Readymech

I haven't printed these free flatpack toys that students can print and build. It seems like it could be a fun 3D art project.

ToonDoo

I like the idea of this website. You can create comics to express whatever you like. Seems like a neat tool to get kids to express themselves. So often we don't use cartoons because we don't think we can draw. This site kinda' tells kids that's okay, you can create comics anyway.

Disposable Income Calculator

Seems like this disposable income calculator could be used in personal finance or home economics classes. Students would need some help filling in their costs (rent, groceries, etc), but it might give them a picture of how much that latte at Starbucks costs.

An Oldie But Goodie

Ricci Adams' musictheory.net is an amazing site. I have been using it with music students for many year. Think of this as a bit of nostalgia.

Persistence and Video Games

An interesting piece on The Genius in All of Us about persistence. It conjured up memories of the book by Steven Johnson, Everything Bad is Good For You. From TGIAOU:

Robert Cloninger, at Washington University in St. Louis, who not only zeroed in on the persistence circuitry in the brain (Gusnard, Cloninger et al, 1993), but also trained mice and rats to develop persistence. “The key is intermittent reinforcement,” explains Cloninger. “A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.” In other words, yes, according to Cloninger, the animal mind can actually be trained to reward itself for slow and steady progress rather than the more thrilling instant gratification.

Boy, that sounds a lot like Steven Johnson's findings in Everything. In the book Johnson says video games, if designed well, teach us persistence by giving us well timed rewards. We have got to find a way to bring this kind of reward system to students.

Ear Training

I am not a big fan of freeware, much more of a 2.0 guy, but this is a great tool for music educators. The basic version is a note recognition program. The advanced includes intervals. Amazing stuff.

Tetoria

A nice music theory website that includes exercises and tutorials.

Drum Head Tuning

The accent makes this a little tough, but this video on tuning drum heads is nice. 5min.com is a pretty neat site.

Free Marketing Tutorials

Check it out.

Video 101

A nicely done site featuring tutorials with pictures for creating video. Includes editing, recording, lighting, lens, etc.