Academic Earth Videos

Academic Earth, a social entrepreneurship venture focused on expanding the availability of high-quality educational opportunities for people around the globe, has launched AcademicEarth.org. This site offers free access to online video of full courses and guest lectures from leading educational institutions including Yale, Harvard, and MIT. The catalog of videos, spanning nearly all academic subjects, including biology, contains full courses and lectures. The videos are available through a clean, user-friendly interface that allows visitors to browse by subject, university, or instructor.

Podcast Resources

Podcasting is a technology that helps bridge the gap between content delivery and today’s “digital native” students. Podcasting is a method of making audio or video content available regularly via the Web. It blends topical research and knowledge collection with a radio- or TV-style presentation that’s perfect for the attention span and learning style of today’s students.

In The Educator's Podcast Guide, author Bard Williams begins with a complete introduction to podcasting, including hardware and software needs, integrating podcasts into your curriculum, and managing podcasts in the classroom. Williams then introduces a smorgasbord of education-related podcasts sorted by curriculum area. Part user manual, part curriculum planning tool, and part implementation survival guide, the book is an good resource for any educator who would like to integrate this exciting tool into the classroom.

Science Advocacy Tool

The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) has made it easy for you to become a science advocate. The organization's Action Center lets you send messages to your elected US officials to let them know how you feel about how their votes are affecting science. For example, you can find your Senator by simply entering your zip code and then thank your Senator for supporting science. You have the option of sending a prepared letter or crafting your own. You can also sign up for the action list and get an alert when your involvement can make a critical difference.

BioQuest Investigative Cases

The Investigative Cases Center (ICBL) of the BioQuest Curriculum Consortium offers a variant of Problem Based Learning. Investigations are combined with technology, including software simulations and models, data sets, and internet-based tools. The investigative cases draw from realistic situations. Some examples of cases:

• A Case of Mistaken Identity: ethical issues arise as an adopted sister is unable to donate blood.
• Got Milk?: the presence of synthetic hormone in milk raises questions about biotech safety.
• Kujira: a Japanese wedding leads to forensic testing of whale meat.
• Murder by Atkins?: forensic chemistry to identify of a specific drug after a death.
• The Hike: calculations and problem solving help trapped students survive.

2009: Year of Science

The official Year of Science web site offers educational resources for many disciplines -- from astronomy to zoology. The site was launched to support public understanding of the process and nature of science in an exploration of "how we know what we know." Each month features a different scientific field, providing online and downloadable resources for educators, students, and the general public. There's also a calendar of events where visitors may find scientific events happening in their community.

Darwin Online

We celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin (1809–1882) this year. Educators will find a cornucopia of classroom activities online that illustrate Darwin's extraordinary life and achievements. The following are a few recommendations.


- About Darwin: View maps of the historical journey of the HMS Beagle and a timeline of Darwin’s journey and research data.
- AMNH exhibit: Discover the man and learn about his ideas in this interactive exhibit. Includes interesting videos.
- Darwin's writings: Links to online copies of all editions of Charles Darwin’s literature.
- Voyage of Discovery: Activities from PBS to teach about Darwin's great journey.
- "Endless forms most beautiful" webcast: In lecture one of a four part series, evolutionary biologist Sean Carroll discusses Darwin and his two most important ideas: natural selection and common ancestry.
- Darwin Special Issue: The journal Evolution Education and Outreach has free pdf downloads of its articles celebrating Darwin's birthday.

(Photo: AMNH Exhibit online)

Twitter for Educators

Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange answers to a simple question. What are you doing? Where's the next workshop? Twitter has become a popular microblogging tool. It can be accessed a variety of ways, such as via the web or instant messaging services. Why is it useful for educators? Consider these possibilities:

1. Quick networking: Your one question may draw responses from a host of people quickly. If you have a relatively good number of fellow educators in your contact base, some of them are bound to be checking their twitterfeed when you pose your query.

2. Knowledge sharing: People are eager to answer questions because they can also learn from the shared experience. It's a quick way to find a URL to a classroom activity or information about an educational event, for example.

3. Track conferences: Twitter can help you stay on top of what's going on at conferences. If you can't attend one, someone may be tweeting about a session. Or, as often happens, you are at a conference but several great sessions are happening concurrently. A tweeter buddy can fill you in. To avoid multitasking during an important presentation, you can can check the conference tweeterfeeds later.

For more information and information, check out check out Twitter Fan Wiki. For a twitter application database rating, see twtbase.

Benefits of Social Networking

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered the educational benefits of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. The study found that, of the students observed, "94 percent used the Internet, 82 percent go online at home and 77 percent had a profile on a social networking site. When asked what they learn from using social networking sites, the students listed technology skills as the top lesson, followed by creativity, being open to new or diverse views and communication skills. What we found was that students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st century skills we want them to develop to be successful today." Watch videos to learn more about this study.

Science Glossaries for EL Students

Do you know that Google has a translation tool? On the Google search page, in the navigation options, click on "more". At the bottom of that pull-down is the "even more" option. Choose it to find a list of tools. You will fine Translate in the section titled Communicate, Show & Share. Type your text in the field provided and choose the appropriate language.

Another free, online tool comes courtesy of McGraw-Hill. The Multilingual Science Glossary presents an extensive vocabulary list, with each term and definition translated into 13 different languages. There are separate glossaries for middle and high school.

Hispanic-speaking students might find the Pearson Audio Glossary for the Earth Sciences interesting. They can hear how some terms are pronounced in English and Spanish. There's also the Genome.gov talking glossaries in English and Spanish.

Slideshare & Effective PowerPoint

Slideshare is the the world's largest community for sharing presentations. Membership is free. It is a great way to get your slides out there on the web, so your ideas can be found and shared by a wide audience, or to find slideshows for your research or teaching. You can share slideshows publicly or privately, download presentations, and embed them in your blog.

Most experts agree on guidelines to creating effect PowerPoint presentations:

• Use the rule of six (called by some "joy of six"): maximum 6 lines per slide and 6 words per line.
• Maintain unity of design elements, such as color, font, and graphics.
• Test readibility using the "floor test" by placing a printed copy of a slide on the floor and reading it while standing over it. If not, increase font size or style. In general, font size should range between 18 and 48 points.
• Avoid fancy fonts or all caps -- they are difficult to read.
• Include only essential text that is self-evident.
• Minimize special effects for they can be distracting.
• Graphics, such as clip art, should not overwhelm the text. They are used as support to the text message.
• For presentation timing, consider using three slides per minute maximum.

BEN: Digital Biology Education Library

Biosciednet.org, or BEN for short, is the biology education pathway of the National Science Digital Pathway. Over 11,187 reviewed resources to date, covering 77 biological sciences topics, are available. BEN resources can help you engage student interest, shorten lesson preparation time, provide concept updates, and develop curricula that are in line with national standards for content.

You can locate resources in several different ways: basic keyword search, advanced search, "browse by subject", and "browse by resource type". Only about 10 percent of the BEN resources require a subscription or fee to view the resource. If you do not want to see fee-based resources in your searches, an option is provided to view free records only. Currently, registration is not required in exchange for access to the wealth of information freely available through the BEN Portal. Users retain the option to register and/or login to join the library's community of 10,046 biological science educators.

Free Blog Platforms

If you would like to try blogging, Blogger.com is free. It's what I use for my blog. In future posts I'll explore some educational uses of blogs, but for now here's a way to play in the blog sandbox. If you want your students to blog, you should try it out first. Blogger offers ready-made templates that you can customize to your liking. No HTML knowledge is required. You can choose to limit who sees or comments on your blog, useful if you are just testing the waters.

Some bloggers prefer platforms on social networking sites (SCN), for example MSN Spaces or Yahoo! 360. These give you your own web page with a blogging feature built in. However, you also get some of the problems inherent to SCNs.


Some free blog platforms are designed for education. WordPress is one but it requires that you already have a hosting provider or website. Another option is Class Blogmeister, which requires you to log in with your school's code. If you know of other free blog platforms, please share them in the comments.

Digital Libraries

A digital library is a library where collections are stored in a digital format rather than print or microfiche formats and which are accessed by computer. They are libraries in cyberspace that can be used by anyone at anytime and anywhere. Some digital libraries are designed specifically for educators, providing teaching and learning materials. The educational virtual libraries are credible sources for educators because they have staff that reviews, selects and structures resources.

There are digital libraries that cover all teaching subjects, such as MERLOT. Others focus on a particular subject, such as the science specific NSDL. This blog provides links to some of these on its home page menu.

What about students? Your school district will have a digital library accessible to them. Virtual libraries for students or the general public not associated with an educational or public institution are just beginning to emerge. One fine example is The International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) where youngsters can read books in their preferred language and save books to their personal bookshelf.

Copyright & Ed Tech

It's been a while since I've posted on my blog. I completed my UFL course on educational technology since my last post and I've started a new one -- about distance education. I've learned something new about copyright as it applies to education. Section 110(1) of the American copyright law has always provided educators with the right to display or play the materials of others in a formal classroom above and beyond fair use. The educator's world has changed since the act was introduced. Learning online through class wikis, blogs, and the like, is a big part of teaching today. To address how and what can be used for online transmission, section 110(2), or the TEACH Act, was created. I developed a PPT presentation about the TEACH act for my course and I'd like to share it with you:

Digital Natives and Education

My previous post mentions digital natives. If you're wondering who they are and, if you are a teacher, what it means to teach digital natives, think about this video created by the YouTube user khokanson:



To learn more about the topic, read Marc Prensky's excellent article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. (PDF document)