Two for Tuesday

May 25th, 2010

2010-05-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

1. Hacking Knowledge: 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better
Interesting suggestions for improving your thinking based on how the brain works. Suggestions for your health, balance, perspective and focus, recall and more.

2. Brain Rules: 12 Rules for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School
This website is a companion to the book, which is a great read. Check out these strategies for improving your performance as both a student and a teacher.

May 18th, 2010

2010-05-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

1. Check your Facebook Privacy Settings with the Reclaim Privacy Bookmarklet

Drag the Scan for Privacy bookmarklet to your browser bookmark bar, log into your Facebook account (at home) and click the browser button. Scan for Privacy will check your settings and inform you where you need to to tighten up.

2. How the US Engages the World with Social Media

An interesting article about the ways the US government is using blogging, Facebook and Twitter to improve our image in the world.

May 11th, 2010

2010-05-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

1. Web 3.0: A story about the Semantic Web
Watch this video about some new ways to think about how to organize and think about the world wide web.

2. Bookemon.com
Design and make your own book and share it with your friends and family.

May 4th, 2010

2010-05-04T10:09:00.001-07:00

1. Guess the Google
Improve your search skills with this visual guessing game. You are shown a montage of images and you have to figure out the search term that returned those images before the clock runs out. "It turns the mental activity of searching into a fun, visual and engaging game where people can enjoy the challenge of being the fastest and most efficient at making that connection between search terms and their results."

2. The Ten Best Apps for Education

Check out these useful free iPhone apps, including flash cards, book readers, and dictionaries. Turn your phone into a learning machine!

April 27th ,2010

2010-04-27T12:07:00.000-07:00

1. Encouraging the Text Generation Rediscover its Voice
How long can you go without your computer or phone? Students at Riverdale School in New York City gave it a try. Read the article to find out how it went.

2. Texting Improves Language Skill

If you can't give up your phone, it might be nice to know that studies show texting can improve your language development. This BBC News article summarized two recent studies done on the effects of texting.

April 20th, 2010

2010-04-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

1. Ten Years and One Day Everyday on Polaroids
Mark Tasman took a picture of himself everyday for ten years (and one day) and put together all of his pictures into this 5 minute video. It is interesting to see how he changed over time.

2. A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything
An art student's flip book history of the world in 3 minutes. Perhaps not entirely accurate, but fun to watch.

April 13th, 2010

2010-04-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

We often think of failure as something to avoid. Here are two websites that provide another way to think about it

1. 50 Famously Successful People who Failed at First
Check out this list of business gurus, scientists, public figures, actors, artists, musicians, and athletes, all of whom failed before making it big.

2. Failing is Essential
In this blog post, the Head of the Poughkeepsie Day School describes some of the research that encourages failure as a means to success. She outlines a talk by, Stanford professor, Tina Seelig titled "Innovation as an Extreme Sport." You can watch the video of the talk to learn more about her approach to innovation.

April 6th, 2010

2010-04-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

1. How Millenial Are You: Take this quiz and find out
The PewResearch Center put together this quiz based on their recent study "exploring the behaviors, values and opinions of teens and twenty-somethings that make up the Millenial Generation.

2. Vocab Sushi: The better way to build your vocabulary.

This free site offers free games to help you build your vocabulary. You can specify your skill level and your goals. You can look at words in context, play sentence completion and definition matching games. When you create a free account the site will remember your progress.

March 30th, 2010

2010-03-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

1. Book Discussions: A place to talk about books and ideas that matter.
Check out this ning site that allows anyone (students and teachers) to set up an online book group. You can use this for a class or for yourself. Join the site and start a group.

2. Preceden: The easiest way to make a timeline.
This free site makes it easy to create your own timelines. They aren't fancy, but they are quick and you can print them out or embed them on another website.

March 9th, 2010

2010-03-09T09:16:00.001-08:00

1. Doodle4Google

Are you artistic? Would you like to see your artwork on the world's most popular browser? Then enter the Doodle4Google contest. Submssions are due by March 31st. Check out the rules at the link above and be sure to let me know if you are interested! I have to submit your entry, there are forms to fill out and we can only submit 6 entries.

2.DropBox

DropBox is a downloadable application that allows you to share up to 2G of files across different computers and with other people for free. You can get more space for an additional charge. Now you can share large files with friends and access documents and other media from multiple locations easily and safely. Thanks to Mr. Trautz for this tip!

March 2nd, 2010

2010-03-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

Belmont Hill Students are Blogging:

A Weekly Dose of Tennis by Bashiru Akinfolarin

A Weekly Dose of World Football by Charles Butte

Albundy's Hip Hop Concoction
by Alan Momperousse

All Time Great Movies
by Andrew Daskalakis

Alternative Automotive Awareness
by Chris Thomsen

Automobiles in the 21st Century
by Mike Nahill

Berry Addicted
by PJ Lee

Big K's Everything Blog
by Kevin Clough

Boston Sports - Everything but Hockey
by Jeff Schimmel

Everything about Vertical Jumping
by Ryan Paganetti

Hardcore Parkour
by Chris Ivsin

Peter's Sports Blog
by Peter Yanofsky

Ryan's Squash Blog
by Ryan Mullaney

Soccer Update
by Birin Padam

Tim's Recipe Review
by Tim Strakosch

February 9th, 2010

2010-02-09T12:39:00.000-08:00

1. BBC Religions
Twenty world religions are spotlighted here. You can find both general information and more specific details on beliefs, customs, holy days, and worship.

2. Take the Belief-o-matic Quiz
This 20 question quiz will match your beliefs with different religions and provide links for you to learn a little more about each of those religions. Be warned, the site is slow and has some ads, but I thought the results were interesting.

January 12th, 2010

2010-01-12T05:37:00.000-08:00

1. Protecting Reputations Online
This 3 minute video illustrates what happens to information that you share on the web. Common Craft's unique style makes it easy to understand some of the risks of oversharing information Online.

2. Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over
This ReadWriteWeb blog post summarizes some of the recent comments made by Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, regarding Facebooks new privacy settings.

January 5th, 2010

2010-01-05T20:13:00.001-08:00

1 . Google fast flip
New from Google labs, this web application allows you to find news articles from a variety of sources on many different topics. Fast flip shows you the cover pages of the newsprint article and allows you to flip through the pages as if it were a magazine. There is even a mobile version.

2. Wallwisher
An online post-it note board with no sign up required. You can create a wall that everyone can see or one for only you. You can even set it up to approve every post before it shows up on the wall.

December 15th, 2009

2009-12-15T08:15:00.000-08:00

1. Geocaching
Geocaching is a high tech treasure hunting game played by people all over the world. All you need is a GPS device and the clues found on this website. You can search for active geocaches by zip code and level of difficulty. The site will give you the clues to find hidden containers called geocaches. If you are looking for something fun to do over break, this could be it. There are many geochaches hidden in the Boston area.

2. Google Sightseeing
Even if you aren't able to travel during this vacation, you can see the world through this mashup of Google Earth and Google Maps. Google Sightseeing will take you on a tour of the world. Each weekday they present a different location, chosen from viewer suggestion. If you go to the sight today, you can learn about floating stages - performance spaces built on the water.

December 1st, 2009

2009-12-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

1. Interactive Math Miscellaney and Puzzles
Lots of cool math games and puzzles with Java applets that help you to figure out the answers and with solutions that explain how to figure them out. Try the eye opener series for some good challenges.

2. Virtual Bubble Wrap
I know this isn't particularly educational, but it is kind of fun. I suggest Manic Mode if you are feeling really crazy.

(This is just a picture, you have to go to the site to actually pop it.)

November 24, 2009

2009-11-24T07:06:00.000-08:00

1.Elfster:
Elfster is a website that sets up secret santa type gift exchanges. You can invite people to participate using their email address. Elfster will draw names for you and allows you to create a wish list for your secret santa. You can use elfster with a small or large number of people.

2. Google Image Swirl:
Google Image Swirl is new in Google Labs. When you search for an image, google groups the images it finds into categories or similar images. It makes it easier to drill down to find exactly the image you are looking for.

November 17, 2009

2009-11-17T08:23:00.001-08:00

1. Ten Useful GMail Search Tips
Great suggestions for making the most of Gmail. This post explains how to search certain fields, find attachments, use parenthesis, combinations and more.

2. Ambiently
Discover related websites for every page you browse. Drag the Ambiently bookmarklet to your browser tool bar, and when you click on it, Ambiently will show you a list of related websites just like the one you are on.

An example of Gmail search tips related websites:

November 10, 2009

2009-11-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

1. Readability
Websites today are so busy with advertising, images, video and graphics, it can be difficult to focus on the text you are interested in reading. The Readability bookmarklet filters out all of that website noise and allows you to focus on just the text. It has made my online reading experience much more productive. I highly recommend this tool.

2. MooURL
Have you ever wanted to share a link that was really really long? MooURL.com is a URL shortener. It will cut your web address down to a manageable size. Just go to http://moourl.com/ and paste the web address into the space provided. You can also customize the URL to make it easier to remember. For example I shorted the Readability link like this: http://moourl.com/readability

November 3, 2009

2009-11-03T08:10:00.001-08:00

1. 100+ Google Tricks that will Save you Time in School
Check out these great tips and learn how to use Google to convert units, do a timeline search, search for a specific file type, search for a face, use Google News, study the oceans, and much more.

2. Snailmailr - Send a Letter Online
Do you have a relative that doesn't have an email address? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to send a letter as easily as you send an email. For only 1 dollar, you can use Snailmailr to send a full color letter, with images, through the US mail. Your grandparents will be so happy you did!

October 27th, 2009

2009-10-27T08:28:00.001-07:00

1. Filtering Lost and Found Gmails
If you find that Lost and Found email is cluttering up your inbox, here is one way to cut down on the clutter. (This will work for all Gmail.)

1. Open a lost and found email
2. Click to show details
3. Click on "Filter messages from this mailing list"
4. Click on Next Step.
5. Check off the appropriate boxes.

2. Google Apps for Education Community
This Website provides lots of great resources for teachers and students using Google Apps. There are tutorials and tips, examples of the ways Google Apps are being used, discussion boards and more.

October 20th, 2009

2009-10-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

1. Facebook Quizes - Beware of your privacy!
You may not realize how much you are revealing about yourself and your friends when you take a face book quiz. This post from ReadWriteWeb explains the risks. You can take this (safe) quiz created by the American Civil Liberties Union to see just how much you are sharing (you will need to sign in to facebook to take the quiz).

2. Bill Konigsberg - Writing about writing
Last year's diversity day speaker, Bill Konigsberg, writes regularly in his blog Waldorf to your Astoria. In this post, he shares his latest writing break through. He does a great job of describing his writing process and reveals the subject of his next novel.

October 13th, 2009

2009-10-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

1. Shared Folders in Google Docs
You can now share a group of Google Docs by putting them into a folder and sharing the folder.

2. Google Squared - Square your search results
You can now search the web and see your search results in an organized grid of information. Search for astronauts and Google Squared will organize your results into names, images, dates of birth, nationalities and missions. You can learn more about how it works here.

Octoer 6th, 2009

2009-10-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

1. Wolfram Alpha Homework Day - October 21st, 2009
Wolfram Alpha is a unique search engine. Enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and a growing collection of data to compute the answer. You can find out what happened on your birthday, the population of any town, and the calculation of mean, median and standard deviation for any set of numbers. On October 21st, 2009 there will be a live interactive web event that will bring together students and educators from across the country to solve your toughest assignments and explore the power of using Wolfram|Alpha for school, college, and beyond.

2. Cha Cha - Answers at your fingertips
With Cha Cha you can text or call in a question at any time of the day or night and real people will text you back an answer. You can even apply to be a guide and get paid to answer other people's questions. Find out anything from the symptoms of the swine flu to how to make salsa.

September 29, 2009

2009-09-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

1. Alltop- Alltop is like an "Online Magazine Rack."
Organized by subject, Alltop collects and aggregates information from websites and bloggers and displays the 5 most recent posts from these sites. You can check out Alltop Sports for all the best sports information or Alltop Education for all of the latest education news. Subjects vary from Auto Racing to Zoology.

2. Twones- Bring all of your Online music activity together in one place.
Twones allows you to bookmark all of the different music you listen to across the internet in one place. You can create and share playlists from a variety of streaming websites and discover new tracks and artists from across the web.

September 22, 2009

2009-09-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

1. Google Profile - Take control of your Online identity
This great article explains how to create a Google profile to help you control what comes up when people search for your name Online. By customizing your profile to include only the information you want to share, you focus your audience on what you want them to see. Click here to learn more about how to set up your profile.

2. Wordnik - "An ongoing project devoted to discovering all the words and everything about them"
This dictionary website gives you more than just a definition. Type in a word and, in addition to several definitions from a variety of dictionaries, you will also find its pronunciation, real time examples from Twitter and other places on the web, statistics on usage in the past year, related images, etymology and a punctuation profile. You can look up any word without registering, or join if you want to contribute information, pronunciations, tags and related words.

September 15, 2009

2009-09-15T08:22:00.001-07:00

1. Fontcapture.com

I just created my own font using my own handwriting. It was really easy to do. Just go to fontcapture.com, download the font form, fill it out with your own handwriting, scan it and upload the scan to the website. I'm not sure there is any really good educational reason to do this, but it was fun!

2. Minutes Please

This time management application allows you control the amount of time you spend on any one website. If you find your self losing hours on Facebook for example, you can set Minutes Please to only allow you a certain amount of time there. Use it when you want to take a break from your work, but want to limit your break time so that you can be more productive.

September 8, 2009

2009-09-08T11:24:00.001-07:00

Two exciting events this week, Obama's speech to students today and Google Map's Giant Game of Monopoly begins tomorrow.

1. Obama's Speech
As I'm sure many of you know, Obama made a speech to the school children of America today titled "I Expect Great Things From You." You can watch the speech here (it runs about 16 minutes) and read the transcript here. Share your thoughts on the speech (and its surrounding controversy) on our Belmont Hill Network.

Image Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20090908/NEWS15/90908031/1318/

2. Google Map's Giant Game of Monopoly
Tomorrow, Google Map's is launching a giant game of monopoly. Google and Hasbro together have created an Online version of the game using Google Maps called Monopoly City Streets. Players will start the game with $3 million dollars to erect houses, purchase skyscrapers and collect rent. The game launches tomorrow. You can read more about it on the official Monopoly City Streets Blog.

September 1, 2009

2009-09-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

Welcome Back! As some of you remember, each Tuesday I send out two technology websites for the community to check out. Please feel free to suggest sites that you think I should include in my weekly email. I'm going to be using Google Documents and publishing these as a Webpage. You can always use this link to see all of the Two for Tuesdays for the year.

1. Our Belmont Hill Social Network:
I want to invite you all to join a social network that I set up for the Belmont Hill community using Ning.com. Many of you may be familiar with Ning if you have used it in your classes. Ning is a social network, only open to members of the Belmont Hill
community, that allows you to share ideas (perhaps revive the world
issues conference), photos (from your travels), videos and even
write a blog post (reflect on your summer) if you feel like it. If you would like to join the group, please go to http://belmonthill.ning.com/ and request membership. Use your Belmont Hill email address to sign up, add your photo (please use an actual photo of yourself) and use your given name so we know who you are.

2. Gmail Tips - Become a Gmail Ninja
This is a great resource for learning how to use our new email system more efficiently. There are tips for every level of user from novice (white belt) to expert (Gmail master). No matter where you are on the spectrum, I think you will learn something new by checking this site out.