Free eBooks and Asimov

You can blame Asimov for my science fiction collection of toys, books and props. If it wasn't for Foundation and the Robot Stories I don't think I would be the owner of a Darth Vader helmet or a replica light sabre.

You have to admit the guy could see into our near future - have a look at this video and see what I mean- the first few seconds are important.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZmFEFO72gA

As one of the commenter's on YouTube said - Kahn Academy! (see post below).

I can think of many more examples. And this leads nicely onto this RSA animate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U


Then there has been the explosion in my state of the use of iPads in education and the "need" for eBooks or more importantly eTextbooks. Publishers are scrambling to figure out how to make money from this but they are going to find it hard with the e-books directory.

Khan Acadamy - upgraded

A couple of years ago I talked about the Khan Acadamy and how this Salman Khan had put together a huge amount of instructional videos just using his brain and a wacom tablet and made them free for the world via YouTube...

Well you should see his organisation now. With a new TED talk where he explains how it all started and what you can do now with classes and as a teacher - this has to be one of the revolutions of education.

His tracking software and the re imagining of school classrooms one of the great synergies of technology in eduction. This is what technology is for.

To have a look, set yourself up and to get a little brain food - head over to http://www.khanacademy.org/

Free Teaching videos from the UK

I just came across this from one of my linked in groups and I'd thought I would show you. It brings up a bit of nostalga for me, as this is a an all British production, and it looks like a lot of the classrooms I used to teach in.

o2Learn

O2 is a communtication company (Mobile phone, internet) and have set up a moderated "teachertube" like space for teacher to put up video lessons. The difference is the students rate the leesons and there is a 2000 pound prize at the end of November for the best lesson. Interesting proposition.

The videos are moderated and then put into learning areas, where students can browse the list looking for revision topics.

Video Resources

There are a lot of video sites out there now - so much stuff is being uploaded it's hard to find what you are looking for, even with a good search engine.

NEOK12 to the rescue. Not a video site, but an indexed repository of videos from a range of different servers, all vetted for use in education. The videos are streamed through their site so if your school blocks YouTube this might be a way around it.

Use these videos with TurningPoint Anywhere and you have a visual and interactive lesson to start a topic and an opportunity to check prior understanding, prediction and comprehension.

Two new ones from other bloggers

I've written about Wordle before - this is slightly different and rather than being just Art - Wordsift adds visuals, context and a thesaurus -

The other website is for all those who need to convert a file quickly and without downloading software...

Zamzar will convert documents, video, images and sound to just about any format you need and email you the results - up to 1G files.

This is great when you are behind a firewall or you just can't download and install other programs - DET I'm looking at you.

This is great for teacher tube, teacherstv and of course youtube - a great work around when you are blocked at school.

Cassiopeia Project

The cassiopeia project

This is a great collection of free high quality videos to be used in science classrooms. It goes from general science to quantum mechanics. You can easily download them and keep them on your hard drive or server with no restrictions.

Facebook a place to find stuff

Just on Facebook today and saw an add for this site. Now I don't usually click on ad's but this seemed like it was worth it... and it was.

The site aggregates videos from other sites into a more organised arragment
http://www.scholarspot.com/index.php

Have a look, at least it is better than trawling through youtube looking for something to watch.