Website Wednesday...for February

I just realized today that this month has been so full I haven't had time to post any of the great Website Wednesday resources.  So here is the collection for February.  I hope you enjoy!

Awesome Chart for Teachers- Alternatives to Traditional Homework 

This chart provides examples for shifting your traditional homework assignments to engaging, learning tasks for students.

Random Acts of Kindness

Although the designated Random Acts of Kindness Week is over, there are some excellent resources and ideas to continue encouraging Random Acts of Kindness in your classroom, school and community.

10 Excellent Lessons from Google to Help Students Better Use Google Maps in Their Learning

Great resource for geography!

ISTE | Worksheets for the digital age: AR interactive print

Get a basic understanding of Augmented Reality (AR) along with some printable interactive resources that you can use right way in your classroom.

Safer Internet Day Quiz

Take this Internet Safety test from the Safer Internet Centre. Students are given different scenarios and must determine the best course of action. Good resource for digital citizenship.

40 Maps That Explain The Middle East

Explore and study the Middle East - the past and the present - with these 40 various maps covering political borders, demographics, religion and more.

Historypin

On historypin, history is recorded with photos from the past and present. As a teacher, you could use this site by having students explore and interact with photos from specific time periods and/or locations. There are photo collections and tours that you could use as a whole class or individually. These are great primary sources for studying history. Check out this video to a short intro to historypin - https://www.historypin.org/about-us/.

DK Find Out!

Fun Facts for Kids on Animals, Earth, History and more! Please note that this link is beta mode right now, so feel free to give them feedback so they can improve this fun fact resource.

Common Core Standards App

View the Common Core State Standards in one convenient FREE app! A great reference for students, parents, and teachers to easily read and understand the core standards. Quickly find standards by subject, grade, and subject category (domain/cluster). This app includes Math standards K-12 and Language Arts standards K-12. Math standards include both traditional and integrated pathways (as outlined in Appendix A of the common core) and synthesizes Language Arts standards with the Corresponding College and Career Readiness Standards (CCR's).

Next Generation Science Standards

View the Next Generation Science Standards in one convenient FREE app! A great reference for teachers, parents, and students to easily read and understand the standards. Quickly find standards by various topic arrangements or keyword search.

Creepy!

I was recently reading this post on 5 Educational Trends for 2013 just to see the top 5.  Most of them didn't surprise me except for trend 4 - augmented reality.  The author talked about Project Glass and shared the following video:

Since I'm not real familiar with augmented reality, I decided to Google "What is augmented reality?"  I found the best user-friendly definition on the website Pocket-Lint.  They explain augmented reality is "the art of super-imposing of computer generated content over a live view of the world."

Mashable, an Internet news blog, provided a little more complex definition, but they also had a slew of articles to discover more about augmented reality.  While I was sharing the above video with Yvonne, she started wondering when they would come out with a contact lens version of these Google classes.  Wouldn't you know, The Pentagon is already working on this endeavor.

Image from http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/m.t.-anderson

After viewing and reading this information, my first thoughts went to a young adult scifi book called Feed by M.T. Anderson that came out in 2002.  The people in this society have computer implants in their head that feeds them information about their environment, but also sends out advertisements.  I thought how creepy is that!  With these glasses we aren't that far away from the concept in this scifi book.

It started a discussion in the tech office as to what will happen with technology in the next 10 to 20 years.  Of course ever the jokster, Stan started depicting himself as the crochety grandpa who doesn't like any technology you can't touch.  "Give me a keyboard any day!"  I wondered how wearing a device like this would impact every day tasks like driving.  We have issues already with texting and driving.  What would happen if I were watching Finding Nemo in one eye and watching the road with the other.  How would your brain handle that input of information?  How would this impact our society and everyday living?  What would the have and have not divide look like?  How would this impact education?  One thing I can say is it makes science fiction seem more like science fact.

So, what  do you think?