My grandfather used to collect kaleidoscopes so I enjoy seeing them discussed and shared online. Here’s a Victoria and Albert Museum / Museum of Childhood project that allows students to create their own kaleidoscope patterns based on this 1817 invention.
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The URL: http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/moc_kaleidoscope/
My pal, Sandra Gluth, passed on this site to me the other day. Comics in Education discusses that there are a great many uses and applications of comics and graphic novels in the classroom, and this area of the site is specifically devoted to them. Check on the Classroom page to find activities, curriculum connections, frequently asked questions, useful links, and opportunities to have Comics in Education at your school. Be sure to view the rest of the site as well – I linked only to the Classroom page.
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The URL: http://www.comicsineducation.com/classroom.html
Colin Smith has released a great summary of the features included this week with Adobe’s latest CC release of Photoshop. He has included a video and a good range of things to know about the updates. While he focuses on Photoshop, there’s a good summary of what a Creative Cloud membership includes and a discussion about how to make the (personal, not school) decision to go with that or stick with CS6. In addition to this, Colin has several good tutorials that are of use to students and teachers.
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The URL: http://www.photoshopcafe.com/cc/
Thanks to Australian teacher, Brian Shaw, who sent me a note about Mockaroo, which lets you generate up to 100,000 rows of realistic test data in CSV, TXT, SQL, and JSON formats. Data fields can be customised to make the data in basically any range you may like. This is tremendously useful for students learning about spreadsheets, databases, programming and web design!
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The URL: http://www.mockaroo.com/
My good friend, Catherine Macklam found this one. BeFunky.com is an online photo editor that is intuitive and easy to use. It offers a lot of the common photo-editing tools that a teacher or student would want to touch up images for a project. Be sure to check out the Collage Maker button on the top left and be warned that there is a lot of advertising in the no-cost Basic account. There are also apps for iOS and Android available.
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The URL: http://www.befunky.com
I’ve recommended this site before but it warrants a repeat after my pal Andy reminded me of it. IXL offers some no-cost activities that students (or your own children at home) can use to bone up on their numerical talents. The beauty of this resource is that you can choose your country at the top edge, then your local curriculum to line up the most relevant activities.
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The URL: http://ca.ixl.com/