Qwiki is Great!

Even though Qwiki is in the alpha stage, it is still very impressive.  Imagine an online encyclopedia that reads the information to you and showcases a slideshow of images alongside the data.  That is Qwiki.  All of the presentations are short and offer many related entries to the topic you searched.  The whole thing reminds me of a sci-fi / HAL experience - "computer tell me about the history of Europe..."

As Qwiki grows, it could be a great way to access information.

I plan to use Qwiki as an introductory tool when starting new units, as a research kick-off point for students, review sessions, and exploring of related concepts discussed in class.

Here are a few random topics I searched:







And of course, you can post Qwiki entries on your blog or wiki with ease!

State of the Union Address & Wordle

Richard Byrne over at the wonderful website Free Technology For Teachers (http://www.freetech4teachers.com/) made a Wordle from last night's State of the Union Address.

"Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text."

This image could be used to discuss the issues covered in last night's address.  It might also be cool to have students look at the Wordle, discuss what they think the president's message might have been and then watch a section of the address or read part of the speech to compare (http://www.whitehouse.gov/)

Source: Free Technology For Teachers  (http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/01/state-of-union-video-text.html_

Two Neat Google Map Programs

MAPfrappe http://mapfrappe.com/ an interactive map that allows you to outline one part of the world and overlay it on another part.  It is fun program to mess around with and can allow students to compare landmasses, cities, countries, mountain ranges, whatever.  

Additionally it also offers the opportunity to discuss map distortion and the different types of projections since your outline will adjust its size in different parts of the world (the page's author discusses this issue in the "notes" section of the website).  

Gmaps Pedometer http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ is also a useful tool for mapping walking distance.  Upon first sight, I instantly thought this would be neat to use when discussing the European explorers during the Age of Exploration and to chart the path walked by De Soto's men for example.  Or one could chart the journey of the escaped Siberian prisoners from the book (and soon to be movie) The Long Walk Home.

The True Size of Africa

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/the-true-size-of-africa/

The Problem.

If I were to speak in general terms, I would say that most students do not know very much about the continent of Africa.  If I were to elaborate, I could say that most students do not understand the size and diversity of Africa either.  More alarming is the fact there is a tendency for students to confuse Africa as a country.

The Solution.

The above map found on the website Information is Beautiful might help many students make a visual connection with the size, scope, and diversity of Africa.  This map does a number of things to help students (and teachers).

1. It clearly communicates the size of the continent by including many countries students are more familiar with, especially the United States.
   
   
2. By comparing its size with other countries, it is a way to show students that Africa is indeed a continent made up of many different countries.
   
   
3. The map reveals the enormous amount of landmass taken up by Africa and as a result students can understand the variety of environmental and cultural diversity that accompanies such areas of land.  As mentioned by a comment left by Lisa students can be asked to “imagine the number of different environments and land types in the US… and now think about how much variation there can be in geology, rainfall, vegetation in an area” as big as Africa. 
   
   
4. Lastly, and probably most obviously, it offers an opportunity to discuss distortions found in map projections and the problems connected with placing a 3D spherical image on a flat piece of paper.

There is also a pdf available of the file –

http://www.edge.org/documents/Edge-Serpentine-MapsGallery/high-res/Krause.pdf

M.I.A.

Sorry to be missing in action for so long.

The blog is back and the ideas, thoughts, reactions, resources, etc are back.

New blog entries coming tomorrow.