Cooked On Education

• Skype in Schools / FrontPage

  “Want to establish global connectivity in education,
  but don’t know where to start?” This is a wiki for educators wanting to connect via Skype to classrooms and resources around the globe. Thanks to Wes Fryer for the link.

  tags: no_tag

  • Want to establish global connectivity in education,

    but don’t know where to start?

• copyrightconfusion » home

  A wiki with resources on fair use. Thanks to Sarah Sutter for the link.

  tags: MediaLiteracy, FairUse, wiki, education

• The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education — Publications — Center for Social Media at American University

  “This guide identifies five principles that represent the media literacy education community’s current consensus about acceptable practices for the fair use of copyrighted materials, wherever and however it occurs: in K-12 education, in higher education, in nonprofit organizations that offer programs for children and youth, and in adult education.” Thanks to Sarah Sutter for the link.

  tags: FairUse, reference, education, MediaLiteracy

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• How To Speed Up Your Mac Without Spending Any Cash | MakeUseOf.com

  Tips on ways to speed up the performance of your Mac. Thanks to Jo McLeay for the link.

  tags: mac, utilities, howto, TwitterLink

• Gin, Television, and Social Surplus - Here Comes Everybody - Annotated

  This post by Clay Shirky does a great job of describing the reasons behind the popularity of Web 2.0 applications and the paradigm shift they are bringing to our world. Thanks to Dean Shareski for the link.

  tags: ClayShirky, Blog, Web2.0, CognitiveSurplus

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• YouTube - Did you know - Right Here, Right Now

  The most recent version of the “Did you know?” video. Thanks to Bob Sprankle for the link.

  tags: video, youTube, DidYouKnow

• The Lego Secret Vault: Lego Secret Vault Contains All Sets In History

  Yes I loved legos as a kid. I had the Lego Galaxy Explorer pictured here. Very cool video!

  tags: legos, video, cool

• Photographer Taryn Simon Shoots America’s Best-Kept Secrets

  Some are bizarre, some are just creepy, but all of these photos are captivating.

  tags: photos, art

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Langwitches » Blogging Unit for Download

  A lot of information and resources for classroom blogging. This seems to be geared towards elementary students, but I think a lot of it could be applied to older students. Thanks to Richard Byrne for the link.

  tags: education, blog, classroomblogs

• Watchmen Exclusive Video by Trailer Park - MySpace Video

  Fantastic preview of Watchmen. I can’t wait to see this and I hope the legal troubles can be worked out.

  tags: video, watchmen

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• 16 Flickr Search Tools That Are Fun to Use | MakeUseOf.com

  Tools that will search Flickr by: color, theme, tags, Creative Commons, username, location (geotagged), and randomly. Thanks to Angela Maiers for the link via Twitter.

  tags: flickr, tools, search, creativecommons

• BoonJin.com » Blog Archive » Wiimote Smoothboard 0.4.6 BETA

  This appears to be a more refined version of the wiimote whiteboard software. Unfortunately, this appears to be Windows only at this point.

  tags: WiimoteWhiteboard, freeware

• DING IT’S UP! - Website Alerts via Email, Text, and Twitter

  Is your favorite website down? This site automatically lets you know when it goes back up via email, text, or tweet.

  tags: tools, online, web2.0, sms, twitter, utilities, useful

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Today I went with my family to see the entries in this year’s National Gingerbread House Competition.  The event is held every year at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, just a short drive from my parents’ house.  Thousands of people come to see the gingerbread houses each year.

One of the requirements of the competition is that all items used to decorate the houses must be edible.  The time and effort it must take make one of these displays is mind boggling, but the results speak for themselves.  I was a bit disappointed that the Grand Prize winner was not on display.  It and a few others have been taken to New York to appear on Good Morning America.

Many of the winning entries are displayed behind plexiglass.  I had an interesting time trying to take decent photos above, around, and through, the display cases.  I hope you enjoy the pictures and are as enthralled by the gingerbread houses as I was.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Tags: Cooked on Education, cool, Gingerbread

Richard Byrne of the award-winning Free Technology for Teachers blog tagged me to participate in this.  The idea of this meme is to share seven things that your readers might not know about you.  So without any further ado, here is my list:

1. I am a native of Florida.  I was born and raised in Orlando.
2. I worked at Disney World in the Magic Kingdom for two summers.  Most of my time was spent at a ride called The Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes.  I dressed like Davy Crockett in a coonskin hat and told bad jokes.  The canoes were free-floating (no track) and actually had to be paddled by the guests to move forward.  I also worked on the Tom Sawyer Island River Rafts and at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (I can still recite the recording that plays every 30 seconds when a train leaves the station.
3. I went to Florida State University as an English major from 1987 to 1992.  I also failed out.  I spent way too much time at the Sigma Nu house and in some of Tallahassee’s finest watering holes, and not nearly enough time studying, or even going to class.  After five years, I received a very nice letter thanking me for spending lots of my parents’ money and asking me not to return the next semester.
4. I am a fan of the FSU Seminoles, Boston Red Sox, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
5. Before becoming a teacher, I worked in restaurants on every level from fast food and pizza delivery, up to fine dining.  I also was a manager for Circuit City for five years.
6. I am a complete game geek.  I love board games and sponsor a gaming group at my school.  I also play Dungeons and Dragons weekly with a group of friends.
7. Unlike many chefs, I have no aspirations of owning my own restaurant.  One of the things that I love about being a teacher is that it allows me to have a life outside of work.  I have no doubt that I would work way too much if I had my own restaurant, and I really want to be around to see my kids grow up.

I would like to tag to participate:

• @ErnieEaster
• @lizbdavis
• @cpriest
• @jennyluca
• @jomcleay
• @mrrichme
• @stephenveliz

Tags: Cooked on Education

This year's batch of cinnamon rolls, just out of the oven and before the cream cheese frosting was put on.

Cinnamon rolls are a Christmas morning tradition in my family.  Every Christmas morning, my brother and I would get up at the crack of dawn, tear through the presents, and then sit down and scarf down my Mom’s homemade cinnamon rolls.  When I first moved to Maine almost ten years ago, my mother-in-law had cinnamon rolls for my first Christmas breakfast.  So the tradition has continued.

I found this recipe a few years ago on the internet (I can’t remember where or I would give some attribution).  I think they are some of the best cinnamon rolls you will find this side of Cinnabon.  This afternoon, I made a batch of with my Dad.  He has really gotten into baking bread lately and wanted try out my recipe.

Cinnamon Rolls
Rolls
1/2 cup warm water
2 packages dry yeast
2 Tbsp. sugar
3 1/2 oz. pkg. vanilla pudding mix
2 cups milk
1/2 cup margarine — melted
2 eggs
1 tsp. salt
7 cups flour

Filling
1 cup soft butter
2 cups brown sugar
4 tsp. or more cinnamon

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup margarine
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 Tbsp. milk
1. In a bowl combine water, yeast and sugar. Stir until dissolved. Set aside. 2. In large bowl, take pudding mix and mix with milk.
3. Add margarine, eggs and salt. Mix well. Then add yeast mixture. Blend.  4. Gradually add flour; knead until smooth.
5. Place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled.
6. To make filling, place 1 cup soft butter, 2 cups brown sugar and 4 tsp. Cinnamon and mix together.
7. After dough has doubled in size, punch down dough and let rise again.
8. Roll out on floured board to 34 x 21″ size.
9. Spread filling over dough.  Roll up very tightly.
10. With knife, put a notch every 2″. Cut with thread or knife.
11. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet 2″ apart. Take hand and lightly press down on each roll.
12. Cover and let rise until double again.
13. To make frosting, mix all ingredients until smooth.
14. Bake at 350 15-20 minutes. Remove when they start to turn golden. Do not over bake!
15. Frost warm rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting.

I like to underbake them just slightly so that they are extra gooey in the center.

Tags: Baking, Recipes

The list of nominees for the 2008 Edublog Awards is out, and I am proud to say that I consider three of the nominees part of my PLN and my friends. It doesn’t hurt that all of them are Mainers.  And the nominees are:

• For Best Resource Sharing Edublog 2008: Richard Byrne’s Free Technology For Teachers blog.  FTFT provides not only links to great resources, but it also includes ideas about ways in use them in education.    In a little over a year, Richard has built a reader base of over 1000 subscribers.  With an average of 25+ quality posts a week, this guy is a blogging machine.  You can vote for Free Technology For Teachers here.
• For Best Educational Wiki 2008: Jim Burke’s Learning in Maine Resources Wiki.  This wiki is a vast collection of resources for educators from A to W (sorry, no X, Y or Z yet).  While there is a lot of Maine-centric information, don’t be fooled: there is lots of great stuff for teachers everywhere.  The wiki is open so that resources and links may be added by anyone.   A great example of what a wiki can and should be.  You can vote for the Learning in Maine Resources Wiki here.
• For Best Educational Use of Audio 2008:  Wicked Decent Learning.  This podcast is just plain fun.  Each week, Jeff and Dan cover a main topic related to education and teaching, and have a great time doing it.  These guys are real teachers, not just pundits, and they bring real experience and insight to their discussions.  I look forward to listening to them every week. (and yes, I am biased: I have been a “very special guest” on their show a couple of times, but don’t let that fact stop you from voting and taking a listen!).  You can vote for Wicked Decent Learning here.

There are a lot of great sites that have been nominated.  So take a look at all of the nominees and vote!

Tags: Blog, Eddies 2008, Free Tech 4 Teachers, Jim Burke, Learning in Maine, Richard Byrne, Wicked Decent Learning, wiki

I found Free Culinary School.com when I was online looking for some resources for my Culinary Arts classes.  This site is all about cooking techniques and includes a blog and a podcast.  According to the about page at the site, it is not a place to go and look for recipes:

This site was never intended to be another recipe site (although you will occasionally come across one), but instead it was established to teach passionate cooks professional techniques; forever breaking your bonds to uninspired recipe books and soulless cooking shows.

There are a ton of resources here for cooks of all ability levels.  Knife skills, mother sauces, basic cooking techniques, and even molecular gastronomy are all covered (plus a lot more).  I read through this post about using xanthan gum to make a stabilized beurre blanc.  It makes me wish I had the money to invest in the xanthan gum ($86 for 1.6 pounds of the stuff, although a little dab at a time will do) just to try it out.

I am getting ready to start a unit on stocks and sauces and I am planning to use some Chef Jacob Burton’s posts with my students.  I may also use parts of his podcasts, although I do wish they were enhanced with the beautiful pictures like the rest of the site.

Tags: Blog, Culinary, Podcast, Resources