Educational Resource Services
Newsletter - May, 2012

What is a Flame?

Check out and share a video on this Science Friday site with your students, and light up their curiosity about flames and what they consist of. Then go to this website and find out how your school can participate in Alan Alda's Flame Challenge, a contest to find the best ways to communicate science to kids. 

Planet Bonehead Science Videos Now on Learn360

Learn360 has added a series of six conservation videos produced by Planet Bonehead Studios and marketed under the series name Planet Bonehead. Titles cover frogs, bats, honey bees, sea turtles, the rain forest, and water conservation, and are intended for viewing by students from grades 2 through 6. To view the videos, click on the Learn360 icon in the ERS Portal and search for Planet Bonehead. The videos are also segmented for viewing in clips.

Scavenger Hunts for all Grades at World Book Online

World Book Encyclopedia Digital has put together a number of scavenger hunt exercises in order to help elementary and high school students learn to navigate the online World Book resources. Some of the topics available for elementary grades are are "Maps," "Presidency," Lewis and Clark," and "Space." Some of the topics available for high school students are "States of Matter," "Mythology," "The Constitution," and "The American Revolution."

For a complete list of these scavenger hunt topics, click here.

EducationCity Offers Free Training for Your Staff

EducationCity is an interactive, vibrant learning environment for grades K through 6. Students have access to this resource at home as well as at school, and it can be a wonderful way for them to reinforce what they learn in the classroom.

EducationCity staff is willing to come to the schools and show teachers how to best use this resource for maximum benefit to the students. They will also show teachers how to set up their online "classroom" so that they can monitor their students' progress as they do the exercises at home or in the school lab.

If you would like to set up a training for your school, please contact Nariman Ajluni at 651-3031, or by e-mail at narimana@ers.tcoe.org.  

For instructions on how to upload a student list to EducationCity yourself, click here. For a flyer of FAQs regarding EducationCity click here.

TumbleBooks Now iPad Compatible!

The TumbleBooks people have decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em! As Apple has consistently refused to use Flash technology on their iPads and iPhones, and TumbleBooks is using all Flash technology, Tumblebooks made the decision to start creating audio and animated books in non-Flash technology that is compatible with Apple products. They already have 44 story books available for use on iPads and iPhone4. To access them, log into your ERS Portal page and click on the TumbleBooks icon. Then click on "Story Books," and look for the "Click here for iPad-compatible titles" heading. If you like this feature, be sure to e-mail TumbleBooks (marianne@tumblebooks.com) and let them know so they can add more titles to their list.

If you try to see a video on your iPad, and the screen comes up blank, your school server may be blocking the video. Try setting up your server to accept .MOV files. Another fix is to download the free version of iSwifter app for the iPad. This program will allow you to view all the Tumblebook, TumbleReadables and audio files available, not just the 100 that have been converted from Flash.
 
Kids Portal and Teen Portal

Check out the new Kids and Teens Portal websites. These websites are designed to be useful for students to use at home or at school when they need to access our premium services such as World Book, ABC-CLIO, TumbleBooks, United Streaming, and other learning tools. Click on the following graphics to access the sites. IF you don't know your schools kids or teens portal login information, contact Nariman Ajluni at narimana@ers.tcoe.org.

If you don't know your schools Kids Portal or Teens Portal login name and password, please contact us by either email: ersportal@tcoe.org or by phone: (559) 651-3077.