Free OpenBiblio Setup

At ASchool.us we are doing an experiment to see how much interest there is in the OpenBiblio library software. Sign up now for your free account. We will start by providing accounts to the first 10 people that Sign up. All others will be setup as resources become available.

Example book entry

Your library patrons will be shown Infolinks, Google, and Amazon ads to help fund this experiment if you would like to guarantee the success of this project please consider making a donation.

Our goal for this project is to provide a web based library solution for small schools based on open source software. This will allow us and you to be able to keep expenses down by using open source software. If this project succeeds we will contribute back into the OpenBiblio project both by contributing code and money to further its development. The ads can be removed for a monthly fee to cover the hosting of your content.

Example search results

Why should you use this?
One of the advantages of Open Source software is that it provides users with the opportunity to enhance, control, and maintain the software. We will provide you with access to the data you enter into your library. This allows you to backup and/or transfer your library to a different system, if you find that this solution does not meet your needs or you would like to move to a different service provide the option is available.

What are the advantage of setting it up with ASchool.us? 
With the default installation of OpenBiblio you have to manually enter all of your circulation information. Our install provides a working Library of Congress lookup and extra reports. Both of which are available from the OpenBiblio website but we have them installed for you already.

Words Your Way Spelling Inventory

I've been working on a spelling learning/practice/testing application over at beta.aschool.us and have just implemented a spelling inventory that I found in the book Words Your Way by Donald R. Bear, Marcia Invernizzi, Shane Templeton, Francine Johnston, Published by Pearson.

It's setup pretty simple you simply share the links below with your students and when they press enter the results get sent to you via email. One of the benefits of this system over others is that students can not copy and paste the answers from another source. Also you see what each student types in, this includes any corrections that they have made.

You can share the link two different ways. The first format is easier to read but the second integrates better with websites like Moodle. Use the second format if you need a redirect because you can only use the get format such as http://address.com/?variable=value&v2=value2.

Make sure to change username.at.domain to your username and domain. Leave the .at. since the @ symbol will cause an error.

Copy the links below and paste them to where

Add aschool at woehler. dot us to your address book or spam exceptions list.

Option 1:
Primary Inventory:
http://beta.aschool.us/apps/index.php/spelling/start/603/t/Username.at.DomainName/studentname

Elementary Inventory:
http://beta.aschool.us/apps/index.php/spelling/start/605/t/Username.at.DomainName/studentname

Intermediate Inventory:
http://beta.aschool.us/apps/index.php/spelling/start/607/t/Username.at.DomainName/studentname

Upper Level Inventory:
http://beta.aschool.us/apps/index.php/spelling/start/609/t/Username.at.DomainName/studentname

Option 2:
This option should work well if you have a website like Moodle where you can customize links based on the user.
Primary Inventory:
http://beta.aschool.us/apps/redirect?tid=603&mode=t&mailto=username.at.DomainName&un=username&id=number

Elementary Inventory:

http://beta.aschool.us/apps/redirect?tid=605&mode=t&mailto=username.at.DomainName&un=username&id=number

Intermediate Inventory:

http://beta.aschool.us/apps/redirect?tid=607&mode=t&mailto=username.at.DomainName&un=username&id=number

Upper Level Inventory:

http://beta.aschool.us/apps/redirect?tid=609&mode=t&mailto=username.at.DomainName&un=username&id=number

To interpret the result of the inventory you will need the book Words Your Way by Donald R. Bear, Marcia Invernizzi, Shane Templeton, Francine Johnston, Published by Pearson. 

I hope that this provides a convenient way to administer the test to your students.

Let me know in the comments below if you have any problems. Remember this is currently a beta website and may change in the future. If you have found this useful please consider making a donation.

Below is a short video clip demonstrating the practice mode. The testing mode is very similar except that the saved indicator is blue instead of green or red. This way the student knows that their work is saved but not whether it is right or wrong. The example shown below is integrated with a Moodle installation.

Yet another potentially useful website

www.ixl.com
This looks like a great website to help access students math levels and help with remediation.

Great website.

I was looking for handwriting paper this evening and stumbled upon this great website. It even has some free fonts and many different creative handwriting templates.
http://donnayoung.org/penmanship
http://donnayoung.org/penmanship/make-handwriting-lessons.htm

Periodic Chart Elements Questions for Moodle

I just posted a set of quiz questions for Moodle at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Periodic-Chart-Symbols-MoodleXML. Each questions asks for the symbol for the given element of the periodic table. The questions are grouped by row of the periodic table.

Updated: 11/7/2010
I've added atomic number, groups, and periods to the questions now. Now most of the elements have 6 questions asking about their atomic number, name from symbol, etc... the updated download can be found here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Periodic-Chart-Symbols-Atomic-Numbers-Groups-and-Period-MoodleXML

New Spelling Feature Preview

We are pleased to announce that a new spelling feature will be added to Math Facts. With the addition of spelling we've decided to change the name from MathFacts to Apps@ASchool.us. You can check out the preview at http://beta.aschool.us/demo/spelling/
Some of the features include

• emailing of student scores and student responses to the teacher
• learning mode which gives them hints about which letters are correct.
• practice mode which allows them to try again if they get it wrong.
• test mode where they can submit there answer only once.
• students will not be able to use the built in spell checker.
• students will not be able to copy and paste to their answer.
• tracking of what the student type. Allowing the teacher to see corrections that the student made.

Exploring Tumblr in the classroom

I have a student that will be out of the country for at least a month and I've been trying to think of ways to easily communicate with him. Here's my latest idea. Some of our assignments in English class we grade together in class so I will just record our grading process with VR+ on my iPod Touch and send it to my Tumblr email address. This should be quick and easy for me. Now to see how effective it will work for my student. He can pick up his assignment as a PDF from the class website and mark it up using Jarnal and then submit it electronically to the class website after he has graded it.

Update: Nov 4, 2010
Initially I thought this was a great idea but after listening to the interaction between myself and the students in the classroom I decided not to go this route. The reason is that I heard to many student names in the background which I thought would not be advisable to be accessible to the general public.