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Portal to Media Literacy
The Romantics
Watch BBC — The Romantics — Episode 3 — Eternity in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Stick figure Hamlet
As the title says, Hamlet in stick figures. This is awesome!
Digital Narratives
The Ditigal Narrative has heaps of resources and links to other websites that explore digital storytelling and new media.
Siftables – toy blocks that think!
“MIT grad student David Merrill demos Siftables — cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?”
Australian History rap
cf_des_bishop_rap_history_down_under
Ireland-based, American comedian Des Bishop’s Australian History rap, which includes key moments in the past 200 years of Australian history in three minutes. Performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 2009.
Vocab games
Merriam-Webster Word Central has a number of fun vocab games, including Robo-Bee (“Will your language skills blossom or wilt? It’s up to you as you control the flight of the Robo-Bee through a garden of synonyms, antonyms, spelling, and usage puzzles!”), spelling game Alpha-Bot and others.
Cool science sites
Hunkin’s Experiments has some cool science acitivites aimed at primary school age students.
“Cool cartoons that will have you experimenting with food, light, sound, clothes, and a whole lot more!! Hundreds of cartoon experiments from cartoonist, broadcaster and engineer Tim Hunkin.”
My personal fave: How to make a camera out of a baked bean tin
Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Science by Email is a weekly email newsletter featuring science news and activities.
Science by Email delivers the world’s best science direct to your inbox. It contains:
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the latest science news
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fun activities and experiments
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environmental insights
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a quiz
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SCOPE TV previews
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the best science websites
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occasional competitions
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upcoming events.
Another science site for kids is Toys from Trash
Philosophy for Kids
Philosophy for Children is a site that aims to promote deep thinking, reasoning and verbal skills by asking philosophical questions based on children’s books such as Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.
PicLits
What is PicLits.com?
PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture.
What is Shmoop?
“Shmoop is lovingly created by Ph.D. and Masters students from top universities – primarily Stanford and U.C. Berkeley. Many of us have taught at the college and high school levels”. There are some excellent resources for teaching literature and history here.
Keeping it simple
Effective writing is often characterised by simplicity and George Orwell’s rules for writing are as relevant as they were 50 years ago:
I think the following rules will cover most cases:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946
Conversations in the digital age
