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"Below are some great web tools that you can use to create interactive lessons and presentations. These tools  allow you to breathe life into your teachable content through the use of images, videos, links to web pages and many more. Some of them even enable you to gather instant feedback from students through synchronous polls or text messaging."

"So it's mid-August and for many teachers the new school year has begun and for others it's not too far away. Some of you will be starting at new schools and with that there's a chance that you'll be coming to terms with a new interactive whiteboard. You may already be familiar with whiteboards already, and are just starting at a school with a different brand. Either way, here's a summary of blogposts I've written in the past that hopefully will prove useful to you."

This could be a useful reference for some of you heading to schools.

"Ask a question, make a hypothesis, and observe what happens in this Sesame Street interactive science experiment! Help renowned scientists, Cookie Monster and Emma, investigate what sinks in water and what floats in water! Experiment with a rubber band ball, a lime and lemon, Ernie's rubber duckie, and a coconut. Start the experiment here! Will Bert's underpants sink or float? Go to http://www.sesamestreet.org/sinkorfloat for the full interactive experiment and find out."

Check out this really neat use of hot spots in YouTube movies to make interactive movies

Based on a simple concept, powerful technology, and a highly intuitive interface, SpicyNodes is easy to author. In a few minutes you can make an interactive site map, or repurpose your existing content into an inviting portal with unique visual appeal. With a few clicks, you can customize your nodemap's appearance and share it with others or embed it into your web site or blog. It's also a fresh way to display information for various creative and educational uses, from concept maps, to poetry and art, to new user interfaces and visualizations.

"Create free timelines. Follow interesting stories, get updates and notifications with "Today in history". myHistro is an interactive diary and a story-flow generator for bloggers. Unlimited space, unlimited number of photos! Create as many stories as you want and export these into Google Earth (KML) or spreadsheet format (CSV)! See the story on map and timeline, read more by "manually" turning pages or see the story summary as a simple chronological list of events. Try them all! My Histro also has an app.

Pinky Dinky Doo harnesses the power of television, print, and interactive media to promote reading and imaginative storytelling. To achieve this, Pinky invites children to participate in funny and fantastic stories, games, and songs that support critical early literacy skills.

"Popular efforts to improve education are focusing on the wrong problem. Millions of dollars and hours of innovation are being spent on improving how we deliver content in an era when content matters less and how we interact with it matters more."

Qwiki enables you to create amazing interactive stories in minutes from your browser. They can include a range of content from Google Maps, Flickr, YouTube and more, plus files from your own computer. You can add narration and other soundtrack. The Qwiki community is also a great place to find presentations.

"As a guy who delivers two-day #edtech workshops during my breaks from full-time classroom teaching, I'm often asked the same questions again and again: How can teachers use technology to motivate students? What digital tools do kids like best? My answer often catches participants by surprise: You can't motivate students with technology because technology alone isn't motivating. Worse yet, students are almost always ambivalent toward digital tools. While you may be completely jazzed by the interactive whiteboard in your classroom or the wiki that you just whipped up, your kids could probably care less."

"Over the last 12 months both Facebook and Twitter have quietly removed RSS links from their webpages, eliminating an easy way to receive notifications without the need to interact with the services directly. Meanwhile Google+ has never offered RSS feeds. Of course it's clear that these social media services have an interest in killing off RSS. They all want to usurp its role as the web's universal subscription platform and become the de facto gatekeepers of the web."

Google has developed an interactive curriculum on YouTube to support teachers in educating students on how to be safe, engaged and confident model netizens. The initiative is aimed at students aged 13 to 17 and will help them to develop digital literacy skills on YouTube that would be applicable across the web. A list of 10 lessons has been devised, in which students can learn about YouTube's policies, how to report content, how to protect their own privacy, and how to be responsible YouTube community members and, in the broader picture, digital citizens. Each lesson comes with guidelines for teachers and ready-made slides for presentation. There's also a YouTube Curriculum channel where videos related to the project will be posted.

YouTube first introduced its editing tool for YouTube video around this time last year, and now editing videos on YouTube is even easier. Thursday, the company rolled out an updated and simplified interface for editing clips. The editor now has a quick-view for all of the available filters, and as you're editing your video you can check out a real-time interactive preview of any enhancements you've made.

Teachers and students can use Gooru to search for rich collections of multimedia resources, digital textbooks, videos, games and quizzes created by educators in the Gooru community. Gooru is free (of cost and ads) and developed by a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to honor the human right to education. Search for the best multimedia resources on the web. Customize your favorite resources, collections and quizzes. Study from collections of resources created by teachers. Interact with the Gooru community of teachers and students. Practice with enhanced quizzes that provide instant feedback. Share your knowledge about topics you are passionate about.

"Technology is transforming today's educational landscape, reaching children's fingers before they reach their shoes. According to the infographic below from LearnStuff.com, 70 percent of children between the ages of 2-5 can use a computer mouse, while only 11 percent can tie their own shoes. Today's generation is growing up with technology, proving to reject traditional beliefs about how people learn. 90 percent of students think tablets help them study more efficiently, and cause them to read 1.5 more books annually. Read the infographic below to see how students interact with technology along their scholastic path, from grade school to graduation."

"Individuals who are not digitally literate are at a disadvantage when it comes to interacting with others and being employed in the 21st century.  But ignorance of the appropriate use of digital technologies can cause serious personal problems as well."

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has launched a guide to being positive about digital engagement'' rather than being a wary Internet user. The Guide facilitates confident online engagement by citizens through identifying three principles which reflect the required values, skills and knowledge: Engage positively: exercise your rights and responsibilities as a digital citizen Know your online world: learn new skills and digital technologies Choose consciously: take charge of how you interact online.

"Clearly, ThingLink is becoming a popular interactive visual image editor for educators across the world. So it is truly no surprise that ThingLink for Video can be just as powerful for transforming classroom instruction and augmenting videos. "

""When people learn to play videogames," according to James Paul Gee, "they are learning a new literacy." This is one of the reason kids love playing them: They are learning a new interactive language that grants them access to virtual worlds that are filled with intrigue, engagement and meaningful challenges. And one that feels more congruent with the nature and trajectory of today's world. "

"Revolver Maps are interactive visitor globes rendered by the Revolver Engine. Check the widget on the left: Use the buttons or drag to navigate. The Revolver Graphics Engine is a strongly specialized 3D renderer. It's available as a Java version as well as a Flash version. The RevolverMaps Service bases on both implementations. Now have a closer look: Every visitor leaves an eternal dot on the globe, recent visitors are tagged by the labels showing flag, city and state. You're invited to set up a globe and add it to your site in just a few steps: "

The Exploratree web resource has been developed by Futurelab and emerged out of our work on the Enquiring Minds project. It provides a series of ready-made interactive 'thinking guides' or 'frameworks' which can support students' projects and research. Thinking guides support the thinking or working through of an issue, topic or question and help to shape, define and focus an idea and also support the planning required to investigate it further. Exploratree guides can be used as a basis for whole class discussion, or emailed to individuals or groups to complete. They can also be used as a presentation tool to share your findings and thinking with others. As well as providing a set of ready to use thinking guides, which are completely customisable and shareable, Exploratree also enables teachers and students to create their own simply and easily.