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As I've mentioned in the past, my school district recently received a grant for programs to address the rate of childhood obesity in our schools. Therefore, I always take note of things like Explania's interactive, animated explanation of body mass index. The animation includes two interactive breaks during which viewers can calculate their body mass indexes and their ideal weights. The narrator uses metric units in the explanation, but the interactive elements can be used in metric or imperial units. Try it out as embedded below.


Calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI) - Explania

On a related note, you might also like Explania's explanation of cholesterol.

What is Cholesterol? - Explania

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This is another post that was prompted by a reader's email. The email was looking for a list of recommended note-taking tools. I've reviewed a lot of note-taking tools over the last five years, but I have never made a list. So here's my list of seven great note-taking tools for students and teachers.

InClass is a free iPhone and iPad app that could be a very useful tool for students carrying those devices. InClass provides students with tools for taking text, audio, and video notes. Students can also use the app to take pictures of hand-outs, slides, and other valuable information that they see in class. Taking notes is not all that InClass can be used for. It can also be used as a task management tool to help students keep track of their schedules and due dates. T...... [ Read the rest of this story ]
Your students may have heard that Facebook is going to make an IPO sometime soon. If they haven't heard that or if you haven't heard that, check out today's episode of CNN Student News. Your students might be wonder, what is an IPO? Here are a couple of videos explaining the answer to that question.

The YouTube channel Investopedia has a bunch of videos explaining financial topics. Included in their list of videos is a one minute explanation of IPOs.



Another YouTube channel offering simple explanations of financial topics is Finance Guy Video. Finance Guy Video uses the iPad app ...... [ Read the rest of this story ]
This morning I received an email informing me that a source of Moodle tutorial videos that I featured three years ago has gone offline. That prompted me to search for some new Moodle tutorial videos. There are four sources that I found and think can be helpful for teachers getting started using Moodle.

Russell Stannard offers two sets of Moodle training videos. The first twenty-two part series can be accessed here. Click here to access the second fourteen part series.

MoodleRooms, recently acquired by Black Board, has a ...... [ Read the rest of this story ]
GmapGIS is a free tool for marking and drawing on maps without having to create or use a Google account. GmapGIS provides tools for drawing lines and shapes, adding markers, adding labels, and measuring distances. To get started just visit GmapGIS and select the drawing or labeling tools that you want to use. When you are finished drawing on and labeling you can share your map by sending the link that is automatically generated for your map. You can also save a KML file for your map and view it in Google Earth.
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Hosting a Google+ Hangout can be good way to have a video conference with a small group, but only if everyone you want to join you has a Google account. Meetings.io doesn't require users to register at all which could make it a great alternative to Google+ Hangouts.

Meetings.io allows you to have up to five people in a room. You can start using Meetings.io by simply clicking on the blue "Get a Meeting Room" button. When you click that button Meetings.io will create your room and assign it a URL to share with the people you want to video conference with. Once the room is created just allow Meetings.io to access your webcam and you're in business. You can make your room public or private after it has been created.

If you do want to register on Meetings.io, you can. Registering on Meetings.io allows you t...... [ Read the rest of this story ]
Chrome is my preferred web browser and the one that I recommend to anyone who asks. I like it because of its speed, its support for WebGL, the Chrome web apps, its synchronization of bookmarks and extensions, and now I like its ability to synchronize all of my open tabs across multiple devices. Today, Google released version 19 of Chrome. The latest update allows you to sign-in with your Google account and sync all of your open tabs across all of the devices on which you are using Chrome. (You have to be using Ice Cream Sandwich for it to work on an Android device).



Applications for...... [ Read the rest of this story ]
Summer will be here soon in the Northern Hemisphere and that means there will be high school students looking for summer jobs and internships. Teens in Tech knows this and is doing something to help high school students find jobs and internships with tech companies. The Teens in Tech Job Board is a place for tech companies to post opportunities and for students to find those opportunities.

The Teens in Tech Job Board just launched this week so the opportunities list is limited still short. The job board does have the potential to become a good place for high school students to find a company that will give them an experience that they probably won't find mowing lawns or...... [ Read the rest of this story ]
This afternoon I discovered a new feature in Google Documents (now a part of Google Drive) that could prove to be handy for students to use while writing research papers. Google Docs now has a search function built-in. This feature allows users to search the web without having to leave the document they're viewing. To access the new feature open the "tools" menu then select "research" while you have a document open. The search box will appear on the righthand side of your screen. See my screenshots below for directions.

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Last month I shared a list of 11 Free Tools for Creating Websites. Today, Zoho released a new website creation tool to bring that list up to twelve. Zoho Sites is a new addition Zoho's suite of services. Zoho Sites appears to be trying to address two frequently-noted shortcomings of Google Sites by offering visually impressive themes and by automatically making your sites mobile-friendly.

TechCrunch says that Google needs to watch out for ...... [ Read the rest of this story ]