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"The social repository of the world's greatest brain teasers, logical puzzles and mental challenges. Join us to add, rate, and comment on puzzles! "
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"Thanks for your interest in C programming. In this page, you will find a list of interesting C programming questions/puzzles, These programs listed are the ones which I have received as e-mail forwards from my friends, a few I read in some books, a few from the internet, and a few from my coding experiences in C. "
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"I run one or two contests per year. Each contest asks that you come up with your best solutions to a set of related computationally intensive problems. Although I speak of "programming contests", technically you don't need to write a computer program to enter."
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"The first programming riddle on the net
visitors have attempted solving the challenge since May 2005.
There are currently levels. " -
"The programming exercises provided here aren’t a contest. No points are awarded, no scores are kept, there is no list of readers who have completed all the exercises. If you complete the exercise, and perhaps in doing so learn something that will help you be a better programmer, then your effort is its own reward. The exercises are intended to take about an hour to complete, on average, though of course the competence and creativity of the individual programme"
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"Revised Bloom's Taxonomy adapted from "A Taxonomy for Learning,Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives" by Anderson and Krathwohl"
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Collection of web resources sorted by grade
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"Google Launches Street View Trike in US, Lets You Explore Places That Cannot Be Reached By Car."
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"We look at some of the meanest (and a few of the funniest) hoaxes on the Web."
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"We have compiled the best resources, and tools that will help you get the right domain for your WordPress blog."
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Comic / Graphic Novel creator based upon the characters from Spore
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"TrekEarth is dedicated to fostering a global community interested in photography from around the world.
TrekEarth members strive to provide engaging photographs and useful critiques for each other and the entire internet community." -
Find followers with the same location as you in their Twitter profiles.
Monthly Archives: October 2009
If internet filtering is the answer, then what is the question?
I ended up on yet another committee. This one deals with the policies and procedures surrounding the internet filter that all traffic from the schools must pass through in order to get connected. If the filter says OK, then you’re there. If says NO, then it’s a no go.
In a perfect world, everyone is a thoughtful and wise user of resources. But then, in a perfect world, all of the resources that you would like to access are thoughfully and wisely placed online.
So, we purchase a service to help ensure that the content that is accessible is appropriate.
This is clearly an issue where I can see all sides of the argument. Life was indeed easier before sliced bread.
There are concerns about young students accessing adult content. There are concerns about using up all of the bandwidth if every user was streaming audio and video all day long. There are concerns about the entry of viruses or other forms of malware entering the system. There are concerns about phishing efforts hijacking personal information and identity.
There are some classrooms where access to resources is heavily controlled. There are some other classrooms where students are encouraged to explore and research deeply. There is also a desire to use web based collaborative tools to explode the walls of the classroom so that all can become globally involved in discussions and projects.
Because internet content filters are used for more than just education, there’s also a business slant on these things. What might be inappropriate for access in a business office could be very powerful in the hands of a student and progressive teacher. What business calls “games”, education may call “simulations”.
While the simplest solution may be to indicate that classroom supervision is the ultimate arbiter, that’s far from perfect. A quick ALT-Tab puts the user apparently back on task.
I suppose that the good news is that nobody has the best answer. In the newsgroups that I read on a regular basis, this topic is a constant point of discussion and debate.
So, where in the world is the happy point in this argument that allows for all users to feel fairly treated and their concerns addressed?
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links for 2009-10-15
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"The following list of ICT tools was crowd sourced from individual educationalists and not companies when the question 'What Indispensible ICT tools do you use in education' was asked and is not meant to be exhaustive in any way. "
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"Now web designers and developers can join the iPhone app party without having to learn Cocoa's Objective-C programming language. It's true: You can write iPhone apps quickly and efficiently using your existing skills with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This book shows you how with lots of detailed examples, step-by-step instructions, and hands-on exercises."
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"ut Facebook, the web’s largest social network, plays host to 3 million event listings each month. And these are offline events, ranging in size from small, friendly get-togethers, to company picnics, to enormous political protests. "
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"Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features."
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"Subject: Our Marketing Plan"
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"DoodleBuzz is a new way to read the news through an experimental interface that allows you to create typographic maps of current news stories."
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Our world is busy and in the turmoil we forget we all share the same space. Families, communities and countries live with conflict, poverty and disease. How can we make a difference?
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When playing Chartgame, the computer will present you with a random historical stock chart of an actual large cap (S
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The game works by showing you a series of geometries that need to be adjusted a little bit to make them right. A square highlights the point that needs to be moved or adjusted. Use the mouse to drag the blue square or arrowhead where you feel it is 'right'. Once you let go of the mouse, the computer evaluates your move, so don't let up on the mouse button until you are sure. The 'correct' geometry is also shown in green, so you can see where you went wrong.
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"Do you have a great smartboard lesson that you've created for use with your smartboard? Let your name be heard and submit it to smartboardlounge.com! The process is simple, just click to send us an e-mail, attach your file in either notebook, word, or powerpoint form and we'll review it and add it to the content here at smartboardlounge.com. Once submitted and added to the site, we will give you full credit for creating the content!"
Believe it or not
Lest we focus all of our activities on Bitstrips for Schools, we must remember that Comic Life is also licensed by the Ministry of Education for all Ontario publically funded schools. It’s a terrific program as well and completes the package. Instead of a drawing program, it’s more of an assembly program where you put your own creative content into comic/graphic novel format.
Recently, I did a quick presentation to secondary school CIESCs and wanted to show off the assembly power with the application. As I was driving to the location of the presentation, I was thinking about the Ripley’s Believe It or Not cartoons that are designed for entertainment and most importantly information. It then dawned on me that this would easily be replicated as a research technique for the classroom.
You could have the dramatic effect and incorporate some research into the production. Definitely a way to go.
What to research? What to research? What to research?
Hey, I went to Niagara Falls this past summer and did what every tourist did. I took pictures of the falls and marvelled over the awesome power that you can see so vividly from anywhere near the Niagara River. Sure enough, I had the pictures on my hard drive and I found a great one.
From the Graphic Novel set of layouts, I chose “O” to give me a big blank screen for my picture. Using the image explorer, I found a great picture on my hard drive and brought it in and moved it around to put it place.
I need some quick factual research. In this case, I was really in a hurry so rather than work through my holiday brochures, I head to Wikipedia for their Niagara Falls entry. The first two paragraphs look great so I highlight and copy them. I’ve got to paste them into the document. Hmmm. There’s a lot of links there that will carry the HTML with them. Got to get rid of them. As I’m planning this and thanking myself for learning HTML, I came up with a brainstorm. What’s the simplest editor on my computer? Notepad, of course. I paste into there and voila, all the HTML is gone. Select it all again and copy it and I’m text only and good to go.
Back in Comic Life, I suppose I could use a speech bubble, but I drag the “Back at Stately Wayne Manor” box out and paste the text into it. It expands nicely, converting everything to all caps and italics at the same time. Great! I resize that box so that it’s nicely in place. “Later that day” is nicely shaded style! I’ll copy some of the key words and make them bold. This is really shaping up nicely. Better quote my source. Done. Ripley’s makes sure to give credit to its contributors too.
Finally, we need to draw attention to our research. A great title will draw attention to this masterpiece and we’re done!
What a great way to publish research! If that doesn’t motivate you to read for research and publish for an audience….
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links for 2009-10-14
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"I decided it was past time for me to pull together a list of some of my favorite iPod educational content sources. Here are 10 great ones, in no particular order: "
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"Last week we asked a simple question: How will you use Google Wave? Over 600 responses later, we're sending Wave nominations to the people who had the best use cases. Here are a few."
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At the moment, we're simply allowing people to share emails. If you know what our "mission" should be, please tell us. You can email us at info @ moomeo.com.
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"My friend, @cheth, sent a tweet yesterday with photographs taken with a unique technique called microscope photography. After seeing this awe-inspiring photography, I had to learn more about it. It’s so fascinating
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"I put up a blog post (almost) every day, and sometimes, I put up more than one a day. On top of this, I write for clients, write for other projects, work on books, and other things. Some of you don’t have all these other writing commitments, but still want some ideas on getting more writing out the door. Here are some thoughts into my process that I hope will give you a framework for writing a blog post (almost) every day. "
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"The people over at Facebook are going to try and get large page users to authenticate who they are. The hope is that by doing this, Facebook may be able to weed out those pages that are falsely being posted claiming to be someone or something else."
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Sign in and adopt a monster for your virtual world.
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"The book takes readers through the mechanics of Google's operations for the last 11 years, revealing some nuggets about the company's co-founders, other executives and other details the average reader might not be aware of. Think you're a Google fan? See how many of these details you knew before reading this eWEEK slideshow. "
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"A Complete Guide Google WAVE "
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International Day of Climate Action
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"The TED Conference continues to expand its influence, this time with kids. As part of its TEDx Series, the organizers of last week’s TEDxSMU Conference have organized the very first TED Conference for kids."
Finding Folks to Wave At
The excitement of having my Google Wave account faded really quickly.
Not that it’s not a really powerful utility. I’m very excited and positive about the way that it’s going to change everything, if you let it. The problem is that there’s nobody to wave at! Other than the person that invited me to get a Wave account, I had nobody to collaborate with. I started a goofy little Wave to test the functionality and can see the possibilities. But, a collaboration of one or two just doesn’t do the potential justice.
After all, all that you have to do is open a regular email account and there’s lots of people who want a discussion. I can’t wave at them though; I can just formulate a reply and wait for their response. If I lose track of the conversation, I can wander my way back through a thread and sometimes even have to dig it out from the garbage.
Meh – back to Twitter.
@rmbyrne posted to Twitter that he had an account and was exploring. I figured “What the Hey?”. I’ll DM him and see if he wants to test the power with me. Sure enough, he did and he added me to an ongoing wave. Using the playback tool, I was able to see how the wave started and the threading that ensued. As I looked through the wave, I realized that, had I been part of the original discussion, I would have jumped in HERE.
Just a second. This isn’t email; this isn’t a threaded discussion; this is Google Wave. Let me see here — hmmm, yeah, I can cursor over the desired insertion point and add my two cents worth. Wow, that’s powerful. With playback, we could actually see now only where, but when the comment was made.
This definitely is a powerful tool. Through a post, I just noticed that @thecleversheep now has an account. I add him to my contacts and then to an existing Wave and he’s in there almost immediately and we’ve working forth and back. The excitement has returned.
The key is going to be creating a collection of folks that you do need the power of collaboration with. I think that, until this goes wide spread, the best way will be to start a Google Wave column in Seesmic Desktop and see who else has an account and build momentum from there.
Well, time to turn to regular work functions. Gotta check my mail ol’ school. Email.
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links for 2009-10-13
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"Moodle is the fastest growing system for providing e-Learning resources online. Please read on to learn how Moodle can benefit you and your organisation in teaching effectively in the wired world."
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"These are 11 Great Hidden Things Google Can Do That You Should Know, You can use these features without leaving the Google.com and I am sure majority of you did not aware of all the things listed below that Google can do for you."
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"Are you struggling to get more clicks and bookmarks on your articles? Possibly there is one area in which your content is letting you down. Even the best blog post writers sometimes make this mistake."
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"MobiWee works by way of a downloadable client for your iPhone, Android or Windows Mobile Phone, and the client automatically syncs with the server at preset intervals to get the latest pending “requests” from the web interface."
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Free resources and teaching tools.
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A collection of digital media tutorials.
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"This is the format we will use for this course.
This is the best storyboard blank you can get. USE IT!" -
Printable storyboard blanks for planning.
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The site that swims with learning fun.
21st Century Skills
eSchool News reports again on a call for action about 21st Century Skills. That’s fine in the United States. In Ontario, OPSBA has published their paper “What If?“. So, folks in power are talking. That is good.
I particularly like the statement from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. “It is not sufficient to simply respond to these needs rhetorically.”
What I struggle with are questions like “What does it look like?” Are you using 21st Century Skills because you have a SMARTBoard and an intermittent blog in your classroom? Is it all this stuff in the cloud? If so, how can we address it properly and uniformly when we have different takes on what it is, what’s important, what’s blocked, what’s not blocked?
Is it constructivism? Does creating a movie and posting it to YouTube qualify? Does a podcast? Does working collaboratively on a wiki count?
If it connectivism? Does having a Twitter account count? If you have a blog with a few readers, are you there?
Is it reading, writing, media literacy, numeracy? Does it require any sort of connectivity at all?
Does it include browsing the web on your cell phone? Does it include commenting on a blog using your WII remote?
Is it all of the above? Is it none of the above? Does it exist? Is it the NETS standards?
How do we get everyone on board? What happens if we don’t?
My A&E friend tells me that if we don’t assess it, it isn’t taught. Is that it?
Help me out here, folks.
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links for 2009-10-12
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Tell me a story – organizer for student writing.
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"WebTools4U2Use will introduce you to a lot of different tools.
But how do you choose the right one?" -
"Want to be your own IT? Small business owners may not want to outsource their PC management or buy an expensive management package–but they still need to keep track of what's happening with the PCs in their network. Intel's IT Director allows you to monitor stats for each PC, such as the amount of disk space use"
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"Photoscape
Photoscape is the fun and easy photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos." -
"Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools"
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Get Creative Enhance images with paintbrushes and airbrushes, removeunwanted objects or blemishes with a magic clone tool, adjust brushsize, shape, softness and fade for complete control."
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"This website is to introduce a graphic software, Pixia.
The original Japanese Edition was created and developed by the author, Isao Maruoka, but has also been aggressively raised by its fans, which makes this software to be quite unique and different from other tools."
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"VCW VicMan's Photo Editor is a versatile image editor with an intuitive interface and a wide variety of features. This powerful application is user friendly, offering simple image editing, high productivity and easy customization. "
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"Ultimate Paint is a full-featured 32-bit Windows graphics program for image creation, viewing and manipulation."
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"In MAGIX Xtreme Photo Designer your photos will be edited quickly and precisely. Its comprehensive set of features gives your less successful shots a helping hand and assists in transforming your photo ideas into reality"
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"Adobe Photoshop is any serious photographer or graphic designer’s application of choice but you’ll have to cough up quite a lot of bills to get it. Another solution is to use Photofiltre, a lesser known and more basic yet free and solid image editing application"
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Advanced digital image editor
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" Splashup, formerly Fauxto, is a powerful editing tool and photo manager. With the features professionals use and novices want, it's easy to use, works in real-time and allows you to edit many images at once."
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Release your inner artist and put Pablo Picasso to shame with the finest painter software online.
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"Apply stunning one-click effects to your digital photos for free. "
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"Add this to the list of extraordinary (in every sense of the word) uses of Twitter. A psychic in the UK plans to conduct what The Sun is calling “the world’s first online séance” using the microblogging ser"
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"Well, lucky for us all, there is now a plethora of free software out there, and many free photo editing programs are providing a shining light in the darkness that is college financing. "
Learning to Wave
I was so surprised that an invitation to join Google Wave arrived in my mailbox last night. The response wasn’t from Google and my request for an invite but from a local person who we follow each other on Twitter. So, thanks so much for that.
The only problem was that I was sneaking a look at the updates on my iPod while we entertained family for Thanksgiving. Now, some of our company have departed and the other parts are still in bed so I’m messing around, creating my first wave.
The whole premise to this is based on the question “What would email look like if it was created today?”
We’ve all experienced the frustration of only getting half the information in an email message and the need for some back and forth to get the job done. It gets particularly difficult if there are more than just you and someone else in the exchange. So, imagine what it might look like if the email was a conversation that continued in one place, was replayable at any time, and could embed activities so that you could enhance the conversation.
That’s what email could be.
That’s also what I’m exploring on this cool Thanksgiving morning. At this point, the only person that I can invite to the wave is the person that invited me. Not a problem as of yet – it will just be a testing scenario for the first while.
I start a Wave much like I would in Gmail but it remains an open document and the conversation could continue with all of the participants. At this point, I’ve just brought a map in, started a discussion, included a vote, and also included the weather for the map.
All of this came into the Wave very easily and allows for the possibility of a conversation that’s richer, and in real time, than you could have with email. I’m liking what I’m seeing – I’m a big supporter of collaboration.
I suspect that there’s going to be some real learning for people. You’ll need to shake the mindset of email and think more in terms of a discussion, face to face, with little arbitration, as you aim towards the ultimate resolution of whatever it is you’re discussing or creating. However, even at this early juncture, I see this as a big productivity tool for people with the proper mindset.
I just can’t wait until there are more to collaborate with! I know the folks I interact with daily. They’re going to fly with this.
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