Elections the American Way | Library of Congress

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/elections/home.html

Elections the American Way - Library of Congress

An interactive presentation from the Library of Congress explaining the U.S. Elections, focusing on the Candidates, the Voters, the Election System and the Issues.  A teaching resource where you can learn what is required to become a candidate, how candidates sway voters, who can vote, how parties in the U.S. were formed, how the primaries, the electoral votes and the elections work, the introduction of African American and Women voting, etc. The site covers all aspects of the elections in the United States in a simple and comprehensive way, with great photographic materials and background information on the institution of Elections.  There is also a section for teachers on a variety of subjects at http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

Energy Kids

http://www.eia.gov/kids/

Energy Kids

This website designed for kids by the U.S. Energy Information Administration is full of information about energy; from energy basics to forms of energy, and from using to conserving. Visitors can go on virtual field trips across the U.S. with Energy Ant through engaging photo journals, and teachers can find lesson plans, guides, links, and suggested ways of using the website in the classroom.

Learn about the definition of energy, the forms that it comes in, and the difference between renewable and nonrenewable sources.  The site describes different forms of energy, units used to measure it, how we can save Energy.  There is also a collection of educational online games that help students learn about the subject.

(part of description from exploratorium and Energy Kids website)

 

Cosmic Log – Must-see videos of 2011

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/29/9805608-must-see-science-videos-of-2011

Must See Videos 2011 by Cosmic Log

Laughing babies and talking dogs may be Internet sensations, but if you want to add something more substantive to your viral video diet, turn your dial to dueling chatbots, dancing Ph.D. theses and other highlights from the past year’s surfeit of science videos.

Watch 11 science videos from 2011! These include some of the most interesting advances in the fields of science and technology over the last years.  More specifically, there are videos of two AI bots talking to each other, an ISC video flying over earth at night, new robots testing, a concept video of computers and tech made of glass, an octopus walking on land, light neutrinos theory, and others.

Below a video by Cornell researchers Igor Labutov, Jason Losinski and Hod Lipson, who took two Cleverbot artificial-intelligence programs, hooked them up to each other, and typed in “Hi” as an ice-breaker.

(part of description from MSNBC website – found through Mary Laine’s Neat New Stuff website)

Feedmyinbox

http://www.feedmyinbox.com

FeedMyInbox

For anyone working with RSS feeds, we found this helpful website a few days ago.  Feedmyinbox offers redirection of RSS feeds to your email.  Their free service allows up to 5 feeds.

What is so special about this, you may ask? Well, if you do not want to deal with an RSS reader, you can read your feeds on an email client.  Also, if you have a blog, like this one, it enables you to have RSS as posts, using the “post via email” feature most blog providers offer.

The site also offers a way to track your website subscribers and generate signup forms for free, for an unlimited number of subscribers.

Watch the video for more information:

http://embed.wistia.com/flash/embed_player_v1.1.swf//

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Storify

http://storify.com

Storify

Storify lets you curate social networks to build social stories, bringing together media scattered across the Web into a coherent narrative. They are building the story layer above social networks, to amplify the voices that matter and create a new media format that is interactive, dynamic and social.  You can create your own stories in the Storify editor.  You can search social media networks to find media elements about the topic you want to Storify. Look through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Instagram and more to gather material for your stories. Storify also allows stories to be embedded by simply pasting an embed code, just like embedding a video. You can also connect Storify to your blog, publish on your site, or send it as an email newsletter.

You can also read interesting stories others have posted.  You can check out a story and interact with its elements, share it, find similar stories and more stories from that author.

(part of description from Storify website)