable Evernote in your Gmail or Google Calendar.
This gadget just renders the Evernote Mobile version in the Gadgets Panel. The exchange of data takes place between your computer and Evernote, so it’s completely safe. Just input your Evernote user-name and password and the integration is complete.

Additionally, you can send yourself a reminder e-mail from Evernote using this website.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Plate Tectonics

At the beginning of the year I briefly mentioned plate tectonics to my students, who almost universally knew what it was (hence the brief mention).  But today I went to a museum with my own children and saw a great animation of the movement from Pangea to the present.  Unfortunately I have not been able to find as great an animation since returning home, but above is a pretty good one.  If anyone has a better one, would you please leave the site as a comment. 

Sunday, April 1, 2012

48,000 Pageviews This Month

Well I am learning there are a lot of ways to look how people look at a website.  For example between the these three blogs (US gov, US history and world history) there were 21,000 visitors in March, but each of the visits led to looking at various pages so that there were 15,400 "pageviews" for the world history blog and 48,000 between the three sites.

The top pages for the month on the world blog were

  1. Tips for Teaching in a Connected Classroom (which I have updated since the original post)
  2. The Travels of Ibn Battuta
  3. Timerine for Creating Timelines
  4. Transforming Your Classroom From Analog to Digital

Evernote App for your Phone, Tablet or Computer


Yesterday I spent some time with my new friend, Evernote, which is why I was delighted when I went to FreeTech4Teachers this morning and found the video above on its new features.  Evernote is an app that lets you take notes, clip webpages and even record items that you want to remember.  I like the latter best because I always have my students write down their homework on their phones or iPod touches.  Well now you can record notes on your phone, iPod, etc. and hear them later on the same device or online.  What is great is that it is synched with the web so a student could go on the site online and also see their homework.  You can also share notes with other people (similar to Google Docs).   You can also create notebooks and put notes in each.

Here is the app for Apple users (iPhone, iPod, etc.) and here.

Finally if you like Evernote, you might want to add their blog to your iGoogle page.