Omnivorous Surfer

Make Beliefs Comix is a fun site, even for people like me who are not very creative. I have friends who could do wonderful things there!


This site provides the panels, characters (with a variety of expressions), objects, and word and thought bubbles to create a comic strip in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Latin. It includes links to help you create special characters for those languages. The finished product can be printed or emailed.

Following is a comic I created illustrating a beginning Spanish conversation. Remember I said I'm not creative...

I'm sure teachers can think of lots of ways to incorporate this into the classroom for either their own or students' use: to create conversation or story starters, to practice with dialogue in English or a foreign language, to demonstrate appropriate/inappropriate or desirable/undesirable behavior, and, I'm sure, many others.

You can click on "How to Play" on the website for help, but if you'd like step-by-step instructions check out Russel Stannard's  video tutorial.

Even if you keep them organized, if you've collected bookmarks over a long period of time you will possibly have some duplicates and probably have several that no longer work. AM-DeadLink is FREE software (Windows only), recommended by Kim Komando, which will find duplicates in your browser bookmarks and text files. You can then verify and delete them. It works with IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, HTML, and URLs from tab- or comma-delimited files.

As a bonus, you can also download FavIcons for your IE or Opera Favorites.

So often when cooking I don't have exactly what the recipe calls for and wonder what I could substitute. When I can't find one in one of my cookbooks, I usually just guess what might work. Sometimes I just wait until I can get to the store for the exact ingredient.

Today I found Cook's Thesaurus while simply looking for information about green chilis. It not only listed a huge variety of chilis with their substitutes, but also included a heat indicator for each; I hadn't realized my cayenne peppers were that high on the scale! This site will suggest substitutions for an amazing array of foods and seasonings. Next time I don't have the right ingredient, I'll know where to look.

Talk about one-stop shopping! This site provides a number of references and tools accessible simply by clicking a tab..

Need to find rhyming words? Go to rhymes.net , and you'll get a list of words listed alphabetically and categorized by number of syllables. The should be useful for a variety of purposes, but you'll find more here--much more.

There are ten functions accessible from tabs across the top of the web page, each with its own URL. I've checked them out, and they're good! All functions are available by entering the URL of any one of them.

1. Abbreviations (www.abbreviations.com). Search acronyms & abreviations, or browse by category.
2. Conversions (www.convert.net). Convert measurements, time zones, number systems. Type your query freeform or use a handy conversion box with drop-down menus.
3.  Definitions (www.definitions.net). Search or use categories. It functions like a mini encyclopedia, working for such terms as "English Bulldog," "Genghis Khan," and "Russian Revolution," and scientific names of plant and animals. When appropriate the definition will be enhanced by images.
4. Lyrics (www.lyrics.net). Search by song title or a portion of the lyrics. You can also browse by artist.
5. Phrases (www.phrases.net). Search for phrases and idioms. (This would really help a person learning English to make sense of phrases like "rain cats and dogs" and "get a grip.")
6. Quotations (www.quotes.net). Search by author, subject, or word (not phrase).
7. References (www.references.net). Use the directory of categories to see a lists of reference sources on the web.
8. Rhymes (www.rhymes.net). Enter a word and you will be given a list of rhyming words categorized by number of syllables, organized alphabetically in each category.
9. Synonyms. (www.synonyms.net). Search or browse.
10. ZIP Codes (www.uszip.com). Search by city or ZIP code. Results will display the city with its current weather information, demographics, a map, images, and other information.

Interesting site!

The iPod Touch software allows for audio recording, but the hardware does not include an integrated microphone. I think I just found the perfect solution...the ThumbTacks (TM) mic from SwitchEasy. I can't verify the quality or performance as I have not used it, but I have ordered one to check it out. At the price, I think it's worth investigating.

I've seen some good uses for iPod Touch in the classroom that required recording capability, and this looks to me to be a possible easy solution.

Ran across an old post from Vicki Davis' Cool Cat Teacher Blog about searching for educational videos using Google video search. I checked it out and found some really good resources. Rather than recreate it, here's the link to How to Search Educational Videos.

If you're interesting in using technology effectively in the classroom, Davis' blog would be a great one to follow.

What a cool idea to use the connective power of the Internet to help raise funds for a charity! Learned of this site today through a Tweet by Will Richardson, offering readers the opportunity to help raise money for clean water for Africa in honor of his birthday.

Because mycharity.ie is located in Ireland, most, though not all, of the charities listed on the site have an Irish connection. There is a link on the site for charities to register to be included on the site, and individuals can submit details of a charity they would like to support. Individuals can create a fundraising page like the one Will used.

 One person CAN make a difference, and this site provides one way to do that!

I always like science and thought it would be cool to be a chemistry or physics teacher so we could do neat experiments in class. I still like to experiment and am still fascinated by experiments. When I ran across the Scientific Tuesdays ferrofluids and magnets video on YouTube, I figured I'd found a goldmine to fuel my curiosity.

I'll let you look for yourself while I go to the kitchen to try out the "Awesome milk trick!" Oops...it alway pays to look around (at least I can't keep myself from doing so). I found a Steve Spangelr Science "Color Changing Milk" video that has a little different take that I'll have to try while I'm at it.

Hope you can find some fun things to try for yourself or with children (or other adults) or perhaps for a science fair project simply by exploring YouTube!

I take lots of photos, and I especially enjoy recording scenery so we can enjoy it later. I sometimes take a series of photos as I pan the camera around my location, trying to see that they overlap so there's an area of commonality between consecutive images for matching. I just found a FREE demo of AutoStitch which does an amazing job of stitching photos together to make a panorama image. In the past, I have kept the camera on a fairly level horizontal plane, but AutoStitch does not require this, as it can take images from a variety of angles, match them up, and smooth them out; this is illustrated on the AutoStitch website.