I hope you enjoy the great resources and videos I discovered and bookmarked this week. In no particular order, I have listed my favorite top 10 sites, blog posts, and videos of the week below. Feel free to share your favorite finds of the week using the comment link found at the bottom of this post.

1. US National Debt Clock.org – Stop the Clock! I’ve seen this before. It continues to be a frightening reminder of how large our national debt is.
2. The Post-It Notes Jaguar – I can’t imagine owning a Jaguar, much less coming out to find it covered by Post-It notes! Enjoy the photographs and read through the comments…there is a funny media story here.
3. itoody – claims to be the easiest to do list on the web…what do you think? You might want to compare this “to-do” list with some of the others I reviewed in my following two posts: Cool Web 2.0 Organizational Tools that Could be Used in Schools – Part I and Cool Web 2.0 Organizational Tools that Could be Used in Schools – Part II
4. Tim Hawkins: The Government Can – I am not making a political statement by sharing this video, but I did think it was quite clever. It could serve as a conversation starter in Government and/or Economic classes.
   Tim Hawkins – The Government Can
5. Parent Communication Strategies – Scholastic has posted links to some articles that seem particularly relevant as the new year begins. Do you have additional strategies you would like to share with readers…please feel free to post them using the comment link at the bottom of this post.
6. Education World Tools and Templates – templates can be downloaded from this site, saved to your hard drive, edited as necessary, and then printed. Or they can be downloaded, printed, and used as is. When I shared this site with my PLN on Twitter it was retweeted several times…you can really find some time-saving material here!
7. Cat’s Meow – if you own a cat (and I do) you will probably be able to relate to this animated short film by Jorge Garcia, presented as a senior thesis for Ringling College of Art and Design. Music by Brian Weitzeil. Sound Design by Steven Piperno.
8. 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Giving Up on Your Dream – this post by Lori Deschene really spoke to me personally, but also professionally. I wish I could have shared this post with my Introduction to Occupations class and several students I used to advise while serving as a Student Council advisor and yearbook advisor. If you need a lift you might want to add Seeing Good: The Bright Side of Life to your RSS reader. Lori shares a lot of uplifting thoughts and tidbits of real world wisdom.
9. Inspire Mix – this blog by Jan Davan of Dawghouse Design Studios features some great tutorial information designed to inspire the young photo editors and artists in your class (or home). I particularly liked the Old and Warn-Out Photo Effect Tutorial.
10. Regator – “a website that gathers the world’s best blog posts and organizes them in a way that makes it easy to find the things you need—and fun to discover the things you never knew you wanted. It’s here to help you find, discuss, share, rate, and organize information on the topics you care about.” Some of the topics may not be appropriate for students, but certainly this is a great site to explore from home.


Tags: bookmark, Favorites
Category: Friday Favorites