The Inaugural "Model Schools Site of the Year Award" goes to...

The unofficial winner of the 1st Annual "Model Schools Site of the Year Award" is... http://www.kickyoutube.com/ .

Here's how it works:

1. Visit your favorite educationally appropriate YouTube video...


2. Type the word "kick" before "youtube" in the URL


3. Choose a format you want to download the video—[buttons located above the video-Amy] (FLV works seamlessly in the SMART Notebook software!)


4. Right click on the "DOWN" button to download the video and save it to your computer.

We have been encouraging teachers to use this from home to capture videos they wish to use in class (For districts where YouTube is blocked). Enjoy the Holidays!

Compliments of David Ashdown, Model Schools Coordinator, WSWHE BOCES

Psssstt.... (Another useful site is http://tubechop/)

Google Timeline -- A must for time travelers...and researchers!

If you haven't heard about Google's Timeline (beta) product, then you'll want to warp speed ahead to: http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com/
This is one of the best free products developed for the digital kingdom yet! As you can well imagine, the product is more successful for 20th and 21st century news, than it is for the 1800's. Not withstanding, it provides us with public domain sources in a great web 2.0 fashion.

Most of my hits for 1940's & 50's came from TIME magazine or Wikipedia, as that is the search default (and we all know that TIME is a bit more reliable than Wikipedia). However, don't miss the "queries" button on the toolbar which allows you to search some US Newspapers, blogs, & Popular Science.

Students could use this for a "snapshot" in time, primary source reportings on their event, Biography fodder, or to create postcards from history. The possiblilites are endless! '' Best yet, it's free -- a little stimulus for your research program! Pack this into your educational toolbag.