Thursday, March 12, 2009

World Mapper

I'm reading Don Tapscott's Grown Up Digital which is, by the way, an amazing read so far. But one of the maps in the book is from a source called World Mapper . I'm sure others have seen the site before, but it is amazing to me. It's a collection of maps that can are resized according to different categories such as land mass, distribution of wealth, internet usage, and the like. There are animated maps as well. It's a fun site to explore and would be a great resource in all different types of classes.

Colonial and Revolutionary America

Open Culture has pointed out another internet gem -- this time a free course on Colonial and Revolutionary America through Stanford University's ITunes University section. It's taught by Jack Rackove, a Puliter-Prize winning historian.

Using Google Maps in the Classroom

Speaking of History has a post about a project that used Google Maps to examine the role of Liberty, Missouri in the Gold Rush.

Media Cloud

Media Cloud is a really interesting site put out by the Berkman Center at Harvard. Here's their description of the site:
Media Cloud is a system that lets you see the flow of the media. The Internet is fundamentally altering the way that news is produced and distributed, but there are few comprehensive approaches to understanding the nature of these changes. Media Cloud automatically builds an archive of news stories and blog posts from the web, applies language processing, and gives you ways to analyze and visualize the data. The system is still in early development, but we invite you to explore our current data and suggest research ideas. This is an open-source project, and we will be releasing all of the code soon.


Ethan Zuckrman from the Nieman Journalism Lab does a nice job explaining it as well.

Interactive Science Simulations

Wes Fryer posted about PhET, free interactive online science simulations in a wide variety of topics -- chemistry, biology, physics, earth science. They're posted by the University of Colorado and while they certainly don't replace hands-on labs, they are an interesting supplement.

GoogleLitTrips

I'd vowed not to post over spring break, but I'm obviously letting that vow slip.

curriki.org posted something that caught my attention: GoogleLitTrips. It's a neat little site that uses Google Maps to chronicle the great literary road trips. There's a ton of sample projects on the site based on such works as the Make Way for Ducklings, The Slave Dancer, The Kite Runner, and Buddenbrooks (one of my favories!). It's a great place to get ideas for class projects.