GMail Motion ... Wow!

Have you heard of GMail Motion? I really think they're on to something over there at Google!



Okay now, be honest ... how many of you clicked the link???

Touch Typing Test

I know this may make me a nerd [insert joke here], but I love typing tests!

There are umpteen-million online typing tests available, but I've found a few I really like. Your students will like them too, so be sure to check them out!

10 Fast Fingers Speedtest - This site uses the most used words in the English language to test how fast a person types. It's a very simple interface - free of any distracting dancing monkeys or silliness. Another real attraction of this site is the ability to test your speed in nearly 50 different languages. (FYI - I type WAY slower in German than I do in English!)

Typing Online - This simple site provides a paragraph (with lots of punctuation!). You do have to click the Start Timer and Stop Timer button on your own (which I'm sure shaves off hundredths of a second of my time), but the result is easy and clear to read - it tells you your words per minute, then shows any mistakes that were made. When you're ready to try again, just click the New Speed Test button. This site offers good general keyboarding information and a variety of lessons that would be great to use with students.

Learning Games for Kids : Typing Speed Test - Kids seem to like this site - it's colorful, each keystroke makes a sound (yay for headphones!!!), and it definitely looks more game-like. If your students aren't actually ready for the speed test yet, scroll down - there are lots of fun keyboarding lessons. Call them "games" instead of "lessons" and your kids will love them!
The one thing I really didn't like about this was that if you made a mistake, you could not back up and fix it. You just had to keep going from there. Although kids would probably be fine with that, it caused me to make multiple mistakes all at once before finally getting back on track. 
Although the main topic of this post has been about Typing TESTS, there are a lot of excellent keyboarding sites available to students that introduce and reinforce good keyboarding skills. Some of my favorites are:

Dance Mat Typing 
Typing Defense: Defend the Earth with your Keyboard!
Keyman - Similar to Pacman, but WAY harder! 
Super Hyper Spider Typer! - definitely a favorite of our younger students!

More Japan Resources

There are all kinds of resources available right now that explain how earthquakes and tsunamis happen. Some are written for experts, some are written for "regular people" and many are written specifically for children. I included a few of these resources on a previous post. 


Here are a few more sites you might want to visit:


Satellite Photos of Japan, Before and After the Quake and Tsunami - excellent site from The New York Times. Be sure to click on the "slider" and move it back and forth to reveal the before and after pictures. 


Japan Earthquake/Tsunami Infographic - this infographic does a nice job of giving details about the power of the earthquake and tsunami, as well as information on casualties, damages and effects, and ways we can help.


Japan Quake Map - Did you know there were actually 78 earthquakes that happened in and around Japan on Friday, March 11, 2011? (and as of today, there have been 734 quakes since March 11???) This map does a great job of showing exactly when, where, and how big each quake actually was. Use the drop-down menu to select a specific day and then watch. The size of the ring indicates the magnitude and the color indicates how deep in the ocean the quake occurred. 


How Earthquakes Trigger Tsunamis - this is an excellent video from BBC News that demonstrates how earthquakes caused the tsunamis. It's in simple enough terms that our elementary students will be able to understand it. 

CNN Student News

If you are a secondary teacher or even upper elementary, you may want to check out CNN Student News. It's a FREE, commercial-free, daily news program for middle and high school students. (I still strongly recommend that you view the newscast before showing your students each day, just to make sure it's appropriate - especially for our elementary student!)

You may not have time to show this every day (and who am I kidding? Time is precious!) but this is a good site to keep in mind when discussing current events. If you are studying a specific topic, you could even search for it on the site and see if they've talked about it during a past newscast.

The site provides show transcripts as well as Daily discussion suggestions, News Quizzes, Downloadable PDF maps, and other useful information.

If you're interested, check out the broadcast from Monday, March 21:

If you want to know more about how this works and what CNN STudent News is all about, head over to What is CNN Student News?

Are you using CNN Student News in your classroom? If so, how do the kids like it? Find out more it here.