What is the purpose of this blog?

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Classic Cat's Classical Music Resource








"Classic Cat aims to make Classical music more popular by making it more accessible. It does this by providing an index to over 5000 free to download classical performances on the internet, sorted by composer and work. The site is specialized in audio files, but contains also some video, sheetmusic, lyrics and midi links." Check it out here!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

100 Open Courses to Learn a New Language

This site kind of blew me away with all their language resources. Check it out here: 100 Courses to Learn any New Language

Friday, November 13, 2009

Wonderful Virtual Body Site

The brain, skeleton, heart and digestion are summarized very well virtually... Comes in English and Spanish!


















Here is the site: http://medtropolis.com/VBody.asp

Thursday, November 5, 2009

OK, this isn't tech ed but you will love it more than anything!
















GETHUMAN.COM actually gives you the shortcuts to almost any major company so you can skip all the prompts and actually speak to a human being. See?! I told you you would love this... Just go to gethuman.com next time you don't want to speak to a computer...

How Cast: How to Videos Galore!

Thousands of "how to" videos that actually are coherent. Technology, sports, crafts, cooking, house and garden, health and nutrition, arts and media to name just a few categories. Find out more here: howcast.com

C'mon, you know you want to learn how to use a Neti Pot!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Print out your photo "poster sized" with block photos!











Want to print your photo and have it end up being really really big? Well go to http://www.blockposters.com and upload your photo and then print the blocks and put them together for a very large version!

Front Pages from 824 Newspapers? Go here!

Go to Newseum for today's front pages from hundreds of newspapers. Just click here...

Much too cool cell biology animations site not to feature!

Absolutely brilliant animations that cover the gamut! If you teach biology this site is for you... Click here to check things out.

Kid Port - online learning site for primary grades

"Kidport is an Internet-based educational service designed to help K-8 students excel in school. It provides a unique, multi-step program to create empowered learners, not simply good students."

Check it out at kidport.com

Michio Kaku's website - the future of science

I've always been a fan of and avid reader of Dr. Michio Kaku. He explores future science like nobody's business!
















Visit his Explorations in Science website here: http://mkaku.org

Fantastic Science Site Highlighting Threatened Species!


















ARKive.org is a wonderful site dedicated to threatened species across the globe. It includes:

Wildlife videos
Images
Fact-files
A Google Earth Plugin detailing threatened marine species
ARKive Education
Darwin content

Go to http://www.arkive.org

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

This site was so weird I couldn't help but post

I really don't know what to say about this site. You just have to see it to understand. And even then... Click here: http://www.vectorpark.com

Free Video Courses from Leading Universities











Tons of subjects from many high level universities including UCLA, Stanford, Yale, Berkeley, MIT, Princeton and Harvard. Many video lectures covering subjects below











Visit: http://www.academicearth.org

The Science of Food!

"Explore recipes, activities, and Webcasts that will enhance your understanding of the science behind food and cooking." Fun food science!




















Visit the site here: http://www.exploratorium.com/cooking

Monday, November 2, 2009

Make your own penicillin!




















Ever wanted to make your own penicillin? Didn't think so, but if you ever did, check out howtodothings.com and learn all kinds of stuff... Click here for penicillin recipe...

My 150th Post!

















This website is too good to pass up so I had to share. It's in my Science column list but wanted to highlight it here. It's an amazing Genetics site from the University of Utah called Learn.Genetics. You can find it by clicking here: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu

Thursday, October 29, 2009

World Science Festival!









This stuff struck me as interesting as the TED talks. Lots of videos with philosophers, musicians, authors, scientists (of course!), environmentalists, etc... They cover a wide range of very interesting topics you can watch from the comfort of your laptop... Go here: worldsciencefestival.com

Open Yale Courses












OK, this isn't just any site. This has open courses covering tons of subjects and includes transcripts, audio and video. It's not to be sneezed at. Become a renaissance man or woman and watch them all! Click here to visit Yale's extensive online video lectures and courses.

Body Smart Flash Videos of Anatomy, sweet...












Very well done Anatomy site with lots of flash animations. Check it out at http://www.getbodysmart.com

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Find any sound you want online!







Who would have imagined that someone would put together the Google of sound file sources, but they did. Click here to search for any sound you need...

Makezine.com - You have to see it to believe it...















Website devoted to instructional videos, blogs and more on how to "make" just about anything. Simply fabulous videos on making all kinds of technological things both big and small and electric and not. You have to see it to get it. Go to makezine.com to get it...

Richard Feynman lectures in video!

You may have to install an updated video player but it is well worth the trouble. Richard Feynman speaks at Cornell University in 1964. Awesome! Physicists rock!
Click here!

Why Wikipedia when you can Wikimedia?!

This site has links to all the Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Wikiversity, Wikispecies and any other Wiki(insert name here) you could imagine... Check it out here.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Welcome to the beginnings of virtual immersion now...

The future of virtual immersion exists now! The VirtuSphere allows you to go into the virtual world by strapping on a headset and stepping into a large rotating ball that allows you to move around your virtual environment.






















See Discovery Channel's video about it here.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Virtual Morality

Link to a very interesting article in Adbusters that explores the place morality has in the virtual world. Thought provoking... Go to Adbusters article here.

There is no stopping social networking, it's in our DNA

My favorite quote: "Don't try to shut down the two-way flow of information, because you can't stop it, Transparency is in."

Read about how we're hard wired for social networking and how businesses (and schools) will have to give it up for social networking... Click here...

Friday, October 23, 2009

Harvard Lectures Free!
















Harvard@Home is a collection of courses given by Harvard professors that cover a wide range of topics including:
and much much more! Check it out here...

Fantastic 100 Free Tools to Tutor Yourself in Almost Everything!





Bonnie Morris (bless her soul) brought to my attention this great site that literally has 100 sites to tutor yourself in everything from general topics to music to language to life skills etc... Check it out here!

Amazing Molecular Expressions Science Video!

View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons. All this by clicking on THIS LINK! Contains many more movie tutorials...

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Excellent Dante Resource!














Click here to check out Dante Worlds.
It's "an integrated multimedia journey--combining artistic images, textual commentary, and audio recordings--through the three realms of the afterlife (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise) presented in Dante's Divine Comedy." Very well done!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Future of Creating?

8 minute video you should go full screen on. It took 2 years to render this video... Wow!

World Builder from BranitVFX on Vimeo.

Robotic Prosthetic Hand that can feel!

I couldn't contain myself when I saw this site called "Maps of War!"

Excellent history resource. I've never seen anything like it. "Maps-of-War is a multimedia site dedicated to producing diverse, creative visuals that enhance our understanding of war and its history."













Waste no time historians! Go here now! http://www.mapsofwar.com

So you want Google Reader and RSS to follow my blog, I get it...

Well watch this video and then subscribe to my blog and then you'll get all the updates and not be left out of the loop (the ever important tech-ed loop)

Excellent Poe Site

















Check out the Knowing Poe website here!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Google Wave: A Whole New Email Concept

Click on full screen to see the video better...

The WikiReader in your Pocket!
















OK, I don't know how you feel about Wikipedia and citing it in reports but it is undeniably one of the best resources for information around. Move over Encyclopedia Britannica set and make way for the pocket WikiReader. According to their site:

"WikiReader delivers the joy of information by offering three million Wikipedia articles in a simple $99 handheld device. It turns on instantly, and works for months before replacement of its two AAA batteries is necessary. The large monochrome screen uses a touch interface. Articles are scrolled with a stroke of the finger and hyperlinks selected with a simple tap. Three buttons, Search, History and Random, offer the convenience of reading specific topics or the serendipitous pleasure of discovering something by chance within Wikipedia's rich array of articles ranging from Freud to Final Fantasy.

Updates for the WikiReader are provided quarterly and available for free download. A yearly subscription plan for updated microSD cards is also available for $29."

LEARN MORE HERE

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Montessori and Technology discussion









“Good tools do not make a good teacher, but a good teacher makes good use of tools.” or so states the author in an interesting article on the "Philosophy of Instructional Technology" Check it out here.

Bonnie and Jo Anne suggested this cool bible site






Excellent bible resource. Jo Anne says "For you Bible geeks out there, the big advantage to this website is that it gives the "Strong's Number" for each word in the Bible. This makes cross-referencing really easy, and also shows the original Greek or Hebrew for a given text. Just click the box for "Show Strong's" when you select a text. The number appears above/next to the word in the English text as a blue link (hence "Blue Letter Bible") and clicking on that link takes you to a page that shows the original language lexicon, plus all the occurrences of that particular word in the entire Bible. Very cool stuff!

http://www.blueletterbible.org

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Robots now sing!

OK, she's no Brittany Spears but maybe that's a good thing...

Excellent Resource for 21st Century Learning

















At first when I came across "Ten Ideas for Getting Started with 21st Century Teaching and Learning" I was intrigued, but as I read more I realized all the incredible resources this short article contained. Their "10 Ideas to Begin Educating Innovatively" include topics such as equipment, standards, curriculum, professional development, blogs, wikis and internet safety. But you also find within these 10 ideas links to ISTE's Educational Technology Standards, Action Plan Templates for innovation, grant writing, 8 ways to use a school wiki to increase communication, collaboration and enrich instruction and much much more. I would definitely take a few minutes to click the link below and check it out! CLICK HERE

Mandatory Computer Competency Tests?



















Just came across an interesting article proposing computer literacy tests be required for anyone in the workplace before they can start their job. This article deals mainly with PC users but the gist is the same for anyone using a computer. The author sums it up thus "Think of it as a 'computer driving test' that could reduce malware threats and cyberscams by making users smarter — or at least, not so stupid." Read the article here and draw your own conclusions.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Robot wars are coming sooner than you think!

You have to admire the ducking technique of King Kaiser


More:

Cursive handwriting is dead, dead, dead.














I have to admit I see no point to this skill anymore. Read article entitled: "Cursive may be a fading skill, but so what?"

Google vs. Microsoft, The Battle is On!








Fascinating article in the LA Times about Microsoft and Google battling it out to see who will take over the lucrative $7.25 million email system for the city. The ramifications for future technology are huge. "The heart and soul of technology" may be at stake. Read more by clicking here.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Customized artistic keyboards!










C'mon, you know you want a cool keyboard! This company has hundreds of designs they print right onton keyboards for some really cool stuff. Go to keyscaper.com for more info. Here's another design:

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Wow, super podcast resource for educators!

This place is amazing and so simple to use. It's the Education Podcast Network and they've put together in one place hundreds of podcasts from across the disciplines. Music, Science, Language Arts, Mathematics, Health, Social Studies and many more!









Here's what they say: "The Education Podcast Network is an effort to bring together into one place, the wide range of podcast programming that may be helpful to teachers looking for content to teach with and about, and to explore issues of teaching and learning in the 21st century. "

Check it out by going to: epnweb.org. You won't regret it if you do, but you will if you don't!

Calling all Geographers!

GIS Day is coming up November 18th. So check out all the cool activities by going to gisday.com. There are all kinds of awesome events going on around the globe. Make sure you're "in position" for GIS Day!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Nanobees fight cancer!

Nanotechnology fighting cancer cells? The time is now. For a long time now I have been excited about the prospect of cancer cells being destroyed by nanobots. And things are starting to happen.












"Particles on the nanoscale are small enough to enter cells, but big enough to carry large doses of drugs, said Robert Langer, Institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leader in the nanotech field.

"We are gradually forming a pipeline of nanotechnology-based products," said Piotr Grodzinski, director of the National Cancer Institute's Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer, a program that funds eight Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence in the U.S., including Wickline's and Langer's research initiatives. "These things are happening as we speak.""

Read the full article here.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Number of students using Google Apps on campus increases 400% from last year at same time.












Looks like a lot more students are using Google Apps with 5 million "going Google." Read about it straight from the Google Blog by CLICKING HERE.

And read about the Top 10 reasons to use Google Apps here!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Wireless Electricity

















I recently stumbled upon a very promising article about wireless electricity. Looks like it's happening... CLICK HERE

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

How Google Gets Away With "Free"





People ask me all the time "How come all this stuff is free?" Well, Time Magazine just published an article that tries to explain it. Here is an excerpt (link to full article below):

"One of the most interesting issues that Varney will have to face is Google's use of free. This is not 20th Century "free," as in "buy one, get one free" or "free gift inside." Instead, it's really Free (let's dignify it with a capital F), something that's only possible in the digital age, where costs are close to zero.

Like many Web companies, Google gives away most of what it does. Its searches are free, as are its e-mail, maps, online word processor and spreadsheet, and nearly 300 other products, from directory assistance (GOOG411) to Google Earth.

This use of Free is part of its "max strategy" -- it uses Free to get its products in the hands of the greatest number of users, and then figures out some way to get money from them (mostly with ads, but sometimes with "pro" versions of the services, in which users can pay for more storage or features, using the "freemium" business model).

Google can give away so much because the incremental cost of serving one more Web page to one more user is almost nothing -- and falling as technology gets cheaper. This is the difference between the "bits economy" and the "atoms economy." The marginal cost of production for digital things is so low that Free becomes not just a marketing gimmick but the default price in most markets, driven by economic forces as real online as gravity is in the real world.

But companies still have to make money, so there are limits to how much they can provide free. Not a problem for Google. Its core advertising business is so powerful, dominant and profitable that it can subsidize almost everything else the company does, using Free to get customers in new markets."

FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Thursday, June 18, 2009

The Gadget You Must Have In The Fall!
















Yes, a microwave you can attach via USB to your laptop! You know you want something to heat up your coffee in the classroom, and here it is! CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

New challenge to Google search!












Check out Bing a new search engine. And let me know how it is. Looks cool as far as I can tell so far... bing.com

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Why Twitter when you can Boo?

I'm too excited about this new iPhone "audioblogging" app called Audioboo. It allows you to record a sound clip of up to 5 minutes and post it online. It even links up with your Facebook or Twitter account. Although why Twitter when you can Boo? It's also a great way to record notes and save them for yourself on your iPhone or retrieve them online on your own personal Audioboo page. And it integrates the iPhones location feature allowing you to show where you Booed. And you can share the link to a clip or embed it on your website or blog. Here is a little video that explains it all:

Here is my first Boo:

Listen!

And here is their website: http://audioboo.fm

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Monday, May 18, 2009

Artificial Tissue based on DNA strands is happening...

Scientists now are producing artificial tissue for use in implants and artificial growth of organs and tissue. This means that eventually they will be able to grow (for example) new artificial livers based on DNA strands! Yes, the same stuff that makes up your skin is being produced artificially. We can make you better, stronger, faster than you were! Think about the implications for future robots, they will have artificial skin that looks and feels exactly like human skin and won't be any different fundamentally... Cool stuff... Read more here.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Google News Timeline Search














" Google News Timeline--is a new feature by Google labs that organizes many different types of search results on a zoomable, graphical timeline." CLICK HERE