Been a fan of this site for a while and didn't realize I hadn't bookmarked it yet. Instead of arranging photos in a traditional album,Synth finds relationships among pictures and digitally composites them to create a 3-D experience. Awesome!

Great file sharing option for those who like to have access to files on different computers or want to create backups. Also, great for collaborating with others.

Another polling site. This one is the brainchild of Nate Silver. His predictions during the 2008 presidential election were consistently more accurate than the national media outlets. He must be doing something correctly. BTW, he's a baseball statistician by trade.

Aggregation of poll data. Great way of exploring data with lots of social studies/current events connections. Time rates this as one of the fifty best sites this year. Worth a few minutes of exploration.

There are lots of collaborative voting and comment sites out there - Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Metafilter is another one. It costs five dollars to join, but that cost keeps lots of spammers and ads off the site. A great plus.

University lectures available online from all over the world, including MIT, Harvard, etc. Not necessarily great lectures all the time, but great sources of information and sometimes great examples of lecture done well.

...is a deliberately eclectic mix of tech commentary, sci-fiction nerd-outs, fringe culture, gadgets, and serious news items. It is, according to its own description, a "directory of wonderful things."

Great opportunity to collaborate online with scientists researching real questions: "the team is trying to answer the question - how do the skeletal muscles of seals develop to work during deep dives, even when the animal is not breathing for long periods of time. The researchers believe the answers to this question may have tremendous implications for human medicine. By understanding how another mammal has successfully overcome the debilitating effects of working under low oxygen conditions, we may be able to learn new therapeutic approaches to assist humans with heart or lung disease. "

Really interesting way of doing a multimedia search. Not sure it's classroom safe, even with safe search on there were several images that were beyond borderline. When I did compound search "algebra" + "linear" much tighter and deleted virtually all inappropriate material. I just like the way you can explore the information. If you have students gathering information and tagging with specific tags like "wjhsconlit09" then you could pull up all of that material without interference. I think it's a great tool for that kind of exploration.

Really interesting way of doing a multimedia search. Not sure it's classroom safe, even with safe search on there were several images that were beyond borderline. When I did compound search "algebra" + "linear" much tighter and deleted virtually all inappropriate material. I just like the way you can explore the information. If you have students gathering information and tagging with specific tags like "wjhsconlit09" then you could pull up all of that material without interference. I think it's a great tool for that kind of exploration.

Great opportunity to have students showcase their skills, their learning, and for teachers to maximize an engagement opportunity. I would love to collaborate with someone interested in making this a class assignment. Looking for someone to help provide guidance, let me know!

We introduced Diigo to WJHS this summer and I thought I would pass this news along to everyone, but especially that group. I still think Diigo is an incredible tool for collaboration in the classroom for research, group work/accountability, formative assessment, reaching beyond classroom walls both with students and colleagues. Additionally, Sean does some nice simple video production (with totally FREE tools) that I want to share with other teachers. It's easy to do, is a way of getting information to your students easily and in a manner that allows them to access the information as many times as they like/need.

I've been an advocate for Wikipedia for a long time, yet more information saying it is a valid source (as with all sources we need to teach students to find corroborating sources before using the source). Not without error, but does go to show that even more trusted sites have errors, so don't hold Wikipedia to a different standard! Finally, what makes Wikipedia a better source is a shear volume of information on the site as compared to other 'encyclopedias'.

I've been an advocate for Wikipedia for a long time, yet more information saying it is a valid source (as with all sources we need to teach students to find corroborating sources before using the source). Not without error, but does go to show that even more trusted sites have errors, so don't hold Wikipedia to a different standard! Finally, what makes Wikipedia a better source is a shear volume of information on the site as compared to other 'encyclopedias'.

I've always liked timelines as an educational tool. They offer the ability to show related threads compared to each other easily. I loved having students investigate a single topic, create a timeline for that topic, mash the timelines together in a BIG overarching timeine, and then have students start to look for connections. I stole the concept early in my career from the TV show Connections (too bad it didn't make it, GREAT GREAT show).

I've always liked timelines as an educational tool. They offer the ability to show related threads compared to each other easily. I loved having students investigate a single topic, create a timeline for that topic, mash the timelines together in a BIG overarching timeine, and then have students start to look for connections. I stole the concept early in my career from the TV show Connections (too bad it didn't make it, GREAT GREAT show).

An easy to create activity for use with a smartboard. I like the Guess the Wordle of the Day concept, I like that students try to guess based on contextual clues, and I like that it uses the Smartboard (although it's a relatively low level usage, it's still interactive.)

An easy to create activity for use with a smartboard. I like the Guess the Wordle of the Day concept, I like that students try to guess based on contextual clues, and I like that it uses the Smartboard (although it's a relatively low level usage, it's still interactive.)

Modumath as linked from Wisconsin Online learning resources. Interesting videos of algebra concepts, not a huge library but well worth the exploration. You must join http://www.wisc-online.com/ to gain access, but it's free and very interesting.

Modumath as linked from Wisconsin Online learning resources. Interesting videos of algebra concepts, not a huge library but well worth the exploration. You must join http://www.wisc-online.com/ to gain access, but it's free and very interesting.

Webquests from the National Portrait Gallery, United Kingdom. Some Webquests designed with specific age/content groups in mind. Worth a look if you like using Webquests with your students.

Webquests from the National Portrait Gallery, United Kingdom. Some Webquests designed with specific age/content groups in mind. Worth a look if you like using Webquests with your students.

I guess the original link I bookmarked changed. Here is another one from the museum

* "Picturing the 1930s," a new educational web site created by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in collaboration with the University of Virginia, allows teachers and students to explore the 1930s through paintings, artist memorabilia, historical documents, newsreels, period photographs, music, and video. Using PrimaryAccess, a web-based teaching tool developed at the university's Curry Center for Technology and Teacher Education, visitors can select images, write text, and record narration in the style of a documentary filmmaker.