Tips
 



I sink, therefore I am
February 8, 2010
  Make a Cartesian diver using a plastic bottle and either an eye dropper or a ballpoint pen. Don't know what a Cartesian diver is? Find out here.   More..

Copper Caper
February 1, 2010
 Discover how to turn old dingy pennies bright and shiny, as you watch. Then explore the chemistry behind the reaction.  This activity uses common household items. More..

Cold Snack
January 25, 2010
Explore why metal or other good conductors of heat may feel colder to the touch than wood, a poor conductor, even though both materials are at the same temperature. More..

Making sparks
January 18, 2010
This activity (aka "snack") provides instructions for using familiar kitchen items (steel wool, pie pan, styrofoam plate) to produce sparks you can see, hear, and feel.  More..

Cardboard Tube Syllabus
January 11, 2010
How does your brain process conflicting information from each eye? This activity (aka "snack") provides instructions for using a cardboard tube to explore this question.  More..







Grant Tip #46: Appendices by Gary Carnow
December 10, 2009
  The grant request for proposal (RFP) will specify whether or not you may include an appendix with your grant submission. Most appendices are not considered part of the page count allowed in a proposal and are usually not part More..

Tip #45: Grant Forms by Gary Carnow
November 17, 2009
Requests for Proposals Applications for Funding (RFPs RFAs) provide you, the grantseeker, with a guide to successfully preparing your proposal. Most RFPs RFAs arrive to you as a word document and are downloaded from the web. My More..

Tip #44: Scoring Criteria, Rubrics and the Writing Process by Gary Carnow
June 8, 2009
 Sponsored by Scoring criteria are often included in the grant request for proposals. The scoring criteria is often further described in a scoring rubric. Here is an example of some scoring criteria categories and maximum scores More..

Tip #43: Editing is Everything by Gary Carnow
June 1, 2009
Sponsored by   Editing is really the heart of the writing process. This is where you are able to clarify and tighten your narrative into a compelling proposal. A common saying among writers is that writing is rewriting. There is More..

Tip #42: Keep it Short, Exact, Specific and Buzzfree by Gary Carnow
May 25, 2009
Sponsored by  Short sentences and short paragraphs are easier to read and understand. Readability makes for a successful newspaper and also makes for a successfully funded grant proposal. Expressing yourself in simple words More..







Keeping Flash Drives Secure By Conn McQuinn
November 19, 2009
My USB flash drives (or thumb drives or whatever!) are really handy, but also really easy to misplace.  Is there a way to protect the files if (or when) I lose it?The good news about USB drives is that you can inexpensively store More..

How to avoid background noise in our podcasts by Conn Quinn
May 27, 2009
We’re trying to create podcasts in our class, but we’re having a really hard time recording without getting a lot of background noise.  (A classroom is not a particularly quiet place!)  What can we do to minimize this problem?In More..

How can I hook up my document camera so I can view the images on the computer?
April 19, 2009
Most of the document cameras made in the last two or three years have a very cool feature that is often overlooked.  Typically, the document camera is hooked up to the computer projector and the computer is hooked up to the More..

What is the difference between a regular hard drive and an SSD drive? By Conn McQuinn
April 15, 2009
SSD (depending on whom you ask) either stands for “Solid State Drive” or “Solid State Disk.”  Solid State Drive makes more sense, because the most important characteristic of an SSD is that it in fact has no disk – instead, it More..

Hard Drive Cleanup
January 26, 2009
I’ve been trying to make room on my Windows XP computer’s hard drive.  I’ve deleted applications, thrown out old files by the bunch, and yet I still don’t seem to be freeing up as much space as I would expect.I just went through More..







Your Flowing Data: Using Twitter to Track Your Life
August 3, 2009
In a recent post, Alan Levine discussed the use of a web tool called Your Flowing Data. Your Flowing Data(YFD), is a Twitter application that lets you collect data about yourself. It allows you to use direct messages from your More..

Tim Lauer reviews the Kindle2
June 8, 2009
The first thing to note is that the Kindle is not the first e-book reader. Its basic functionality can be found in similar devices from Sony and other manufacturers. The difference with the Kindle is in the delivery of content to More..

Make Your Handwriting into a Font by Tim Lauer
April 10, 2009
YourFonts is a free online font generator that allows you to easily create a computer font from a sample of your handwriting. Fonts created work on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The process of font creating involves downloading and More..

Readabilty by Tim Lauer
March 23, 2009
Readabilty is a web browser bookmarklet that allows you to display the full text of an article in a text only minimalist view, stripping out advertisements, images and other web page clutter. Basically it will render just the More..

Kindle Content Comes to the iPhone and iPod Touch by Tim Lauer
March 18, 2009
 Amazon recently made available a free application  for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows you to download and readbooks that they have made available on their Kindle e-reader platform.The application allows you to add More..







A great idea, explored
February 8, 2010
A partnership has been formed by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and the education company Pearson. Through "The Idea of America," a new interactive, digital, Web-based curriculum, students will learn lessons from history More..

National Robotics Week is coming
February 5, 2010
The first annual National Robotics Week will be held from April 10-18, when a series of events and activities is aimed at increasing public awareness of the growing importance of “robo-technology” and the social and cultural More..

Educators' accounts of pen-based technology invited
February 4, 2010
The 2010 Workshop on the Impact of Pen-Based Technology on Education (WIPTE) will be held on October 25th and 26th, 2010 at Virginia Tech.  The organizing committee invites submissions of full papers, posters and short More..

Lake Baikal runners aim to educate, inspire kids
January 28, 2010
Adventurers Ray Zahab and Kevin Vallely will make a daring attempt to run the 650-kilometer frozen length of Siberia’s Lake Baikal in 10 days or less. Beginning March 1, 2010, the two men will run 60 to 70km per day, unassisted More..

School administrators respond to President's address
January 28, 2010
The American Association of School Administrators, the professional organization for school superintendents and other school system leaders, issued the following statement on President Obama’s State of the Union address:“In his More..




PDQ



Magnetic Poetry and More: Interactive Language Arts
July 20, 2009
How do you help your students to love words? You already have lots to do to teach students how to read, write, and speak. How about encouraging your students to get involved with words? Have students play with words using More..

Computers and Eye Strain
July 13, 2009
Do you find yourself squinting more? Maybe you are having more difficulty driving at night? Do your eyes get irritated or drier than usual? It could be how you are looking at the computer. Our eyes were designed for hunting or More..

Website Basics
July 6, 2009
How do you create a good looking website that engages your audience if you are not a graphic designer or software engineer? Here are some tips to help you create a professional-looking and high quality web site using the More..

Descriptive Writing
June 29, 2009
The 15-Sentence Portrait, developed by Wendy Bishop, is a guided writing exercise. Each of the 15 sentences in the writing assignment has an instruction on what to include in that sentence. It could be a color, a wish, a body More..

Discover Software and Games
June 22, 2009
With all the new Web 2.0 tools on the Internet, how do you know what is worthwhile? Here’s a social networking site, Wakoopa (www.wakoopa.com), where you can track your apps, discover new software, share what you use, and get More..













Jason Science: Education through exploration
February 9, 2010
Backed by National Geographic, this interactive and immersive site  connects students with great explorers and great events to inspire and motivate them to learn science. The  award-winning curricula embed cutting-edge research More..

Authentic K-12 STEM projects
February 8, 2010
Need a science project? The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) sponsors and designs projects using real-time data from the Internet and collaborative projects that offer the chance to connect with More..

Resources for students working below grade
February 5, 2010
Teachers looking for activities to help their struggling students may be interested in www.edworksheets.com, which offers an array of classroom-tested learning materials to anyone involved in helping students develop basic More..

Free science tools
February 4, 2010
This website offering free science resources was developed by learningscience.org, an organization dedicated to sharing the emerging tools of science education: real-time data collection, simulations, inquiry based lessons, More..

Animated teaching resources, from A to Z
February 3, 2010
BrainPOP creates animated, curriculum-based content across a broad spectrum of topics. Resources include BrainPOP Jr. (K-3),  BrainPOP Español, and the newly launched BrainPOP ESL. All are supported by BrainPOP Educators, which More..




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