Your Guide to the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010

What does the Olympic symbol mean?
The Inukshuk, which means "likeness of person" was first used by the Inuit People to mark trails, indicate caches of food, locate nearby settlements as well as good places to hunt or fish. Most of the Canadian arctic is dominated year round by permafrost and only has a few natural landmarks which could be used for orientation, that's why Inukshuk are used as directional markers.

• Official Olympic Site
• Torch Relay in Pictures
• The Olympic Playground~ Classroom Site with lessons and interactive games
• Interactive Venue Tour
• Olympic-themed lesson plans to use in your classroom
• More great sites for teaching the Olympics

Don't forget to search Olympics in DE Streaming... there are over 284 resources related to the Olympics available!

Tuesday's TechKnow Tips- H1N1 Resources for Educators, Students and Parents!

• Discovery Education's H1N1 Ready Zone~ Use these pages to get informed about the H1N1 flu virus and learn about actions you can take to keep yourself, your family, and your community safe. K-12 lessons, videos, information and posters.

• Flu Tracker ~ This map and the data behind it were compiled by Dr. Henry Niman, a biomedical researcher in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, using technology provided by Rhiza Labs and Google. The map is compiled using data from official sources, news reports and user-contributions and updated multiple times per day.

• Google's Flu Trends~ Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity.

Obama's Historic Speech to America's Students!

President Barrack Obama will address the nation's students on
September 8, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. PST.

The speech will air on C-SPAN cable network, stream on the White House website and air live on C-SPAN Radio (90.1 FM in Washington, D.C., and channel 132 on XM Satellite Radio).

Be advised that Technology Services recommends that you do not attempt to stream the speech live from the internet- you WILL be disappointed!

If you wish to view the speech after the live stream I will create a stand-alone video file that you can play from your teacher computer at a later date so you and your students may view without the buffering issues.

Classroom Activities (Pre-K–6)
Classroom Activities (7–12)

Download-able video of the speech will be made available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/mediaresources/ as well as on www.ed.gov. C-SPAN.org will provide archived and "on-demand" viewing options.

VIDEO CONTEST OPPORTUNITY
The Dept. of Ed. is launching the “I Am What I Learn” video contest geared towards students 13 and over. Beginning September 8, students will be able to upload their responses to the presidents challenge – what steps will they take to improve their education and what role will education play in fulfilling their dreams? They will have until October 8 to post their videos on YouTube, where a panel of judges that will include U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, will review the top 20 finalists. Three winners will each receive a $1,000 cash prize.

Let's Make Earth Day Last All Year Long!

How many times can the newspaper you read today be recycled?

How much can one compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) save in electricity costs over its lifetime?

What single innovation is causing more people to recycle more products than ever?

Which clean alternative energy source is created by landfills?

How much energy can you save by recycling one aluminum can every day for a month?

Find answers to these questions and raise your students' awareness of environmental issues with ready-to-use classroom materials, lesson plans, worksheets, puzzles, quizzes, and activities at ThinkGreen.

ThinkGreen is a site created by Waste Management and powered by Discovery Education.

NOTE: To view the videos from this site without buffering issues log in to your Discovery account. Search for the video title from the ThinkGreen site. Follow these directions for saving video directly to your workstation for a "buffer free" viewing experience.

Visit the Earth Day Network to learn how make every day an "Earth Day."

Google Goes to School

TechKnowTuesday_ Cartoons in the History/Social Studies Classroom

It's No Laughing Matter-Analyzing Political Cartoons - A good political cartoon makes you think about current events, but it also tries to sway your opinion toward the cartoonist’s point of view.

Still More cartoons to use with your class @ Cartoons For the Classroom.
The Opper Project- teaching history through political cartoons.


Happy Tuesday,
Diana

My Fellow Americans

Yes We Can! Was this year's campaign slogan. What issue do you feel we can work on as Americans? What advice do you have for our 44th president? Lend your voice to this project and let the world know that Yes, WE CAN!