Who’s Your PollDaddy?

Have you tried PollDaddy? PollDaddy is a cool Web 2.0 tool that lets you quickly and easily create polls and surveys to post online on your blog, website or social networking site. PollDaddy has cool skins for your surveys, or you can create your own skins in CSS. You can get advanced online reporting of your results in real time as your data is collected. There are eleven question types for surveys that you can choose from, so you and your readers won’t be bored even when you become PollDaddy-addicted, like Ms. Hamilton. With the new advanced survey editor, you can easily create multi-page, multi-question surveys. You also get unlimited free polls, fourteen poll skins, and you can view results online, as XML, CSV, or subscribe to them via RSS. You can even add text, video, or pictures to your polls. There is full foreign language support, and you can block repeat voters by IP address or cookies and block fraudulent voters. This is a cool poll I did for a class about media persuasion after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese internment camps. So PollDaddy even had a cool manga-look skin that went with my Japanese theme! You just have to try PollDaddy today to get started on your own polls and surveys!

Wordle is Hot!


Can you say "simple?" Wordle has simple down to an art form. I only wish that my wordle was just a little bit larger here so that you could so how beautiful it is. You don't even have to register or log in to use Wordle. All you have to do is go to Wordle, click on "Create," and, as they say, "paste in a bunch of text." Click on "Go" and voila, you have your own Wordle, a word cloud that you can adjust with different colors and fonts. Not happy? Click on "Randomize" to get a whole new look. You can randomize all day long if you have the stamina. You can print, save, and EVEN POST ON WORDPRESS!!!!!! You have to "open in window' before you can get the code to post to your blog or website. And it posts easily! Although it is tiny. Maybe it went on a diet somewhere in cyberspace between Wordle and WordPress. It is still fun!

Get a Clue with iCue!

iCue is NBC’s new website for teachers and students. It connects you to a network of friends and fellow learners for sharing, support, and discussion through the iCue Friends Network and Discussion Forums. iCue was designed to help students and lifelong learners interact with content by allowing them to access thousands of current and historic videos and other resources incorporated into cool games and activities. Learners at all levels will enjoy challenging themselves with pop quizzes, game challenges, and interactive activities that make learning simple and exciting. The material is correlated to courses in U.S. History, U.S. Government and Politics, English Language and Composition, and more. Go to iCue Widget to get a widget you can post on your blog or website, or go to iCue to visit the site and learn more.

Sure Harry Potter Can Make a Couple of Kids Invisible, But What About a Tank?

Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley, funded by the United States military, have developed a new material that can bend light around objects, making them virtually invisible. The scientific breakthrough could make not only humans, but almost anything, including tanks and ships, disappear. The technology is still years away from realization, but it is still exciting! It is based on earlier research with microwaves at Imperial College London. The research by both groups is based on the theory that an object can be hidden by bending light around it. The lead researcher, Xiang Zhang, said: “In the case of invisibility cloaks or shields, the material would need to curve light waves completely around the object like a river flowing around a rock.” Someone who looked at the cloaked object would only see light from behind it — making the object seem to disappear. For more information about the invisibility cloak, you can read an article at FoxNews.

Yes! We Made it to 100!!!!

Mrs. Beasley, Mrs. Hamilton, and I have been reading our little brains out over the past school year or so, and we just reached our 100th book, which we added to our media center LibraryThing account! Click here to see all the books we read! You can get some ideas of good books you might want to read, many of which are available in the Creekview Grizzly Unquiet Library. You can also go to Library Thing and quickly and easily set up your own account. You can also click here to figure out how to set up your account. Use your LibraryThing account to keep up with all the books you read throughout your high school career. You can even check your LibraryThing account from your mobile phone while you’re at the library or book store to make sure a specific book isn’t already on your list before you check it out or buy it.

Wake Up to Web 2.0!

Word Wall

It’s a whole new year with a brand new bulletin board and word wall, all dedicated to Web 2.0 utilities. Check out Mrs. Fleet’s website and read the Web 2.0 Wow! newsletters from last year or the links to the websites of various Web 2.0 tools for more help.  Teachers, sign up your classes today so we can show your students how to utilize these cool products!

Bulletin Board