Explania – instructional animations
Explania is a website which contains loads of animated explanations, interactive tutorials and instructional videos.
The site covers a wide range of topics from “What is Twitter?” to “The Human Heart” as well as software guides for MS Office and more. For example How to apply conditinal formatting in Excel 2007
It even tries to explain the offside rule in football:
What is offside in football? – Explania
It’s rather a strange mix of videos, some will be useful for teachers, whilst others might want to be avoided. But it is worth a look and you might find a few gems in there that you will find useful. Videos are pulled in from YouTube so if you school blocks YouTube you won’t be able to access the videos.
Thanks to Richard Byrne at Free Tech for Teachers for the link
Take a look at Explania and let me know what you think in the comments.
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Espresso Education : Video in the Classroom
A short video by Espresso Education about the power of video in the classroom. Take a look!
I deliver freelance training for Espresso and think it’s a fantastic resource to have in the classroom. Access some free Espresso resources here.
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Circus Physics – videos and teaching resources
Here’s a really fun website for science teachers from PBS. The Circus Physics website uses jugglers, clowns and high-flying acrobats provide an entertaining and engaging way to introduce basic physics concepts to high school students.
Eight videos feature footage from the PBS television series about the circus and interviews with the performers to illustrate the laws of physics at work. For deeper exploration, each video has a corresponding Study Guide for students and an Activity Guide for teachers, as well as raw video clips of performances which can be used for analysis in the classroom.
It’s handy resource – go check it out at http://www.pbs.org/opb/circus/classroom/circus-physics/
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QuadBlogging and Blogging the Leap Year projects
A quick post to make my readers aware of an excellent project set up by Deputy Headteacher David Mitchell. He’s developed an excellent model for school collaboration called Quadblogging which sets up groups of schools to talk, share ideas, information and comment on each others’ work. At present there are more than 1000 classes in 27 countries working together creating some incredible moments of learning as well as fellowship. It’s an excellent idea, and the project is open to any school around the world, so get in touch with David if you want your class to get involved.
An exciting extension of this is the Feb29th.net project. Feb29th.net is a global blogging project that will cross all age groups and continents. As soon as Feb 29th 2012 begins in Tonga, the Feb29th.net website will open up to collect posts for a single day.
The Feb29th blog will capture posts from all over the world on this rare day until midnight in the Western Pacific. The result will not only be a celebration of technology, but a celebration of audience and purpose, who will be the youngest author? Who will be the oldest? Which country will top the most posts?
The aim is to allow any visitor on 29th Feb to post; these will be moderated on the day, as this will also be open to pupils in educational establishments across the globe.
To find out how your school can take part in the Feb 29 project visit : http://feb29th.net/
For more information about QuadBlogging, visit: http://quadblogging.net/
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Video – Inanimate Alice BETT 2012 Presentation
Here’s the video of my Inanimate Alice presentation from Friday. This formed part of the TeachMeet Takeover event at the BETT Show 2012. For a copy of the presentation itself, check here.
Links from the Video:
- Inanimate Alice Trailer
- Inanimate Alice Flipchart and other files on Promethean Planet
- http://www.inanimatealice.com/education
- http://aliceandfriends.wikispaces.com/
- https://www.facebook.com/InanimateAlice
- http://bit.ly/alicetips
- Presentation as a downloadable slideshare file
Thanks to Emily at Promethean for filming the presentation, and thanks to Selda for letting me use the Promethean stand to give the presentation.
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Photo Pin : a creative commons image search tool
PhotoPin is another great search tool that lets you search for creative commons images to use in class projects and blogs.
Simply search for any topic using the search box , preview the photo, and click “get photo” to download the photo as well as the code with proper attribution link. If you prefer to pay for your photos rather than linking to it, the results at the top will take you to a stock photo site where you can buy photos instead (currently fotolia).
Check it out at : http://photopin.com
If you want other search tools, check out this blog post from 2009: Creative Commons Image Sources for your IWB which has several of my favourites listed.
Thanks to Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers for the link.
Let me know what you think of PhotoPin in the comments below!
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PSHE Resource – Sazias Story
Plan UK’s ‘Because I am a Girl’ campaign aims to end the barriers that prevent 75 million girls from getting a quality education and the chance to fulfil their rights and aspirations.
The 10 minute animation and supporting teaching pack are designed to help students learn more about early and forced marriage as a barrier to girls’ education.
PSHE teachers might find this a useful resource which could be used to provoke classroom discussion and raise awareness.
Learn more about the Because I am Girl campaign and help put a stop to the millions of girls denied the opportunity to get an education.
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YouTube for Schools Launches
Following on from Septembers launch of YouTube for Teachers, comes the launch today of YouTube for Schools.
YouTube for Schools “lets schools access free educational YouTube videos while limiting access to other YouTube content. Students can learn from more than 400,000 educational videos, from well-known organizations like Stanford, PBS and TED, and from up-and-coming YouTube partners with millions of views. Schools can also customize their YouTube for Schools experience, adding videos that are only viewable within their school network.”
School admins and teachers can log in and watch any video, but students cannot log in and can only watch YouTube EDU videos and videos that their school has added. All comments and related videos are disabled and search is limited to YouTube Edu videos.
It’s an interesting idea, and only time will tell if this will convince many schools and local authorities to unblock access to YouTube and allow access in this way.
Schools can find out more and sign up at http://www.youtube.com/schools
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BBC Nature Video Collections
The BBC Nature Video Collection is a large library of video clips from the excellent BBC Natural History archive, many narrated by the legend that is Sir David Attenborough.
The video clips include some from the amazing Frozen Planet, the latest exploration into the remote and isolated polar environments. Some of the scenes are totally jaw-dropping. For example the Brinicle; icy finger of death 
Other other collections include Minibeasts, Baby Animals, Dinosaurs and more. Teachers looking for clips of animals/plants to use in science lessons may well find something useful here. Clips can be embedded into your VLE or website.
It’s an excellent collection of science clips and I definitely recommend bookmarking it.
I’m not sure if these clips will be available outside the UK. Can any of my US/Canadian visitors check and leave a comment?
Take a look at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/collections
For more Science media clips, I’ve bookmarked a few at : http://www.delicious.com/dannynic/essentialmedia+science
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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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