Tag: websites

Calvin and Hobbes search engine

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes is a wonderful resource.

Calvin and Hobbes is one of the most deeply interesting and intellectually hilarious comics. It ran from 1985 to 1995 when Bill Watterson decided it was time to stop, so it retained a persistent quality throughout its run. Watterson was very serious about the newspaper comic form and did a lot of experimenting with C&H. His thoughts are nicely documented in the paper collections.

Though I have the books, it’s nice to have archives of the entire series online. Even better, Michael Yingling recently created a Calvin & Hobbes Search Engine that can find key words in the dialogue, so now you can quickly find that more obscure script to brighten up your day.

I really hope that Yingling has finessed the copyright issues because this is a great resource for teachers looking for that little something to spark the imagination. The strips often go into issues at such depth that some of the series make great examples for literature discussions. I find the issues resulting from the transmogrifier/duplicator to have a powerful, though more light hearted, equivalency to the novel Frankenstien. I also am partial to the philosophical world-view of Calvin’s father.

WatchKnow: Educational videos

One of Larry Sanger‘s new projects is WatchKnow, a website that rates online educational videos. It has a nice age filter that, while not very useful right now, may be very useful as the site develops.

The video above is the currently the top rated video (4 out of 5 stars) in the category on the writing process. Its WatchKnow page is here.

On using Wikipedia

Slate magazine has an interesting interview with a disaffected co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger. I like what he says about how to use Wikipedia, or any other reference resource:

What Wikipedians themselves would say—and I agree with them on this one—is that Wikipedia has finally awakened in people an understanding that even carefully edited resources can frequently be wrong and have to be treated with skepticism and that ultimately we are responsible for what we believe. That means constantly going back and checking what we thought was established or what we thought we knew. Wikipedians often say that you should never trust any one source, including Wikipedia.

That’s not anything new; it’s always been the case that you should check your source against another source. It’s just that the way that the Internet has exposed the editorial process has, for more critical-minded people, made it absolutely plain just how much responsibility we ourselves bear to believe the right thing. – Larry Sanger in Schulz, 2010

I also agree with what he says about how he personally uses internet resources:

Which resources I turn to greatly depend on what sort of information I’m looking for. One of my favorite information resources is Google Maps and Bing Maps. I’ve often used Google Scholar for an essay I’ve been working on lately. When I’m looking for some quick fact, of the sort one finds from an almanac or other reference book, I generally search in Google and then pick a non-Wikipedia source. If there doesn’t seem to be anything as efficient, I’ll fall back on the Wikipedia source. If I’m doing serious research, I don’t spend much time on Wikipedia at all, I’m afraid. I do look in on Citizendium’s offerings from time to time, when I think it might have something on the topic. I also not infrequently grab various books from my bookshelves, the old-fashioned way. – Larry Sanger in Schulz, 2010

We’ll start this year with Wikipedia unblocked, but I’m working on a lesson on how to use it properly.

CellsAlive: Cell model

Interactive cell model from Cells alive!

Another good interactive cell model, similar to the Teach.Genetics‘ Flash app I posted about earlier, can be found at CELLS alive. I first used the CELLS alive website two years ago and I like it because, while it has a much simpler picture than Teach.Genetics’, it has a nicely linked glossary of terms. The glossary is, however, a little technical, but it’s a nice exercise (and not terribly difficult) for students to decipher the basic information that they need.

Inside a cell

Looking inside a cell. From Teach.Genetics.

Teach.Genetics has a bunch of “Print and Go” pdf lessons on their site, but also have a really neat interactive page where you can look inside an animal cell. What’s really neat about this flash app is that you can move around a little, round window as you scan through the cell membrane. You can also take the membrane away to see everything inside the cell at once, but that takes away the challenge.

When you use the little window you have to piece together what everything inside the cell looks like by memory. For a student new to the parts of a cell this might be a bit of cognitive overload, but once your somewhat familiar with the pieces, this makes for an interesting challenge.

The Teach.Genetics site and materials are free for educational use.

Teach.Genetics: Family trees

Handy Family Tree exercise from Teach.Genetics.

Dealing with genetic traits and family trees can be kind of tricky sometimes, particularly with early adolescents who are still learning about personal boundaries and have the potential for sharing too much information. One alternative to delving too deeply into personal family histories is to stress the less invasive traits. Anna Clark has had some success (and the students liked it) using the Handy Family Tree, from the University of Utah’s Teach.Genetics website.

John Wyndham's The Crysalids. (via Powell's Books).

I also discuss some of the thornier issues when we do the John Wyndham book, The Chrysalids. It can be an uncomfortable book, but has the emotional separation of fiction.

Teach.Genetics is a great resource. They have a number of “Teach and Go” exercises like this one, and some interesting interactive applications. I’ll post more as I browse more through their website.

Class Insecta

Dragonfly in flight. Image by Luc Viatour.

Since we’re focusing on the life sciences this year I want to complete the nature trail. Part of this project is to catalog the biodiversity on the trail. I’d like to have students specialize on the different types of organisms we find. Undoubtedly, the Class Insecta will be well represented. The site, Entomology for Beginners is a great basic resource. It starts with very simple cartoons of insect parts but also has a great key to insect orders which walks you through the comparisons you need to make to identify the Orders in which a particular insect belongs.

The site also has a page on simulating the dynamics of insect populations using a simple model. This may be for the more advanced student however.

A more general guide to bugs (Phylum Arthropoda) can be found at Bug Guide. Their Clickable Guide to the left of the page is a great starting place.

Insect. Image by Luc Viatour.

Luc Viatour has a large gallery of macro images of members of the Phylum Arthropoda.

FreeRice – donate food with your vocabulary skills

Donate rice by answering vocabulary questions.

The UN World Food Program (WFP) has the site FreeRice.com where for each vocabulary question you answer correctly it donates 10 grains of rice to the WFP. The site is quite ingenious, it uses the money generated by the banner adds at the bottom of the page to buy the rice. It was created by John Breen and donated to the WFP.

The site is going beyond vocabulary into other subjects such as geography (identify country capitals and countries), identifying chemical symbols, art, language and math (pre-algebra).

They also have a nice video of the rice being distributed to refugees from Myanmar sheltering in Bangladesh.