I know grades are due tomorrow and everyone will be leaving campus to enjoy their holiday. I just wanted to say Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas! I look forward to seeing you all back in January. Be safe and have fun!
I love idea mapping or mind mapping as some call it. I create these little maps for EVERYTHING! It’s a great organizational tool for me and for many students. For those who haven’t used them a mind map is a diagram used to represents ideas or concepts (or other things) that are linked together and are around a central idea or word. They are great classification tools as well as studying and organizing tools. Wikipedia lists other ideas as well: generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in … problem solving, decision making, and writing.
The biggest problem with mind mapping is that you usually need software that will let you do it and that normally costs money. Money, which as students and educators, we don’t normally have. Well now there are several free and fully online applications that make this possible. My favorite by far is bubbl.us. I like this one because I like to put initial ideas down and then easily reorganize them later, once they are all down. 
Many online apps don’t let you do this but bubbl.us does. You can very easily change connections or make new ones with the drag of a mouse. Like I said there are others out there you may want to look at. Different ones will appeal to different organizational styles. Check out:
Mindmeister – http://www.mindmeister.com/
Freemind – http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Wikipedia had a huge list of other applications.
What makes these online versions so great is the sharing and collaboration that is available. Bubbl.us allows the creator to either share their maps as view only or they can invite specific people to join them in the creation of the map. This makes them great for group work or group project planning, especially when no one can meet at the same time. They are worth a look. Let me know what you think.
I know you all keep hearing terms such as the “web 2.0 student” or the “connected student” but what does that really mean? Well here’s about the best explanation I’ve seen so far. Watch this video and comment below to let me know what you think. Do I think our students are here yet?…No, not yet but they are getting there. We can help them make these connections.
If you’re interested in more check out their blog at http://teachweb2.blogspot.com/
Life magazine has launched an amazing photo archive of over 10 million photos. The archive is hosted by Google and has all the same features as the Google Image Search. The photos range from the 1750s to today with new photos being added daily. The other cool thing is that 97% of the collection has never been seen by the public.
Amelia Earhart
These photos would be a great addition to your presentations and to student work! Their professional quality and because it’s from LIFE they are authentic and historically valuable.
So now you’re saying, “This sounds great Mendi! How do I find these images?” Well it’s easy. You can either go to http://images.google.com/hosted/life or an easier URL is http://www.life.com/Life/ or in your Google Image Search just end your search string with source:life.
Now go forth and get yourself some great images!
teach42 tweeted today that Discovery Education now has a YouTube channel. This is great news because I’m a big fan. There’s a whole series of videos created by kids, for kids that explain educational concepts. In the video below, Megan explains parabolas.
There’s also a cool “Best of Web 2.0″ series that I plan on watching. There’s just a ton of different types of videos out there. Remember, it just launched so keep watching this site as I’m sure it will change and expand! These videos aren’t the same quality as Discovery Education Streaming (formerly United Streaming) but it’s free and interesting. It’s worth a quick look.
