The $1,000,000 Car

This past week I had an opportunity to drive a $1,000,000 car. The GM designed Equinox Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car was recently blogged by Wired Magazine. You can read their review and a lot of the details there or read from GM's Fuel Cell page.

My first impression was similar to Wired Magazine...seems pretty ordinary. That is until you open the hood and see a fuel cell. That is until you start the car and are not really sure it's even running. That is until you take it for a drive and realize you burned zero gasoline, and used zero oil and created zero emissions.

Why am I blogging about this car on a blog about instructional technology? Well, the car was visiting an elementary school the next day and I thought how cool to use this car as a way to get kids interested in math, science, engineering, environmental issues, government (GM had to crash 5 cars to pass all the regulations to get the car on the road), collaboration, and all sorts of technology.

Content-related Websites!

It's time to move away from the more philosophical discussions and share some more practical tools and websites I've come across recently.

Language Arts:

• Lit Trip-this is a mashup of literary works and Google Earth. You need Google Earth installed and then you download the .kmz file that has been created for books like The Kiterunner or The Grapes of Wrath. Of course, it would be useful to have students learn how to create their own Lit Trip.
• This tool allows anyone to add text bubbles to any video clip. You could use it as a way to add comments or evaluations to a video or maybe translate into another language.
• Ottobib is just but one site that makes MLA or APA citations a breeze. There isn't a high school student out there who shouldn't be taught how to automate this once time-consuming task.
  

Science:

• Microsoft recently launched the Encyclopedia of Life. The site's mission is to document and chronicle every living plant and animal. It's an amazing resource.
• If you are familiar with Google Earth, then try Google Sky. Along the same vien, for all astronomy lovers, Microsoft also launched World Wide Telescope.
• Another wonderful science site, but interesting to just about anyone is a 3D human anatomy website called @ http://www.visiblebody.com/. The is a downloadable product that has amazing zoom, transparency, rotation, and other 3D capabilities.

Social Studies:

• Having students create their own historical timelines can be a very useful strategy. This is getting easier and more detailed at www.xtimeline.com.
• The National Archives has opened it's digital vault. A wonderful resource for primary documents.
• Government teachers might find the Dirksen Congressional Center's archive of lesson plans useful.
  

Art:

• The National Gallary of Art has a nice BRUSHter program for digital painting.

Have Fun!