Mike Falick's Blog

Spring Branch's Annual Parent U: A Great Day of Learning is Happening on October 2, 2010

Spring Branch's Annual Parent U: A Day of Learning, is going to take place on October 2, 2010, from 8:00a - 1:00p at Spring Woods High School. Registration is easy -- click here to register in English or here to register in Spanish.

Parent U offers dozens of sessions in the following 9 Learning Tracks:

• Academics
• Parenting Skills
• College and Career Readiness
• Health and Wellness
• Safety
• Special Needs
• Finances
• Grade Level Transitions
• Media and Web Resources

The day's course information is available here (.pdf).

The Periodic Table of Videos - Share this with Your Favorite Chemistry Teacher and Student

The University of Nottingham has created a very useful version of the periodic table.  From the Periodic Table of Videos website:

Tables charting the chemical elements have been around since the 19th century - but this modern version has a short video about each one.

We've done all 118 - but our job's not finished. Now we're updating all the videos with new stories, better samples and bigger experiments.

Plus we're making films about other areas of chemistry, latest news and occasional adventures away from the lab.

Most recently we've started a new series - The Molecular Videos - featuring our favourite molecules and compounds.

Click the image below to go directly to the website.  Once there, click each element in the table to see the element's video.

Storyline Online: Videos of Famous People Reading Children's Books (Free)

I recently came across yet another really good (and free) literacy website called Storyline, which students will really like.  Why?  Because it is a site created by the Screen Actors Guild on which famous people read (on video) children's books.

Here is a list of some of the stories that are currently available:

• To Be a Drum, by Evelyn Coleman; read by James Earl Jones
• Guji Guji, by Chih Yuan Chen; read by Robert Guillaume Sebastian's
• Roller Skates, by Joan De Deu Prats; read by Caitlin Wachs
• Sophie's Masterpiece, by Eileen Spinelli; read by CCH
• Pounder Stellaluna, by Janell Cannon; read by Pamela Reed Wilfrid
• Gordon McDonald Partridge, by Mem Fox; read by Bradley Whitford
• No Mirrors in My Nana's House, by Ysaye M. Barnwell; read by Tia and Tamera Mowry
• The Night I Followed the Dog, by Nina Laden; read by Amanda Bynes
• Thank you, Mr. Falker, by Patricia Polacco; read by Jane Kaczmarek
• My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother, by Patricia Polacco; read by Melissa Gilbert
• Knots on a Counting Rope, by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault; read by Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels
• Brave Irene, by William Steig; read by Al Gore
• A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon; read by Sean Astin
• Private I. Guana, by Nina Laden; read by Esai Morales
• Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch, by Eileen Spinelli; read by Hector Elizondo
• The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg; read by Lou Diamond Phillips
•  Me and My Cat, by Satoshi Kitamura; read by Elijah Wood
• Dad, Are You the Tooth Fairy, by Jason Alexander; read by Jason Alexander
• When Pigasso Met Mootisse, by Nina Laden; read by Eric Close
• White Socks Only, by Evelyn Coleman; read by Amber Rose Tamblyn
• Romeow and Drooliet, by Nina Laden; read by Haylie Duff
• Enemy Pie, by Derek Munson; read by Camryn Manheim

My First Prezi Explains Google's Wonder Wheel

Yesterday, I posted about a fantastic new presentation tool I saw at ASCD called Prezi.

Below is my first Prezi, which explains another great tool I learned about at ASCD - Google's Wonder Wheel.

Click the arrow, give it moment to load, then click to advance and navigate.

Wonder Wheel on Prezi

Prezi Presentations Crushes PowerPoint (and It's Web-Based and Free to Use)

At ASCD this weekend, I have been introduced to an exciting new technology for creating presentations called Prezi.  Presentations created using Prezi are substantially better than any PowerPoint presentation I have ever seen.  Best of all, Prezi is web-based, and the basic version is free.  There is an enhanced version that includes a desktop edition of Prezi, but almost anything you want to do can be done with the free version.

Below is a sample from the Prezi website.  Click the arrow, allow it to download, and then click the arrow to advance through the presentation.

**Update:  I have created my first Prezi to explain Google's new Wonder Wall feature.  You can access it here.**

Delivering your idea on Prezi

ASCD Day 2: Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World

ASCD blogging continues:  My fourth session today is Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World.  This session was described in the Conference Program as follows:

Replacing the dated and antiquated with lively and timely themes for contemporary learners is essential. The presenter will share specific curricular unit ideas and instructional strategies for engaging K—12 learners on contemporary themes and issues such as sustainability, media literacy, global economics, urban planning, bioethics, integrated geography, world languages, and fusion arts. The presenter will also suggest specific alternative assessments based on digital tools, open-source software, and global communication options.

This presentation by Heidi Hayes Jacobs was very informative, and moved incredibly fast.  I think I captured most of the information in my notes (.pdf), including most of the links to resources designed to change the way teaching is done.  I will be highlighting some of these links in future posts, but I highly recommend that you visit the Curriculum 21 website.  It is a truly amazing resource.

For more information on Ms. Jacobs, and her book, which shares its title with that of her presentation, click here (includes an interview with Ms. Jacobs).

And for another listing of the links provided by Ms. Jacobs, please see this blog post by Megan Palevich.

College Insight: A New Website Provides Information About College Affordability, Graduation Rates, and Diversity in an Easy to Use Format

Here's another website that supports our District's goal to be the premiere college focused district in Texas.

College InSight puts higher education data at your fingertips. Browse and compare information about affordability, diversity, and student success.

As described on the website:

College InSight, an initiative of the Institute for College Access & Success, makes data on college affordability, diversity, and student success easy to find, compare, and analyze.  College InSight is the successor to EconomicDiversity.org and provides data for almost 5,000 U.S. colleges and universities. In addition to college-level data, it features totals and averages for states, sectors, and other groupings of colleges. College InSight is both an easy-to-use consumer resource and a sophisticated research tool designed to help shed light on important trends and issues.

There are three interconnected ways to tap into College InSight’s wide range of data:  

 1. Spotlight - Start by selecting a college, state, or type of school to see a snapshot of key data and a relevant comparison.

 2. Topics - Start with a topic, then dig deeper to see how specific colleges, states, or school types compare.  

 3. Explore All Data - Build your own table with any combination of colleges, variables, or years in the College InSight database.

Feeling Smart: Here's the Website for the Official SAT Question of the Day

The College Board's website now features a SAT practice question every day.  In addition, the website provides extensive resources to prepare for the SAT.

Resources to Help Teachers Organize the Classroom

The following resources to help teachers to organize and decorate the classroom are courtesy of the Harris County Department of Education August 2009 Instructional Technology Newsletter:

Resources to Organize & Decorate Your Classroom

Internet4Classrooms - Internet4Classrooms provides printables and ideas for bulletin boards, bookmarks, flashcards, books to make, and many more.

ABC Teach—Back to School - ABC Teach provides printable borders, “All About Me” sheets, student information cards, printable shape books, story starters, and more, to begin the school year.

The Teacher’s Corner - Teacher’s Corner provides images of wonderful bulletin board ideas to start the school year.

Kaboose—Back to School - Kaboose provides links to bulletin board printables, bookmarks, and theme-based printables such as “Texas Hill Country.” Activity sheets are also available for home projects.

Free Posters at Free Stuff for Teachers - Order free online posters for your classroom.

PowerPoints for the Classroom - Nebo School District in Iowa provides many elementary and secondary completed PowerPoints for classroom use.  Click on a PowerPoint link, then click “Open” to preview, or “Save” to save a copy for editing.

Busy Teachers Care – Many printables for group activities and other classroom uses.

If you would like to get the HCDE Instructional Technology Newsletter, please e-mail Jeanie Cole at [email protected] to be added or deleted from the Instructional Technology Newsletter group.  Please reply with “add me” in the subject line to be added, or with “remove me” in the subject line to be removed.

Timetric: A Free Website for Accessing and Analyzing Data Over Time

I recently came across Timetric, a very useful website for data access and analysis.  Timetric, as described from its website more fully below, allows you to post your own data over time as well as access data posted by others.   Timetric is a free service but does require you to register to use the service.

An example appears below (click on the image to enlarge).

 

________________________________________

What's Timetric for?

Timetric's here to help you make sense of data. If you think about it, most of the numbers we come across every day are things like temperatures, prices, rates, volumes: numbers which vary over time. That's what Timetric focuses on: graphing, tracking and comparing the movements of data over time.

The fancy name for this sort of thing is time series analysis. We're building tools to make it as easy to build models on top of time series — updated whenever the data they're based on is updated — as it is to use a spreadsheet.