Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The Star Thrower

By Loren Eiseley:

"While wandering a deserted beach at dawn, stagnant in my work, I saw a man in the distance bending and throwing as he walked the endless stretch toward me. As he came near, I could see that he was throwing starfish, abandoned on the sand by the tide, back into the sea. When he was close enough I asked him why he was working so hard at this strange task. He said that the sun would dry the starfish and they would die. I said to him that I thought he was foolish. there were thousands of starfish on miles and miles of beach. One man alone could never make a difference. He smiled as he picked up the next starfish. Hurling it far into the sea he said, "It makes a difference for this one."

As found here.
Shine everyone,
Dora

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Issuu

I've just discovered issuu.com. It's been named one of the Times.com's top 50 sites in 2009 and this is what Times' journalist wrote about it:
When magazine lovers get nostalgic about print, they cite the feel of flipping pages, the shock of seeing an amazing layout and the physicality of being able to hold something in your hands. Maybe a gadget like Amazon's Kindle can compete with the old-fashioned ink-on-paper experience, but for our money — which, in this instance, is zero dollars — we'll take Issuu, an online newsstand with infinite shelf space, hundreds of interesting micro-publishing projects and a slick online reader. Spending time browsing through the titles that are archived on the site comes so close to the feel of the actual thing that you might forget you're in a magazine matrix.
So far I've read Google for teachers part one:



and two


which I find VERY useful and cannot wait to try out some of the tips it offers (especially the part where using Google Docs for flashcards is mentioned).

The same author also posted Google Earth Across the Curriculum which gives amazing ideas on how to use it on the topic of literature (it can be used to follow a character's travel) and protecting the environment (there are pictures ready for kids to browse):



I hope you find this useful as I have.
Bye for now,
D