Collaboration Rules

In an article at eWeek, Ward Cunningham (developer of the wiki) said, "he has been interested in taking long-term looks at 'how wisdom is collected in organizations, … especially the wikiwiki Web style of talking about experiences, and the way that large groups of people can communicate'." Cunningham sees the development of open source (freely available to all) software as just beginning and sure to grow, " and it's not just because of cost, but because of end-user innovation." I'm guessing that Cunningham is right about the end-user innovation moving software forward to the benefit of all. It definitely benefits innovative teachers and curious kids!

Meantime, there are some excellent little programs for younger students at Sen Teacher Resources. This is a British site, so the instructional pieces around money won't work for American students. But lots of the materials are right on the mark! And for fun, be sure to look at these optical illusions. This is a PowerPoint show, so click "open" when asked.

Copyright-free Music for Educational Use

Several of you have asked about legality in using music in students' or teachers' educational projects. Fair Use Policy gives students and teachers lots of leeway, but the law is tricky and sometimes hard to understand. Here are two easy solutions:

C/Net's Music Download.Com only offers free music whose artists have given permission for its use. "Users may use the material on the site only for non-commercial personal or educational purposes." There's lots there, grouped by genre, with a handy button that says "download". Couldn't be easier.

Magnatune is a great site for teachers. As long as you are using the music for your educational project, you can download an MP3 version of the song and be free to use it.

• Go to the Magnatune site and click on the type of music you need.
• Listen to as many pieces as you wish. Listening is always free at Magnatune
• When you find something you want, click on License, then on Non-commercial (you may have some security screen pop-ups during this process. Just say "Yes" to get past them.
• Read the Non-commercial license explanation. Near the bottom of the page, click on "download the MP3"
• Continue to say "yes" to any security pop-ups
• When you see the list of available MP3 recordings by the artist you have chosen, you will need to find the title you want. To hear the recording again, you can click on the little floppy disk icon. To download song, right click on the icon and choose "save target as". On the resulting screen, select your download location.

This is a terrific site for music lovers. Take some time to explore new artists, then think about BUYING a song or two. You not only listen to the music before you buy, you actually choose HOW MUCH to PAY! I have purchased several pieces and have been more than happy with my choices!

National Archives Video

From "http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=11152" comes this information:

Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein and Google co-founder and president of technology Sergey Brin have announced the launch of a pilot program to make holdings of the National Archives available for free online. This agreement will enable researchers and the general public to access a diverse collection of historic movies, documentaries, and other films from the National Archives via Google Video (http://video.google.com/nara.html) as well as the National Archives Web site (http://www.archives.gov/).

These videos are a fascination for everyone and a treasure trove for historians, young and old.

Problem Solvers

Need to transfer large files from one computer to another? Is it too big to send or as an attachment? YouSendIt is a free service that will let you upload a file, up to one gig, then send the link to the file to whomever you choose. The instructions from YouSendIt:

• Pick who you want to send a file to. It can be anyone with an email address. You can specify multiple email addresses by separating them with commas.
• Select file to send. You can send music, photos, documents, or anything else. Your file will be stored by YouSendIt without ever filling up your recipient's mailbox.
• Click on the Send It button. YouSendIt will automatically email your recipient a link to your file stored on our server. The file will remain on the server for 7 days.

Uses? You can transfer large files or folders to your colleagues; you can move material you created at home to your computer at school; students can upload a slide show to share with other students or to show in class.

Another nice gizzmo for your classroom: a free Timer which you can install on your computer, then use on your TV when students are doing timed work. Just download, click on the installer, and you're ready to go. The download button is about half way down the page. This was a Karen Finter find, so if you find it useful, thank Karen!

Kids At Work

Here's a dandy service for you! BubbleShare is a free service. It will keep your slide show private....that is, it will be accessible only if you have the correct html address which BubbleShare sends directly to you. So you control who can see the show. Creating the show is a snap, and you can add narration if you are so inspired. The show is hosted at BubbleShare. Try it out! If you are a blogger, by the way, BubbleShare creates the XML that lets you post this with a simple cut-n-paste operation. What could be easier than that?

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Sites for Readers

Thanks to the "Tech Savvy Educator", we have a nice list of sites for young readers. While Ben has more sites on his blog, I've selected a few that I particularly like.

• MysteryNet's Kids Mysteries The stories here are short and engaging. Kids have a real chance to solve the mysteries, but they are not dead give-aways. After reading a few, youngsters might enjoy crafting their own stories.
• Banph Middle school fare ala fantasy/animal fiction. (Really, it's about an ant, but who ever heard of insect finction?) The drawings are wonderful.
• Children's Storybooks Online Grouped by age appropriateness, this goup of offerings is sure to spark interest on the parts of some youngsters. The amount of text on screen is limited, so even reluctant readers won't be intimidated.

While we're at it, another nifty tool for educators as well as for plain, ordinary people: YouSendIt is a quick and easy way to transfer large files (up to 1 GB). You don't have to "join" or otherwise make a commitment to this site. Just go there, fill in the recipient's email address, browse for your file, and click OK. Very nice. The recipient gets an email with a link, follows the link, and can download the file from the YouSendIt site. Material is not held on the YouSendIt site for long. But this service really does meet a need.