What can you see?

image from TechnologyRocksSeriously.com

What doors and windows you have opened today?
Front door? Back door? Car door?

Has opening those doors or windows allowed you to see and/or feel anything different? unique?

Do you have a window in your classroom? Can you see outside from your desk?

There are no windows close to my desk at work ... unless you count the computer ...


I know that I have written about animal webcams before:

• Who is Lily? Part 2
• Building Background and So Much More!

But I think I have discovered even more animal videos and webcams almost everywhere I looked last week ...

• Flamingo Cam from the Smithsonian Zoo
• WildEarth TV has a large collection of live animal webcams 
• I really like the close up Eagle webcam 
• The African Forest Webcams at the Houston Zoo are my favorites of the ones I encountered last week. There are two camera angles for each type of animals. You can also find videos.
• Giraffes
• Elephants
• Rhinos
• Chimpanzees

Even though I have been to zoos and seen these types of animals, I still find it very interesting to be able to watch the animals via webcam (and videos). Imagine the wonder and curiosity these images would create for students who have seen animals like this before but especially for those who have not ....

Think about all the doors and windows technology has made accessible for both us and our students ...

Who is Lily? (part 2)

Do you know who Lily is?

You can read the blog post on my WonderFamilyEdwards blog to find out more about how I found out who Lily is (I guess that would be part 1).

By the way, Lily is a bear that my daughter's Kindergarten class at Caleb's Creek Elementary has been watching on a web cam ...

I think the idea of viewing various animals web cams is interesting, so I asked her teacher if she would mind sharing some of the things they are doing with this in class.

Here is her response:

Well...the bears...it all began just because it was cool!  I was hooked two years ago when Lily had her first cub.  Then last year, Lily had two cubs.  One of last years cubs is denning with Lily this winter...but it seems that they have been having difficulty with Lily's camera. So...we discovered Honey and Lucky as well as Jewel.

 

We often pull up all the den cams and leave them up as we work.  Then we can see (& hear) them..and stop to watch and discuss what we see.  We have read books about bears (fiction and non-fiction) and discussed why bears hibernate.  We have researched (online and in books) different kinds of bears and compared them. We have compared bears to humans (food, water, needs, habits, living things).  We have discussed how bears move, hunt, etc.  We have compared the different bears we watch (bigger/smaller, activity levels, etc.).  We are getting ready to learn about other animals that hibernate...so we can compare them!  We have looked on the globe to see where these bears live...as well as other bears we read about.  We occasionally watch Freja (in Sweden)...not nearly as good!  We talked about camouflage...and why polar bears don't live in the woods and black/brown bears don't live in the arctic!  When we discuss our daily weather...we check the top of the bear.org webpage to see what the weather is in Ely,MN.  The discussion was interesting when we saw -12 the other morning!!!!  We use a large thermometer to show the temps.  We go on a bear hunt for fun and/or exercise.  Yesterday, we had the kids "design" a cave by tearing paper...and then draw a bear and cut it out to glue in the cave.  We imagined we were bears...and wrote about what we would dream about ...this will go with the cave.  I am sure we have done other things...but nothing else comes to mind right now. 

 

Look at all the multidisciplinary things this teacher is addressing with her class based on what they are watching on the animal webcam. Love it! And this is just a Kindergarten class! Think about all the reading and writing activities that could be done with students at older grade levels.

Holly Dubois shared some other related links with me too:

Another link you can look at (more in the spring) that I sometimes show the kids is this one of an eagle nest in VA. http://www.norfolkbotanicalgarden.org/e-community/eagle-cam  I love the bear one too but have not looked at it yet this year. This also has fun winter wildlife pics. http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/photos/winter-wildlife/  (takes a while to load!)

I also want to point out KB...Konnected's LiveBinder full of Amazing Animal Webcams.

I should also mention Steven W. Anderson's previous post: A Window to the World with Webcams.

A Window To The World With Webcams

If you have visited our new offices you may have noticed in the Instructional Technology area we have no windows. (We don't let it get us down too much though.) But we do have an Interactive Whiteboard. Normally we use it to post a question of the day. Such as:

If you could have any superhero power what would it be?
What is your best childhood memory?
Turkey or ham at Thanksgiving?

We use it as a way for all of us in the office to have a little fun and learn lots about each other. (It was an idea we picked up from the Promethean Offices in Georgia.) Having a question like this on your board when the kids come in in the morning could be a great way to activate their prior knowledge about a subject or to just get to know your kids.

But something new we started doing was video. It began with a webcam to watch the effects of a hurricane on the NC coast. But has turned into visiting various webcams around the world for periods of time. It's our little window that connects us to the outside and our board doesn't sit idle.

So think about this in the classroom. You have your IWB (or monitor or projector) that just hangs there. And frankly you might not be using it all the time. No problem! Find a webcam and just leave it up for a while. Travel the world through your "window."

There are loads of great webcam sites out there. Here are just a few we use:

Earthcam- This is the motherload of Webcams. Ever wanted to see what was going on with the Bull on Wall Street, Times Square or Tokyo? They have 100's of cams to view.

Surfchex- This is the site we use to view the beaches of NC

Vail Webcams- This is a great one this time of year to watch snow fall and folks having fun on the slopes.

Amazing Animal Webcams- One of the Livebinders Top 10 Binders, there are loads of great sites for watching animals in zoo's and preserves.

This is just a small list. Normally I will just ask where we want to visit and do a search in that area for webcams.

And these cams are more than just windows; they are teaching tools as well. Studying about South America? Find a webcam and leave it up during the study. Help the kids feel like they are there. (Marlo also wrote a great post about using images on the IWB that you will want to check out as well.)

Oh and if you think you have to have an IWB to do these, you don't. Your monitor or projector will work just as well.

So open up your window to the world and explore.




Photo Under CC License From IronRodArt

Web Camera with Lights?

The next latest and greatest from the minds of manufacturers seems to be the Self Illuminating Web Camera. Yes I said self illuminating.


Gone are the days of worrying about back lighting or having to pay for a more expensive webcam that will auto adjust for light.

New out is a USB webcam that has six built in LED lights, which will allow use of the webcam in low-light situations. Not only that there is dimmer switch that allows you to adjust the light intensity and the push of a button.

Now for some specs. The camera is 2MP and will auto focus. There is no base, the camera is attached to a pliable arm that can bend in any direction. Of course it's connection is USB 2.0. The camera will capture video at 640x480 up to 1600x1200, now the key there is the fps the higher the resolution the lower the fps rate. It has a built in microphone as well so you do not have to purchase anything extra. The device runs for not only Windows XP/Vista users, it will also run on Mac OS 10.4+. Oh and the final tidbit of info, the price. The webcam has a price point of around 89.95

Now for some other possibilities, after reading a post on Twitter by Kathy Schrock I got to thinking and what she had to say was pretty ingenious. Now let me first premise this as my own personal thoughts and are not meant to disrupt the natural order of things for purchasing options for any company or ed facility. Kathy made a good point that this could be used as a low cost alternative for a document camera. Right now most document cameras run in the $400-$500 range with some higher and some lower.

With the light on the webcam, the ability to manipulate the arm in any direction, and the auto-focusing capability it could really lend itself to people who want that functionality of a document camera but cannot afford the outlay cost.

image from coolest-gadgets.com