A beginner's guide to birdhouses

A guide to building a basic birdhouse, but includes measurements and specifics to build a house for a specific species of bird. This is a pretty neat little article considering that it's just a few hundred words but it gives you plans to build houses for several different species of birds and includes some neat tips. It tells you the best way to hang the house, the best places to hang them for bluebirds vs. other types of birds, and neat additions to make the house more functional. Enjoyable and useful and even with the variety it's a simple enough project that you could do it with your kids.

read more | digg story

Hi-Tech Gadgets for the Classroom - from E-Chalkboards to Remote Controls

It is pretty cool that there is help for teachers who want to use more technology in the classroom (not just computers) and especially those that can help shy students, those with learning or other disabilities, and regular students who need a new challenge. Instructors can use all kinds of cool stuff like "Smart" boards that replace the old-fashioned blackboard and let them draw and write digitally among other things. There are also big-scanner devices that let you scan even large books and see the text huge so you can turn any library book into a large-print book for students with vision problems. Then there are radio frequency remote controls that can be used by the students to press a key for an answer for anything from a pre-test quiz to a full exam and even numeric answers to math questions that are on paper or up on a board somewhere. The remotes can also help if teachers want to do a class participation thing like "Why does this painting make you feel a certain way?" and the students can answer by pushing a key instead of talking out loud. I don't know about you, but as a kid my head spun during those kinds of things. In fact, that still happens to me! Anyway, if you are an interested instructor or student, check this story out.

read more | digg story

There are several on-demand publishing sites out there, but look at this:

All too often, authors are lured by a low upfront cost - but, it's not the publishing fees that ruin your profit, it's the book printing costs! If you think your book will sell 100 units or less, then going with the least expensive book publisher is your best choice. Plan on selling some books? This is the site to look at.

read more | digg story