PBS Learning Media

Everything PBS related is now housed in one location, at PBS Learning Media.

PBS LearningMedia™ is the go-to destination for instant access to tens of thousands of classroom-ready, digital resources including videos, games, audio clips, photos, lesson plans, and more! You can search, save, and share with ease. Best of all, PBS LearningMedia is free for educators.

Visit the PBS Learning Media website to create your own free teacher account, and to sign up your students if you feel so inclinced.

 

 

MoMA Puts Pollock, Rothko & de Kooning on Your iPad

From a posting on Open Culture:

Through next April, you can visit “Abstract Expressionist New York,” – an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) that looks back at the work of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, David Smith, Willem de Kooning and many others. If you can’t make the trip, then you can do the next best thing. Fire up your iPad, download the free app created by MoMA, and start watching a slideshow of 60 paintings currently on display in “AB EX NY.” All images are presented in high resolution, and the app also features 20 videos created by the curators, each of which concentrates on individual painters and their techniques. And did I mention that the app is free?

Evaluating Websites

Screen Shot 2013-07-24 at 9.08.06 AM

(Screenshot from RADCAB website)

As part of our Library Instruction programme at ESA we work with students on evaluating the quality of information available on the web.  We teach something called the CARRDSS Approach, but there are many other systems (and acronyms) out there.

One really neat little one that I have recently come across is the RADCAB acronym. The creation of a school library Media Specialist, RADCAB comes with a great little website.  Bookmark this site for easy reference.

What Kids Are Reading, In School and Out

From the MonkeySee blog at NPR

Walk into any bookstore or library, and you’ll find shelves and shelves of hugely popular novels and book series for kids. But research shows that as young readers get older, they are not moving to more complex books. High-schoolers are reading books written for younger kids, and teachers aren’t assigning difficult classics as much as they once did.

Listen to the broadcast here.

3 Student Tech Trends Teachers Should Know About

If you’re just settling into what will hopefully be a nice, long, and relaxing summer break, then congratulations. You deserve it. I’ll just sit here waiting for you to … okay, done relaxing? Let’s talk about some of the biggest student tech trends that students will be talking about when you head back to class in the fall. It’s important to stay up to date on what’s popular with students so you can know ahead of time what they’ll be looking for when the first bell rings. In other words, you’d better be prepared for an onslaught of tech this fall. I’m here to help, though. Fear not!

It’s important to know not just what connected teachers are looking at and tinkering with in terms of technology. You need to know what students are doing online, what technology they’re using, and how. So let’s get on with it so you can go back to sipping your drink by the side of the pool.

Read the full posting at Edudemic.

Ontario Library Association and Distribution Access

The olaStore has recently partnered with Distribution Access, Canada’s leading provider of the world’s best educational video programs and multimedia content.

Sail the seas with Mighty Ships. Learn all about the world around us (and beyond) with Bill Nye. Transport the class to another place with 24 Hours In ….

           

The olaStore pleased to offer over 850 titles from Bill Nye, Daily Planet, Discovery Canada/EPI, Canadian Geographic, and more!

Visit our dedicated Distribution Access page for the full list of series and titles that we are carrying.

Prefer to stream video content? We also offer digital programming. Please contact the olaStore for more details and on how to order.