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Thursday, May 7, 2009

List of 100 most innovative blogs for educators

Blogs are a rich source of information and educators are integrating IT knowledge with their teaching resulting in great benefits. It is difficult to find education related blogs as search engines don't provide very specific results in terms of quality. Most of the online resources or sites offer useful stuff but mostly those sites are selling software or other educational stuff, and you are forced to see banners or ads as well. But if you keep a bookmark record of quality search engines, sites and blogs related to education stuff, you can save a lot of time.

I found this list of '100 Most Inspiring and Innovative Blogs for Educators' at 'Online University Reviews' a site which offers online university reviews, rating and rankings of online universities.

From preschool to graduate education, these 100 blogs are a great starting point for educators looking for inspiration and innovation.

Link : '100 Most Inspiring and Innovative Blogs for Educators'

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Amazing facts about brain

Brain is a marvel of God and it is one of the wonders which is still to be discovered. Researchers, scholars, and scientists are trying to know more about wonders of this little miracle machine. I am always curious to know more about the brain, its function and how to make most of it. Either you are a parent, teacher or student this article would help us learn some amazing facts about our brain.

- Brain is only 1% to 3% of your body's mass, yet uses 20% of all the oxygen you breathe.

- Your brain needs a continuous supply of oxygen. A 10 minute loss of oxygen will usually cause significant neural damage. Cold can lengthen this time, which is why cold-water drowning victims have been revived after as much as 40 minutes - without brain damage.

- Your brain uses a fifth of all your blood. It needs it to keep up with the heavy metabolic demands of its neurons. It needs not only the glucose that is delivered, but of course, the oxygen.

- Your brain feels no pain. There are no nerves that register pain within the brain itself. Because of this, neurosurgeons can probe the brain while a patient is conscious (what fun!). By doing this, they can use feedback from the patient to identify important regions, such as those used for speech, or visualization.

- The cerebellum is sometimes called the "little brain," and weighs about 150 grams (a little over five ounces). Found at the lower back side of your brain, you need your cerebellum to maintain posture, to walk, and to perform any coordinated movements. It may also play a role in your sense of smell.

- The human brain weighs an average of a little over three pounds, or 1.4 kilograms. Albert Einstein's brain may have been smaller than yours, because he was smaller than average. There is a general correlation between body size and the size of our brains.

- An elephant's brain is huge - about six times as large as a human brain. However, in relation to body size, humans have the largest brain of all the animals, averaging about 2% of body weight. A cat's brain? It weighs about one ounce, a little over 1% of body weight.

- There are about 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the brain. If they were stretched out (there's a nice thought!) they would circle the earth more than four times.

- If you have an average sized brain, you have about 100 billion neurons up there. You'll be happy about that after reading the next item.

- Approximately 85,000 neocortical neurons are lost each day in your brain. Fortunately, his goes unnoticed due to the built-in redundancies and the fact that even after three years this loss adds up to less than 1% of the total. Oh, and look at the next item.

- Recent research proves that your brain continues to produce new neurons throughout your life. It also proves that it does so in response to stimulation.

'source link'

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

A search engine for kids from librarians - 'Kids click'

'Google' is the most popular and being widely used for online searches and there is no doubt that you can find valuable information about any topic at this popular search engine. Still I suggest that parents, teachers and students should use family friendly or safe to use search engines for any kind of educational or related search. 'kids click' is another safe search engine for kids/students which is made by librarians and you can expect quality content from this search engines.

More about 'Kids click':

Kids click.org is a web search directory specifically made for kids by librarians. It is a search engine where kids can browse for any kind of online material and resources such as encyclopedias, dictionaries and all kinds of related educational resources for kids.

How to search at the search engine?

You can find other categories in case you want to browse for content by subject such as facts and reference, science and math, the arts, weird and mysterious, health and family, popular entertainments, religion and mythology, home and household, sports and recreation, society and government, machines and transportation, literature, reading, writing and speaking, computers, the internet, geography, history and biography. You can also search subjects by initial letters as well as do advanced searches for specific stuff

It is owned and run by the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at San Jose State University. as a logical step in addressing concerns about the role of public libraries in guiding their young users to valuable and age appropriate web sites. It is intended to guide users to good sites; not block them from "bad" sites.

Site link: Kidsclick.org
Related posts:

* Famous Search Engines for Kids

* Search safely with 'Family Friendly Sites'

* "All Safe Sites" - A search engine for young children

* Where to search for educational stuff?

Saturday, April 11, 2009

How to use 'twitter' for educational purposes?

If you are a 'twitter' user then you know that you can get in touch with other teachers/educators at this social networking place, but as you have another place which is dedicated to teachers, you need to start participation at 'twitter 4 teachers'

twitter 4 teachers was created to easily help educators find other educators on Twitter that have the same interests as them.

How to start?

- You need to sign up for a 'twitter' account.

If you don't know what is twitter? then read it: 'Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time and it is called micro blogging process.

- Use the twitter account name with registering for 'twitter 4 teachers'

- Check out the list of educators and add your Twitter name to the appropriate list.

PBwiki is Free and Great for Classrooms. You can create a free classroom wiki for your school.
Just check the list which you can search for links to other teachers or submit your link there. The list shows:

Art Teachers, Bible/Religion Teachers, Business Teachers, College and University, Computer Science Teachers, Counselors (Guidance), Drama Teachers, e-Learning Teachers, Educational Organizations or Companies, Elementary Teachers, eMINTS People, English and Communication Arts Teachers, English as a Second Language Teachers, Family and Consumer Sciences Teachers,

Food and Culinary Arts Teachers, Foreign Language Teachers, Geography Teachers, Health and Well being Teachers, Independent Studies Teachers, Interactive Whiteboard People, Journalism, Librarians, and lot of more fields related to education.

You can watch this PowerPoint presentation on topic 'twitter for educational purposes - A tutorial'

My account at 'twitter'

Related posts:

* Stay in touch with net community via 'twitter'

* Get the twitter apps. to tweet more effectively

Friday, April 10, 2009

'Awareness Connection' helping you make parenting more rewarding

The blog 'Awareness connection' helps us 'Making Parenting More Rewarding. Not only parents but teachers can learn a lot from this blog as there are very useful and informative posts about parenting.

More about the blog:
'Awareness Connection' is a blog from Michael Gorsline, M.A. Counseling Psychology who is Child & Family Therapist, and Parent Coach.

Michael says:

'I help parents and other clients discover practical ways to make life more rewarding. And I provide coaching in productivity strategies based on David Allen's Getting Things Done system to help clients reduce stressor spillover into the things they care about most.'


There are many useful links at the side bar which might be interesting and worth for the parents or teachers. I have picked a post from a lot of articles:

Why I Chose to Leave Teaching

Useful links:

* At this blog you would get many valuable posts about parenting and links to more parenting and useful sites: Parent talk today

Friday, April 3, 2009

A guide to web safety for kids

Text based web safety information are not attractive for kids so teachers or parents should guide their little ones in the way which could be interactive. 'A guide to web safety for kids' can be a good source in this connection.

It is a web safety presentation which can be easily used at home or school projector to teach children. It is created by Diana. R. Norton, a library service consultant from "The Mid-York Library System"

As the presentation slides are easy and well written, children would enjoy watching these slides.

A kid's guide to safety

More useful links: 'Kid's Internet Safety Sites'

Useful links:

* Fun and interactive sites for kids

*'Kids friendly search engines'

* 'List of good sites'

Monday, March 30, 2009

Search safely with 'Family Friendly Sites'

Internet is a world of information and if you intend to use it safely for you or your family you should use the search engines which provide family or kid friendly site links. Parents and teachers can help the kids learn how to use internet safely. Picking up family friendly search engines for search purposes is the safe way to browse the net.

Family Friendly Sites is a search engine based site which believes in supporting the online safety of family members using the Internet.

At the left side bar there is "Parent friendly link" where you can search for 'Internet Safety Resources' and 'Parenting Tips'.

There are "kid friendly link" categories like as 'Early Learning, Educational Sites
Games & Entertainment, Online Safety Tips, Search Engines.

Site link: family friendly sites

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Download free 'Home work Toolkit'

There are lots of tips and ideas which can help students do their home work efficiently. These tips can help teachers and parents guide their children in completing the home work successfully.

'Homework Toolkit' is free offer from 'Soar study skills' which is site offering help for students, teachers and parents. This 'Homework Toolkit' includes a variety of resources to help you and/or your child get started on the path to homework success.

This comprehensive guide will help you identify specific homework problems and introduce you to many time-saving techniques.

This kit includes:

* Homework Scorecard
Can you use a homework tune-up? Use this scorecard to see how you measure up and to identify the specific study skills that are best suited for you.

* 25 Ways to Make Homework Easier…Tonight!
This insightful guide is filled with tips and tricks that can help ease homework hassles immediately. Pick two to try tonight, then two more for tomorrow night, etc. A few simple strategies can make life much easier!

* Homework Inventory for Parents
Filled with some of the most common homework frustrations we hear from parents, this inventory helps parents identify their specific needs. Then, it provides some tips about how those problems can be turned around into positive homework experiences.

* Homework eNewsletter
Once a month, you will receive practical newsletter with helpful tips for managing homework. Some articles are written specifically for parents and others specifically for students, but they are always relevant for anyone who has to deal with homework!

- 'Download page link'
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