Hot Websites February 2007
By Linda Lindroth

From an interactive study of healthy hearts to a wealth of historical information about U.S. presidents, the internet has it all! February may be the shortest month of the year, but it is rich with opportunities to supplement your K-8 curriculum.

Habits of the Heart
www.smm.org/heart/

This website from the Science Museum of Minnesota is indeed for the faint of heart - and the strong of heart, too. Find a heartbeat using the virtual stethoscope or follow the lesson plan to find your students' pulses and study their heart rates. There are lots of animations and interactive labels to guide students as they observe the heart valves and discover the parts of the working heart.

The web resource has seven in-depth lessons that guide science learning for "Pulse of Life," "Keeps on Pumping," "Under Pressure," "Sounds of the Heart," "Lub Dub (Valves)," "Heart as a Pump" and "Go with the Flow." Each plan has key questions, materials, detailed procedures, extensions and web links. Most of them have additional blackline guides to help support the activities. This same depth of knowledge is also available in interactive animations and lessons on the lungs.

For even more scientific investigation, there are online Tools for the Heart. Calculate your heartbeats in a hour, a year and a lifetime with an online calculator. There are also instruments to measure your Body Mass Index and calculate your maximum heart rate.

Freedom: A History of the U.S.
www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/index.html

Want to find out more about the presidents of the United States? Need to look for historical photos of an event in U.S. history? Just looking for biographical information about a significant U.S. historical figure? This is the perfect resource for a student research product or background information for the next social studies lesson.

PBS and WNET present the "Webisode Menu," 16 episodes of this U.S. history series about freedom based on the books by Joy Hakim. Just select a title and begin an incredible journey to learn more about freedom in our country. Each "Webisode" has an overview, a link to the video, links to photo images that help tell the story and interactive hot links throughout the text to biographies of historic figures. Research tools include a Timeline, Glossary, Image Browser, Quiz (which is scored online) and Additional Resources.

Each Webisode has a Teacher Guide with historical primer on the topic, detailed lessons that incorporate all the content areas and Workshop Videos for additional professional development for your social studies curriculum.
Students will find the interactive games a challenge as they learn more about "What did they say?" and match historical events to time periods in "Scavenger Hunt through History."

ThinkQuest
www.thinkquest.org

Oracle Education Foundation sponsors this challenge for students to build an innovative and educational website to share with students throughout the world. The 2007 competition opened in August 2006 but the entry submission deadline is not until April 16, 2007.

The Rules, Evaluation Criteria and Categories for ages 9-19 are all online. Register a Primary Coach, set up teams, select a category topic, complete research on the topic and create an interactive website to submit for judging. Everyone is a winner since all websites go into the ThinkQuest Library. This is great project-based learning!

Instant HDTV PCI -- Tech Spotlight

Schools are not going to be investing in HDTV monitors for the classroom anytime soon, but this new product from ADS Tech lets you receive free over-the-air broadcasts of HDTV on your PC. Just install the HDTV PCI card and get content broadcast in 1920 x 1080 - more than 10 times the pixels in normal NTSC video. What's more, the card will support normal analog TV and cable, too.

ADS Tech bundles the Instant HDTV PCI card with SnapStream's Beyond TV Express, which lets you watch TV and use overlays about the show while you are viewing. The instructional uses for educational TV also let you pause, fast-forward and rewind live TV.

Visit www.adstech.com for more information and to see other TV tuner products, or call 800-888-5244. $129

Linda K. Lindroth is Teaching K-8's technology editor and website coordinator, and a technology resource teacher at Russell Cave Elementary School in Lexington, KY.

February 2007 Volume 37, Number 5