Google Art Project

Google has created a site, called Google Art Project, which is specifically focused on things artistic.  It links many notable and popular art galleries and museums from around the world, allowing the viewer to explore hundreds of famous artworks and gallery collections online.  Navigation choices are between Explore the museum and View artwork.  The surfaces of selected artworks can be scrutinised in high resolution by zooming in using a sliding bar, the scrolling button the mouse, or selecting the plus or minus sights on the left of the screen.  Expanding the panels reveals information about the artwork, details of other works by the artist and inks to related Youtube videos.  Additional exploration of galleries is available through the interactive Navigate floor plan and Visitor guide.  Students will enjoy viewing the videos provided and expanding their own collections using Create an artwork.

Syllabus classification:  Creative arts, K – 6, Visual Arts 7 – 10

New DVD: Waiting for Superman

All of you may remember Mr Brockhus mentioning, at the start of this term, that over the holidays he'd watched a documentary called Waiting for Superman and that he found it extremely interesting. Peter Krausz also sent out an email about the documentary, which he has reviewed in the latest IEU Magazine. We've just bought a copy of the DVD for the Library, which everyone is welcome to borrow. I had a chance to view it last night, and I must say it's a very eye opening and heartbreaking documentary. I had no idea the American education system was in such a bad state. I would usually be of the point of view that a good teacher makes for a good student, however this documentary opened my eyes to the fact that there's so much bureaucracy going on in the background that it's so hard for this to happen. It was also very motivational in a way too, as you could see there are people trying to help the student's become the best people they can, and it made me feel that our students are very lucky in comparison. I think it's definitely worth watching!

The description from the back of the DVD is as follows:
"From the Academy Award winning director of An Inconvenient Truth comes the groundbreaking feature film that provides an engaging and inspiring look at public education in the United States. Waiting for Superman has helped launched a movement to achieve a real and lasting change through the compelling stories of five unforgettable students such as Emily, a Silicon Valley eighth-grader who is afraid of being labeled as unfit for college and Francisco, a Bronx first-grader whose mum will do anything to give him a shot at a better life. Waiting for Superman will leave a lasting and powerful impression that you will want to share with your friends and family."
Click here to view our v-Library record for Waiting for Superman. You will be able to see whether the copy we have is in, or reserve it if need be.

Top Apps

I had a chat yesterday with a staff member who showed me a few of the apps he has on his iPad. I was really impressed with some of them so I thought I'd share them with you. These are all available for download through iTunes.
Life:
(Free)
Life Magazines photography collection is now available through your iPad/iPhone. Through this app you will be able to explore Life's archives as well as view their most recent photos. The photos are of excellent quality, and would be great not only for photography or art students, but to use in English and Humanities classes.

Qwiki:
(Free)
Qwiki is a great little app that I was very impressed with. You can search for information about any place, person or thing that you can think of, and Qwiki gives you an interactive summary about your chosen topic. You can even explore the area that you are currently in, to find out more about it. We did a search on Rupertswood, as the app could tell where we were, and it opened up a little video with pictures and information about Rupertswood. This would be great for those needing information on different countries or places they plan on visiting, or just if you need basic information on the fly. Qwiki contains information on over 3,000,000 topics!

Wikipanion:
(Free)
Wikipanion is a great, fast and easy way to access Wikipedia through your iPad. It allows you to bookmark your favourite topics, view your history so you can go back to a certain topic, save images to your photo library and more.

Planetary:
(Free)
This app is more for fun than for any educational purpose. But I really like the idea. Through Planetary you are able to explore through your music collection which has been presented in a 3D universe. Suns represent bands/singers, Planets represent albums, and moons represent songs in this very cute app available only through your iPad.

Aweditorium:
(Free)
Another music based app, however this is directed at those who want to find some new music to add to their collection or to find out more about a particular artist. Aweditorium brings together photography, lyrics, videos and interviews related to an artist, all in the one place. This could be another fun app, but would also be great for music students needing to find information on a particular artist, or to be able to experience various types of music.

Garage Band:
($5.49)
Garage Band turns your iPad into a full recording studio, giving you access to a collection of touch instruments and allowing you to make your own music. The instruments available at the moment are pianos, organs, guitars, drums and basses. A great app for music students (or teachers) or any artists in the making!

How Stuff Works

One of my favourite resources on the internet at the moment would have to be the How Stuff Works network, which is owned by The Discovery Channel. They have a fantastic website which is full of articles about any topic that you can think of, whether it's to do with Adventure, Animals, Auto, Culture (geography, history or people), Entertainment, Home & Garden, Money, Science or Technology. Each article has been researched throroughly by the writers on staff and so they contain some great information. They can also include pictures and videos to better explain the topics. They also cover current issues with the latest article being about How Riots Work (in response to the current riots in London).

My favourite part of the How Stuff Works network and a part that I use all the time is the podcasts that they release on a bi-weekly basis. One of my favourite podcasts is called Stuff You Should Know which is run by Josh and Chuck and covers a huge range of information from How the Black Death works to What's the future of the internet? to Human Cannonballs. Another favourite of mine is called Stuff You Missed in History Class which is, as it sounds, related to history and run by Sarah and Deblina. They've covered topics including shipwrecks, pirates, kings and queens, civil war spies and more, all of which I find really interesting. And finally, my third favourite is called Stuff Mom Never Told You, which is run by Cristen and Caroline. The girls from SMNTY (as they call themselves) cover a variety of topics, mainly dealing with women's issues and differences between males and females in all types of areas, including areas of work, the brain and how we act.

There are other podcasts available to listen to, which I haven't had a chance to do so yet but definitely plan on trying in the future. These are called Brain Stuff, Tech Stuff, Car Stuff, Stuff from the B Side, The Coolest Stuff on the Planet, Stuff to Blow your mind, The Stuff of Genius, Stuff They Don't Want You to Know and Stuff to Change the World. It's often been mentioned in the podcasts that I do listen to that many teachers listen to these podcasts, and they've been started playing them in their classes. In turn their student's become hooked, and the teachers get them to create their own podcasts about whatever topic they're covering at the time. Often teachers set criteria so they're similar to the ones put out by How Stuff Works, and so they're as professional as they can be.

You can download these podcasts (onto your iPad or iPhone) for free from iTunes by searching for the particular podcast title that you want or by just searching How Stuff Works.

On top of having a great website and some awesome podcasts to listen to, there's also some great blogs - often written by the same people who run the podcasts. You can access these by clicking on the Blog link on the How Stuff Works homepage. The Blogs run by staff at How Stuff Works include BrainStuff, CarStuff, FanStuff, How-to Stuff, Keep Asking, Stuff Mom Never Told You, Stuff They Don't Want You To Know, Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Stuff to Change the World, Stuff you Missed in History Class, Stuff You Should Know, TechStuff, The Coolest Stuff on the Planet and The Stuff of Genius. You can click on the following picture to get an example of an article (or the start of it) written for the Stuff You Should Know blog, or just click here to see all the latest blog entries.

Awesome Stories

I've just found out about a great resource for teachers through the State Library run website, Bright Ideas called Awesome Stories. Awesome stories gives teachers access to primary source material and is free to join. It even includes lesson plans! It's mainly history related however there's also topics relating to sports, disasters (natural and man made), religion and more. Topics are explained with images, videos, audio, documents and other primary sources linked to that story. It's a great place to find interesting information or sources to show your students, or for your students to use for primary sources to research/support their assignments. The resources have been sourced from the USA national archives (so topics can be more Americanised), universities, museums, historical societies and government websites.

Google Power Search Tips - Part 1

Di Ruffles from Melbourne High School has created clip providing simple tips on how to make your google searches more effective.

Our Choice by Al Gore - iPad App

I found out about this great looking iPad app through the State Library's Bright Ideas blog. The video is about the first full-length interactive book for iPad, Our Choice by Al Gore, which was created by Push Pop Press. Take a look at the video and see what you think. I personally, think it looks fantastic, and love the interaction the user has with the book, especially where the windmill spins when the presenter (Mike Matas) blows on the screen. This would be great not only for those teaching Global Warming or Climate Change, but for those who are interested to see where e-book technology is going in the future.

Welcome

Welcome to the new blog dedicated to publicising great resources for the staff members of Salesian College (or any other person who works in a school environment). I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I'm constantly finding fantastic resources that could be used by staff, either in class or to advance knowledge. I know that in the past I've created a wiki for this reason, however I think that this will be a better place to keep all of the information as it will be easy to access and you don't need to sign up to access the blog.

I'll be posting things like app recommendations for your iPads, new (and relevant) books and recommendations of great websites, online tools, podcasts and videos.

So enjoy, and I hope that you all find something interesting and useful.