FDR Day by Day

Free Technology of Teachers by Richard Byrne is one of the best resources for educators that I have come across.  Each day Byrne highlights a new resource.   FDR: Day by Day is another one of those resources.  This site, originating in the FDR library, combines primary documents of FDR's presidency with a timeline.  One can follow all of the events of the Great Depression and World War II as seen through the eyes of FDR.  Included are a variety of lesson plans.

Aurora explained

The Aurora Borealis from Per Byhring on Vimeo.

Dilbert again

National Jukebox at the Library of Congress

National Jukebox is another new resource at the Library of Congress. National Jukebox provides historical sound recordings from the early 20th Century.   For example I was able to find this excellent recording of the Argentine tango Volverás made in 1925 by the Argentine Orquesta Típica de Caro

Nicely done!

Tribute to Martha Graham:

Organizing the book case

From Steven's Lighthouse:

How to tell a digital story

Here is an excellent example of a digital story.  Is there anything left out?   From Hiking in Finland by Hendrik Morkel.


The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

Finnish Library Association

Finland leads the world in education. Maybe this is why. (From Steven's Lighthouse.com)

Mae Jemison on teaching arts and sciences together

Mae Jemison is an astronaut, a doctor, an art collector, a dancer. An excellent biography of her can be found on the blog Amazing Women Rock. I agree with her as she calls on educators to teach both the arts and sciences, both intuition and logic, as one -- to create bold thinker. This presentation from May 2009 is worth watching.

How Complexity Leads to Simplicity

I have often used this (now-infamous) Power Point slide on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan as an example of poor design and poor presentation.  Now ecologist Eric Berlow in a TED presentation shows how extrememly complex systems provide more information that can lead to a better, simpler solutions. He uses the Afghanistan slide to break it down to elementary points:

Using Power Point as a visual aid

Here's a great piece from Garr Reynolds' Presentation web site. He does an excellent analysis of how to use Power Point as a supplement to a presentation.
http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2010/10/talking-clearly-visually-about-plastic-pollution.html

Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Here are a couple of outstanding video presentations on the author Washington Irving. The first is by a high school student. Notice how she uses the medium of video well with good transitions. The only thing she could have done better is to make the text easier to read by making it more in contrast to the background. The second is a cool animation of the author reading the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Bridge eaters

This is a great use of time-lapse photography with a tilt effect.

Bridge Eaters from Sam Javanrouh on Vimeo.

Mountain Time Lapse

One of my favorite blogs is Hiking in Finland, which is about ultralight hiking in the Nordic countries. What I particularly like about the site is the way they use photography to tell their stories. For example here is a fantastic time lapse video of a mountain camping scene. Check it out::

Timescapes Timelapse: Mountain Light from http://vimeo.com/timescapes on Vimeo.

Jay Walker's Library of Human Imagination

Friluftsliv: Log Blog Connections: Jay Walker's Library of Human Imagination#links

Dilbert strikes again

Is this a true example of the mis-use of Power Point or what?

Don't Eat the Marshmellows

What matters now

Here is an interesting use of Scribd by Seth Godin. "What Matters Now" presents a series of ideas using one page per idea.
What Matters Now

Library of Congress on Flicker

The Library of Congress has recently published some of its most popular Depression era photos on Flickr:

Microsoft offers free tools for high schoolers

Re-blog from Educational Technology, Microsoft Corporation is offering Visual Studio and XNA Game Studio for free as a service to high school students.  Will try to get it for my elementary students as they are very good at multimedia.