explore.org, a non-profit educational organization and the HATCH Film Festival have recently teamed up to create a brand new short film award!

The explore/Hatch Award will be presented to the filmmaker whose short film shows a group or individual hero striving for a better world through selfless acts. If you or anyone you know has created a film highlighting a cause that inspires others to make a difference, submissions are now open. The winner will receive a full expense paid trip to HATCHFest in Asheville, North Carolina (April 15th - 18th) where they will have the chance to meet with prominent mentors as well as receive a prize from the explore.org co-founder, Charles Annenberg Weingarten! Submissions are due on March 25th.

Are you tired of picking through youtube and other video sharing sites to find quality films to use in a classroom setting? EducationalVideos.com is a brand new site that features over one thousand short educational films covering a variety of interesting topics including the environment, art, science, history and more. Teaching your students about Photosynthesis? Watch the Photosynthesis Song!

The videos are each handpicked by our team in order to find the best films in terms of content, length and entertainment value. Each video is organized by its subject matter and categorized, making it easy to find quality films fast.

Be sure to also check out the recently launched “How-To” category, which features fun, instructional videos that teach various skills including How to Levitate.

Just thought that I’d put up a quick post to point out the blogroll that I’ve just added to the menu on the right. So far, I’ve added four bloggers in there, all of whom I strongly recommend you go check out.

The first one, “I Want to Teach Forever” has a lot of tips for teachers, and they are embarking on an interesting project this year called “52 Teachers, 52 Lessons” in which they are inviting teachers to submit lesson ideas to be shared via the blog - a new one is being posted each week. Depending on the success of this, I may do something similar next year here on buildingthefuture.com.au.

The second blog is called “So You Want To Teach?” and focuses fairly strongly on new teachers and students teachers, providing handy hints that aren’t often shared with preservice teachers by their university lecturers.

The third blog on my blogroll, “Successful Teaching” is the blog of Pat Hensley, a retired teacher from South Carolina in the US, who is now a tutor at Furman University. Pat posts some interesting articles, as well as a weekly wrap of some interesting sites that she has discovered during the week that can be used in the classroom.

And last, but not least, is “Teaching Challenges“, a fellow Australian blogger named Penny Ryder who is a Year 1 teacher. Each Tuesday, Penny shares a “Tech Tip” and every Friday she shares some of the fun moments in her classroom that week.

Feel free to share any other good educational blogs in the comments. If you’d like to trade links and have your site included in my blogroll, leave a comment with the details and I’ll add you to the list.