Interactive Sites on Apollo 11 Mission

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, check out these websites. One, called We Choose the Moon, is a real-time, interactive recreation of the mission sponsored by the JFK Presidential Library and Museum (it may load slowly and it is very visual/graphic intense with numerous links to explore). Another is 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum where we found this image and many more.

A few interesting facts: in 1969, the US median income was $8,389; a first class stamp cost 6¢; gas was 35 cents a gallon and the New York Times best seller list included: Love Machine (Susann); Portnoy's Complaint (Roth); Godfather (Puzo); Ada, or Ardor (Nabokov); and Slaughterhouse-5 (Vonnegut). Do you remember the moon landing?

E-texts and Student Use

Today’s Wall Street Journal includes an article discussing e-books: “Book Smarts? E-Texts Receive Mixed Reviews from Students”. It raises some question about the technology -- such as ability to highlight and post notes -- and about the cost needing to be lower relative to traditional print textbooks. However, many schools (including California K-12 and several colleges) and publishers are continuing to experiment with this technology. We will hear more about this option in the future.

From a recent NPR story

From a recent NPR story:

"The stereotype of the librarian — horn-rimmed glasses, hair in a bun, finger to her lips stubbornly shushing — was nowhere to be found at this year's Librarian Book Cart Drill Championships held recently in Chicago." (ALA Convention)

"Five teams of librarians — dressed in costumes ranging from Vikings to Elvis Presley — competed for the coveted gold book cart. They marched in drill-team formation, equipped with metal book carts." Do you think we should get a team together for competitions in the future?

Watch the video!

Web2 Practice

Check out this explanation of microblogging from JISC, a UK education and research community.


Each available guide on Web2 Practice consists of a short animated video explaining the key concepts, supported by a more in-depth overview of the topic, including potential uses, risks and how to get started.

Other video explanations on Social Media, RSS, Collaborative Writing, and Podcasting are also available.

More ideas on Teaching MLA Citation

I've been investigating the Ning called English Companion which was created as a virtual place for English teachers to meet and help each other. One of the threads talked about teaching MLA citations. It provides several ideas of how to actively demonstrate this to students. I particularly liked Mark Childs' suggestions and his conclusion that "essentially, I find that making the students be a reader of the works cited page makes them a better writer of one." Something for us to explore next year.

Noodle Tools Update at end of July

Looks like we'll start the new school year with teaching the MLA 7th ed. updates as Noodle Tools will be incorporating those changes at the end of July.

The following updates are scheduled for 7/31 - 8/2/09 (exact date/time TBD):

1. MLA 7th ed. update
2. Chicago/Turabian legal citation forms
3. Notecards update --see the Noodle Tools blog to view dramatic changes in the Notecards feature. Looks pretty slick and more student friendly. I think they will like the outline feature and the ability to "populate" the outline by dragging notecards.

Flashcard Exchange

With over 21 million flashcards, contributed by thousands, organized by tagging, these web-based tool has become a study aid to "absorb information efficiently and permanently".

View this Internet application where you can create, study, print and download flashcards.