The Scout Report -- Volume 23, Number 10

The Overland Trails, 1840-1860 is one of five maps from American Panorama, a historical atlas project from the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond. This specific map traces the experiences of about two dozen American migrants who moved westward during the mid-nineteenth century. Over 2,000 diary entries have been transcribed and organized onto a map according to route (e.g. the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Trail). Once visitors select a route, they can examine a list of individuals who kept track of their daily lives while traveling west. In addition, the map provides information about significant historical and political events that occurred concurrently with each diary entry. Mapping the Overlands Trails provides visitors with a way to examine primary documents in context, offering an engaging resource for history classrooms. [MMB]

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From MIT BLOSSOMS, a video series dedicated to high school mathematics and science instruction, comes this innovative lesson that engages students with computer programing through a series of hands-on activities. In this particular video lesson, Tanzeena Ali, a computer science student at Superior University in Pakistan, presents a series of problem solving activities centered around the simple task of making a mango milkshake. Throughout this presentation, Ali poses a series of questions that high school students would be able to answer quickly: How do I determine which mango in the bowl has the greatest mass? How do I arrange my jars from tallest to shortest? As students work collaboratively to solve this problem, their challenge is to represent their problem solving strategy in a way that a computer program could understand. Through each task, Ali demonstrates programming skills and concepts including variable swapping, sorting an array, and finding the max of an array. The lesson that Ali models in the video is aimed at "those students who know the syntax of programming in any language (C or GWBASIC preferred), but are unable to build the logic for a program." This video lesson is accompanied by a teacher's guide for those who may want to adapt the lesson to better fit the needs of their classroom. [MMB]

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Born in Scotland in 1765, Gavin Turnbull, a contemporary of Robert Burns, worked as an actor and published two books of poetry before he immigrated to Charleston, South Carolina in 1795. In 1840, poetry scholar James Paterson lamented, "Of the subsequent history of Turnbull we are almost entirely ignorant." Fortunately, more recent English scholars have uncovered more information about Turnbull's life in the United States, revealing his subsequent work in both poetry and theatre. On this website, visitors can read poetry that Turnbull penned on both sides of the Atlantic and learn more about this influential but oft-overlooked writer. These poems include work from his most famous publication, 1788's Poetical Essay, along with recently uncovered poems that Turnbull authored in Charleston (and often published individually in local newspapers). Through this collection, literary scholars and poetry fans alike can explore the characteristics and development of Turnbull's poetry. [MMB]

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Lin McMullen is a former high school calculus teacher who has fifteen years of experience working with high school calculus teachers to help them improve their craft. McMullen has also created this resource website for calculus teachers and students alike. Teaching Calculus can be browsed in a number of ways. Those who are currently teaching or taking a Calculus class can explore Thru the Year, which organizes calculus resources in the order in which they are typically taught in American high schools. For example, visitors will find resources related to Theorems, Definitions, and Logic in August followed by Computing Derivatives in September. Resources include study guides, definitions of key terms, classroom activities, and instructional videos. These videos are also available for browsing in the Video section of the website. Collectively the Thru the Year and Video section provide useful resources for instructors to incorporate into their classroom or for students to use while working on homework. In addition, instructors can find a variety of PowerPoint presentations and handouts in the Resources section. [MMB]

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What is a norm-referenced test? What does it mean for a student to be "college-ready"? What does project-based learning entail? Designed for "journalists, parents, and community members," the Glossary of Education Reform is intended to make jargon and terminology used in educational policy circles accessible to anyone. While vocabulary related to educational reform is often linked to particular policy implementations and ideologies, the team behind the Glossary of Education Reform strives to be as objective as possible. The Glossary was created by the Great Schools Partnership, a Portland, Maine based non-profit organization that works "to redesign public education and improve learning for all students." This resource is authored and edited by a team of educational policy analysts, journalists, and scholars. Users can search for terms or browse terms alphabetically. [MMB]

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Kyoto University offers this open EdX course dedicated to microorganisms and their role in our world. More specifically, this course investigates microbes that are able to survive in extreme environments and temperatures. As the course introduction explains, "Microorganisms are everywhere, and although some are notorious for their roles in human disease, many play important roles in sustaining our global environment." In this course, anyone can learn more about microbes via video lectures, course readings, and assignments. These materials are divided into four units: Evolution and the Diversity of Life; Life in Boiling Water; Diversity of Extremophiles; and Genome Sequences. Intended for anyone with a middle-school level knowledge of science, this course is self-paced but designed to be completed in about four weeks. Auditing The Extremes of Life is free; students also have the the option to earn a certificate if they pay a course fee. [MMB]

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For music scholars as well as music fans, the Milton and Nelma Fillius Jazz Archive, part of Hamilton College Library's Digital Collections, will appeal. The archive is split into two kinds of resources: interviews and photographs. In the first section, visitors can browse over 300 interviews conducted by composer (and Fillius Jazz Archive Coordinator) Monk Rowe and Hamilton professor Michael Woods. Each interview record includes a full transcript of the interview, accompanied by an audio recording of the interview and a photograph. Interviewees include Be'la Fleck, Herbie Hancock, and Etta Jones, to name just a few. Visitors to this archive can also search for interviews by Topics (e.g. composers, saxophonists, music educators) or Subject Headings (e.g. Jazz festivals, Sound recording industry, Ragtime Music) or by conducting a text search of interview transcripts. Meanwhile, in the Photographs section, visitors can explore hundreds of jazz musicians and bands. [MMB]

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The Preservation Green Lab at the National Trust for Historic Preservation aims to connect historic preservation with growing interest in sustainability nation-wide. With this goal, the organization has created the Atlas of ReUrbanism, a series of interactive maps that present data about urban buildings in an engaging fashion. Aimed at urban developers, residents, activists, and journalists, the Atlas of ReUrbanism allows users to examine data about the age and diversity of buildings in each area of the city. As of this write up, users can examine information about ten U.S. cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit; maps of 30 additional cities will be added in the future. While directed at developers and preservation activists, these maps may also have a broader appeal. For example, the atlas provides an engaging tool for K-12 geography classrooms, providing young students with information about their city. Alternatively, the tool provides a model for students to create interactive maps about their own communities. In addition, this tool may be of interest to anyone researching urban areas for the purposes of journalism, grant proposals, and academic research. [MMB]

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In the 1880s, long before one could purchase a treadmill, a New York company promoted a "health jolting chair" for "ALL PERSONS...whose sedentary habits have caused or may cause disease." Meanwhile, in 1896, a Fort Wayne, Indiana pharmacy placed an advertisement in the local newspaper for "ambition pills for weak and nervous men." Caroline Rance, a writer who holds a master's degree in the history of science, is the author of The Quack Doctor, a blog dedicated to nineteenth and early-twentieth century medical advertisements. Readers can explore these advertisements by categories including Digestive Issues, General Health & Panaceas, Rheumatism, and Women's Complaints. These advertisements are accompanied by Rance's thoughtful commentary, which places these advertisements in historical context (and, on occasion, calls attention to false "Victorian advertisements" that have been created by contemporary humorists). Rance clarifies that while her blog may be called The Quack Doctor, she includes all medical advertisements, from hucksters and from legitimate health professionals alike. And while some of these products and remedies have been debunked by more recent research, others make good medical sense. Not always for the squeamish, The Quack Doctor provides visitors with a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of medicine and healthcare. [MMB]

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Since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, innovators have continued to develop new technologies for recording and playing sound. In this Europeana exhibition, visitors can learn more about "machines that illustrate a wide range of techniques and technologies" for doing so. This diverse collection includes contributions from nine different institutions across Europe, including the British Library and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. Visitors can explore these items via five themes: Wax Cylinder & Discs, Shellac & Vinyl Discs, Magnetic & Digital Medium, Radio Set & Receivers, and Player Piano. Within each theme, visitors can examine photographs of instruments both familiar and obscure, accompanied by information about the instrumen's history, design, and utility. For example, visitors can check out a 1959 EMI Dictating Machine, a 1925 Player Piano (accompanied by an audio recording), and a 1927 Edison Bell gramophone designed for children. [MMB]

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The team behind ScienceNordic describes this online publication as "the trusted English-language source for science from Nordic countries." ScienceNordic is authored by Forskning.no and Videnskab.dk, science news organizations based out of Norway and Denmark, respectively. Visitors can browse this blog by a number of categories, including Health, Society and Cultures (where visitors will find stories addressing the intersections of science and society), and Technology, Within these categories, readers will find articles about recent research studies, health care innovations, technological developments, environmental news, and more. New articles are added almost daily. ScienceNordic will appeal to researchers and journalists who seek to stay informed about science developments around the globe, as well as anyone with an interest in science, health, and environmental news. [MMB]

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Typography enthusiasts, including professional graphic designers and those of us with a general fondness for font design, will enjoy TypeWolf, a website about "what's trending in type." Authored by professional designer Jeremiah Shoaf (whose clients include the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and The Washington Post to name just a few), TypeWolf features a number of interesting resources and articles. Anyone currently engaged in design projects, such as creating a website, flyer, or infographic, may want to start by checking out Font Recommendations & Lists. Here, visitors can explore Shoaf's top ten fonts that are underused, check out possible alternatives for the ubiquitous Helvetica, and learn where to find free fonts. Meanwhile, Web Fonts in the Wild features a new website (and font) each day, allowing designers to visualize how fonts shape the aesthetic character of different websites. Those interested in reading Shoaf's musings about new developments in the world of typography can do so via his Blog. Finally, the Guides & Resources section offers links to a variety of outside resources including online books, blogs, and more. [MMB]

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What is catnip, and why do cats react to it? What is the best way to clean and care for a cast iron skillet? How does shampoo work? Why do onions make you cry? From the American Chemical Society (ACS) comes Reactions, a series of videos that address the kind of chemistry questions that you've probably found yourself pondering about at some point. Each video is approximately three to five minutes and length and presents a series of engaging video clips and diagrams. Through these videos, viewers will learn about an array of chemical compounds that affect their everyday lives, perhaps in ways they did not realize. These videos make for enjoyable browsing for the generally curious and provide some helpful life hacks to boot. [MMB]

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Literary Hub is an online magazine that strives to be "a single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of contemporary literary life." To do so, Literary Hub partners with a wide variety of sources for literary news and reviews, including publishers, bookstores, and literary journals. Readers will find book reviews, author profiles, interviews, essays, book excerpts, and more. Those looking for a new read may want to start with Bookmarks, a feature that helpfully compiles critical reviews of new books from major publications. Readers can then see how these reviewers assessed the book (reviews are categorized as Rave, Positive, Mixed or Pan) and read these reviews in full. Meanwhile, readers can explore a number of original pieces in Features. As of this write up, recent pieces in Features include an essay by novelist and short story writer Jhumpa Lahiri and a profile of author Jami Attenberg. Those who want to stay informed about literary news may want to sign up for Lit Hub Daily, a regular round-up of literary news from Literary Hub and other publications and organizations. [MMB]

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Jemima Kindersley (nee Wicksteed) was born in Norwich, England in 1741. In 1764, after her marriage to Nathaniel Kindersley, the young couple embarked on a series of global travels. Destinations included Salvador, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope (in modern-day South Africa) and Calcutta, India. In 1777, almost a decade after her return to England, Kindersley published Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies. The book was one of the first travelogues to be penned by a woman. On this website, visitors can browse over 60 transcribed letters penned by Kindersley during her travels. These letters are tagged by a number of terms to aid in browsing, and are perhaps best explored via interactive map, where letters have been arranged by geographic location. Visitors can also browse especially memorable quotes by topic in the Find Quotes By Map section. [MMB]

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First open to the public in 1909 in Baltimore, the Walters Museum began as the collection of William Thompson Walters and his son, Henry. Bequeathed to the city of Baltimore in 1931, the collection has grown to include 35,000 artifacts from "ancient Egyptian mummy masks and medieval armor to 19th-century French impressionism and turn-of-the-century art deco." The Walters collection also includes significant Islamic manuscripts. In 2008, the museum received an NEH grant to catalog and digitize 236 of these illuminated manuscripts dating from the 9th to the 19th centuries containing 53,000 folios (2-page spreads). This exhibition is based on the NEH grant work, and permits visitors to view the manuscripts in an online, page-turner format. For example, W.658 is Kitab-i Bahriye (Book of the Sea), with a Map of the Bay of Salonica, and includes 240 maps and charts, while W.568 is a manuscript fragment of the Qur'an from the 12th century, written on Italian paper in a large Maghribi script. [DS]

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Do you have multiple social media accounts - perhaps a Facebook account for work as well as a personal one? Or do you manage multiple Twitter accounts as part of your job? If so, Ghost Browser may be for you. This free web browser allows users to be logged into multiple social media accounts simultaneously. Available for Mac and Windows computers, Ghost Browser allows users to open and save different accounts through a color-coded tab system. Users can also save these accounts as a project (e.g. "Twitter accounts") in order to open a series of accounts quickly and easily in the future. Ghost Browser also allows users to import bookmarks from existing web browsers and to import Google Chrome extensions. [MMB]

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Finding the perfect image or video clip for a website, poster, or presentation can be a challenge. Pixabay is a helpful repository of images and videos available for use under the Creative Commons CC0 license. On this website, users can browse for images by a number of categories, including Education, Health/Medical, Computers/Communications, and Emotion. In addition to photos, this collection also includes Illustrations, Vector Graphics, and Videos. Pixabay is also available as an Android or iOS application. [MMB]

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