Dr. Jess - Raw Data

I happened to browse by the Census Bureau web site and was startled by the quantity and quality of data on this web site.  It is absolutely a treasure trove of numbers. In addition to a population clock there is an American Community Survey, an economic census and countless fact sheets.  If you need number for any type of class, this is a great place to find them.

For the past year our work group has been using Google Docs to collaborate our activities, planning and editing of documents.  So naturally I have been poking around in Google’s other resources.  One of them is Google News.  I am a big news reader.  Google News is located in Google Labs.  The news in offered to us as ….. “A web application that organizes information chronologically. Google News Timeline allows users to view news, scanned newspapers and magazines, blog posts, sports scores, and more on a zoomable, graphical timeline.”  I like time lines as they display information in a manner that most resembles the way I think.  I tend to think linear! I’m not sure that is a good thing, but that’s ME! Mouse over the graphic and select this link to Google News.

Do you remember, as a child, being told what the future would hold?  Do you remember seeing TV shows that described what life would be like in the next 100 years? Well, we are not the only ones who have asked those questions.  People from the past asked that question and wrote about it as well.  That is what www.Paleo-Future.com illustrates.  So what did the people in the year 1890 think our world would be like?  Almost every decade predicted personal flight.  They thought we would all be flying around with balloons attached to ourselves. Do you remember predictions about flying cars?  I thought my Ford Galaxy would actually be in Orion by now! All kidding aside, this web page has great illustrations collected from the past. Kind of naive, yet very cool!

TWAN is a great web site for observing the night sky.  TWAN has posted a number of unusually beautiful images of the night sky.  Many of the pictures utilize a long exposure image.  The shutter of the camera is manually opened over a relatively long period of time to expose the medium.  They describe it as…. “The World At Night (TWAN) is a program to produce and present a collection of stunning photographs and time-lapse videos of the world’s landmarks against the celestial attractions.”  They have tutorials on how to recreate some of the stunning visual effects that sky photography allows.  One of the unusual aspects of this site is that all of the photographs require a backdrop that is of a historical site.  These sites can be man made or of natural origin. (Such as a rock outcrop like Devil’s Tower)  I can look at these sites and imagine myself in those places.  A very quick travel trip.

WorldWide Telescope is a a Web 2.0 visualization software…. “WorldWide Telescope is created with the Microsoft® high performance Visual Experience Engine™ and allows seamless panning and zooming around the night sky, planets, and image environments. View the sky from multiple wavelengths: See the x-ray view of the sky and zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then crossfade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago. Switch to the Hydrogen Alpha view to see the distribution and illumination of massive primordial hydrogen cloud structures lit up by the high energy radiation coming from nearby stars in the Milky Way.”

This is very exciting and is a must for the study of science.

One of the blog sites that I regularly read had this link to TagGalagy.com  So out of curiosity I opened it up.  WOW, what a concept.  Write a subject in the center line and a galaxy appears with planets in orbit.  Each orbiting planet is a relational subject to the center “SUN”.  Select a planet and the photo’s appear to fly onto the sun.  This is amazing, and it only get’s better.  Click and drag the planet and you can move the sphere around in circles.  Very Cool!  Select the arrow at the top and new ‘Flickr” photos zoom in onto the sphere for a whole new set of views.

The Gantt chart is an excellent planning tool for preparing students to see the big picture of a project.  Students often don’t realize that a project is actually made up of many component parts.  These components are assembled at the end to bring the project to fruition.  I have been looking at Gantt charts and modified one that I found for our teachers.  It is simple, in an Excel format and completely editable.

sample-gantt-chart-snagged.

CNET has a video that displays the future of keyboarding on phones or other small devices.  It’s called the Swype!  This is an input device that is very intuitive and guesses the words you want to type.  If it can’t guess the words it brings up a short list of guesses and you select the word.  This is a very fast input device and the video will demonstrate the speed.

http://cnettv.cnet.com/9742-1_53-50003669.html

The periodic table has always seemed to me to be some large poster in the corner of the Science class. But now comes the Dynamic Periodic Table. This is very cool!

There are a few sites on the web that I always seem to find my way back to. One of them is the Daily Overlook. One of the sites of the day is…. Terry Sebastian’s Africa in 30 days. This site has a slide show on Africa. The photos are compelling and the music with it, is dramatic. The perfect accompaniment to the pictures. I have found myself going back to this web site because of the outstanding pictures. They just demand to be seen and seen again.

Take a tour now