Group items tagged

SimplyBox is a great way to add some Web 2.0 to your research. This would be esp. useful with group objects where students can then look at what each other group member has found. Use SimplyBox for Education, and get the free app (also has fee-based district or school-wide application that can be hosted and access controlled safely, and boxing from any application). The teacher could start the ball rolling, and have students join in, boxing their own sites and info. Esp. good for visual learners. This page has three good help videos: Overview, Sharing, and Twittering with SimplyBox. Fairly easy to use, once you get used to it.

This video shows how to use Feed Marklet to create a button on your browser toolbar to add an RSS feed. Takes about 1 minute. You can use an RSS feed to keep track of student Webpages, and have them use it to keep track of each other's work. For instance, they might add all the pages they are making, or their blogs, and so be able to read them quickly when new content is added.

"Knowitall.org is ETV's educational Web portal, a collection of fun, interactive websites for K-12 students, teachers and parents." Has culture snapshots (eg, Gullah Net), how-tos, history-related features (Road Trip through Civil Rights History). jobs, health, career development resources, etc. K-12 with an emphasis on younger kids.

"SnagLearning is dedicated to presenting high-quality documentary films as educational tools to ignite meaningful discussion within the learning community." A great place to gather information and stimulate discussion. Also links to other respected content sites, such as PBS for Teachers and Discovery Education.

A social blog oriented to middle-school learners. Teacher can set questions and request students to join. Free. Nice instructional video at the >Learn more about link. There are also many teacher/school district blogs to view as examples.

"4Teachers.org works to help you integrate technology into your classroom by offering online tools and resources. This site helps teachers locate and create ready-to-use Web lessons, quizzes, rubrics and classroom calendars. There are also tools for student use." Loads of tools.

This is an incredibly useful resource for language classes. In combination with news syndicates like ABC, Fox, AP, and AFP, Mapeas collects video news and locates it on a Google map. Students learn geography, read news in English or an FL, and can specify business, entertainment, science news, etc.

A screencaster on the Internet--nothing to download. For Mac or PC, you can record anything within a liited frame for 5 min., so this would be nice to help students start running a program or to create their own short presentations. Easy to upload to YouTube, embed on a Website, or download as mp4. See R. Stannard's instructional video

"Brainstormer is a great tool for group brainstorming. Teachers and students contribute ideas to a shared board, build on each other's thoughts, and vote for their favorite ideas. Plus, it's completely free and no accounts are required. " T/h Nick LaFave

Stannard's training video on how to use Windows Movie Maker (Windows 7) is very detailed and complete. Subsequent parts give directions for XP and Vista. He first suggests downloading the free classic version, which has more features than WMM for Win 7.

Shows how you can use Xtranormal to make 3-D characters. Your students can create a movie scenario, write the script, make the characters, select camera angles, add voices (in several languages) in quite long dialogues, and share the movie by email. Stannard takes you through the entire process (about 10 min.) using a Camtasia screencast.

A very extensive wiki with links to a huge number of Web2.0 tools, such as presentation programs, mindmapping, comics, image sharing and editing, search, etc.

How to use Twitter for your classroom. Another great video by Russell Stannard. that shows you all the ins and outs of this social networking device as it would be used for educational purposes.

Collaborative storytelling beginning with excellent pictures from which children can develop stories. Share, read, and print.

Create a meeting room as a backchannel, where comments by participants can be seen as a feed, put up into your own presentation, etc., so that distance participants can be interactive. Save feeds to see them later, and use them with students to make instant comments on an assigned subjectas the basis for discussion. Linked to Twitter.

Jing is used to make screen casts, and Stannard uses it for his own teachrtrainingvideos.com. Where to get it, how to use it, and so on. Screencasting is a great way to show students how to use a program by making a video (with audio) of its operation on your own desktop. With a small fee you can also make MPEG-4 videos, post on YouTube, etc. Or have students make screencasts of new tools for each other.

This great blog entry has a good description of free tools and their advantages and drawbacks. BTW, Jing is highly recommended and used by Russell Stannard.