Our recent posts I’ve seen that bookand What will yours look like? focussed on the blending of digital and print formats in the field of young adult publishing. You may also have noticed our updated VodPod widgets featuring a selection of YA booktrailers.
Pursuing this theme of the blurring of lines between the two formats here is a further example of the use of electronic/digital media to enhance and support print resources.
Note from Scott’s blog: Small warning, this is an American countdown timer, which is only accurate for North America. I’m trying to get exact dates for the Oz and UK editions, and will then make adjustments. But don’t fret, Aussies and Brits, it looks like your edition will come out the same week as the US one—maybe even earlier!
The Feature Article in the latest issue of Fiction Focus: The Book 2.0 – Why eBooks are eLectric! looks at how technology is changing the way people read, interact with and access information. Please use this blog’s comments function let us know about your favourite digital/web-based resources used to supplement or extend your students’ print reading experiences.
The CMIS Resource Bankcontains reviews of Scott Westerfeld’s books.
Since 1996 the Webby Awards have celebrated achievement in the field of interactive multimedia. Website entries make up the majority of Webby Awards Winners, Nominees and Honorees.
While all the nominated sites could be used to explore the techniques of effective multimedia communication the following selection could be useful general classroom resources. Teachers are advised to preview sites to ensure the content is suitable for students in their classrooms.
Eyes on Darfur - Amnesty International’s unprecedented Eyes On Darfur project leverages the power of high-resolution satellite imagery to provide unimpeachable evidence of the atrocities being committed in Darfur – enabling action by private citizens, policy makers and international courts. Eyes On Darfur also breaks new ground in protecting human rights by allowing people around the world to literally “watch over” and protect twelve intact, but highly vulnerable, villages using commercially available satellite imagery. [Some images may not be suited to use with younger students]
Invisible Children:Displace Me – People’s Voice Winner In the spring of 2003, three young filmmakers traveled to Africa in search of a story. What started out as a filmmaking adventure transformed into much more when these boys from Southern California discovered a tragedy that disgusted and inspired them, a tragedy where children are both the weapons and the victims.After returning to the States, they created the documentary “Invisible Children: Rough Cut,” a film that exposes the tragic realities of northern Uganda’s night commuters and child soldiers.
Skills One – Webby Award Winner The Institute for Trade Skills Excellence promotes and advances learning, teaching and training in Australian trades education and elevates the status of traditional trades and trades education as a career choice.
Smithsonain Education Peoples’ Voice Winner – The gateway to Smithsonian education resources. [including lesson plans]
Design for the Other 90% Webby Award Winner – Encompassing a broad set of modern social and economic concerns, these design innovations often support responsible, sustainable economic policy.Design for the Other 90% demonstrates how design can be a dynamic force in saving and transforming lives, at home and around the world.
World Without Oil – In May 2007, over 1,800 people combined imagination with insight to create World Without Oil (WWO), a realistic simulation of the first 32 weeks of a global oil shortage chronicled in 1,500 personal blog posts, videos, images and voicemails. Via these lesson plans, high school teachers can use this collaborative grassroots simulation to engage students with questions about energy use, sustainability, the role energy plays in our economy, culture, worldview and history, and many others.
NASA Earth Observatory Peoples’ Voice Winner – The purpose of NASA’s Earth Observatory is to provide a freely-accessible publication on the Internet where the public can obtain new satellite imagery and scientific information about our home planet. The focus is on Earth’s climate and environmental change. In particular, we hope our site is useful to public media and educators. Also nominated NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Paper Critters – an online application for creating and sharing digital paper toys.
Britannica has made free access to the full content of Britannica Online available to registered bloggers and web publishers through Britannica WebShare. Once your free registration has been approved you can provide links to the full version of Britannica articles – users clicking on your link will be able to read the entire article but cannot read other parts of the Britannica site.
also from the Britannica WebShare site…
Britannica Widgets are here, and with them you can instantly post an entire cluster of related Encyclopaedia Britannica articles on your blog or Web site. Just follow the instructions and copy and paste the several lines of code associated with each widget as html into the appropriate place on your site. Any readers who click on a link will get the entire Britannica article on the subject, even if access to the article normally requires a subscription. Really. Try it.
Below is an example of the Britannica Greek Mythology widget embedded in a blog. A selection of widgets is available on the Britannica Assets & Widgets page with a promise of more to come.
The CMIS Encyclopaedias Online page contains links to free and subscription encyclopaedias available to schools online.
Readers interested in the impact on traditional publishing of free access to information via the internet will enjoy reading this post from Michael Arrington at TechCrunch.
There is no denying that a well constructed boolean search is the way to improve your search results.
Teaching students to use boolean search strategies has now been made easier. Boolify helps students understand their web search by visually demonstrating the logic of their search. As students add or remove the jigsaw piece qualifiers ‘and’, ‘or’ and ‘not’ the changes in their search results appear at the bottom of the search screen. This dynamic display gives continuous feedback on the effectiveness of their chosen search strategy.
A short and simple expanation of boolean search logic is available on the Boolify Help page. The Boolify page notes that ‘Search results are presented through Google’s “Safe Search STRICT” technology. However, no filtering technology is 100% secure, as this blog posting astutely points out.’
Choosing the right tool for the job makes life easier. You may like to explore these search engines to help you find what you want on the WWW. To get the best from these sites it is worth taking the time to complete the virtual tours or read the help screens.
Welcome to a new way to search!
Search Crystal- advanced search tool – suited to teachers and secondary students. Requires free registration. Users are advised to view the tutorial to get the most from this very nifty engine. from the website …’ SearchCrystal lets you searchand compare multipleengines in one place. It is a search visualization tool that enables you to compare, remixand share results from the best web, image, video, blog, tagging, news engines, Flickr images or RSS feeds
KartOO – a search engine particularly suited to visual learners, middle primary to secondary. Allows users to view interconnectedness of concepts and information. from the website… KartOO is a metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. When you click on OK, KartOO launches the query to a set of search engines, gathers the results, compiles them and represents them in a series of interactive maps.
Image unavailable for use
Kids Click – The day-to-day operations of KidsClick are currently maintained by the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. The site includes links to Search Lessons, Image and Sound seaches. Librarians – make sure you check out the through a Librarian’s Eyes link at the bottom of the page.
Quintura for Kids – a visual directory and simple search most suited to primary students.from the website … Quintura for Kids is designed specifically for children and utilizes the Quintura cloud, an interactive tag cloud for easy navigation and search for kids-related information on the Web. The intuitive nature of the cloud allows kids to refine their search by mousing over or clicking on keywords and phrases that appear in the cloud. The interface also allows for predefined searches by clicking several graphical icons on the site.
WebBrain – allows directory and simple searches. The interactive visual display encourages users to recognise the interconnectedness of information. Largely text based so more suited to upper primary and secondary students.from the website … WebBrain lets you search the Web visually, so you can explore a dynamic picture of related information, instead of searching through long lists of text. WebBrain lets you easily browse the Web and discover what’s out there. WebBrain uses TheBrain technology, which enables effective use of knowledge on the Web, the corporate intranet, and even your personal computer.
Intute – use the customisable generic search or subject specific search. Make sure you check out the Virtual Training Suite for help in getting the most out of your searches. The Internet Detective tutorial helps identify the good, the bad and the ugly of Internet research.from the website … Intute is a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners. Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in our database and write high quality descriptions of the resources. The database contains 120603 records.
Bubl – BUBL uses the Dewey Decimal Classification system as the primary organisational structure for its catalogue of Internet resources. Users may also search the database using the Simple and Advanced Search options, the Alphabetical Directory or the Subject Terms directory. Most suited to teachers and secondary students.
DMOZ – The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. Most suited to teachers and secondary students.
The Technology Focus Blog, published by Curriculum Materials Information Services, Department of Education and Training, Western Australia is designed to provide news about current events, resources and research about the use of ICT to support learning and teaching.
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