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Gamestar Mechanic features gameplaying leading to gamebuilding. Excellent problem-solving skills required. Accessible to older elementary and middle school students. The AMD challenge takes this interactive work into the realm of global issues, asking players to create games that have social impact. IBMYP teachers may see this as Community and Service. Students are asked to use the elements they have learned to make a game that raises awareness about challenges like "energy, food, pollution, and poverty." BTW, my 5yo loves this: enjoys playing others game and creating his own. He truly gets the collaborative nature of this space.

Easy to coordinate with use of student's own mobile devices or a classrooms set of iPod touches. Make your students aware of the organisms around them. Show students how to participate in research through collaboration. Works on android and iPhone platforms. Great connection of science to a theme like "Community and Service." I would use with elementary level students.

The Open Educational Resources (OER) Commons is a collection of resources including open textbooks, lesson plans, and other materials. The thousands of items available can be searched by grade level and subject. All materials are available according to the different types of Creative Commons license. Teachers can work collaboratively in the wiki to create new materials; tagging and social bookmarking are features of the site.

Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Easy to collaborate or submit assignments for viewing. Create forms that can be used as surveys to collect information.

Wikis are very easy to use and they allow for collaboration and organization. You can use a wiki to post information or answer questions. Wikis are suitable for publishing assignment dates or content. Students can use a page to work together on a project. Wikis can be good spaces for eportfolios, too. Like websites and blogs, other media can be embedded. This video talks about wikis in general.

"InterroBang is a socially networked problem solving game where middle and high school students complete real-world missions to win prizes, learn problem solving and connect with others to change the world. InterroBang players are awarded points for completed missions based on a problem-solving rubric. Teachers can use InterroBang to extend learning from their classrooms with these student-centered activities. 1. Pick a MISSION. Start easy (10 points) and work your way up. There are many to choose from: more added every week since students can add missions as well. 2. Make a PLAN. We'll help you get started. Do it by yourself or collaborate with your friends and people on your team. 3. Go out and DO IT. Have fun. Document what you're doing with text, pictures, video, and audio. 4. You must PROVE you did it. Upload pictures and videos that verify you completed the mission. Tell us in detail about your experience. 5. CONNECT with the community. Take a look at what other players are doing. Make strategic alliances. Create missions."

Easy to use and free. You can start a brainstorming map and ask friends to join you in adding to it. Using the tool is easy. If you choose to "publish" your map you can share your map to your blog or website.You can add an image by using its URL or you can do a Google search for images without leaving the map. Attach a note or a to-do list to a node. Just seeing these possibilities makes me wonder how I could use maps in new ways. They even let you link to other maps, allowing you to nest information of all kinds. A bird's eye view is available within the screen so you can see the overall structure or move the mouse on it to show another part of the map in the large window. Lots of functionality!

"Vanished is an 8-week online/offline mystery game for middle-school children, meant to inspire engagement and problem solving through science. Developed and curated by MIT's Education Arcade and the Smithsonian Institution, VANISHED is a first-of-its-kind experience where participants become investigators racing to solve puzzles and other online challenges, visit museums and collect samples from their neighborhoods to help unlock the secrets of the game. Vanished also provides a unique opportunity for players to collaborate Smithsonian scientists, MIT students, and their peers online. Players can only solve the mystery by using real scientific methods and knowledge to unravel the game's secrets." Forums, games and videoconferencing are all parts of working together to solve the mystery.

Morguefile.com free stock photos Students need access to plenty of content that is available for them to use if they are creating - useful for everything from Animoto to websites.

EduPic Graphical Resource is a teacher designed free image resource for use by teachers and students. All images contained within are free for use by educational professionals and the students they serve without permission. All other use is by permission.

Create a presentation that lives in the cloud - accessible anywhere you can hop on the internet. Insert text and photos. Zoom in and out. Play with the path you take through your presentation. The nonlinear presentation style may remind some of sitting in the midst of piles of papers preparing to type a paper. Students in middle school will use this to its best advantage, given some time to be creative. Of course teachers can use this one for their presentations, too. .prezi-player { width: 550px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }Thoughts on using Prezi as a teaching tool on Prezi

Use this tool to make an interactive poster. You can add all different types of media to this page, making it good for multimodal 21st century learning. Would work well with lots of subjects, but could be especially fun for addressing communication and math. Students could make a Glogster for a word problem they write or explain the concept of slope using a variety of formats. Older students could even work on analyzing data to make their own infographics. This is great for getting students to respond in a variety of modes. Teachers could use this as a communication tool for parents - with info, pics, and videos. Below is an example of a glog made by a 7th grade teacher to "sell" a book -students could make their own glogs similar to this one instead of a traditional book report.

Example of an interdisciplinary project and digital collaboration - with some fun science content. To participate in the current project with your elementary or middle school class, investigate Bugscope at http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/.

"[L]esson plans and teaching ideas to related real-world multimedia examples of excellence in teaching, especially focusing on collaborative efforts between classroom teachers and library media specialists in K-12." "The development of media submission software accessible from the S.O.S. site enables educators to upload digital photos and multimedia support materials that help illustrate their lesson plans and ideas. A new feature, buILder (stands for Information Literacy Builder), will allow users to translate lesson plans into actual online lessons for their students. That is, instructors will be able to actually build an online lesson with menus, links, and of course, the research challenge."

Choose an artist and create a story with that art. The pictures can inspire you. It is like a visual story starter. Students would have to lay out the pictures in the order they want and supply the test to accompany them. There are special teacher/class accounts to help educators get around the issue of student emails. I feel like this would work best for the Upper Elementary crowd - 4th to 6th - because some of the picture options are a little dark. I also think that the leaps that might be needed to make one page connect to another well would require some more sophisticated thought. Very appropriate for a poetry/rhyming type unit - on the writing end. What I like best about this site is that it shifts the way you look at writing - it presents new possibilities.

Games that relate to concepts like factoring, combining like terms, and perimeter. Join as parent, student, teacher. Players can work against the computer or challenge other members to a game. Fun to play! Appropriate for Upper El and Middle School.

Like Project Noah, this citizen science project aims to involve people from all over in the process of gathering data. Focusing on the fireflies (in New England or elsewhere), this might be a little harder to work on in class - due to the hours, the timing of the school year, or location. It is a great example of partnerships - two colleges and a museum partnering together with the public for learning. Personally, I would probably visit the "Open Call" section with MS students and work on analyzing the data they have collected. You can use the Many Eyes site to make visualizations and maps based on their information from the past years. If you are in IBMYP, consider looking at this issue through negative side of Human Ingenuity - how does the bug spray we use to keep away mosquitos and other insects affect species that do not harm us?

Word-related fun! Browse their online dictionary. Play games for vocabulary and spelling. Make and define your own words using the build-your-own dictionary feature. Resources for teachers include background information on dictionaries and words. You can access the Scripps' Spelling Bee information from this site. Probably best for 2nd to 4th grade.

Explore Engineering. Good for 3-5th graders exploring man-made structures or forces & materials. Labs and challenges let kids "see" the possibilities and problem-solve. Includes a database of big structures for kids to research. Activities and links for bridges, domes, skyscrapers, dams and tunnels. Students could definitely use this information to outline their own big ideas - it would be fun to follow some of this work up with real-life collaborative design and model-making.

Add content to a picture - label it, color it, include lines and shapes, and add links to closeup pics. Lots of possibilities with the editing tools. Could be used with diagrams from science, maps, historical photos or artwork. Easy to embed or share. Below is a picture annotated to give more information about JFK's assassination.