Top 20 TED Talks podcasts

This site offers the Top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy school administrators. Clay Shirky made the list; I am reading his book Here Comes Everybody: the Power of Organizing without Organizations. The opening story of a lost cell phone in a taxi cab is such a great intro to his explanation of how we interact in a connected (read, "wired") society. Shirky was recommended by Will Richardson at a seminar I attended at BOCES last month. (oops, meant to blog on that, too!)

Kate DiCamillo's miraculous leads

I am already drawn in by the first chapter of The Magician's Elephant as read by the author, Kate DiCamillo. The book will be out in Fall 2009. Watch and listen to the author read here (click on "watch more about The Magician's Elephant"). See if you don't get drawn in too! She also has a link to a PDF of the first chapter on her website. This would be a great starter for a discussion about writing leads.

Has anyone tried National Geographic Wildlife Filmmaker?

I just picked up on this fun and applicable tool from this post on Kristin Fontichiaro's blog on SLMAM.

National Geographic Filmmaker lets kids create their own wildlife video with a library of video and sound clips. They can add their own captions too. You can save and share your final product. Visual learners will love this! Second graders will love this! I am sure NatGeo will add more clips as they develop the product. I agree with Joyce Valenza that a voice recording feature would be nice. I can't wait to share this with students! It's a great complement to our second graders' animal research project.