Quality, Not Quantity
Think about video on the web, and YouTube.com probably comes to mind first. However, YouTube.com can’t guarantee the quality of video content. Here are other resources that provide reliable, vetted video clips. All services are free!

NOAA Ocean Explorer – a wide variety of ocean and weather related videos for education use.

SchoolTube.com – video clips created by students and teachers, integrate into curriculum.

Science360.gov – offers breaking scientific news, pictures and videos. Hosted by National Science Foundation.

TeacherTube.com – provides videos, docs, pictures, channels for educational audience.

UntamedScience.com -
Here’s a new website. Teachers are creating biology and ecology related videos from all over the world.

If anyone knows of other quality material, let me know and I will include in this post. Thanks!

Adobe Offers More Than Great Software
Every day, new media products come online providing students and teachers different tools to excel. When paper and pencils were introduced, these tools were a breakthrough in technology. Now, today’s schools incorporate computers and technology, yet it can be difficult to keep up with all the changes. Young minds absorb new media technology as if they were born with the skills. Teachers are expected to understand, and incorporate e-Learning solutions in various lesson plans, but trying to find the time for training, teaching and developing material is….well, time consuming!

Adobe’s Digital School Collection offers a cornucopia of teacher resources to incorporate digital media into daily classroom curriculum. Adobe listens to administrative staff, students, parents and teachers, integrating their requests to develop numerous online activities, lessons, projects and tutorial services.

The Adobe Digital School Collection includes the following software product line:

• Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 – edits, enhances, crops, organizes and share images
• Adobe Premeire Elements 8 – edit and share video
• Adobe Soundbooth CS4 – edit audio, prepare podcasts, customize music, add sound effects
• Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro – simplifies creating and sharing documents, graphs, media rich lessons, assignments and project material
• Adobe Contribute CS4 – add content, images, edit web content

What’s Offered in the Collection
Let’s say you want to develop a lesson plan, or project that incorporates digital storytelling using storyboard techniques, video clips, digital photography, podcasting and publishing the finished results on a website.  Where do you begin?  What lesson strand are you following?  Is this project to be cross curriculum and collaborated by teamwork, shared by exporting to other classes or schools, or constructed on different computers? Whether teaching elementary school subjects, middle school history or high school media classes Adobe offers some great resources.

First, the full product line (Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, Premiere Elements 9, Soundbooth CS4, Acrobat 9 Pro, Contribute CS4) is $149 for volume licensing, a definite savings over purchasing individual software programs.   Second, there are numerous, detailed lesson plans prepared by teachers and specialists that demonstrate how to use these programs, as well as incorporation into classroom curriculum.  Additional content is provided in Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 9. Students (and teachers) learn by collaborating, sharing knowledge, teamwork, problem solving and discussion.

Here are samples of prepared lesson plans at in math, science, language arts, history/social studies, visual and performing arts at the Adobe Teacher Resources:

• Geometric Concepts (ages 8-10)
• Patterns (ages 6-8)
• Dolch Word Practice (ages 5-7)
• Volcano Eruption (ages 9-13)
• Visual Dictionary (ages 11-17)
• Pioneers of Music (ages 11-17)
• A Person in Time Online (ages 11-17)

Each lesson provides supporting guides (U.S. and British version), sample final project, media assets or website templates.

And There’s More Free Support
Now, you’ve found a lesson plan that you can incorporate, or follow to use for a similar project. Yet, what if additional assistance is required? No problem.
Click on K-12 Teachers and Administrators to explore online events, cross curricular resources (digital storytelling, teacher resources, workshops, e-portfolios and assessments). Adobe TV offers basic to advanced lessons for free. Many shows are offered especially for Adobe Digital School Collection. Click on Channels to view a variety of tutorials.

The Adobe Education Leaders blog shares thoughts and advice from Adobe Education Leaders.

And if that’s not enough, students and teachers can access e-portfolio workshops and support from Atomic Learning . For podcasting, Adobe has collaborated with Podbean.com for free podcasting.

As I keep perusing Adobe’s Digital School Collection, resources, I keep uncovering additional online, or pdf material. When purchasing the Digital School Collection, schools and teachers receive a Teacher Resource CD highlighting many of these resources:

• Lesson Plans
• Digital Portfolio
• Technical Guides
• Tips and Tricks
• Image and Video Gallery
• Teaching Process and Assessment

Netbooks are supported by Photoshop Elements 8, and Adobe is working on developing additional application to support netbooks.

To reach 21st century students, teachers have to apply 21st skills. And Adobe delivers these skills and more.  No teacher left behind is Adobe’s motto.

System Requirements: Windows XP; check individual software programs for additional system requirements
Contact: Adobe Education K-12
Cost: Volume licensing at $149 US.

Growing Open Source Learning Network
I was reading the Economist newspaper this morning, and glanced at an article regarding textbooks. Moodle was mentioned. Hmmm…what’s this? Moodle provides free software for web-based teaching. And its SCORM 1.2 Compliant.

Instead of being tied down to  textbooks, increased class sizes (distraction, noise, limited support from the teacher), many schools and students are branching out into virtual learning programs. However, internet based eLearning can be regimental too, since online publishers desire students and teachers to follow their format.

Moodle offers free software for online teaching. As reported in the Economist, “Oxford, Cambridge, the Open University, Harvard, MIT, the British Library, and other research funding bodies, ar putting vast libraries on open access.”  Moodle is one source to this vast knowledge base.

Here is detailed information describing Moodle’s design, overview and  assignment module.

Overall Design

• Promotes a social constructionist pedagogy (collaboration, activities, critical reflection, etc)
• Suitable for 100% online classes as well as supplementing face-to-face learning
• Simple, lightweight, efficient, compatible, low-tech browser interface
• Easy to install on almost any platform that supports PHP. Requires only one database (and can share it).
• Full database abstraction supports all major brands of database (except for initial table definition)
• Course listing shows descriptions for every course on the server, including accessibility to guests.
• Courses can be categorised and searched – one Moodle site can support thousands of courses
• Emphasis on strong security throughout. Forms are all checked, data validated, cookies encrypted etc
• Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor

Overview

• A full teacher has full control over all settings for a course, including restricting other teachers
• Choice of course formats such as by week, by topic or a discussion-focussed social format
• Course Themes. A course can have its own theme of colors and layout.
• Flexible array of course activities – Forums, Quizzes, Glossaries, Resources, Choices, Surveys, Assignments, Chats, Workshops
• Groups – teacher(s) and students can be placed in one or more groups
• Recent changes to the course since the last login can be displayed on the course home page – helps give sense of community
• Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor
• All grades for Forums, Quizzes and Assignments can be viewed on one page (and downloaded as a spreadsheet file)
• Full user logging and tracking – activity reports for each student are available with graphs and details about each module (last access, number of times read) as well as a detailed “story” of each students involvement including postings etc on one page.
• Mail integration – copies of forum posts, teacher feedback etc can be mailed in HTML or plain text.
• Custom scales – teachers can define their own scales to be used for grading forums and assignments
• Courses can be packaged as a single zip file using the Backup function. These can be restored on any Moodle server.

Assignment Module

• Assignments can be specified with a due date and a maximum grade.
• Students can upload their assignments (any file format) to the server – they are date-stamped.
• Late assignments are allowed, but the amount of lateness is shown clearly to the teacher
• For each particular assignment, the whole class can be assessed (grade and comment) on one page in one form.
• Teacher feedback is appended to the assignment page for each student, and notification is mailed out.
• The teacher can choose to allow resubmission of assignments after grading (for regrading)
• Allowing resubmissions can allow the teacher to progress monitor student projects/assignments as they evolve.
• Advanced assignments can allow multiple files to be uploaded. This could keep together preplanning maps, outlines, research papers and presentations. (Not for beginners)

Additional information can be found at Features. Moodle offers forums, chats, a chance to share and collaborate lessons online, free and in different languages.

Learn more, and sign up at www.moodle.org.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.2 (Apache, MySQL, PHP); Windows (all versions reported)
Cost: Free

Subject Matter: Science

Grades: Kindergarten through Fifth Grade

Well Designed Online Curriculum
Learning.com offers Aha!Science and Aha!Math.  For grades K-5, Aha!Science provides good science coverage on:

• Earth and Space
• Physical
• Life

For many elementary teachers, science isn’t something they’ve been required to teach in classrooms.  Many states now require science testing in 5th grade, with teachers scrambling for science content.

Learning.com offers an online well organized, conceptual program for teachers and students.  With a modular design, teachers have multiple choices how to present material to the whole class, or in small groups.  Or students can go online, and learn self-paced.

What’s Offered
Learning.com organizes its science modules into:

• Instruction
• Lessons
• Games
• Simulations
• Activities
• Journals
• Quizzes

The short videos are colorful, with good detail helping to reinforce various topics.  Journaling offers a cross-curriculum tool, helping students to understand the scientific method.

There are many different programs to explore and incorporate, but take a look at Aha!Science.  It’s obvious the material was well thought out, and easy to incorporate into the classroom.

System Requirements: Mac OS X; Windows 98/2000; web browser (Internet Explorer 6.0, Safari 2.0, Mozilla Firefox 1.0); Adobe Flash 7.0; Adobe Reader 7.0, Bandwidth of 64 kb/s per student
Contact: Learning.com
Cost: $120 for Starter Kits w/Teacher Account (1-10 Students); $60 for Expanson Pack (5 Extra Students, includes Starter Kits); Adaptive Curriculum for Aha!Math (6-8th grade) and EasyTech (K-5th and 6-8th grades) link to Learning.com Store.

Middle to High School
Kaplan is well known for tutoring, and they are expanding into the Virtual School Realm.

Kaplan offers four online programs:

• Kaplan Academy – tuition-free, personalized and local online, middle school to high school available in California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Oregon and Washington
• Kaplan College Preparatory School – Online education for students in grades 6-12 with one-to-one college admissions and academic support.
• Kaplan High School – self-paced online education for students in grades 9-12 with flexible start dates. Available everywhere.
• Kaplan University High School – online education tailored to meed the demands of a busy adult lifestyle.

Private and School District Partnerships
Whether an individual, private school or academy, or public school district, Kaplan has a program to offer educational options.

Kaplan also offers flexible summer programs.

Win $10,000 for College
Students can enter to win $10,000 for college tuition, or they may be eligible for a free, loaned laptop computer for classwork.

There is no online information about additional costs, but I would check to make sure some of the programs are tuition-free.

System Requirements: Web based browser
Contact: KaplanOnlineSchools.com
Cost: Contact individual programs for attached costs.

Zip Through Videos, Lectures and Lessons
Tired of trying to get through videos to view content? Or is the video running so fast it’s difficult to listen to all the material, and comprehend the content? Increase Flash video speed by 5X, or slow down to 1/3 the original speed.

Try MySpeed by Enounce. MySpeed allows the user to speed up, or slow down videos from lectures, business meetings, YouTube.com, etc. There is no loss of audio quality.

Review the demo, and try the MySpeed 7-day free trial period.

Pretty easy to use, and saves time.

System Requirements: Windows XP; Explorer 6, Firefox 2, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari; Flash 9.0
Contact: Enounce.com
Cost: $29.99

Learning Online
This program offers a full curriculum for K through 12th grade students, and also a summer school program. For K-8, they offer 75 online courses in seven subjects (Language Arts/English, History, Math, Science, Music, Art and World Languages). Parents and teachers will also receive boxes of textbooks, CDs, video and hands-on material. For the high school students, the program offers 105 online classes in core subjects.

With or Without Teacher Support Worldwide
Students can also subscribe to the material with, or without teacher support.
Check at Find A School to determine if there is a school in your area (within the US, or worldwide).

Cost Varies
Monthly classes start at $29.00. A one-year contract varies. One course costs $22/month. Six courses cost $94/month. View the pricing schedule at Enroll or Buy.

System Requirements: Web based browser
Contact: k12.com
Cost: Check pricing at Enroll or Buy