2009 H1N1 Influenza Resources for Schools

There is an enormous amount of resources pertaining to 2009 H1N1 that has come to light in the last week. Here are a few that might be of interest to your school:

Hooray for Handwashing
http://ow.ly/AIXB
Background information on health and hygiene, a story, posters and poems for children.

CDC Posters
http://www.cdc.gov/germstopper/materials.htm
Available in 9 languages - Be a Germ Stopper, Healthy Habits, Cover Your Cough [pdf]

Larry Ferlazzo's List - Swine Flu
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/04/25/the-best-sites-for-learning-about-the-swine-flu-outbreak/
Additions are made frequently. This blog has many other very good lists on other topics so you might wish to poke around when you're there.

Manitoba Education, Citizenship & Youth - Plan
http://www.gov.mb.ca/health/documents/pandemic_school.pdf
Manitoba school divisions and the province have addressed the worst case scenario with this document [pdf]

Health Map
http://healthmap.org/en
Global disease alerts for infectious diseases around the world. You can apply filters to restrict information to particular diseases. Lower on the page, you'll find related links to the latest news.

CBC News Item - Is there too much hype? - Video
http://bit.ly/HDTFX
Is there justified concern or is there too much hype about the potential of H1N1 to become a pandemic? The media looks at the media, once again.

Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health
http://bit.ly/OlN6o
The centre, in Winnipeg, houses one of two virology labs in North America that are playing a major role in today's events. This link will lead you to interesting photos and podcasts.

Any other items you think we shouldn't miss ? ? Please comment here.

Zorap

http://www.zorap.com/Landing.aspx

Zorap enables you to chat with friends/colleagues while sharing photos, slideshows, videos, or live video from your webcam in a secure manner.
Sources: @glovely http://twitter.com/glovely/status/1659521158 and TechCrunch 7-30-2008 http://bit.ly/12VqDP

Wallwisher

http://wallwisher.com/

Wallwisher is like a bulletin board in the hall except we could add video along with photos and notes if we wanted. There's a demo wall on the site.

Give your wall a name when you sign up. You'll receive a confirmation message giving you additional information that will enable you to share with friends, family or colleagues.

Wallwisher's wall page supports browsers IE7+, Firefox 2+, Safari 3+, Chrome 1+, and Opera 9+.

Best of the Web for April 2009

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/04/29/aprils-the-best-lists/

Larry Ferlazzo's recommendations come after he checks out each web resource. Though the purpose of his blog was to support ESL/ELL/EAL teachers and students, the wider education community is appreciating the blog at http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ and recent Twitter contributions at
http://www.twitter.com/larryferlazzo

Twazzup

http://www.twazzup.com/

Twitter search tool with "powerful and easy to use interface." Source: @joevans http://twitter.com/joevans/status/1640010731

Best Embeds for Education

http://mrssmoke.onsugar.com/3082114

Great list of embeddable objects for classroom or library blogs or wikis. They include maps, games, photos, videos and much more.

NewsMap Has Moved

There's a new url for Newsmap, a great way to see how the news is viewed from different perspectives

Newsmap
http://newsmap.jp/

Exploration and Experimentation

Librarian Chick Wiki
http://librarianchick.pbwiki.com/
Links to all sorts of Web2.0 tools organized by category for easy access.

Learning Event Generators
http://www.newtools.org/showtxt.php?docid=737
One of a set of "generators". This one has 2500 possible activity challenges for learners to try. There are a couple of other learning event generators listed here. Source: EdTech Women of Web2.0 podcast25/03/09

Skitch: Snap, Draw, Share
http://skitch.com/
Skitch is The Internet Camera™ for Mac users who want or need to capture on-screen content. Click on the snap button to take a picture of the screen, then annotate or draw. The pic of the Nano speaker below was easily grabbed, an arrow was quickly added and the image was annotated in seconds. Look here for another way to use Skitch...as part of a screencast tool set - http://learningischange.com/



Google Earth Tour of the Great Lakes
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pr/ourlakes/gl_tour.html
The Great Lakes comprises the largest freshwater system in the world holding 18% of the world's freshwater supply. " To highlight some of the interesting coastal and subsurface features of the Great Lakes, the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory has assembled a narrated Google Earth tour. "

Google News Timeline

http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com/

The Google News Timeline offers users the ability to search many different news sources across a wide range of time. "Available data sources include recent and historical news, scanned newspapers and magazines, blog posts, sports scores, and information about various types of media, like music albums and movies." You can use arrows or drag along the timeline at Google News Timeline to move to news of another day. The date range can be modified. Source: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/04/google-news-timeline-check-it-out.html

Speaking Clubs & Student Research

Classroom speaking clubs can be a good setting for sharing student research.

Sometimes the speaking club role a student takes necessitates some mini research; sometimes his research needs to be in-depth. If roles rotate, students would be exposed to many ways of finding, creating and sharing information.

Totally Unbelievable Speaking Club wiki
http://mmya.pbwiki.com
This wiki was developed for a workshop and some of the handouts are included. Roles are described for a Gr 5-7 but could be modified for other levels and curriculum connections. Technology use is encouraged, but is optional.

TUSC Protopage
http://www.protopage.com/speaking
This protopage was meant to scaffold TUSC student research and to share good teacher resources.

Top Children's Literature News

Alltop, a directory of news postings on many topics, features this compilation of links to news about children's literature
http://kidslit.alltop.com/

Related Alltop pages are Kids and Books.

For Alltop hype, you could follow @guykawasaki on Twitter

Free eBook from ASCD

Perhaps you or some of your colleagues would like a copy of the new eBook, Engaging the Whole Child: Reflections on Best Practices in Learning, Teaching, and Leadership from ASCD.
http://shop.ascd.org/productdisplay.cfm?productid=109103E4

This e-Book is available FREE from April 15 to May 6, 2009! Just add to your cart and check out as usual. You will NOT be charged. Non-members are also able to obtain the e-Book but will need to register at the checkout.

Do students really want to learn? Can schools and classrooms become joyful? Are there natural links between standard curriculum and what motivates students to learn? Explore these and other questions in this e-book collection of articles from Educational Leadership by renowned authors such as Carol Ann Tomlinson, Richard Sagor, Nell Noddings, Thomas R. Guskey, and Allison Zmuda.

Go2Web20

Go2Web20 is a directory for Web 2.0 tools and applications. It illustrates the volume of apps available. Use tag listing on right of Go2Web20 site to filter the apps that suit your needs.
http://www.go2web20.net/

Study Guides and Strategies

http://studygs.net/

Collection of study guides and strategies: Thanks to @dianadell for the suggestion

Search Alias - ggl.to

http://ggl.to

ggl.to is a web service that provides short, easily typed aliases for web searches for sharing. You may have to add http:// in front of the resulting ggl link that you create to have it work from Twitter, a blog or a wiki. This tool would be great for TLs or teachers who want to point to online resources for students or colleagues. ex - The following link was made from a search string including these keywords... teacher, earth day, interactive to create this link ... http://ggl.to/teacher-earth-day-interactive Thanks to @lessig for this tool suggestion.

Gadgets and More

Zoho Gadgets
http://gadgets.zoho.com/zc/index.do
Zoho Gadgets launched April 16th with the aim to connect Zoho applications with external applications.


Word Source
http://word.sc/
The first online social dictionary. Upload photos, tag, and rate your favorite words. Search for definitions simply by adding the word after the url - example: http://word.sc/favorite

All My Faves

This link collection for kids will be a good one to include in the fun section of your library web page or classroom wiki.

All My Faves: The Amusement Park of the Web
http://kids.allmyfaves.com/
The creators of All My Faves have made a colorful starting place for kids. Using the logos of 60+ sites, they have organized links to these sites so that they are easily accessed. Categories include "Virtual Worlds", animals, games, online books,
music, movies, and more.

Nature Online

The Internet offers us a rare glimpse into the lives of animals. Here are some webcam and video links you may like to share during Earth Month, Earth Week or Earth Day.

Eagle on Nest, British Columbia [Live]
http://bit.ly/151lJQ

Eagle in Flight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APViUODDhT0


Live Rhinos - Africa
http://www.wildearth.tv/home

ProQuest Resources : Free Access Next Week

This is taken from the ProQuest page at http://www.proquestk12.com/landings/celebrate.shtml Bookmark this page to celebrate starting Monday, April 13!

ProQuest celebrates National Library Week : Worlds connect @ libraries

ProQuest to offer free, open access to ProQuest student resources during National Library Week!

* CultureGrams™ local experts document the culture and daily life of the world's peoples—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

* eLibrary® high-quality, high-interest, and highly usable full text and multimedia aligned to over 20,000 most-studied topics.

* SIRS Discoverer® a safe, kid-friendly online discovery environment for young learners from elementary to middle school.

Twitter's Growing Pains

Seems that Twitter has been having growing pains. Like those of other Twitter users, some of the Schlib Twitter submissions have vanished. Here are those posts that we rescued using TweetDeck:

Featured download at Curriki - good unit on Taking Meaningful Notes - http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Coll_CTMS/TakingMeaningfulNotes

Downloadable media literacy kits. This one is about Endangered Animals http://www.ithaca.edu/looksharp/Books_Endangered%20Species/index.php

Attn Learners! MIT's free courses-lectures, handouts, exams, video. No registration required. http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

Canada's Jan Wong on BBC Woman's Hour [Podcast] - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/03/2009_09_thu.shtml

Good explanation of Twitter Trackers http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/7_top_twitter_topic_trackers.php

Each word in this dictionary is represented by a photograph http://www.thephotographicdictionary.org/home.html

Fast facts like this - Book Displays Increase Fiction Circulation over 90%, Non-Fiction Circulation 25% - at http://www.lrs.org/index.php

Like that the Cloudlet can be switched off in Twitter and that tag clouds can be created for postings or authors http://www.getcloudlet.com On Twitter-@SearchCloudlet

ReTweet @AngelaMaiers: More free ebooks, comics here - http://www.wowio.com/index.asp

Games for Earth Day http://dsc.discovery.com/games/games.html Added to Diigo Earth Day list at http://www.diigo.com/list/schlib/earth-day

Design your own Twitter background at http://www.freetwitterdesigner.com

ReTweet @Philbradley RT @Danacea Oh dear Gods - simply the best £$%^ dictionary/thesaurus I have ever seen: http://bit.ly/12ridK

Cool Tools for Library Webmasters [slideshow] http://www.slideshare.net/fichter/40-plus-cool-tools-for-library-webmasters

From Edutopia: Virtual Libraries Are Teaching Treasures - http://www.edutopia.org/online-libraries-collections-digital-resources

UEN - Super Site for Teachers

Visit the Utah Education Network site at http://www.uen.org/k12educator/ where are many good resources for K-12 teachers everywhere. The site is searchable by grade and subject. The UEN collection also includes timely suggestions for topics such as those assembled for the upcoming EarthDay http://www.uen.org/general_learner/earthday/index.shtml

The UEN Earth Day set has been added to our Earth Day list at
http://www.diigo.com/list/schlib/earth-day

Bibliography Tool

Ottobib
http://ottobib.com
Make a bibliography just by entering the ISBN. Select from MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian, BibTex, Wikipedia styles. It's free.

Visuwords

http://www.visuwords.com/
Sample search : http://www.visuwords.com/?word=literature
Online graphical dictionary. Good for demonstrating relationships amongst words, parts of speech, and definitions.

Long List of Web Resources

Perhaps some of these sites or services will be of interest to you and your teachers.

Read Aloud America 2009 Booklists
http://www.readaloudamerica.org/booklist.htm
Book lists are available for adults and all levels in K-12

BreadArt Project
http://www.breadartproject.com/
Just for fun, take a slice of virtual toast at the BreadArtProject site, add your art, submit it to a gallery at FeedingAmerica, sponsors of the project.

TinEye Reverse Image Search Engine
http://tineye.com/
Submit an image to find its source. This service is in beta.

Fun, Interesting, Educational Things On Twitter
http://tinyurl.com/c8a4yr
From the Free Technology for Teachers blog on Sunday, March 29, 2009

ClassicPoetryAloud
http://classicpoetryaloud.podomatic.com/
Great for Poetry Month. These classic poetry podcasts are accompanied by the text of the poem that is being read.

Red River Rising : Manitoba Floods
http://bit.ly/LPxho
Archived radio and TV clips at CBC » link to Red River Rising: Manitoba Floods|CBC Archives . For current views and news, go through the Winnipeg Free Press to http://bit.ly/9Veug . You could also follow @redinwinnipeg at Twitter

Twittering YA Authors
http://www.mitaliblog.com/
Look for the entry of Friday, March 27, 2009

30 Ways to celebrate Poetry Month
http://tinyurl.com/dg24hq
Good ideas for the library and the classroom. Thanks to @GottaBook on Twitter

Patagonia:Footprint Chronicles
http://bit.ly/4jMGS1
Interactive. Tracks the social and environmental impact of products from design to you. This item is in our Earth Day link set at Diigo.

Where The Wild Things Are: Trailer
http://tinyurl.com/dlje5e
If you grew up with Maurice Sendak's beloved book, you might like to watch this. RT@npbooks

April is Poetry Month
http://www.diigo.com/list/schlib/poetry
Here are some links for that celebration. Look in the Poetry – List at the url above [Diigo]

Scholastic Videos
http://bit.ly/IpKMl
Lots of author readings & video book trailers at Scholastic. This particular link will take you to the interview with Christopher Paul Curtis. There is also a good related book trailer on the site. Other interviewed authors include Phillip Pullman, Pam Munoz Ryan, Mark Teague, Maya Angelou and more.

Elements of a Story
http://www.learner.org/interactives/story/index.html
Interactive site helps students learn about story "ingredients"