Happy Holidays to all… Hope yours are better than mine so far. I was lucky enough to spend Christmas eve and day in the hospital, then the 26th having my gall-bladder removed.
Needless to say things will be slow around here for a while. I need to regroup a bit.
Have a good new year, see you then.
Found this gem on Jennifer Dorman’s Cliotech blog and thought I’d add an idea to it…
This is the perfect Friday before a Holiday Week activity for a geography class. Have students take turns up at the interactive white board trying to locate the places on the map! It’s perfect! Students learn while having fun and competing!
Link: Traveler IQ Challenge
Back in October I wrote about a new addition on the roof of
Since then I’ve done some research on the web and found some interesting tidbits. It seems that some folks out there think the WeatherBug software will ‘take over your system’ and that rampant pop-ups and adware will infect your computer. Well, in our case, this is totally incorrect.
Our educational WeatherBug Achieve software is completely web-based – meaning our techs don’t need to install and update software on every machine. Since it is web-based, kids and members of the Fritz community can also access the software from home. I also like the fact that our students don’t need to remember usernames or passwords. They simply learn their local Zip Code for access.
Back to the ‘problems’ that some reported: Apparently WeatherBug was in a very short-lived deal with an ad company that went sour. This lasted roughly four months, several years ago, so it should no longer be an issue. But, just to clear things up for myself, I found that WeatherBug does have different ‘flavors’ of software that you can download and install for free. Let’s take a quick look at what they offer to clear things up:
WeatherBug offers the following:
Applications: these are downloadable and installable on your computer. Whenever you download an application, make sure you know what you are getting. WeatherBug does utilize a connection to the internet to be able to send you weather alerts (if you desire) as well as many up-to-the-minute reports. Yes, they do use ads to pay for your free applications, so you may also see ads – but not the aggressive pop-up versions, etc.
Widgets and Gadgets: generally these are smaller, less-intrusive software installs. Again, since WeatherBug uses real-time data, there is normally a connection to their servers on the internet, but usually not as often as the application software (your mileage may vary.) Some of their widgets and gadgets are linked to Yahoo and or Google software as well, so make sure you read about what you are downloading before you do so.
Stickers (Web-widgets): This is simply a ‘sticker’ or ‘badge’ that you can add to your website. It isn’t an installation of software, just some code you paste into your webpage or blog. The stickers vary in size and information. This is the least (non) invasive of the offerings. (Check out the right side of CV’s Moodle site for our WeatherBug Sticker.)
However, none of the above apply to the educational software. We access everything through a web browser.
So far our teachers and students absolutely love WeatherBug. Enthusiasm is growing and we have an afterschool weather club that has organized, teachers are using it in conjunction with science lessons, and parents are using it at home. I’m going to try to make it to a club meeting or lesson in the next few weeks to interview some students on what they enjoy about it and what they are learning, so check back for a blog entry or another podcast episode.
…and help me wish for some snow for the upcoming holiday week! Happy Holidays!
WeatherBug Links:
http://weather.weatherbug.com/desktop-weather.html
http://weather.weatherbug.com/desktop-weather/web-widgets.html
Nice free offering from the Macaulay Library at Cornell:
The documentation of bird behavior has been a central goal of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (CLO) since its inception. It was a major focus of the founders of CLO, and from the earliest days, played a crucial role in the Lab’s outreach and educational missions.
The documentation format has changed repeatedly over the last 80 years, and CLO was often a key agent in developing and promoting new technologies for that documentation.
The current incarnation of this long history is the Macaulay Library: a digitally based publicly-accessible archive containing the world’s largest collection of animal sounds and a rapidly growing video library of animal behavior.
Link: Animal Sound and Video Catalog
Added Later: There are a few free bird sounds for download if you or your students wish to use them in podcasts or for projects. (Click this for the Free Sounds)
