Google Now Hosting Life Magazine’s Image Archive

Life Magazine is well known for its powerful pictures that captured the heart of historical events in the US and around the world.  Now, you see their images, in high quality, archived online with Google.  Just visit, http://images.google.com/hosted/life to see them all.  This is a great resource for science, social studies, and more.

Thanks to Daniel Rhodes, media coordinator at Trask for sharing this link!

-Lucas

A Brave New World Wide Web

This video is from David Truss and his blog, Pair-a-dimes For Your Thoughts. It makes good “food for thought!”

-Lucas

Free Technology Conference… Online!

Yes, that’s right folks!  This week and next week, there’s a free online technology conference going on… and it’s awesome!  Some of the best presenters from around the world are making presentations in a highly interactive format through the K12 Online Conference.  Topics such as using blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, Second Life, and podcasting are being presented as well as sessions on issues related to technology.  If you have time this week and/or next I suggest checking it out.  The great thing, too, is that technology allows us to archive these sessions, so they’ll be available later as well.

Check out the K-12 Online Conference 2008:  Amplifying the Possibilities!

-Lucas

Google Docs in Plain English

Google Documents is a great web-based service, provided by Google, that allows you to create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets online.  Here’s another great video by the folks at Commoncraft.com:

The Periodic Table of Videos

The University of Nottingham has created a great resource for science teachers:  The Periodic Table of Videos!  Each element of the Periodic Table has a YouTube video, produced by the University of Nottingham that talks about the element’s properties and even shows experiements in some cases with the element.

Check it out at:  http://www.periodicvideos.com/#

-Lucas

Smarter Web Searches

As I’m doing my literature review for video games and their use in education, I’m nearly swamped with vast amounts of information when I do a Google search. It’s very difficult to find just what I’m looking for. Again, the guys at CommonCraft have some tips. Enjoy!

-Lucas

Tech Terms: What’s A Wiki?

We’re constantly drowning in a sea of new terms in education, especially from technology. To help with this, I’m going to be adding videos to the blog from the folks at CommonCraft.com. These guys make understanding technology easy! Our first one will be Wiki’s! Wiki’s have many uses in education. Enjoy!

-Lucas

Win A Classroom Technology Makeover!

How would you like a $25,000 technology makeover for your classroom?  The folks at eInstruction are sponsoring a video contest to give that and other prizes away!  Here’s what they say:

Make a music video with your class that shows how amazing it would be to have a technology-fueled classroom. You could win an Interactive Classroom makeover worth over $25,000.

Grab your video camera, tune up your instruments or just SING! Send us your video, a panel of judges will choose one winner from grades K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 will be chosen from the entries.

So, if you’re interested in entering the contest, visit:  http://www.eimakeover.com/ , and let me know!  I’d love to help

-Lucas

Need A Handy Quick Reference For Microsoft Office Or Other Software?

Do you ever wish you had a cheat-sheet for Microsoft PowerPoint? Or maybe Internet Explorer?
Well, I just found this awesome site through my professional network:

The folks at CustomGuide.com have made many of their quick reference cards available for free online. These are full-color and highly visual .pdf files that would be great printed and laminated. Oh, did I mention they were FREE?

View the complete list here.

-Lucas

Play A Game, Build Your Vocabulary, Feed The Hungry

Yes! You can do that all at once with FreeRice! What a great way to involve students in helping others while simultaneously building their SAT vocabulary!