I Hate Internet Explorer.

It totally destroys my web design.

UPDATE: Apparently I'm not the only one.

Image of the Day

Finger coral reef in the lagoon at Kure Atoll State Wildlife Refuge in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument.

Photo by Claire Fackler, National Marine Sanctuaries Media Library.

Image of the Day

"Hubble Snaps a Splendid Planetary Nebula." From NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team.

World Digital Library

Keeping my eyes peeled for this one.

Only on a Mac

Lately, I've been thinking I'd like to teach fifth grade.  This is a big change from my 20-some-year-long ambition of being a kindergarten teacher.  I like the content better - you can do more.  (But I'd be happy anywhere.)

There are a couple things in the Connecticut curriculum for fifth grade that I haven't been all that excited about teaching.  

Exhibit A, "Energy Transfer and Transformations," ...sound is a form of energy that is produced by the vibration of objects and is transmitted by the vibration of air and objects...

I've never been able to think of ways that were really exciting or cool to teach this.  

But check this out.

Image of the Day

Switching it up a little today.  Played around with Photoshop to do this one.  

Photographs, clockwise from top right: Point-source water pollution, Unknown location
National Park Service, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore from EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office; Dredge Discharge Pipe from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; An oiled swan, one of many wildlife victims of the April 7th oil spill in Swanson Creek. Image by Mary Hollinger, from NOAA's Photo Library; Junk cars in Illinois River, Peoria, Illinois, Image by Romy Myszka of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service from EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office; and Hole in the Ozone Layer Over Antarctica, Image by NASA, from the GRIN database. 

And the quote?  From T.S. Eliot's Little Gidding...

I left out the last line of the stanza on purpose. 

What I Don't Like about PBWiki

Anyone who has ever edited a Wiki on Wikipedia has had to learn "Wiki-code."  Not html, not WYSIWYG, it's is own...thing.  

So PB Wiki is better for use in classrooms because it does use WYSIWYG. (Among other reasons.)

But is it really all that difficult to allow more than one contributor to edit a page at the same time?  The very nature of collaborative writing and Wiki's sort of demands it, no?  

But no.  Only one person at a time.  Nevermind that I can be in the middle of writing something only to find out that someone has "stolen the lock" from me and that I can no longer save my entry.  

I fail to see the point of that feature.

Image of the Day

Niagara Falls, circa 1853-1860. 

From the Library of Congress, America's First Look into the Camera: Daguerreotype Portraits and Views, 1839-1864 Collection.

?

7 days a week?  Lunacy.

Image of the Day

Image from NASA's GRIN (Great Images in NASA) database.

Virtual Schools?

So, I hadn't even heard of this.  There's a charter school in Chicago, the "Chicago Virtual Charter School," that is literally entirely web-based.  

The article is rather glowing, but I have to say, my first reaction is quite mixed.  On the one hand, it's a pretty incredible use of technology.  On the other hand, I have a not-so-glowing gut reaction to it.  

Your thoughts?

Free Stuff.

Who doesn't love free documentaries. 

New Life.

Life.com is finally up.  I've been waiting for this one.

Terms of use allow for printing single copies for personal, noncommercial use.  Presumably that includes educational purposes, yes?  Can you tell I love copyright law?  

It would have been really incredible if they had licensed everything under a Creative Commons license. ;)

Line in the Sand.

There's just something that pains me about seeing the word "literature" just below a photograph of a hand held computer/screen.

"It tells us that printed books, the most important artifacts of human civilization, are going to join newspapers and magazines on the road to obsolescence."  

Please no.  Call me a Luddite if you must.  But I refuse to give up my dusty shelves overflowing with books.  

Image of the Day

From Flickr User gautamnguitar, Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License.