Virtual Teacher Newsletter No. 117 29th October 2005 - iKIDS
THE FREE ONLINE FORTNIGHTLY IT TEACHERS' NEWSLETTER
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CONTENTS
1. Welcome
2. Mind Candy
3. WWWinfo Whales
4. New Printables - PICTURE PLAN
5. Technical Stuff – G5 QUAD
6. Web Site Focus – KING KONG
7. LEFT BRAIN RIGHT BRAIN
8. Great Sites
9. Readers' Requests/Comments
10 Next Issue
11. Code of 'Netizens'
12. Tips
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mobile phones, wikis, blogs, chatrooms, listen to music, TV, play
video games and usually all at the same time. What’s more
they seem to be able to micromanage this bombardment of media
while doing homework assignments and conducting conversations
as if they were born to it. Well they were. And it’s up to us, the
educators to take advantage of this new world order and provide
stimulating activities using the technologies students are
already familiar with. How do they manage it, how is it possible?
Well it’s all about the brain and we are finally letting the right
brain genie out of the bottle. And this should be fantastic.
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2. MIND CANDY
Can you guess which of the following are true and which
are false?
1. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up
in the morning.
2. Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button.
3. A pack-a-day smoker will lose approximately 2 teeth every
10 years.
4. People do not get sick from cold weather; it's from being
indoors a lot more.
5. When you sneeze, all bodily functions stop, even your heart!
6. Only 7 per cent of the population are lefties.
7. Forty people are sent to the hospital for dog bites every
minute.
8. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until
they are 2-6 years old.
9. The average person over 50 will have spent 5 years waiting
in lines.
10. The toothbrush was invented in 1498.
11. The average housefly lives for one month.
12. 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets each year.
13. A coat hanger is 44 inches long when straightened.
14. The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute.
15. Your feet are bigger in the afternoon than any other time
of day.
16. Most of us have eaten a spider in our sleep.
17. The REAL reason ostriches stick their head in the sand is to
search for water.
18. The only two animals that can see behind themselves without
turning their heads are the rabbit and the parrot.
19. John Travolta turned down the starring roles in "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Tootsie."
20. Michael Jackson owns the rights to the South Carolina State
Anthem.
21. In most television commercials advertising milk, a mixture
of white paint and a little thinner is used in place of the milk.
22. Prince Charles and Prince William NEVER travel on the
same airplane, just in case there is a crash.
23. The first Harley Davidson motorcycle built in 1903 used
a tomato can for a carburettor.
24. Most hospitals make money by selling the umbilical cords
cut from women who give birth. They are used in vein transplant surgery.
25. Humphrey Bogart was related to Princess Diana. They
were 7th cousins.
26. If colouring weren't added to Coca-Cola, it would be green.
Answers below...
They are all TRUE.... Now go back and think about #16!!!
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3. WWWinfo Whale Migration in Australia
Great map shows migration in Australia on a month by month
basis, great Whale and info on individual species.
http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=94531
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4. NEW PRINTABLES - PLAN A PICTURE
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/picture-2.doc
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5. TECHNICAL STUFF
Dual-core, quad-core
Introducing the dual-core PowerPC G5 processor: one
silicon chip with two independent processor cores. Take
two of those dual-core chips and you have the groundbreaking
Power Mac G5 Quad. You can manipulate mountains of
images or miles of footage, crunch enormous data sets,
encode video or music and more — all at speeds you
never imagined possible.
Workstation graphics arrive
The new lineup of advanced PCI Express graphics cards
from NVIDIA delivers cutting-edge capabilities and support
for up to two displays, including the 30-inch Apple Cinema HD.
Need more horsepower? Then upgrade to NVIDIA's Quadro
FX 4500 workstation graphics for industrial-strength animation,
stereo 3D visualization and much more. It can even power
two 30-inch Cinema HD displays.
Up to 69% faster for creative applications
Quad-core processing means more 64-bit resources for
enormous performance gains. See how the Power Mac G5 Quad
compares to our fastest dual-processor model in both
creative and technical applications.
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6. WEBSITE FOCUS KING KONG
Here is the ultimate movie making education package.
It's current, uses state of the art techniques and it's hugely interesting.
Click into the Peter Jackson Production Diaries and view the
Production Diary videos.
http://www.kongisking.net/kong2005/proddiary/
from the last week of the shoot through the creation of sound
effects, lighting, models, special effects, yes they are using
Andy Serkis again and motion capture. Digital Doubles
14 weeks to go, Skull island miniature 17 weeks to go.
Who was Meridian Cooper, read Kong, King of Skull Island,
history of King, posters etc.
http://www.kongisking.net/index.shtml
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7. RIGHT BRAIN LEFT BRAIN
How do our multi-tasking iKids cope, how do they listen to
music, watch TV, use ichat, finish homework assignments
and chat on the phone and make it all work?? Something
really interesting is happening here, they are tapping into
the vast resources of the right brain. The right brain perceives
things simultaneously, takes in whole images at a glance,
it responds to non-verbal cues, and can multi-task. Does this
sound like the iKids? The left brain deals with the majority of
linear, sequential mental processes, like logic, reason, algebra,
doing taxes and of course reading.
Historically we humans spent about 6 million years doing a
great deal of right brain development. Right brain visual
communication, interpreting body language, learning a first
language, understanding facial expressions, is as natural as
breathing for all humans. And we have spent a great deal of
time developing our right brains, it wasn’t until 6 minutes to
midnight, so to speak, that the invention of writing and
mathematical symbols began to influence the thinking of the
majority of humans. It is really only in the last 3,500 years
that alphabets began to be used, and really only in the last
70 years when education became universal. Humans were
not really prepared for all this left brain education, involving
literacy, mathematical symbols, and linear progression.
And the dominance of this type left brain functions leaves
the vast right brain resource untapped.
With the advent of the camera, film, television, computers
over the last 200 years there has been a colossal shift and
we are again tapping into the vast resources of the right brain.
This seems to me to have escalated over the last 10 years
with computers, and electronic devices becoming more prolific.
This is huge, this is really exciting, learning is about to explode,
our iKids are already well along the road with their multi-tasking,
multi-sensory, non-linear techniques.
Think where learning and thinking may go when we can harness
the power of both our right and left brains.
Read more
Visually Speaking Article form Edutopi
http://www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=art_1361&issue=oct_05
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8. GREAT SITES
HOT SITES
See Books by Leonardo Da Vinci, Jane Austen’s earliest work,
the oldest printed book, the original Alice, and other rare books
at this site. You can view the original work, turn the pages,
magnify, and have a translation and audio track as well.
This is a Brilliant resouce.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html
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This site puts the talents and knowledge of philosophers
at the service of the general public. Send in a question
that you think might be related to philosophy and we will
do our best to respond to it. To date, there have been
355 questions posted and 463 responses
http://www.amherst.edu/askphilosophers/
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WHALES
Enchanted Learning Zoom: Whales
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/whales/
Enchanted Learning has dozens of whale information pages
and printable whale activities for elementary grades. Visit for
quick facts useful for a school project, or for fun activities such
as Beluga Connect the Dots, First Grade Addition/Subtraction
Whale Puzzlers, and Whale Word Hunts.
Howstuffworks: How Whales Work
http://science.howstuffworks.com/whale.htm
From the adaptations that make it possible for these huge
mammals to spend their entire life in water, to the current
status of whaling regulation and conservation, Howstuffworks
really covers whales. You can navigate from page to page, or
use the Table
of Contents (at the top of each page) to jump around.
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9. READERS COMMENTS/REQUESTS
Hi Cathy,
I LOVE your concept of "Absolutely Fabulous" week - very clever!
Cheers,
Jenni
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Hello Cathy,
When locating Newsletters that I felt would be of interest to
my sister (who happens to be a teacher) I found Virtual Teacher.
Found your information so interesting I subscribed and thank
you for all the information and sites that I have shown my children.
(Sorry if I have used the wrong terms)
My question is two fold. My sister will be teaching a blind
child in Kindergarten next year along with 24 other children in
a main stream classroom. Could you suggest any sites that
would be of interest?
In looking at main streaming children that are deaf of blind,
I have found our library collection lacking and would appreciate
any suggestions on publishers or books (Braille etc.) that would
provide information or examples for our teaching students.
We have started with our lecturers and the Blind Society.
Thankyou
Tracie
Tracie Walker
Library Assistant
Charles Sturt University/Bathurst Library
DOES ANYONE HAVE SUGGESTIONS???
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Hi Cathy
I started a forum for Australia's estimated 200 travel and tourism
teachers at
It is early days yet, but we do have 39 members and are
growing slowly.
I would like to put a cut and paste of your latest virtual teacher
newsletter in the online learning forum and I'm wondering if you
would consider giving me permission to do so?
Please feel free to have a look at travelteacher.net.
Cheers
Graham Baglin
Principal teacher
Brisbane North Institute of TAFE
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10. NEXT ISSUE - Christmas resources, send in your ideas.
Have a great one ciao Cathy
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11. Code of the 'Netizens'
This Newsletter is not free, despite the misleading advertising
above. The Fee is now due. Each week you must help one
colleague on the Internet who has less knowledge than you.
Help that person even if you have to visit their classroom or
do a little research and get back to them. Trust me, this will
help a lot of people get their computer classrooms running better.
OK I'm trusting you!!!
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12. TIPS
1. Double click on highlighted URLS to open in browser.
2. Send in your Questions, Questions will be published with
Answers, send in your Answers, if you have expertise to share.
3. Nominate a brilliant site for review and inclusion in this
newsletter.
4. Nominate a fantastic school site for review and inclusion in
this newsletter.
5. Make contact with other schools using fantastic programs.
6. Prepare and innovative article for this newsletter.
7. Tell 2 colleagues about this newsletter.
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The opinions expressed here are purely those of the editor,
Cathy Brown. All other small print clauses apply. Such as:
Use at your own risk. Nothing in life is guaranteed. If it doesn't
work for you send me an email.
Editor: cathy brown mailto:cathy@virtualteacher.com.au
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