Alkaline Metals Videos for Science
One of the benefits of using videos on an IWB in Science lessons is for those moments when you want to demonstrate something that is just too dangerous to do in the classroom.
This is particularly true when demostrating the reaction of Alkali Metals with water. You can demonstrate small pieces, but it’s a little dull. And when the kids ask “go on Sir, throw in a bigger bit” you still can’t use too big a bit for obvious safety reasons.
Which is why it’s good to then turn to a good video to demonstrate the reaction.
An old favourite of mine was from the TV show “Brainiac”:
But sadly this is actually a fake experiment. If you look carefully you can even see a wire going into one of the bathtubs which sets off the regular explosive.
Last night I watched a Mythbusters episode that I must have missed previously where they test out the scenario in the Brainiac video and prove that it didn’t happen the way it was show. It’s a nice way of demonstrating how to actually test something you see on screen to see if it is actually real.
Their take on Alkali metals in water is in five parts on YouTube, mixed in with other myths. Here’s part one (starts 5 minutes in)
(YouTube search – Mythbusters Alkaline Metals Threequel)
Awesome stuff. I think I now have a new favourite Alkali Metal explosion video to show.
An alternative is to check out the Sodium Party videos from Theodore Gray. Big lumps of sodium in a lake. What’s not to like?
And remember – don’t try this at home….
Read More
YouTube XL
YouTube is an excellent resource to use in schools but the biggest problem is quite often some of the offensive comments that invariably get left below popular clips. When showing clips on your interactive whiteboard, you don’t really want to be showing those comments to your class.
YouTube XL is one way to get around that. Basically YouTube XL is a skinned version of YouTube designed to use on large-screen televisions. The interface makes it simpler to use by cutting out a lot of the clutter on the page. In fact, it makes YouTube a whole lot easier to use on an IWB. The advantage of losing the clutter means that there are no comments on view – you just have the videos. Try it out now : http://www.youtube.com/xl
As an alternative – another way to safely view YouTube videos is to use http://www.safeshare.tv/ and also there’s http://quietube.com/
Read More
Incredibox
Here’s a fun little website for a Sunday morning. Incredibox allows you to create music using what is best described as a virtual human beatbox. You have to really try it to get the idea. Very simple to use, just drag the different sound icons onto each person to play each loop. Easy to use on an Interactive Whiteboard.
Thanks to Keisa Williams for sharing the link on Twitter.
Read More
Smart Notebook 10.6 – New tools
Smart Notebook users should be aware of a new update that came out last week. Version 10.6 has a couple of very neat new features.
The most obvious feature is a new icon on your toolbar that gives you access to Measurement Tools. This is basically a ruler, protractor, compass and set square that may look familiar if you’ve ever used Promethean software 
All of these tools should prove very useful to maths teachers.
Clicking the ruler icon places an interactive ruler onto the page. You can make it bigger and smaller just like any other object. Grab it in just the right spot and you can rotate it around. A number in the corner shows the angle of rotation. If you use the pen very close to the edge of the ruler, it will let you draw a perfectly straight line, however wobbly your hand is! Useful for lines of best fit on graphs perhaps? The set square works in the same way but you can draw on all three sides.
Working in a similar way is the protractor tool. Use the pen near the edge to draw a perfect arc. You can toggle between 180 and 360 degree versions by clicking the blue circle near the base of the protractor. Dragging the green circle (and the grey circle) will let you move two lines. When you click the green arrow it will inject those lines onto the page, with the angle between them clearly marked. 
The compass tool should also be familiar to Promethean users. Click and drag at the top of the pencil to move it in and out. Drag the green circle to move the compass around without drawing – and click on the point of the pencil to draw the circle. 
Another very innovative feature is the totally transparent notebook. In the past you’ve been able to use pen tools over the live desktop, but it’s been a little fiddly. By clicking the Transparent Background icon your notebook page vanishes, leaving a small strip of icons that lets you annotate and use the measuring tools over any application, while at the same time still being able to click and manipulate the applications.
For example – here is a ruler and some annotations on top of a working version of Google Earth. I can move the ruler around and compare lengths, add a protractor and look at angles and at any time move the view in Google Earth and look at another part of the city.
Use the camera icon to take snapshots from here and put them back in your main notebook page
Both of these new features offer some very different ways that you could use Smart Notebook that you couldn’t do before. The transparent background is a very simple idea that is actually very powerful.
A minor change includes adding some new shapes to the shape tool : perfect circle, perfect square, isosceles triangle, equilateral triangle, scalene triangle, regular polygons, half-circle and rounded square.
In addition there is now a link to the Smart Exchange in the Gallery. Smart Learning Marketplace is also still there.
The other change with Notebook 10.6 is support for Windows 7. But annoyingly they are still not supporting 64-bit versions.. so I still can’t use my new laptop with Smart Response. Seems to work OK with the actual Smartboard though.
You can download Smart Notebook 10.6 from the Smart Downloads page as before. If you do use Smart Response, then you should download this version instead, which has Notebook 10.6 bundled with the latest Smart Response drivers and add-ins.
Smart Notebook 10.6 also comes with a 30 day trial of Smart Notebook Maths Tools, which has been in beta for a while and should hopefully be available for purchase soon.
On the whole, the new tools are a great addition to what is already a great piece of software. Nice one Smart!
Read More
Prezi announce Educational License
Thanks in part to an Open Letter to Prezi by UK teacher Mark Clarkson, the fantastic online presentation tool, Prezi, has announced a free educational license for teachers and students. Students and teachers can now create private prezis for free. Upon verification of student/teacher identity, Prezi EDUEnjoy is free and Prezi EDUPro comes with a special educational discount.
And also they’ve simplified the Prezi editor so that it has half the menus of its predecessor, but having more features. They’ve made text editing easier and introduced YouTube integration.
If you haven’t played with Prezi before – do check it out. It allows for presentations with much more impact than bullet-point-covered PowerPoints. And well done again to Mark Clarkson for getting them to agree to the educational license pack!
Read More
Primary French Resources from Orangery Education
With languages set to become a statutory requirement from 2011, Orangery Education Ltd has produced a bank of resources for the whole of the Primary QCA MFL schemes of work. Key features include all vocabulary recorded by native speakers, video clips of French children speaking and singing songs, and all the authentic photographs you need, in an engaging, user-friendly interactive whiteboard package.
Orangery Education realised that the QCA schemes of work often lack the resources which are referred to in the ‘possible teaching activities’ section. The first unit alone refers to a number of interactive whiteboard activities and multimedia resources including a recording of the song Sur le pont d’Avignon and video clips of children introducing themselves – and states that such resources may be available on the Internet. They weren’t.. so Orangery went out to produce their own resources instead.
Each unit is supplied in either Smart Notebook 10 or Promethean ActivInspire/ActivPrimary format, and features the full set of lesson activities, along with the word bank and suggested teacher target language phrases built in to the interactive pages. I’ve had a sneak peak at some of the units, and they are excellent quality, and should be an essential purchase for any primary language teacher.
You can find out more about their resources by watching this YouTube video, which demonstrates one of their units.
Free animations for Les Quatre Amis (KS2 Unit 5) and Jacques et le haricot magique (KS2 Unit 6) are now on the Orangery Education YouTube channel.
The first pack of Units 1-6 is now available for just £40. Other packs will be available later this year. More details of the units here.
Read More
Brain Pop UK
Brain Pop UK is an excellent website that contains simple animations that explain lots of different topics. They are great for use on an IWB to introduce a topic or as a lesson starter.
Here’s Tim and Moby explaining all about Brain Pop UK.
The site is a subscription site, but some resources are free. You can sign up for a free trial as well.
Read More
10 avatar generators for profile pictures
With the release of the James Cameron movie (which I highly recommend you see, by the way) everyone has now heard the word Avatar. In computing, an avatar is often the name used for the little picture you use on profile pages for things like blogs, twitter etc.
If you are blogging with students – it’s recommended that you don’t use real photographs of the students. A fun alternative is to create a cartoon avatar instead.
Here are 10 websites that you can use to create fun avatars. Some allow you to save the finished creation as a jpg for free. If not, then use the print screen button to copy the screen, paste into a paint program, crop and save as a jpg.
Sadly the avatar avatar generator is no longer available.. which was a shame as it was quite fun, although very slightly creepy.
1. WeeMee -Create a mini version of yourself, add accessories. There’s plenty of scope for customisation of your avatar.
2. South park studio – turn yourself into a South Park character
3. HeroMachine 2.5 – Turn yourself into a super hero character. This would also be great as a part of a digital storytelling resource or story starter.
4. FaceYourManga.com Create a character in the style of a manga comic book
5. Ultimate Flash Face v0.42b a bit like a police photofit.
6. Make yourself in lego – Produce a lego character that looks like you. Or turn yourself into a Stormtrooper wizard. Is up to you
7. Simpsons Movie – Ever wanted to be a Simpsons character? Now you can create your own yellow-skinned doppleganger in the style of the Simpsons.
8. Mr. Picassohead – become an abstract piece of work in the style of Picasso. Put your eyes and ears wherever you want!
9. BuiLD YouR WiLD SeLF – Create an avatar out of bits and pieces of humans and other animals – head, arms, legs, clothes, eyes, mouth, tail, wings, shells … just pick the parts you like and assemble them together
10. My Mii Avatar Generator – create a Mii in the style of the characters found on the Wii computer console.
If you want more of these sites, the full list can be found on my Delicious list here: http://delicious.com/dannynic/avatar
Read More
Scimorph – augmented reality for science
Scimorph is a cute little website that uses Augmented Reality tech to provide Primary school pupils with opportunities to discuss and solve science-based problems.
Using a webcam and a special marker printed onto a piece of paper – Scimorph will appear on the screen. By moving the paper you can move him and view him from all sides. It’s a little fiddly, but persevere and it becomes quite simple. This should also work with a visualiser if you have one of those connected.
There are several scimorph zones you can investigate – The Bug Zone to look at microbes, Gravity Pulls and (coming soon) The Vibe Zone to investigate sound.
Each zone provides a series of questions or scenarios. Scimorph is not a complicated simulation or anything like that. The main purpose is to promote discussion between children about the science underlying the different situations.
Guidance on how to use the resource can be found here. It does provide a useful introduction to Augemented Reality technology and is worth checking out if you want to try something a little different with your class. Visit it here.
is
a
very
simple,
central
character
who
can
journey
through
a
series
of
activities
in
a
virtual
science
environment
based
around
the
curriculum
for
primary
aged
children.
Scimorph
can
be
used
at
school
or
in
the
home
to
build
on
knowledge
and
understanding
of
the
world.
He
has
some
human
characteristics
and
attributes
though
he
has
not
developed
fully
because
of
his
lack
of
understanding
about
the
world.
(He
can
also
be
a
she
if
you
so
wish.)
Scimorph
provides
opportunities
to
discuss
and
solve
scientific-‐based
problems,
take
part
in
discussions
around
the
activities
and
delve
deeper
into
the
topic
by
means
of
interactive
tools
and
use
of
web-‐based
materials.
The
main
purpose
of
each
activity
is
to
stimulate
discussions
between
children,
teachers
and
parents/carers
about
the
science
underlying
the
Scimorph
situation.
A
desktop
version
of
Augmented
Reality
(AR)
is
used
to
deliver
a
different
form
of
interaction
with
the
computer
via
3-‐D
animations,
activated
in
a
variety
of
Scimorph
“zones”
or
environments:
-‐
The
Bug
Zone
–
where
Scimorph
prompts
an
investigation
of
microbes
Gravity
Pulls
–
Scimorph
illustrates
how
gravity
changes
depending
upon
which
planet
you’re
on
The
Vibe
Zone
–
where
Scimorph
wants
to
investigate
how
sound
works
Read More
Translate this site
About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
Buy the book!
