Another essential accessory for occasional teachers

An MP3 player with a collection of appropriate music and podcasts can be a great tool in the classroom, whether it's curriculum-related podcasts used to enrich a lesson, or The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter soundtrack adding a calming ambience to the classroom.

The trick, though, is having a speaker system that allows the class to hear the MP3 player.  Unfortunately, speakers aren't very common equipment in classrooms yet (in fact, most classroom computers are equipped with headphones), so a prepared occasional teacher needs to bring their own speakers.

I've been looking for a suitably loud, yet portable speaker for a couple years now.  Most speakers aren't portable enough, or are too small and produce a tinny sound that can't be heard in a classroom.  I finally found one that works, though, in the Headrush Crimson Red Pocket Speaker.  I even picked it up on sale for $9.99.  It's slim, loud enough to fill a room, plugs into the headphone jack of my iPod, and it's even got a fold-out stand so it can be stood up.

Galileoscopes

To celebrate the International Year of Astronomy in 2009, a simple, inexpensive, and well-designed telescope, called the "Galileoscope" is being produced. It costs $15 US plus shipping. I'd recommend going in on an order of 5+ with other people, as the shipping cost per unit drops dramatically at 5+. To ship a single unit to an exotic foreign destination like Canada costs $18.40 US, but for orders of 5+, the shipping per unit drops to $7.28, and drops further with 10+ orders.

https://www.galileoscope.org

They also have a "Give a Galileoscope" program; when you order, you have the option of paying $12.50 more (the 100+ price) to donate a Galileoscope.

The site also has a section for teachers which offers downloadable PDF activity guides to teaching optics and observing with a telescope. The IYA2009 site also has a variety of educational resources. To get the most out of a telescope, though, you should also download some free astronomy software. I recommend Stellarium and Celestia.

Another good site for teachers and Galileoscope enthusiasts is teachingwithtelescopes.org.

Teach Copyright Right!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has just released curriculum for teachers to teach students about their rights and responsibilities when it comes to copyright.

http://www.teachingcopyright.org/

The materials are free, Creative Commons licensed, and include handouts, goals and objectives, lesson plans, background material, and links to further information and related materials (such as Cory Doctorow's young adult science fiction novel, Little Brother, which won the Ontario Library Association's 2008 White Pine award).

All in all, it's very well designed, exactly what you'd expect from any good teaching resource. Given the emphasis on media literacy across the curriculum, copyright is definitely something we should be teaching students.

Related posts:

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents

Legal Rights of Bloggers