Aviary for Education
I’ve written about the fabulous Aviary before. If you haven’t seen it, Aviary provides a suite of online tools that allows you to take create images, edit screenshots, edit sounds and create music. All for free, and all through your browser.
I was rather pleased to find out that there will soon be an special version for students and educators that lets them use Aviary in a completely private setting which is separate from the rest of the Aviary community. Aviary Education will let teachers:
• Create private student accounts
• Manage assignments and projects
• Use the image editor, vector editor, audio editor & music creator
• access content and images which are 100% school safe
It’s currently in beta, so if you want to try it out you can request a free beta trial.
Check it out now: http://www.aviaryeducation.com/
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StarrMatica 50 States Contest
US whiteboard users might well be interested in this competition that has just been launched by StarrMatica.
StarrMatica is on a mission to help teachers in every corner of the United States! They are giving away a $900 StarrMatica School Subscription in every state!
StarrMatica school subscription gives all teachers and students in a building access to an online library of 3,800 K-6 reading, math, and science manipulatives, animations, activities, and games at school and at home for an entire year. Teachers can also search their library of interactive content to find resources aligned to state standards, the national core curriculum and popular textbook curriculums.
To enter you need to design a lesson or resource that uses some of Starrmatica’s resources. More information can be found on their How To Enter page.
Competition closes on 30th September when the entries will then be judged. You might recognise one or two of the judges…. 
Good Luck!
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‘Can I Play This at Home?’ World Cup Game
Can I Play This at Home is a fun free online game, in which you try to win the World Cup as any of the 32 nations – by answering questions on tricky spellings, spanish verbs, state capitals, world capitals… or whatever else the teacher decides on.
Teachers can create their own quizzes on the site, and set the game to run using those instead, so it’s very versatile for revising any topic that you want.
http://www.caniplaythisathome.com/play.htm
Go take a look.
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Free Labskills Science Software
LabSkills is an interactive software resource designed to help teachers and their students get more out of chemistry laboratory sessions at A-level and GCSE levels.
Available as a USB stick, a teacher can use the material to prepare students for a laboratory session. LabSkills supports and encourages the student and enhances the practical work. It is not designed to be a substitute for practical work in science. It can however play an important role in promoting best practice in lab skills in a stimulating and engaging way.
This resource helps to develop problem-solving skills and encourage a life-long learning approach to education. Created by Learning Science and the University of Bristol, and promoted through the Discover Chemistry Programme run by the RSC and Pfizer, these resources are available to all state secondary schools and FE colleges across the UK throughout the spring and summer of 2010, free of charge. One USB stick for each school or college.
Schools can register to receive the free resources at www.discoverlabskills.org. Register now to receive your resources before the end of term. Any teacher or technician can register their school.
Schools that do not qualify for the FREE Resources can purchase them from www.labskills.co.uk at a cost of £34.99 per USB stick.
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BBC Learning Zone Videos
Here’s a great resource if you are a UK-based teacher looking for quality video resources for your lesson.
Learning Zone Broadband Class Clips provides rich audio-visual material for use in primary schools, secondary schools and colleges. These short videos have been selected to match the curriculum. They can be used in many ways; from the stimulation and engagement of students to the delivery of very specific learning points. The material is drawn from the Learning Zone and elsewhere in the BBC.
It is possible to browse the entire primary index or the entire secondary index
As far as I know, you can’t access this outside the UK, but if you can get it then it’s a fantastic site to bookmark.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/
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Blog the World Cup
If you are looking for good examples of pupil-created blogs then go take a look at the Blog the World Cup project.
The idea is brilliantly simple: there are 32 nations in the FIFA World Cup and there will be 32 blogs on the site, one for each competing nation. Each blog will be managed by a different class (or school) with each one allocated a country at random.
You can get a list of all the different blogs here. Take a look and see if you could do something similar with your pupils.
Kudos to John Sutton for setting up and organising the project, and well done to the classes involved for their work so far!
idea is simple: there are 32 nations in the FIFA World Cup and there will be 32 blogs on this site, one for each competing nation. Each blog will be managed by a class (or school) and a live online draw will take place to allocate classes/schools to the different country blogs.
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World Cup 2010 Images
One of my favourite websites, The Big Picture, has again delivered the goods with some excellent images from the first few days of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. A great way of stimulating a discussion about such a global event.
You can see the images here.
Let’s not spend too long talking about image #28……
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Australian IWB Conference Aug 2010
If you are in Australia then this conference may well be of interest to you!
IWBNet invites teachers to attend the Seventh National Interactive Teaching and Learning Conference (formerly IWB Conference) at St Stephens College, Upper Coomera, Gold Coast, QLD on 12, 13 and 14 August 2010. Register by 30 June 2010 to secure the early bird rate and go into the draw to have a chance of winning an Apple iPad.
Are you in the market for an IWB?
See a diverse range of IWB brands in the conference exhibition and conference sessions and network with other delegates to get their recommendations about the various brands
Are you new to using an IWB in the classroom?
Select your level from the 170+ conference sessions – there is plenty for you to help you progress with your IWB teaching
Are you looking for new ideas to advance your current IWB skills?
Engage in some high quality professional development by selecting sessions to meet your needs from the following categories: beginner; intermediate; competent; advanced; suitable for all
Are you motivated to use other digital technologies to complement your IWB teaching?
See an impressive range of other digital technologies in action. IWBs bring these technologies to life!
The Keynote Speakers – don’t miss out!
Greg Gebhart and Chris Betcher will be known to many of you. They are exciting speakers with contemporary perspectives, knowledge and skills.
They always have something new and challenging to say.
For further information about the Conference and to register go to: http://www.iwb.net.au/conferences/australian10/default.htm
Sadly, this is a little too far for me to get to this year… maybe next year. Would love to get down to an Oz conference sometime, they do sound like fun.
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Anne Frank’s House Interactive
History teachers might be interested in this interactive version of the Anne Frank house.
Produced by the Anne Frank Museum, pupils can move and look around the house and see it as it would have looked during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam. The Secret Annex Online has been created using photos of the actual furnished Secret Annex, as it looked then. You can even see areas that you can’t see if you were to visit the museum in real life.
The rest of the site contains a wealth of teaching materials to support this topic, it’s well worth a look.
Visit the Secret Annex here: http://www.annefrank.org/secretannex
Thanks to Nik Peachy for sharing the link via Twitter.
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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. 
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