Gettin' "Techie" With It

Knovio Spaces

2011-10-16T12:53:00.000-05:00

Knovio just created an easy way to share your Knovio presentations with others. They call it Knovio Spaces. Knovio turns a powerpoint presentation into a video lesson that records the presenter talking about the powerpoint. Now with a simple way to share presentations with others it becomes an even better tool. Emails are sent to people when you share a presentation with them making it easy to notify colleagues when you have something to share with them. If you have signed up wiht Knovio, you automatically have the ability to create your own Knovio Space with just a click.

WeVideo

2011-10-14T15:15:00.000-05:00

WeVideo is a great site to check out for creating and editing videos. Just upload your video and add graphics, special effects, etc. to create and share your videos with friends. Easy to sign-up and get started and it is free! Lots of possibilities for classroom projects and lessons.

Youtube for Education

2011-10-11T16:07:00.000-05:00

Youtube for Education is a major improvement for teachers who like to use Youtube videos for classroom learning. No longer will you have to worry about comments under the videos or advertisements that might not be appropriate for students' viewing. Finding videos is easy by topics, and best of all Youtube is free. Now you will be able to upload and embed your videos in to your classroom blogs or websites and not have to worry about what other things you might be exposing your students to.

Skype in the Classroom

2011-10-11T16:00:00.001-05:00

Skype in the Classroom is something new from Skype that makes it easy for teachers to find other classrooms to connect with all over the world. Skype in the classroom makes it possible to collaborate on projects, discover and share new teaching ideas. The world is literally at your doorstep. Sign up is easy and free. If your school allows you to access Skype, this would be the route to go.

Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T13:29:00.002-05:00

Steve Jobs gave the commencement address at Standford University in 2005. With his passing it is nice to be able to look back and reflect on what he felt was important in life and learn from it.

Socrative

2011-09-05T17:01:00.001-05:00

Socrative is a student response system that allows students to participate to educational activities using their laptops or smartphones. Sign-up is fast and easy and the teacher can create lessons for students to respond to before they know it. A link is provided for the lesson for students to login and start responding with their laptop or phone. The one problem that I had with Socrative is that the teacher does not see responses to each question as they are presented like one is able to do with hand-held clickers. The teacher also does not see if every student has responded to each question before moving on to another question. Results from the lesson are sent in to the teacher by email just a few minutes after the lesson is completed, but it is still not the instant results that one sees with the hand-held clicker systems. The nice thing about Socrative however is that it is free- and students that don't get the chance to use clickers might like the activity just for a change of pace. Definitely worth trying out.

Knovio

2011-09-02T19:52:00.004-05:00

I have found a new favorite technology tool for the classroom. Knovio is an easy to use tool that teachers and students can use to create great video presentations. All you need to do is a webcam and a microphone to create your video in just 3 easy steps...and Knovio will walk you thru it all the way! Upload a powerpoint- use your webcam to tape you narrating the powerpoint and then save it. A link will be given to you that you can share with students- upload on class blogs and websites- the uses for this tool are endless and worth checking into. Sign-up is fast and easy. You will be creating your video presentations in no time at all!

Planbook EDU

2011-07-07T06:46:00.000-05:00

Planbookedu is a free online lesson planbook for teachers. Sign-up is easy and quick. Teachers will be able to create a planbook that meets their needs. There is a premium plan that costs around $25 per year that allows you to upload files to your planbook, common core standards, embed in your site, etc., but the free plan will give you the basic things that most teachers would be able to make good use of. You will be able to share plans and print off your plans for substitutes and best of all, access your planbook from any computer anywhere.

geoGreeting

2011-06-26T21:06:00.001-05:00

geoGreeting is a really fun way to send a message to your students. No sign-up required. Just type in your message and you will have a link to send with your message created from Google Maps . Here is a link to a message that I made to use for my welcome back to school post on my classroom moodle page.

Papyrs

2011-06-15T08:00:00.001-05:00

Papyrs is such an easy way to collect and share information with others you will have no excuse not to try it out. A wiki that is actually super easy to use. Easy sign-up. You will have your site up and ready to go in no time. I would imagine this would be great for use in schools and classrooms. Papyrs says that no technical knowledge is necessary in order to create your site. I have to agree. Just check out their video to see just how simple it is!

Snip It

2011-04-26T07:19:00.000-05:00

Snip It is a perfect tool to use for cropping You Tube videos for classroom use. No sign up requirement and ease of use makes it a perfect teacher tool for being able to concentrate on that certain segment of a video that ties in with a lesson.

YummyMarks

2011-02-02T10:10:00.000-06:00

YummyMarks is a simple bookmarking tool that allows you to save your favorite websites and take them with you anywhere on any computer. Yummymarks also allows you to import your bookmarks from your Delicious site if so desired. You can keep your bookmarks private or share them with others. The site has a nice look to it, and it is free. I plan on using it as a backup just in case Delicious does run into trouble as I have been reading about in blogs. I can not imagine not having some sort of bookmarking tool to keep track of all the wonderful things out on the internet.

Flash Jeopardy Game Creator

2011-01-29T12:05:00.000-06:00

Custom Flash Jeopardy Games is a free site for creating jeopardy games with flash videos and pictures. Simple to use and gives your review games that extra "umph" that your students will notice and appreciate. Try it out when getting ready to prepare for your state assessments for that extra momentum you might want to create with your class.

Tempinbox

2011-01-29T11:59:00.000-06:00

Tempinbox is just what the doctor ordered for people who hate the spam emails that you tend to get after signing up at various new links. There is no registration for this service and it is completely free. Just add (anything) @tempinbox as your email address when you sign up for a service. Then just go to http://www.tempinbox.com/ and put whatever name you used in front of the @tempinbox in the space provided at the site. This will take you to your email where you can confirm your account. The site also provides several other domain names that you can use if you prefer. Wish I had known about this a couple of years ago!

Festisite

2011-01-19T18:31:00.000-06:00

Want to make some personalized money to use in some of your classroom games? Maybe make your own personalized deck of cards? At Festisite you can do this and a whole lot more. Make your own logos or use Festisite's text layout tool to make original looking assignments. Lots of fun things to try out here. Just upload photos, choose your country for your currency, choose a logo and type in your slogan... Give it a try!

Pixinate

2011-01-10T08:33:00.000-06:00

Pixinate is a fun photo editing site. No sign up is necessary. In no time at all you will be able to upload your photo and edit it or create some fun photos using their special effects. You can save your edited photos to your computer or upload to Flickr. This is a super simple to use site worth taking a look at for some fun and interesting photo editing projects.

Just Paste It

2011-01-10T08:14:00.000-06:00

Just Paste It is a great way to share print, pictures and more with people that you invite to your link. You can insert videos and mathematical formulas. Just Paste It allows you to paste text from word processor as well as import MS Word documents. You can also export your document to PDF. A super collaboration tool.

Quiz Revolution

2010-12-15T09:31:00.001-06:00

Want to make a fun quiz for your class? Try out Quiz Revolution! Free, Easy, fun, and your students will love it. Easy to share or embed in your school website or blog. I have added a simple quiz here to check out. There are plenty more at the site to get more ideas. Lots of background choices...you can upload pictures, videos, and more. Looking for something to wake up your students? This might just do it!

Go Animate for Schools

2010-12-08T08:05:00.000-06:00

I have written about an animation site in an earlier post called Go Animate. I just learned from the iLearnTechnology blog that the site has been improved for teachers and schools. Go Animate for Schools allows teachers to provide up to 100 students with their own individual log-ins to create their own animations. The site is easy to use and it lots of fun. I would think just about any classroom would enjoy creating a project, telling stories, etc. using this animation site.

Juxio

2010-12-06T09:19:00.000-06:00

Juxio is a great site for students and educators to share/upload pictures and include descriptions along side of them. It reminds me a lot of a slide show without sound. Perfect for any school project. Sign up is necessary, but is fast and easy. You will be creating a Jux in no time at all. There are fun examples to check out as well as a nice tutoring video to get you started. I found it to be really fun and can imagine all sorts of uses for it in the History, Language Arts, and just about any classroom. It is easy to share your Jux by email, phone, Facebook and more.

Skype in the Classroom

2010-11-16T13:45:00.000-06:00

My school does not have the resources necessary to Skype, but I do use Skype at home with my family and friends. I can only imagine how useful a tool like Skype in the Classroom could be for teachers. Starting in December of 2010, teachers will be able to register their classroom and find other educators and classrooms with similar interests, etc. to Skype with. I can only hope that in the near future, our school will have the capabilities to do this. Imagine the learning and collaboration that could occur with this wonderful tool!

Photo Visi

2010-11-11T08:18:00.002-06:00

Photo Visi is a site for creating online photo collages. It is the type of site I love to share because it takes no sign-up to use it, which makes it really nice for teachers and students in the school setting. It is super easy to use as well. Just about any grade level student could have fun with this and use it for classroom projects. Here is a collage that I made in just a few minutes using some saved items from my school computer. You have a variety of backgrounds to choose from as well as several layout design choices. Fun to do!

Talking Pets

2010-11-03T14:19:00.002-05:00

This text-to-speech site was just too funny to not share. Talking Pets is a site that allows you to select a pet and make it speak. I have a math project that my students have been working on for a couple of months now. We are collecting data to share later on in December, and this was just a different way of presenting information than a graph or chart, so I thought I would share this video of my dog Henry to give them some ideas!

Paper.li

2010-11-03T09:45:00.000-05:00

With Twitter being the number one tool for learning this year I thought I should share the following tool for those teachers that don't tweet or use Twitter regularly. Paper.li is a site that allows you to read Twitter as a newspaper. You can sign up for the site by using either your twitter or facebook account. Once on the site you will notice a wide variety of topics to choose from such as "education". Click on the topic of your choice, and a variety of "newspapers" by your topic will appear for you to read. I found a couple that I really found interesting. Just another way to keep up with up-to-the-minute news following Twitter.

Final Top 100 Tools for Learning

2010-10-27T13:52:00.000-05:00

Just about one year ago I got started writing this technology blog. Jane Hart's Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009 was the list I used to get started. What a major learning curve it started me on. Here is her new list for 2010. This year unlike last, I am familiar with most of the top tools listed. I still enjoy checking out all the new stuff out there and sharing it with others. I found a new one today in fact that I plan on spending some time with before sharing. Until then- here is the Top 100 Tools for Learning list for 2010.

Animoto Edu Accounts

2010-10-08T14:28:00.003-05:00

Animoto continues to be one of the easiest to use tools for creating "killer" videos from your own pictures and videos. Since I first reported on Animoto, they have come out with edu accounts so that teachers can give students logins in order to create their own videos without having to sign up individually using email addresses, as well as create videos for free that are longer than 30 seconds. In no time at all, you can upload photos/videos, select music, and publish. If you haven't looked at Animoto in a while, you should definitely revisit the site and check out all the new offerings. The video attached is one that I created for our PTO to thank them for all that they do for us.

Gapminder

2010-10-05T18:23:00.001-05:00

Gapminder is a wonderful collection of interactive graphs that describe what is going on in the world- tracking trends such as the wealthiest countries over the past 200 years...the healthiest countries, tracking HIV, and much more- "unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world." A library of over 200 graphs is available for teachers and students. As a math teacher, this site could be used when talking about analyzing data. It is easy to read the Interactive graphs. Color and size of the circles on the graph show the country and amount. Hover over the circles with your mouse and it will tell you the name of the country as well. Science, History and Language Arts teachers could also find a variety of graphs that they could use in class depending on the learning going on in their classrooms.

Embedit.in

2010-09-28T13:44:00.000-05:00

Embedit.in is a free tool to use for embedding documents into your classroom blog or website. It is extremely easy to use. A video at the site gives simple to follow directions. What I love about Embedit.in is that you can decide if you want your document to be printed or downloaded, as well as determine if you want to allow for your document to be embedded elsewhere. I use Box.net for sharing documents on my math blog...but next time I will try embedit.in. (I noticed that embedit.in has now become part of Box.net.)

Symbaloo/EDU

2010-09-25T14:31:00.001-05:00

Symbaloo has just introduced an Edu site with a collection of new and favorite educational resources at your fingertips covering all subject areas. You may add "tiles" for your favorite blogs and educational sites to your Symbaloo account and delete tiles easily. The service is free and it is a great way for teachers to share their resources with other teachers or students. Definitely worth checking out and signing up for a free account if interested. You will find lots of stuff that you can use in your classroom ready to go.

Search Credible

2010-09-14T08:27:00.002-05:00

Search Credible is a great tool for teachers to share with their students to use for doing research. Search Credible is a collection of twenty-six different credible sources that help direct students to the information they are looking for without having to go to several search engines to find it. Now that's pretty incredible!

Spicy Nodes

2010-09-12T11:19:00.001-05:00

I found a site this weekend too cool not to share- Spicy Nodes. Nodes are pieces of information that are visually displayed to easily find/share information. You have to check out the site and see a couple of examples in the gallery to get an idea of what you could do with this site. My imagination is running wild right now thinking about ways that I can use this in my math classroom for my math students. I think students would find this site visually attractive and very easy to navigate. I also like how information is given is small bites but intertwined with so much more. Here is my node that I created using pictures of my family. I found the site easy to use. I plan on creating a more detailed project for my math classes...adding links to math sites, etc. The possibilities are endless!

Virtual Nerd

2010-09-08T18:43:00.002-05:00

Virtual Nerd is a great tutorial site for math and science topics. It is just being developed, and Algebra 1 is up and ready to go, with more math and science topics coming. Go to their homepage and watch their video. It is really awesome. It allows a student to get help on math problems and interact with the program for individual help on steps that they might be having trouble with. There is a free version, sign-up is necessary, but the free version has limited videos. There is a fee if you are interested in having a full premium account...much less than a live tutor....but not free. Teachers have access to more of these videos, but again not access to all. A small fee will allow access to a premium, full-access account. This is not something that I would invest in as a teacher, but if I was a parent of a student with problems in math or science, it might be worth my money. The tutor was easy to understand, and I liked the way they broke down math problems in easy to understand steps.

An update here...Virtual Nerd is completely free for teachers. Read the comment below for the details. Sounds like the Physics starts later on today, as well as more math topics. I will check it out tonight!

School Wax TV

2010-09-08T09:19:00.000-05:00

If your school blocks Youtube or if you are concerned about the access to other videos students have when they get on to some video sites, School Wax TV is for you. This site is created by teachers and has only teacher approved videos for students of all ages. I found some really nice videos for my middle school math students, and there was a really nice selection. It is always nice to have another source for videos to use in the classroom to support student learning.

Map Envelope

2010-09-08T09:12:00.000-05:00

Map Envelope is just a fun site that creates envelopes from Google Maps. No sign-up necessary. Just type in a location or address and add a short note. Your location will appear along with your message. All that you need to do next is print your envelope and mail it to a friend. Pretty cool!

Storybird

2010-09-01T13:53:00.001-05:00

Okay- I found a site that I think is tons of fun for students and teachers alike. Storybird is a collaborative storytelling site in which the writer selects artwork and then creates a story or book using it. Teachers can sign up for a set of classroom logins- no email address from students required. Stories can be published or kept private. I was amazed at the amount of art to select from, and I was inspired to get started right away to try it out myself. I love this site. I would think that any language arts or foreign language teacher could put a site like this to use immediately. Your students will love it!

View Pure

2010-08-30T19:22:00.001-05:00

Do you like to use YouTube in the classroom, but hate the advertisements and comments surrounding the video? View Pure is just what you need to get rid of all of the clutter so that your students can focus on the video alone. Simple and easy to use- perfect tool for the classroom teacher who loves to use videos in the classroom.

Edublogs- Safe Student blogging site

2010-08-30T19:14:00.000-05:00

Edublogs is a great site for teachers and students who want to get started blogging. The great thing that Edublogs has just done is they have made it so that students can start blogs without having to supply an email address. This makes it super easy for students to get started. Why Student blogging? Sue Waters has a great post about this topic in her blog,The Edublogger, in fact, I have not seen a better post about student blogging yet.

Print What You Like

2010-08-23T19:46:00.000-05:00

Don't you just hate making a copy of something from a blog or website, and you end up getting several pages of advertisements and other stuff you don't want? What a waste of paper! Print What You Like will allow you to select what you want to print and that's just what you will get. This is something easy and "green" to do for the environment.

SchoolRack

2010-08-23T19:32:00.001-05:00

SchoolRack is a super teacher-friendly tool for creating a classroom website or teacher blog. I found it super simple to use. I created a website for my middle school's Student Council. You can upload pictures, add pages, create a calendar and there is a discussion board. You are given website address that you can share with your students and parents. It is easy to subscribe to the site for any updates, etc. This is probably one of the easiest website creators that I have tried. It is free to, but if you want to upgrade for more options, there is a minimal cost.

Todays Meet

2010-08-16T20:03:00.003-05:00

Todays Meet is a backchannel tool to use with your classroom of students. A backchannel is all the conversation going on in a room that is not coming from the presenter. It allows students to question and comment on what is going on during a presentation. All you need to do is create a "room" and share the link with whomever you want to invite to the conversation. Now just start talking with each other! It is a lot like Wallwisher, but reads like conversation. This is a very easy and fun site. All sorts of uses for this in a classroom. Check out this video by Richard Byrne from Free Technology for Teachers on how easy it is to get a conversation started!

Flisti- Create Polls for your Classroom...FAST!

2010-08-07T18:11:00.001-05:00

Flisti is a simple poll creation tool that makes it super easy to create polls to embed in your blog or class website. In no time at all you can create a poll for your students to gage their knowledge of certain topics and more. Results are immediate and the site is free.

Screencast-O-Matic

2010-08-02T10:57:00.004-05:00

Screencast-O-Matic is a free tool for creating a screencast that is super simple to use. Teachers can use this tool to record their voices over powerpoints or smartboard lessons- whatever you can capture on your desktop you can turn into a screencast. You can then upload these videos to your desktop or Youtube, classroom blog, etc. I can tell that this will be a tool that I will use in my math classroom. I can make screencasts for lessons that I can upload to my class website for students who might need extra practice at home. Check it out!

Learn it in 5

2010-07-26T13:54:00.000-05:00

Learn it in 5 is a sight specifically made for teachers looking for how-to videos that explain how to use many of the new technologies in their classrooms in less than 5 minutes. Check this site out and select a topic that interests you to get started and see what I mean!

Wix- Free Website Creator

2010-07-07T20:29:00.001-05:00

Wix is a free website creator tool with easy step-by-step directions. I found out about it just the other day from my instructor at an Intel class on Project Based Learning that I am taking. Start your own website in just a few minutes. You will be amazed at how easy it all is. Literally just drag and drop! Perfect for class websites, projects, and more.

Google Docs...Again!

2010-07-07T19:50:00.001-05:00

Richard Byrne has created a great free publication, Google For Teachers II, on his site Free Technology For Teachers. I don't know how he does it all! If you don't follow his blog yet, you should start NOW! Richard continues to share technology and web sites specifically for teachers- at the right price too! Subscribe to his blog and start following it today.

Tube Chop

2010-07-05T09:33:00.001-05:00

Tube Chop is a great tool for "chopping out" your favorite section of a video that you want to share in the classroom. Perfect for using on your favorite videos and Youtube videos when you only want to show just a part of the clip to get your point across.

PDF to Word Converter

2010-07-05T09:02:00.000-05:00

PDF to Word is a free tool that makes it easy to take your PDF files and covert them back to a word file in order to make any changes or updates you would like on your document. Simple to do in three easy steps. Perfect for teachers who have saved tests, etc. as a PDF document, but would like to be able to make some simple changes or updates to the document.

Livebinders

2010-06-24T06:47:00.004-05:00

8th Grade Math

Livebinders is a site that I heard about a few days ago that was mentioned as a possibility to be included in the list for the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010, that will come out in October of this year. I thought I would check it out, and I have been having a great time getting a couple of binders started. Livebinder is a bookmarking tool, but so much more. I have the beginnings of my math livebinder above for you to check out. Basically, you create a 3-ring binder of your favorite things. What is nice about Livebinder is that you can embed your livebinder in your blog. As a teacher, I could select sites that I want my students to have access to and create a binder for them to use. Students and teachers alike could create binders to store all of their research and have things organized using tabs and subtabs. The site is easy to use, and it is easy to add to as well. When I see something I want to add to my binder, I just "Livebinder It" using my tab on my Favorites bar and add it in!

Wordia-Visual Dictionary

2010-06-14T11:01:00.002-05:00

Wordia is a visual dictionary full of great videos used to define vocabulary words, but so much more. Wordia also allows you to ate and upload your own visual definitions for vocabulary words. Word of the Day's just like the video above, and lots of other tools are available. Sign-up is required, but the service is free and school friendly.

Fotobabble- Talking Photos!

2010-06-09T10:12:00.001-05:00

Fotobabble is a site that I heard about on Free Technology for Teachers. It is so easy to use. Just upload a picture and add your voice using the microphone on your computer. In less than three minutes I had signed up and created a talking photo. It was fun and super easy! Unlike Blabberize, which is blocked at my school (although we are allowed to override the filter), fotobabble is not blocked, so access for teachers and students would not be a problem. Blabberize allows you to move the mouths of objects in your pictures and fotobabble does not have this ability- but again, fotobabble can get the same thing done and you don't have to worry about having to override any filters.

Imagination Cubed

2010-06-08T12:24:00.002-05:00

Imagination Cubed is a drawing site that allows you to collaborate with others to create just about whatever you want. Your imagination is the only thing that can stop you. No sign up needed. You can create your own document in no time....but even faster with friends helping you out at the same time! The site also allows for easy upload/embed to your blog or classroom website. Our school might use this for illustrating vocabulary words, but again, the possibilities for the site are limited to your imagination.

Blabberize

2010-06-08T11:27:00.000-05:00

Blabberize is a fun presentation tool. Upload a picture and make it talk. There are lots of possible uses for Blabberize in the classroom. For example, a student could go to Flickr and get a picture of Abraham Lincoln. In just minutes you can select the part of the picture you want to blabberize- record your voice-and save/share it with others. Just one other way to present material in class for book reports, projects, etc. The site is blocked at my school, but teachers/students can override the filter in order to create and view final projects. Try it out- this site is lots of fun!

My 100th Technology Post

2010-06-08T07:58:00.001-05:00

I can't believe that I have reached my 100th post in my technology blog already. When I started this back in October 2009 I had no idea of what I was getting myself into and just how much I would love it. Technology is always changing and improving. It is changing education and the students we teach love it. It seems appropriate that I insert this widget that I found in Teach42, a great blog for educators.

Quietube

2010-06-08T07:38:00.002-05:00

Quietube is a tool I found on the Teach42 blog site that I plan to share with all of the teachers at my school. Any teacher that shows videos on Youtube, Vimeo, etc., in their classroom will love it! Basically Quietube takes out everything else on the screen except for your video. All you will see is the selected video on a blank white screen. Students will be able to focus on the video alone! Watch this short video to see how easy it is to do.

Empressr

2010-06-01T08:59:00.002-05:00

Empressr is a great presentation tool. You can upload your powerpoints and the transitions that you can use in the site make your powerpoint look completely new. You can also create totally new presentations with your photos, videos, etc. Empresser allows access to your presentations from anywhere as well as the ability to share your presentations with others. The site also makes it really easy to embed your presentation into your blog. Sign up is quick and easy. You will have am impressive presentation in no time at all!

Visuwords

2010-06-01T07:59:00.001-05:00

Visuwords is an online graphical dictionary. Just type in your word and the site breaks it down by parts of speech, word meanings, etc. It is a dictionary and a thesaurus all in one. Perfect for teachers, students, visual learners, and it is free!

Snag Films

2010-05-20T11:24:00.003-05:00

Watch more free documentaries

Snag Films is a great site to find/share films for use in the classroom to supplement learning activities. The site even has a widget that you can embed into your blog to contain the films you "snag" for your students to be able to view at home. I created and named my movie theatre widget to put in my blog. It has the video Paper Clips right now. Paper Clips is a documentary about a middle school project that grew out of an 8th grade language arts classroom's study of the Holocaust. The nice thing about the Snag Films site is that not only is it free, but having the widget tool allows students who might have been absent from school the day of a video, the opportunity to watch it at home.

Lovely Charts

2010-05-19T20:52:00.001-05:00

Lovely Charts is a free site for creating great looking flow charts, organization charts, diagrams, and more. There is a 15 minute video at the site that explains all that you can create with Lovely Charts, but you could easily create professional looking charts without watching it. Lots of features make this a great tool for teachers and students alike.

Slideroll

2010-05-16T21:05:00.001-05:00

Slideroll will have you creating slide shows in no time. It is easy to sign up, upload photos, music, and share. Students could use this for class projects and more. This was really simple, fast, fun and free.

spɹɐʍʞɔɐq puɐ uʍop ǝpısdn ǝʇıɹʍ oʇ ʍoɥ

2010-05-11T11:49:00.001-05:00

¡sʇnu noʎ ǝʌıɹp ʎןןɐǝɹ sʇuǝpnʇs ǝɥʇ ¿ɹɐǝʎ ɟo ǝɯıʇ sıɥʇ ǝʌoן ʇsnɾ noʎ ʇ,uop

Well...if your answer to the question I just asked is "yes"...here is how you can get back at your students and drive them crazy for once! How To Type Upside Down and Backwards will do all the work for you and all you have to do is copy and paste your work into your classroom blog, facebook page or whatever. I found this site in Teacher Toys, a blog for teachers written by Mr. Fladd. You will find lots of interesting information at this site. Check it out!

Easy Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers

2010-05-04T17:13:00.002-05:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation by Simon Ward. The emphasis is on "easy" here...and that is a good thing. I am sure you will be able to find something here to try out in your classroom.

Easy Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers

View more presentations from pingable.

Flixtime Video Maker

2010-04-30T21:00:00.002-05:00

Flixtime is a site similar to Animoto, a site that I have blogged about in an earlier post. With Flixtime,you can upload pictures, video, text, and music for your video and Flixtime does the rest. Your finished video is ready for you in just minutes. It is easy to share your video by email, on Facebook, or you can choose to embed it in your blog. The thing that sets Flixtime apart from Animoto is that Flixtime is completely free. Animoto makes free 30 second videos, and you need to pay a minimal fee if you want to take advantage of other options. Sign-up for Flixtime is quick and easy. You will be creating a video in no time. I created the following in probably less than 5 minutes total...didn't put a lot of effort into it, but just trying out the site. It is definitely worth checking out.

Pics4Learning

2010-04-28T11:38:00.000-05:00

Pics4Learning is a great collection of free photos and images for teachers and students to use in the classroom and on projects, etc. Lots of copyright-friendly images are found in an easy to access collection divided into several categories by subject area. Just right-click and save the images you want to use to your computer. I also liked the Recipes4Success tab found at the site. If you have any technology questions...need a guide for instructions on how to use certain technologies in the classroom...your recipe for success can be found here!

LetterPop.com

2010-04-27T11:43:00.003-05:00

Letterpop.com is a fun publishing site for creating eye-catching classroom newsletters and more. It is free to publish up to 12 newsletters a year, but after that there is a small charge. This would be perfect for a teacher who might send home one newsletter a month. The variety of backgrounds is incredible, and the site is very user friendly. Definitely worth checking out.

Lightning Bug- Your Writing Partner

2010-04-27T07:47:00.000-05:00

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter- It is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." Mark Twain

Lightning Bug is a wonderful tool for any writer anywhere. (I absolutely love the inspiration for the name of the site!) It supports a writer from beginning to end. Any tool you could possibly want is here- even a test to see what type of a writer you are. I love this site. I can not imagine any language arts teacher who would not find some use for this in their classroom.

ePub Bud- Publisher

2010-04-26T11:09:00.001-05:00

ePub Bud is a site in which your students can publish their own ebooks and a whole lot more! There are thousands of children's ebooks to download for free. I had fun looking through the selections. Lots of older books I have not seen in awhile, but also newer books such as Harry Potter. As a teacher I would use this site to publish student work. The thing that sets ePub Bud apart from other student publishing sites is the access to free ebooks.

Block Posters

2010-04-21T20:13:00.001-05:00

Block Posters is a free site for creating large posters out of your pictures or drawings. So super simple that anyone can create a block poster in a matter of seconds! No sign-up needed. I plan on creating some fun posters of my students from a math contest we went to recently and display them in my classroom.

Draw.to

2010-04-21T07:20:00.001-05:00

Check out Draw.to. You can literally get on the site and draw a picture immediately. No sign-up or registration needed. It is easy to share your drawings by email, instant messaging, facebook, etc. You are also able to embed your drawing into your blog site. I embeded my drawing for you here. I wish I was a better artist! I would imagine teachers and students alike would find many uses for this in the classroom for projects, etc. I found it really easy to use with my interwrite pad- made drawing a little easier for me!

Stiqr

2010-04-16T11:36:00.000-05:00

Stiqr is a free and fun website creator site that allows you to easily add fun stickers and more to your blog. All you need to do is embed their special code onto your blog and you can begin to attach your stickers and create a unique blog. I had embedded Stiqr to my blog the other day and put some stickers on my post for the day and noticed the next day at school that my blog did not open. Apparently my school blocks blogs when Stiqr is embedded in the blog. Needless to say, I had to remove Stiqr from my blog so I as well as other teachers in my district could open the blog at school. I have to say however, that Stiqr is easy to use and has some great ways to make your blog unique and stand out if you use the program.

Toondoo

2010-04-14T16:58:00.005-05:00

By croitz

View this Toon at ToonDoo
Create your own Toon

Toondoo is a fun and simple site for students to create comic strips. Lots of backgrounds, characters, and more to choose from. You can share your comic with friends, keep it private, or share it with everyone. One thing about Toondoo that I really like is the ability to create a book of comic strips. This gives students lots of room for creativity and a chance to tell an even bigger story.

Tikatok

2010-04-13T20:30:00.000-05:00

Tikatok is a classroom publishing site that has free education accounts for teachers to set up for the students in their classroom. Students will have fun writing and publishing their stories for their family and friends. It is amazing to me how serious students are about their writing when they know it is going to be published. Suddenly, students take more time developing their ideas, checking their punctuation and spelling, and doing what they need to do to create a product that they will be proud of.

Google Docs Getting Better and Better

2010-04-13T20:11:00.001-05:00

Google Docs keeps updating and improving to increase ability to collaborate. Check out the video above. Google Search Stories Creator is another cool tool that I can see all sorts of possiblities for in the classroom. The link will take you to sample stories. Once you have checked out some samples, click on "create your own story" and in just three easy steps...write and search your terms, add music, and then preview and upload and you are done.

Fodey- Newspaper Clipping Generator

2010-04-09T11:08:00.001-05:00

Fodey is an easy to use newspaper clipping generator that is fun and easy to use. I created this one to display in my math class after state assessments were completed. Students loved it! I can imagine all sorts of uses for Fodey in a history, science or language arts classroom. It is easy to copy and embed in blogs or classroom websites. I am sure you can think of some uses for it in your classroom right now. Go ahead and give it a try!

Tagul

2010-04-01T18:29:00.003-05:00

Tagul is a fun tool for creating word clouds like Wordle with a twist. Every word in your word cloud is linked to Google search. Here is one I created for April Fool's Day. Sign up is free, and you can easily create up to 20 free Taguls of your own.

Mixbook

2010-03-16T19:15:00.000-05:00

Mixbook is a fun site to create your own picture or storybook. Students will love to create their own books using pictures of their own or from various sites such as Flickr. Lots of background choices, stickers, and more to create a one-of-a-kind book for a class project or a personal project. You can easily embed your Mixbook in your blog or website. Easy, fun, and free. Sign up for an educator's account and get your class started.

View Sample Photo Books
Create your own Photo Book

Exploratree

2010-03-16T14:53:00.001-05:00

Exploratree is a free web resource for organizing and collaborating. Students can find several possible "thinking trees" to use for organizing their thoughts and creating plans for projects and ideas. It is easy to create your own thinking tree if you would like. Your organizer can be shared easily with others who you invite to view your tree. They can change and make comments on your plan. It is also possible to use your tree and view it as a powerpoint type presentation with others. I can see all sorts of uses for this tool in the classroom for teachers and students alike. I have always found that students do better work when given a rubric or a graphic organizer to keep them focused on desired outcomes. This site just takes it to the next level. It is interactive and easy to use. The site has several videos that give students examples of how to best use the site.

Type With Me

2010-03-09T13:51:00.000-06:00

Typewith.me is a free collaborative site for creating word documents just like Etherpad, but without the sign-up. Etherpad was bought a few months ago by Google, and Google has not done much with it. Typewith.me is exactly like it. Just get started, invite others to join in and work on the word document together. Each person's work will be highlighted with a different color. The best part is no sign-up.

Pro-Profs

2010-03-08T20:04:00.000-06:00

Pro-Profs is a site for creating flashcards, online quizzes, polls, blogs, wikis, and other knowledge sharing tools...and all for free. The quizzes or polls can be embedded in your blog making it easy to check for student understanding. Several tools for teachers all in one place.

Math Live

2010-03-08T19:26:00.000-06:00

Math Live is an interactive math site that I would have enjoyed when I was in upper elementary or middle school....in fact I plan on sharing this with my middle school pre-algebra students. I love that the activities used to teach math skills are realistic. I did the lesson on ordering fractions. It involved students who took a water sample from a pond and compared the amount of insect larve to water spiders. Extra activities and lesson assessment is available for parents and teachers. This is definitely a site worth checking out.

Team Maker

2010-03-05T11:49:00.000-06:00

Team Maker is a tool for creating teams from your class list. In just seconds you can create lists for activities in the classroom. Don't like the way the groups turn out? Just hit a button and Team Maker mixes groups up again. Perfect for a busy teacher that likes to change up groups a lot, as well as middle and high school teachers with multiple classes.

Awesome Highlighter

2010-03-04T20:17:00.000-06:00

Awesome Highlighter is a free web tool that can be used to highlight web articles and save or send them with highlights to a friend. Just put in the address to the site you want to highlight and get started. You can email your article with highlights to friends and they can easily see what you want them to read.

1, 2, 3, Your WebQuest for Free

2010-03-02T13:55:00.000-06:00

1, 2, 3, Your WebQuest for Free gives teachers the building blocks for creating WebQuests. Using this site will save teachers lots of time and when finished gives your WebQuest a professional look. Directions are easy to follow and your WebQuest can be created in 6 different languages! A perfect tool for teachers to get students learning to use the web for project work.

Certificate Street

2010-03-01T17:26:00.000-06:00

Certificate Street is a great site for teachers who need a free and easy site to create certificates for classroom awards, etc. Lots of variety here. No need for your classroom awards to all look the same anymore.

Wall Wisher

2010-03-01T11:32:00.001-06:00

Wall Wisher is an internet application that allows for easy communication with others about topics...kind of a big bulletin board with post-it notes. Teachers can use it as a wall for students to post comments or questions about a lesson. You could use it as a "to-do" list maker, note-taker, well wisher, announcements, etc. The site is free and really easy to sign up and get started on a wall. You can keep your wall private, or you can open it up to others to add to your wall. I think I could use it in my classroom for students to leave feedback about topics that we are discussing in class. I think students get a lot out of seeing their peers comments on their learnings about a new topic being taught. Wall Wisher helps to keep all of these thoughts/ideas organized and in one place.

Read-Write-Think Flip Books

2010-02-26T13:50:00.000-06:00

Read, Write, and Think Flip book is a great site for students to use in order to create their own foldable flip books in just about any subject area. Language Arts teachers might like students to write a story with their flip book. As a math teacher, I could have students create a flip book to use as a study guide, or create a vocabulary review flip book, or maybe a flipbook to use for review, such as how to find the area of different shapes. Your imagination is the only thing that can hold you back on this site!

Kerpoof

2010-02-26T13:33:00.000-06:00

Kerpoof is a fun site for students to create movies, cards, stories, and a host of other activities for school projects. The teacher page has lots of information on how to use Kerpoof in the classroom. Teachers can also sign up for a teacher account so that students will not have to sign up for individual accounts. Kerpoof is very user friendly, and seems to be geared more for elementary or early middle school aged students.

Be Funky

2010-02-25T21:13:00.000-06:00

Be Funky is a great site to change your digital images into something "funky"! This free site offers you 147 different ways to change your uploaded photo...everything from cartoonizer to impressionist to just about anything you can think of. Really easy to do. I could see students enjoying experimenting around with this site. You could even come up with some cool avatar type characters here with your own photos to use on your blogs.

Free Digital Storytelling To Download on Lulu

2010-02-23T13:36:00.000-06:00

You can download this digital storytelling book for free on Lulu if interested, or purchase a hardback copy for $8.50... a pretty good price for any book these days. Free Technology For Teachers gives out great information that you can use in your classroom on a regular basis. This is where I found out about this book.You should subscribe to this site by David Byrne. I promise you- you won't be sorry.

Issuu Publishing Site

2010-02-21T14:36:00.001-06:00

Issuu is another free publishing site for uploading documents, projects, etc. Send in your document to Issuu and in seconds you have a professional looking book, magazine, or newspaper. Perfect for student projects to embed in your class blog. Much like Yudu and Youblisher. So easy even a non-techie person can do it!

eyePlorer

2010-02-20T10:47:00.000-06:00

EyePlorer is a great research tool for both teachers and students. Just type in a subject and within seconds you will have a world of information at your fingertips. I wish I had had a tool like this when I was in school. As a teacher, I would use this to find interesting information that I could add to my class discussions.

Web 2.0 Student Video

2010-02-18T19:01:00.001-06:00

Check out this You Tube video made by a 7th grader that describes the 21st century learning tools she uses in her science class. I found this on Twitter today. It comes from Cathy Nelson's Techno Tuesday Blog. If you like the desktop that the student uses in her video to organize and bookmark all of her learning sites you can create one of your very own at Symbaloo. If you want to get more ideas about technology in the classroom check out Cathy's blog... I think I just found another blog that I want to follow!

How Do I ____ ?

2010-02-18T11:24:00.000-06:00

How do I ? is a simple but useful site to help teachers and students find videos, web sites, instructional information,etc. for just about any topic. Just fill in the blank, hit "enter", and go on from there.

Diigo

2010-02-17T18:04:00.000-06:00

Diigo is a bookmarking site that made the Best Web Sites for Teaching and Learning. Watch the video and you will understand why. I plan on starting one today! The thing that sets Diigo apart from other bookmarking sites is that it allows you to make notes and highlight on the webpages you want to save, you can create tabs, and also share your bookmarks making it perfect for collaborative projects among teachers and students. Teachers also have access to a free premium account designed especially for them. Check out the video below and check out their website. I am sure that you will want to get a Diigo account started too.

Writing Fix

2010-02-17T11:17:00.000-06:00

Writing Fix is a site that I first read about in 101 Best Websites for Teacher Tools and Professional Development, by James Lerman. I immediately shared it with my language arts teachers here at my middle school after looking into it. I was amazed at all the site had to offer for teachers K-12. Over 200 interactive writing prompts, 6+1 Traits Model, poetry, journaling, you name it, it is here! My language arts teachers loved it, but being a math teacher I forgot all about the site until my curriculum director sent me an email to share the site today and so I thought I had better include it on my blog so that any interested reader could check it this wonderful tool for teaching writing skills. Don't let all the writing on the website scare you off. There is lots of good stuff here.

Web List- Bookmarking Tool

2010-02-16T17:31:00.002-06:00

Web List is a bookmarking tool that is much like delicious . It saves all of your favoite sites in one place, but the difference is you will see a visual of your saved websites instead of just a list of the sites. Sign up is easy and fast. You can create different weblists depending on your needs. Teachers might find these easier to use when creating lists of links for students to use in their research projects. Having a variety of links for students in one place makes research easier for students as well as keeps them out of sites that you don't want them to go to. Definitely something worth checking out- even if you just want to keep all of your favorite sites just for yourself.

My Study Bar

2010-02-13T07:42:00.000-06:00

MyStudyBar is a set of portable open source and freeware applications to support learners with literacy difficulties but is a tool that all learners can benefit from. The great thing about the study bar is that it is free and you can access the tools from any computer anywhere.The toolbar includes a range of tools to support inclusion such as mind mapping, screen masking, word prediction, talking dictionary, text-to-speech, Save as MP3 and voice recognition. You do have to download the application to your computer, but after that you are good to go. The link provided will take you to the resource page for downloading MyStudyBar as well as other support and information for how to use this valuable learning tool.

Make Your Own Kindle eReader

2010-02-12T16:26:00.001-06:00

LifeHacker is a site I follow that is full of interesting how-to information. The other day they shared information on how to turn your netbook into a Kindle Reader for free. In less than five minutes, I had downloaded the sites and downloaded a book to read on my little netbook. I can't tell you how excited I am about this. Here is what you do if you are interested and want an eReader of your own. To turn your computer screen sideways to read and hold your netbook like a real text use EeeRotate. It takes just seconds and then with just your computer's Control-Alt-Arrows keys, you turn your computer screen sideways! Next, download Amazon KindlePC. It takes just a couple of minutes. In no time at all I had downloaded a book, but before I start reading it, I had to share the LifeHacker site and how you can make your computer into a Kindle of your own...for free!

A Thin Line

2010-02-12T13:35:00.003-06:00

A Thin Line is a site that I would have shared with my own girls when they were teenagers. My girls were teens back in the '90's when very few teenagers carried around cell phones or texted all that much. I can't remember my students in the middle school back then having cell phones at all. Now it is a different story. The bell rings at the end of the day and you see students walking out the door with the cell phone to their ear. At afterschool events, teens text and visit with their friends sitting nearby simultaneously. Most teens these days have a Facebook page and use it. It is a different world than it was when I was a teenager when you had one or maybe two landline phones that the whole family shared!. This digital saftey site for teens has an on-line quiz, videos, activities, and lots of other information for teens and young adults about cyber bullying, sexting, and what can happen when you do not use digital media appropriately. There are several short videos that could be shown in class to get a conversation going...and hopefully get students to thinking about the implications of digital abuse.

You Tube and Saftey Mode

2010-02-10T21:42:00.002-06:00

My school district has just opened up the web to teachers at our school...21st century here we come! A few teachers I have talked to who use YouTube have heard from our IT director soon after being on the site about objectionable sites visited on the computer. Check out this YouTube Saftey Mode video, and hopefully this will solve your problems. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have this set up on your school computer anyway...protects not only the students, but the teacher as well...and will give IT directors everywhere less to worry about!

Google Buzz

2010-02-10T21:17:00.000-06:00

Google Buzz is the new topic (buzz) on the blogs I follow and the video above explains very nicely how it all works. Buzz is connected with your GMail account, and it will allow you to share links, tweets, images and links to sites of interest with people that are in your gmail account. As far as classroom use, Google Buzz would be helpful for those collaborative projects and group activities assigned...making it easier for students and teachers alike to communicate with one another.