Nelly, the Ho-ele-zeb-torto-peacock



One of my better pictures!

You can channel your inner animal at BuiLDYouRWiLDSeLF.com! Users are able to create an avatar of themselves using body parts of animals found throughout the world. This Flash-based Web application is sponsored by the New York Zoos and Aquarium and the Wildlife Conservation Society.


When students enter the site, they begin by building an avatar which depicts their real features (gender, hair, eyes, mouth and clothes). Then the real fun begins! Students are provided with animal appendages to add to their original avatar - creating their wild self. The Web site even gives the students the choice of a dynamic background where he/she could be found.


Once the wild self has been created, the site offers users information about what is wild about the new version of their avatar. Information pertaining to the appendages is provided. With this information, students can now get their creative juices flowing as they write about becoming a new kind of super hero, adventures they would begin to take with their new attributes, or just how different every day life would be as their new self. Further scientific research will give students additional information and ties into the Life Science curriculum.

This is a fun Web site that is worth visiting!

There's an App for That! Wolfram Alpha

I cannot begin to impress upon teachers the power new devices have in education. My latest favorites are iPod touch apps. I have found several that are powerful tools benefiting all learners of all levels.


The first app I am going to share is Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha is a powerful online computational knowledge engine. It is different from standard Search engines as it's "goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone." This site generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the Web and returning links. The Web site by itself is amazing, but to then make it available as a mobile app....empowering! When referencing anytime, anywhere learning, this is the resource to have at your fingertips.


Watch the following video to get a better idea of the power of this tool.