Way to Capture a Historical Trip

Historvius is a quick alternative to Google Earth for having students create a trip to different places and to find out different information.  You will get an up close look at the place (any era of time) as well as information and even pertinent links.  At the end it even creates a pdf file (say for turning into a teacher!).  Watch the easy to follow short video above to learn more. Thanks for this idea from a Tweet of "dandidie".

Google Translate Goes Audio

I have been using Google Translate to e-mail students' parents who do not speak English.  They usually write me back in their native language and then I tranlate it back to English.  Well now, if you want, you can listen to what was written.  I'm not sure the language teachers will like it, but it is still fairly cool.

Korean War in Pictures

Incredible Set of Korean War Pictures
I found this from a Tweet from "curosa." If you go here, you can find 60 pictures from the Boston Globe 60 years since the beginning of the war.

Thomas Edison Film

Above is a movie made by Thomas Edison in 1894.  The color was added by painting. For more on early films, go here.

Split Screen on a Mac

So whenever I go to the mall (which is not often), I like to stop by the Apple store and play with the new gadgets.  While I prefer a Mac, I have never been able to easily (yes you can drag the windows and re-shape them) split the screen in half the way you can on a Windows based computer (go here if you don't know how).  Well (and I am getting no $ for saying this), but you can try new software (for a temp fix) or pay $7 to be able to easily snap (as you can on Windows 7) the screens in half on your Mac.  It comes from PC World, so I think you can trust it.

Edit Google Docs From Your Phone

Last year one of my AP students actually did her entire assignment on a smart phone when her power was out.  I, of course, praised her, but now it is even easier to do from a phone, an ipad or if you have an Android, you can do write a document simply by speaking. 

Charlie Chaplin Film

If you mention him at all, you probably only pay passing attention to Charlie Chaplin in class, but you might be discussing films and culture.  Above is an entire Charlie Chaplin film (or here) that you could show a portion of in class.

Donald Duck WHII Propaganda

This film is from Open Culture (yes it is one of my new favorite sites).  It is a 5 minute Disney film which tried to get Americans to pay their taxes to pay for the cost of WWII.  According to the link, 90% of Disney employees produced war propaganda films.

Twitter

Several of my students have added themselves to my Twitter (kenhalla) feed.  When I tell them that I only put up content and technology links through it, they seem somewhat saddened that I don't put up anything personal.  That, is, of course, the same belief that many educators have of Twitter when I tell them how many resources I get on it.  If you want to get free information quickly, I'd suggest setting up a Twitter account, watch minute video above (taken from web20classroom on Twitter), go here for suggestions on how to get a group of people to follow (I started by plugging in "education," "social studies," "history," and other items like this.  You can also go to my Twitter list and look at the people I follow and follow the ones you like.

Free Phone Calling Through G-Mail

If you are like me then you are having to call many long distance numbers just to reach parents who, like their kids, are increasingly keeping their old phone numbers when they move.  My school district gives us a long code we can use for long distance numbers, but now I am going to use the new feature in Gmail as it allows people to call anyone's phone (be it a land line or cell phone) for free anywhere in the US.  I used it yesterday and it is as clear as a normal phone call.  Looking at the picture above, just click on the part on the left side of the Gmail where it says "call phone" and a key pad will appear on the left side of your screen.  Just type in the number, press return and the call will be made for you.  For those of you who have no land lines, this can also save on your minutes.

Learn US History Through Games

Here are a number of games (and they keep adding more) to learn US history.  There are also quizzes you can take.

Google Earth "How To" Videos

Wow, these videos are tremendous, short and informative.  Learn how to make a short Google Earth tour, add video, recording options, add place marks, descriptions, embedding, etc.  Thanks for the heads up from a Tweet from "web20classroom." Above is a video on how to make a Google Earth tour.

The History of Us

The History of Us is from a movie by PBS, but if you go here, you can get short snippets of a number of parts of US history overladen with pictures, movie scenes and interviews with historians and prominent Americans.  You can also do a search of the PBS site and find lots more short videos beyond the History of Us ones that you can use in class.   If you click on the picture above, you will get a short on the Boston Massacre as one example.

Google Docs

I had a student tell me today that he was so happy I had helped him with Google Docs and that not only does he use it in every class, he can't imagine how he existed without it.  While this video is for Google Apps (the paid version), you can do almost everything in the video for free.  For example, I have the my kids' schedules on one of my calendars, my wife's on another and mine on the last one.  About the only thing you can't do for free is to e-mail or give access to every teacher in the school or district.  Beyond that you can do all of this. If you are into Google Docs or the power of cloud computing this 12 minute video is well worth it. I found this at FreeTech4Teachers.com , but I find most of my Google Docs info at the blog for it and in the upper right hand site of my account where it says "New Features."

Edublog Awards

So, in a sense this is a shameless plug that if you like this blog, you'll go here and nominate and vote for it for an Edublog Award.  It is quite an award to get and would be a nice reward for the hard work of my fellow bloggers.  If you want mine, I like FreeTech4Teachers as a blog and "ShellTerrell" and "web20classroom" on Twitter.