Monday, November 5, 2007

Pictures of the Day

Many teachers have used the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) in the classroom for years. It features a dazzling daily astronomy photo with a link-filled caption that provides for further exploration and open ended discussions.

Astronomy Picture of the Day Courtesy NASA

I noticed a teacher had worked an RSS feed for APOD into an online course recently (see APOD photo below left). I wondered what other RSS feeds there might be that supported similar use. While I didn't find any other sources that met my requirements (photo available via RSS and consistent in size and proportion), I did run across a number of excellent teaching resources.

The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD), modeled after APOD, "highlights the diverse processes and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives." EPOD's archive includes thumbnails of its daily photos organized by the month.

The new MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) Image of the Day features photos from the Terra (EOS AM) and Aqua (EOS PM) satellites.

The Botany Photo of the Day, sponsored by the University of British Columbia's Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, not only features a daily botany photo with a description, but also has a free, downloadable widget for Mac OS X users.

W₃Streams.com offers links to many RSS feeds of various photo galleries and RSS feeds.

Intergalactal.com offers an excellent page of educational RSS feeds.

There's even free downloadables for the National Geographic Picture of the Day for Mac (92K) and Windows from SoftPedia.com.

And while I have mentioned it before on this site, the Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD), modeled after APOD, is certainly worth a look. It "highlights the diverse processes and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives." EPOD's archive includes thumbnails of its daily photos organized by the month.

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Thursday, November 8, 2007

No Child Left Behind Reauthorization Stalled

Any number of sources indicate that reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law will be delayed until next year. I'll just post a collection of the better links from the last few weeks on the subject.

• Los Angeles Times: A juggling act on No Child Left Behind by Nicole Gaouette
• New York Times: For a Key Education Law, Reauthorization Stalls by Sam Dillon
• Washington Post: An Unlikely Partnership Left Behind by Peter Baker
• Chicago Tribune: Many schools fail only in special ed by Alexa Aguilar
• NEA: President's Misguided Budget Priorities Undermine Children and Public Education

School Technology Links

The New York Times Samuel Freedman tells of teachers' woes in dealing with cell phones and other technology in the classroom in New Class(room) War: Teacher vs. Technology. For those of you fighting the same battle, you might enjoy this one. Freedman quotes Prof. Michael Bugeja of Iowa State University, “The baby boomers seem to see technology as information and communication. Their offspring and the emerging generation seem to see the same devices as entertainment and socializing.”

Here are two other interesting reads I ran across yesterday:

• T.H.E. Journal: 21st Century Learning: 'We're Not Even Close' by Dave Nagel
• eSchool News: Nashville schools pilot face-recognition tech

Links Updated

I spent some time over the last two weeks updating the links to some older Mac software and software sources. Vintage Mac Software has links to various archive and source for download of pre-OS X Mac software. I got started on that one when I saw that System 7 Today had acquired Info-Mac. A Gaggle of LC III's: Part 3 has links to some specific Mac OS 9 and earlier freeware programs. I was actually pretty surprised to find out how many of the programs from the original column were still available!

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