Moving at the Speed of Creativity

This podcast includes 3 websightings and an editorial entitled “Education That Matters.” Learn about how students can balance the US federal budget online (at least experiment with different approaches to accomplishing that goal) and gain insights about string theory through NOVA’s fantastic website and video series, “The Elegant Universe.” The editorial, “Education That Matters” focuses on the importance of teachers analyzing the long term impact of the assignments and lessons they give to students. Featured stories include my experiences with a Nazi concentration camp survivor and liberator last week, and discussions with a young student about science, writing, and the implications of that dialog for teachers providing choice in student literacy activities. Challenges for this week include checking out my photos of Vancouver in the week to come, and providing positive, specific feedback for Room 208 elementary student blog publishers.

Program Length: 20 min, 48 sec
File size: 4.8 MB

(Click here to listen to this podcast)

Show notes for this podcast include:

• National Budget Simulation
• LoTi Schools bookmarks
• NOVA’s “The Elegant Universe”
• Surviving Dachau, Liberating Mauthausen podcast
• Information about K-12 Outreach and Distance Learning Programs of the Texas Tech International Cultural Center
• Graph on student retention from National Training Center
• Tim Fredrick’s ELA Teaching Blog: Blog post on writing and student choice
• My Vancouver Flickr photos
• Room208 Class Blog

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This summer I was introduced to MacKiev’s amazing 3D Weatherglobe program. My favorite uses of the program include downloading recent satellite cloud imagery, typing in the names of cities in its 40,000+ database and zooming to those parts of the globe, switching between globe and map views to zoom in on areas, and “flying” historic routes like the voyages of Christopher Columbus or Amelia Earhart’s flight around the world. With the active hurricane season we have been having, the weather satellite imagery is particularly cool to use in the classroom, especially when projecting the computer image on a wall using a LCD projector!
Earthbrowser is similar program for Windows systems, but also includes links to live webcams in addition to updated satellite imagery.

Using these programs probably doesn’t come close to comparing how cool it would be to actually go into space and see the earth from orbit, but it is definitely a more accessible and realistic way to get that amazing astronaut’s perspective for most of us!

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