Adding an Image to the Blog Sidebar

Found an article on how to add an image to the blog sidebar... involves a trick so to speak with images and linking. To get the details click here to link directly to the article. But i am trying it for myself to see if it actually will work for me.

Yay! It worked! Look! I posted my pic in the sidebar. Neat little trick that could come in very handy!

Good Example of How to Use a Blog

So visited some other class blogs and I particularly liked this one called Scattergood Biology hosted by Edublogs. He has a page on there for his students with links to Edblogs help pages for all the how-to's for logging in, posting, how much to write, etc. etc. I particularly like the links he put there for more info about each point he makes. I thought it was a good set of guidelines so I'll probably do something similar for my class blog. I still am fiddling around with which hosting site to use. I've used Wetpaint before for my first wiki and it's okay but they don't have ad-free versions anymore for educators. The other one I've used is Weebly. It's really good and you can get an ad-free educators page. Here's mine that I made for my XC Ski team. The tech guy at my school recommended Edublogs or Wikispaces for Teachers. He said Edublogs was better though.

Vimeo Science Videos

So Vimeo is kinda interesting. It's a collection of really high quality videos for movie makers to publish their work. I found in the science and technology category, some videos explaining various science concepts in very precise and detailed ways. Some are from people who send in questions then have them answered, such as in the Science Catalyst Live Show - Grade 12 Chemistry. Here is one example of this channel.

The Science Catalyst Live Show:Grade 12 Chemistry from The Science Catalyst on Vimeo.

This one is of an "chemistry" class in middle school in Poland. They are not speaking English so unless you speak Polish you won't be able to understand exactly what they're saying however, the video pretty much speaks for itself. The chemistry they're doing in middle school over there looks way different from the typical middle school in the U.S. These kids look like little professional chemists. The demo they did was very cool!

"Chemistry After Lessons" - Middle School in Cieszyn, Poland from Palo Palacz on Vimeo.

My Photosynthesis Wordle

I would like to use this tool to have students brainstorm words by posting them into the wordle window to show related words for a concept like Photosynthesis. Here's mine!

Hyperlinking Words in a Blog Post

This is a response to Cathy, who asked about Hyperlinking in the blog posts:

If you are using Blogger, this is how it works...
When you are typing up your blog post, there is a little button at the top of your post window in the menu choices that looks like a chain link. Click on that and then past the URL for the website you want to it to hyperlink to for those words.
See here:

Good luck!

Prezi is ImPREZZive

All I can say is "WOW!" I was amazed when I saw the Prezi on how Prezi can be used as a teaching tool! This is a tool I dig! I am so excited to make one of my own. I'm thinking of doing one for my project along with creating a class wiki/blog for my AP Bio and Chem class. Not sure though which topic I'll focus on just yet for the Prezi. I'm thinking maybe something like a Negative Feedback pathway or maybe the comparisons of invertebrate anatomy. As for the wiki/blog, I'm wondering if I should have just one wiki per subject/class or if they should be separate. I'm not sure how to organize it. Any thoughts? Here is a cool little Prezi timeline showing the history of the events leading to the discovery of DNA.

Discovery of DNA on Prezi

PhotoPeach - too cute!

I'm so excited about the prospects of using this tool for a classroom project. I used some photos of mine from a 2 day period last week. It's so simple and quick to use. I could see using this to show case student projects in an elementary classroom. It's so simple a 7 year old could do this! I could also see student using it to show case lab results or project progress. Maybee even tracking data such as in a long term experiment. Here's my photo collage of a 24 hour period last week. We stay busy with 24 hours of daylight!
Scenes of Summer in Alaska on PhotoPeach