A few weeks back I saw a little blub in PC Magazine on the Ask a Librarian website provided by the Library of Congress. The site provides an online reference service that promises to reply to your question in just five business days.
I decided to give it a try. My question? Which U.S. college has educated the most Nobel Laureates? I thought this wouldn’t be something that could be answered with a simple Google Search.
Three days after I submitted my question, I received their reply:
I have not found a comprehensive list of Nobel Laureates by undergraduate or graduate affiliation. The top schools in the United States for total Nobel Prizes awarded are: Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., CalTech, and Columbia, and tied with Berkeley is University of Chicago.
But the information didn’t stop there. They sent a myriad of data (see it yourself). Everything from breakdowns by category to links to where the information can be found.
The next time I need some research done, I think I’m going to put the Ask a Librarian service to work.
Beowulf opens in theaters this Friday. I vaguely remember reading this in high school my Senior year. Since Beowulf is in the public domain, I decided to refresh my memory of the story by reading it online.
There are several great sites that offer free books online. Here are a few that I’ve come to love:
LibriVox is all about audio. They have a 1000 free audio-books available for download. Literature is not all you’ll find here. I downloaded Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species and Einstein’s Relativity. (here’s Beowulf)
Public Literature really caught my eye. They take the audio from LibriVox and synchronize it with the text so you can listen and read along. (here’s Beowulf)
Inspired by the most recent Sony Bravia commercial, I decided to have my physics students create stop-motion videos for a Halloween themed project.
Students were asked to create a video that:
was at least ten seconds
contained at least two seconds of constant acceleration
had a Halloween theme
I gave the students a handout with a time line, guidelines, rubric and some suggestions for a successful project. Students created the videos using Windows Movie Maker and uploaded them to Brightcove.tv (YouTube is blocked at our school). I used Jing to provide students with screencasts that explained how to use Movie Maker and Brightcove.tv.
After the videos were created, students used a video analysis program (LoggerPro) to analyze and confirm the acceleration.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I assigned this project but I was truly shocked by all of the amazing videos that my students produced.
Between fatherhood and teaching science, Dale Basler is
an independent consultant, podcaster and web page designer who specializes in work for
institutions and organizations in education.
