Plastic Fork Diaries: Food and Its Influences on the Body, 6-8

http://www.educationworld.com/awards/2003/r0103-06.shtml
This web site is the story of six students "as they experience first-hand the relationship between food and their changing bodies, cultural differences, the vanishing family meal, nutrition, and athletic performance." Basic information and facts to support the story elements can be found in the "Info Bites" section. The Phood Physiology course at the "Inside U" section gives students the facts about food and their bodies. Behind-the-scenes views of how food is prepared or grown are provided in the "Field Trip" section. The site also provides healthy recipes.

Sports and Nutrition, 6-12

http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/hsnut/index.html
Health and physical education teachers can use this web site to help students understand the relationship between sports/exercise and the food they need to supply the energy. Includes recommended training table diets, questions asked by young athletes, tips for eating right, a planner for making wise food choices, and more. Sections:
Don’t Let your Diet Let You Down
The Pregame Meal Planner
Keeping Energy Levels Up
Keeping Fluid Levels Up

BAM! Body And Mind, 6-12

http://www.bam.gov/
BAM! is designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sections: nutrition, exercise, disease control, and staying safe while enjoying sports and activities. Also includes lesson plans, activities, and downloadable resources for teachers in pdf format.

Acceptable Use Policy K-12

The Consortium for School Networking Initiative (COSN) released a guide for school districts that address the issues and considerations for a district Acceptable Use Policy through a series of questions and examples. http://www.cosn.org/Initiatives/Web2/AUPGuide/tabid/8139/Default.aspx

Whiteboard and Online Collaboration, K-12

http://www.dabbleboard.com
Dabbleboard is an online collaboration tool. It has a new type of drawing interface that's actually easy and fun to use, Draw anything you want on a blank screen and it recognizes the shapes/numbers and enhances them. It’s difficult to draw a perfect square or circle with a mouse, but just make a general shape and Dabbleboard will take care of the rest. You can also re-size or flip whatever you draw. This site also allows for real time collaboration so that edits can be made to a single drawing simultaneously by several people.

Google Docs Update, K-12

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/great-documents-come-from-great.html
Teachers and students have been using the comments and feedback features for collaboration. Google believes that the discussion about a document is as important as the document itself, but until now, there hasn’t been a great medium for this discussion to happen. Recently, Google expanded the comments into “discussions,” making them editable, making them appear in threaded conversations, and letting collaborators use the @ symbol to refer to each other by name.

Go to the above URL for a sort video of these enhancements.

Artificial Intelligence, K-12

http://topicmarks.com
Topicmarks is a web service that creates smart, interactive synopses from documents. It uses artificial intelligence to statistically analyze documents to distill them down to six sections: Overview, Facts, Summary, Keywords, Index and Properties. Topicmarks users can upload documents, use the bookmarklet to grab web content, e-mail in text, or copy and paste text for nearly instant analysis.
This product, currently being beta-tested represents more than four years of machine learning and artificial intelligence research that can statistically analyze cloud documents, or those you upload to the service, to quickly distill them down to six sections: Overview, Facts, Summary, Keywords, Index and Properties.
What can Topicmarks do for learners?
• Using the most advanced natural-language processing technology available to understand the true meaning of your text, Topicmarks will summarize it for you and retain all its facts forever.
• Upload multiple texts and Topicmarks becomes your knowledge base: finding links between texts, grouping texts around topics, and containing all the facts from all documents you ever read.
• Topicmarks helps you understand the essence and retain every single fact

Topicmarks works by cutting up the full text into sentences, attaching meaning like synonyms and antonyms to each word in the sentence, and then by identifying triplets (typically between subject, verb and object) that are the basic facts expressed in the text.

Topicmarks users can upload documents, use the bookmarklet to grab web content, e-mail in text, or copy and paste text for nearly instant analysis. Key points are extracted and personalized to the user.

In the future, Topicmarks technology could also be applied to distilling key points from social media streams like Twitter and Facebook or RSS feeds. For now, the immediate focus is integrating with popular cloud services such as Dropbox or Scribd and improving the design of the site to make it more appealing to end users.

Shmoop, K-12

http://www.shmoop.com/
Shmoop is a free online homework and writing helper for literature, poetry, and US history. The writers of Shmoop’s original content are primarily Ph.D. and Masters students from top U.S. universities, such as Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, and Princeton. It was honored by the Webby Awards in both 2009 and 2010. Shmoop has a growing collection of study guides and teacher resources on everything from SAT prep to the Civil War and more are being added all of the time. It’s mostly free of charge, with some nominal fees for test prep and a few other features.

• Get the important facts, from Summaries
• Understand many sides of the argument and dive into a number of themes in Deep Analyses
• Ask the room a question in Discussions
• Collect your thoughts by placing your own Stickies and Clippings on any page. These will be available in Folders.
• Click the Stickies button on the Toolbar and Create a New Stickie. Click “Clip this Section” to save a shortcut
• Quote and cite Shmoop in your papers. The Shmoop writers, experts from Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, U-Iowa, and other great schools, love the topics on which they write and provide citations to back up their work.

Coming Fall 2011

These online databases will be added to the suite of resources in the Heartland AEA virtual library in fall 2011. Read more about it at http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/library/OnlineDatabases.

• Culture Grams (daily life and customs around the world)
• Britannica Digital Learning (multimedia encyclopedia)
• Gale – Cengage Learning (full-text periodicals, newspapers, and reference)

Training, support resources, workshops, will be available starting in April.

Digital Media: New Learners, K-12

Many educators and parents follow the Iowa Future blog to monitor education trends and discussions lead by Iowa leaders, http://www.iowafuture.org. The March 1 posting referred to the "Digital Media" PBS video. Education experts share how students are becoming more active in directing their own learning, exemplifying Harvard educator Tony Wagner's seven skills students need for their future. View the full video or selected clips at http://video.pbs.org/video/1797357384.

Teach with iPads, K-12

The Bryan Independent School District in Texas created a dynamic page with practical information, strategies, and activities for using technology in the classroom--particularly iPads.

http://teachwithyouripad.wikispaces.com/IPAD+Activities+Examples

CHANGE HOW YOU READ ONLINE
Readability is a web and mobile app that zaps online clutter and saves web articles in a comfortable review view. https://www.readability.com/
It performs some reformatting magic and strips all the sidebars and ads, and gives you a nicely formatted chunk of text in a format that you choose. Choices include style (Newspaper, Novel, eBook, etc), font size, and margin/line length. All you need to do is make your choices, and then drag the bookmarklet to your bookmark bar in your browser. Anytime you run across a long article, click the bookmark and Readability gives you a very legible version of the text.

Instapaper is an app that let's you mark web pages, articles, feeds, etc. that you don't have time to read right now but want to read later. The free version will hold links to 10 sites--which may be adequate if students are researching a topic. When you find something you want to read later, you click the Read Later bookmark, and the text of that article is saved to your Instapaper account. You can then view the article at the Instapaper site, or read it on your iPad. Read more about it at http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2010/05/change-how-you-read-online.html

Google Classes, K-12

Wish you had the time to take a class on how to use all the features in Google? Try some of the short tutorials on Atomic Learning. Use the online database username/password assigned to your school. Find a buddy and take a few minutes during your busy day to work through the tutorials.

Check “Tutorials” under the Applications dropdown box:
Google Chrome
Google Docs
Google Earth
Google Sites
Google SketchUp

Check “Project-based” under Applications dropdown box:
Google Blogger
Google Calendar
Google Docs
Google Earch
Google Reader
Google SketchUp

BioED Online, K-12

http://www.bioedonline.org/
This site is for teacher education. It features streaming video presentations on research lab techniques, inquiry science, and assessment. The Slide Library is a great resource where teachers will find hundreds of searchable slides that can be downloaded and used to customize their own lesson plans and activities. Each slide includes talking points and references. The Teacher Resources area includes ready-to-go lessons and instructional materials such as the grade 4-8 activity guides: sleep and daily rhythms, muscles and bones, and food and fitness. There is also a separate section for K-5 educators that includes presentations, slide sets, teacher resources, and professional development.

Chemistry & Everyday Life, 9-12

http://www.nbclearn.com/chemistrychapters
This is a new online series of free videos and resources. It has three weekly lessons available now with many more to be added through the rest of the school year. The project was created with the National Science Foundation and covers a variety of topics ranging from the chemical breakdown of all the components of a cheeseburger to the chemistry of fear. Each series contains several one- to six-minute videos, charts, related news stories and lesson plans created by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). The site also features profiles of scientists making chemistry breakthroughs.

Physclips: Multimedia Physics, 9-12

http://www.physclips.unsw.edu.au/
The site uses film clips, animations, still photos, montages, and diagrams to demonstrate the different principles of physics, and includes links to other supporting and related pages as well as to background information and materials. Topics: constant acceleration, projectiles, circular motion, Newton’s laws, center of mass, momentum, rotation, and more. The tutorials for the modules are accessible from the main page of the site. Teachers can go straight to the download page and download resources for use in their classrooms.

New Nature DVDs, 6-12

This new DVD series for checkout/reservation is a classroom version of the PBS Nature episodes.

Adaptive animal anatomy #810277
Adaptive function of form: the beauty of ugly #809748
Breeding cattle by humans: domestication and genetics #809749
Death Valley: desert biome survival #809750
Endangered: extinction's cost #810274
Fellowship of the humpback whales #810280
Frogs and amphibians: crisis and CSI #810278
How dogs became man's best friend: genetics and domestication #809752
Hummingbird adaptations in dazzling motion #810279
Kilauea: Hawaii's birth volcano #810276
Mystery of disappearing honeybees: fusion of form and function #809753
Population crash: disappearing horseshoe crabs #810275
Raptors: adaptations for predation #809751
Scary squid, octopuses and other cephalopods #809754
Scientific methods and the venom cure #809755
Yellowstone bears' ecosystem #809756
Yellowstone wolves: territoriality and clan behavior #809765

Mark Twain’s Mississippi, 6-12

http://dig.lib.niu.edu/twain/
Mark Twain’s Mississippi is a searchable and indexed multimedia digital library of some of Samuel Clemons publications and reminiscences. The materials include primary sources, such as historical statistics, texts and images, as well as interpretive essays and digital video segments in which scholars discuss their ideas. The materials are grouped into four themes: economic development, politics, race, religion and culture. Included is a biography of Mark Twain and sound files of songs such as “Steamboat Bill” and “The Slave Mother’s Lament” which illustrate society, politics, and culture on the Mississippi River from 1830-1890. RealPlayer and a special plug-in are needed; they can be downloaded for free at the site.

Steps in the Research Process, 6-12

http://www.crlsresearchguide.org
This research guide takes the student step-by-step through the process with tip sheets for each step. Each tip sheet also contains links to additional information for clarification and additional learning. Students can use the tip sheets to learn or review the entire process or easily locate the specific information for the step that they need. Tip sheets include: Selecting a research topic; Listing keywords; Making source cards; Finding information within sources; Writing a statement of purpose; Brainstorming research questions; Writing a thesis statement; Making an outline; Citing sources; Writing an introduction and conclusion, etc.

The King's Speech--The Real Story, 9-12

http://www.awesomestories.com
AwesomeStories features a collection of multimedia primary source materials—photos, video, audio and historical documents—held together in a series of digital stories about films, famous trials, disaster and historical events. Teachers can signup for a free membership and see everything on the site including an extensive image database where they can explore all its features (including narrated stories). Teachers can also dig deeper with lesson plans and text documents and stay up to date with a free newsletter profiling current events and hot topics.

Teaching About Egypt Today, 6-12

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/ways-to-teach-the-unrest-in-egypt/?src=twrhp
The New York Times Learning Network blog offers suggestions and resources for including the latest developments in lessons. One suggestion is to post text about Egypt and its history in the classroom and lead students on a gallery walk as they read and take notes. Then students can be divided into groups to study questions about the issue. The blog also suggests having students study varying viewpoints and the roles of technology, media and U.S. diplomacy in the unfolding events.

Ameriquest Kids, K-6

This animated DVD series for checkout/reservation can be used for civic literacy. They include an on-screen quiz.

Why we serve #810259
Your right to vote #810258

The Love of Money DVDs, 9-12

This series for checkout/reservation is about the global economy and the 2008 financial crisis. Use these programs for financial literacy, math, social studies, current events, social studies, ethics.

The age of risk #810255
Back from the brink #810256
The bank that bust the world #810254

Math Tools for Teachers, K-12

http://www2.ups.edu/community/tofu/home.htm
Tools for Understanding is an online professional self-development resource for teachers. The math concepts section provides a wide variety of lessons arranged by topic such as spreadsheet basics, factors, primes and functions, fractions, decimals, percents, geometry, working with data, and more.
The lessons integrate technology (either spreadsheets or calculators) into the learning process and can easily be included in the existing curriculum.
The integrated lessons section provides examples of in-depth problem solving in mathematics and explicit suggestions for moving students through the problem solving process toward high-quality products.
The journaling section explores the idea of writing in mathematics and offers tips for getting started as well as prompts to use, strategies for incorporating writing into the mathematics class, and lesson plans.

Math & Teaching for Understanding Videos, K-12

The Heartland Eduvision channel (think YouTube) has some locally-produced videos about the various components of the Iowa Core and best practices. It's an excellent tool for school-wide or personal professional development. There is a browsable index and a keyword search--just like YouTube. Dr. Eric Hart, UNI, discusses how to enhance math instruction and teaching practices—particularly in conjunction with the Iowa Core.

Interpersonal Skills, K-3

Getting Along Monsters is a DVD series for loan. Each coping and interpersonal skill is reviewed and reinforced with a music video. The DVDs may be reserved online.

• Getting along monsters: 5 ways to work things out (without fighting) #809819
• Getting along monsters: 8 ways to handle anger (without hitting) #809818
• Getting along monsters: don't call me names #810205
• Getting along monsters: everyone makes mistakes #810204
• Getting along monsters: let's make up #810207
• Getting along monsters: no more teasing #810206
• Getting along monsters: we all get mad (sometimes) #809817