Primary Maths

Keepad Interactive has now got the rights to Mult-e-Maths software and it is now available to customers. Its a great tool to use with either an eBeam or a Graphire tablet. Every time I do a demonstration, teachers are blown away by it's simplicity and ease of use.
You can get a trial of it here.

For those of you who can't get there hands on it - there is another option.
Math playground This has a range of games, manipulatives, and videos that work great on an IWB or tablet.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]">

More PowerPoint resources - Science

NASA has a huge range of free PowerPoint resources for science - Here are a few I have picked up recently.

http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2006/promotional/powerpoint.php

http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/download-view.cfm?Doc_ID=236

http://www.mainsgate.com/spacebio/modules/lu_teare.html

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/topics.htm

Obviously these work great on their own but if you team them up with TurningPoint Questions peppered through the presentation you can get an idea of your student's understanding on these topics.

eBeam Inscribe and eBeam LiveWire

New toys arrived at the office today!

eBeam LiveWire is an unassuming gadget. It connects to a computer that does not have ebeam software or drivers and then you connect an eBeam to the LiveWire. Livewire has all the software and drivers so that anyone can use an eBeam pod... Cool hey.

Big advantage is to make the eBeam pod available to more people on a casual basis. Great for libraries or schools to loan out eBeams on an as needed basis.

Also in the package was eBeam Inscribe. I haven't had much time to play with this but it is wireless tablet similar to our Wacom Graphire. The inscribe doesn't use bluetooth but a separate wireless protocol. What makes it different is that you can use both eBeam and Inscribe at the same time (two mouse points).

Once I get these two up and running and had a play I'll give you more information.

New Free Art Programs

I have always been a fan of free graphics programs from the gimp through to irfanview, so I'm always on the look out for more.

Painting programs

Smoothdraw - Similar to Artrage - it provides natural painting and drawing with interactive tools and effects. - A nice freeware application that is perfect for eBeam or use with your Wacom Tablet

ArtWeaver - Again a natural painting/drawing tool. The interface is more like Corel paint.

Animation Programs

Synfig - Synfig is a powerful, industrial-strength vector-based 2D animation software package, designed from the ground-up for producing feature-film quality animation. Not sure how easy this is to use but I'll download it and give it a bash.

animpixels - Feeling retro. This program helps you create cool isometric art and animations - Sim City style.

K-3D - A 3D modeling and animation tool, again I haven't had a chance to play with it - but it is free!

For these and more try this site http://creativenerds.co.uk/freebies/25-free-must-download-design-programs/

Interactive whiteboard common file format

Some how I have missed this for six months. But BECTA have been ratifying a new common file format for interactive whiteboards.

Image by eBeam via Flickr

So what does this mean. Well for content providors they can make one version of their content rather than many. Teachers will be able to move between schools and even classrooms and use the same resources no matter what the hardware. School will be able to concentrat on the appropriate technology not the software that it comes with.

It is good to see that Luidia is already complient with these standards.

For more information on this click here

Space - The Final Frontier

Image by ted.sali via Flickr

OK, I'm super happy today. My year long wait has finally finished and I have my Star Trek original tricorder from entertainment earth. Whoo hoo - Yes I am a Trekkie, this will go into my current collection of phasors and communicators.

So in the spirit of space exploration here are a few online "space" resources to use on your Interactive Whiteboard.

http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/resources/explorations/index.shtml

http://www.gunn.co.nz/astrotour/?data=tours/retrograde.xml

And if you feel like helping out

http://www.galaxyzoo.org/


Live long and prosper!

TurningPoint Anywhere

TurningPoint Anywhere for both Mac and PC has been upgraded!

TPA is now more Mac like for the PC - with a larger toolbar and more options. It also allows you pull reports in HTML format. So you don't need MS Excel to get your reports out of the data. There are obviously less reporting options but it does mean that if you do want to bypass MS products but still use TP you can.

So what does this mean -
Well for all of you who use Open Office or any of the online programs such as Google Docs (used with gears you can do some stuff offline), it still means you can get feedback from your audience, and get your reports.

Added to this is the opportunity to set up the questions, answers and correct answers from within TPA before running you presentation. You can still use the participant lists as well. This give a less on the fly feel to your presentations and fills out your reports with more information.

All this adds up to TPA being a great tool to add to your ARS/SRS grab bag.

TPA can be downloaded from TurningTechnologies.com

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]">

Teaching Disability

The Onion is a satirical website - taking the zeitgeist and turning it inside out and making us look at ourselves in a whole new way. My friends put me onto it when it was just a text based website back in university.

If you are a teacher, educator or are in school administration - read this and laugh then think about it.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/report_increasing_number_of

Report: Increasing Number Of Educators Found To Be Suffering From Teaching Disabilities

This has to be one of the funniest yet insightful articles on the website - remember it is meant to be satirical. But the reason this is funny is because there is a very real element of truth throughout.

Real issues that it brings up:
The status of teaching
Labeling students
Teacher quality
Workload and job satisfaction
Incentive structures
Teacher support
Mentoring and professional development.

the new breed of search / knowledge engines

So many times in my teaching career and now my training career, people complain to me (like I can do anything about it) about their experience with search engines.

I've been using computer search engines since I was in school. My high school in 1987 instigated the first roll out of student accessable wyse opac machines in the library. We also has a B|A|S|I|C mini computer that we were able to terminal into - green screens and everything. You learned by trial and error how to get the information you wanted - still a lot faster than the card file system.

Anyway - now there is google and.... well there is google to do your searching for you. But what most people want is knowledge, information and understanding - one thing that google supplies by pointing you in the direction where most people go or link to (page rank).

WolframAlpha has garnered a lot of interest in it new form of search and display - it actually tries to give you the information you are looking for. So if you search for Pi, you will get not a website but and explanation and facts about Pi or just about anything in the concrete world. Ask it the meaning of life the universe and everything - it gives you the correct answer.

I just came across this one eyeplorer - put in your concept and it pulls information related to that concept, devided by catergory and relevence to the concept.