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Purpose of the Website: The possibilities that Google provides for teachers is endless! There are so many applications that Google creates for classrooms to be used by students and teachers. Some of the programs include: - Google Earth - Doodle 4 Google - Gmail - Google Reader - Google Docs There are also classroom lesson ideas available for teachers on this website. Grade Level: K-12, Professionals Classroom Connection: One example of how Google can be used in the classroom is by using Google Earth. When teaching your students about communities, you can take your class on a virtual field trip of your town. You can pinpoint different community buildings that are important for your community to run and show students where these buildings are. Negatives of this Website: Some of the Google applications do not run correctly in my district. I have had trouble saving virtual field trips that I have made in Google Earth and there have been times when Google Docs have not opened correctly. So this may be a program that you will have to test ahead of time.

Grade level- 9-12 CC- A student can create their own social networking group to collaborate on a class and community project for a Project-Based Learning assignment. Overview- A user can create their own social networking group to their liking and control how it operates. Also it is free. Cons- Needs district and parent permission.

Professional for K-12 teachers Reading comprehension strategies and activities to prepare students for state tests- without "without teaching to the test", presented by Mary Blow. Includes a blog area. Classroom Connection: * Refer to and practice various types of questions daily and across all content areas so students are familiar with them for the test--as well as a life skill * Use "think pair share" to review homework, questions from assignments. * Use blog to communicate with other teachers about strategies to prepare students for state tests *K-2 teachers- begin to use strategies and teminologies with younger kids to familiarize them

Professional/ all grade levels 5 part series on advantages of creating rubrics and creating rubrics Classroom connections: * Use to help create rubrics for all assignments in all content areas * Use to communicate clear expectations for students * Use to organize a clear understanding of the objective of assignments for yourself and students * Use to clearly assess students based on clear expectations and objectives

k-12-Professional Virtual tours of reading and writing workshops---14 videos of all components of reading/writing workshops Classroom Connections: * Use videos to see how to set up your classroom for reading writing workshops * Use videos to see how to conduct a reading and writing workshop, as well as conferences and sharing * Use blog to communicate with other educators to learn more about managing a reading/writing workshop

a different take on online communities speaking and sharing their minds on specific topics.

Purpose of the Website: Students and teachers can create collaborative multimedia projects that incorporate video, pictures, and voice. This will allow students and teacher to present materials in a visual way. Grade Level: K-12 Classroom Connection: Voicethreads can be used for a variety of activities, but one possible project could be for student to share their experience on a field trip. Students can take pictures of their day on a field trip and create a voice thread to share what they learned about their experience.

This is a web-based thesaurus that provides a physical representation of synonym and antonyms.

This works really well in an ELA class for choosing character traits or crafting a writing piece. There is a limit to how many times it can be accessed without a subscription, but it's workable. You simple go back a page and start again. What I like best about this site is that the site will provide you with relatable words to what you're looking for and they don't have to be exact matches. By illustrating them at a distance, it is communicated that this is the nature of the connection. 4-12

Farmville is an online virtual farm.

K-6 Farmville is not a traditional classroom activity, but there are characteristics from many content areas. Agriculture, Math, ELA, Literacy, economics, social studies, etc... Students can become one another's neighbors and help to build a community in which they care for one another's farms. A downfall to this application is that it is blocked by my district and I would suspect it would be blocked by many. If you choose to request permission from you tech department, please note that this is a web 2.0 tool.

K-12 Great for a class/ group collaboration in and outside of the classroom and great for personal use! Con: District permission, public to everyone, anyone can add or delete information.

K-12 Make phone calls, video chat, can be used for classroom activities and personal use. Con: Must register and download program, and new district permission.

3-12 A virtual sticky note wall for teachers and students. Teachers can post updates for a class or just allow students to use it for collaboration. Cons: must monitor student activity.

6-12 Teachers and students are able to use an online chat room for various reasons, in and outside of school. Cons: District approval, monitor student activity.

6-12 Send mass text messages to a group. Teachers can use this to send a mass message to students for reminders. Cons: it can cost money.

3-12 Students and teachers can create an online poster and also collarborate. Con: Everyone must register to use and must watch for bullying.

K-12 An web-based collaboration IWB for teachers and students. It can also be used for conferencing for other jobs. Free version- 30 day trial, but teachers can apply for a free educational version. Con: must pay unless you apply for educational version, which can take time.

K-12 An online web-based IWB for teachers and students. Cons: There are free and paid versions.

Online gradebook and more

If you haven't looked at this site in a while, it's worth another look. Appropriate for all grade levels. This is a free online grade book. Recently they have added more sophisticated communication tools, class calendars, the ability to upload files and much more. The discussion feature could double as literature groups or Socratic Circle. The one downside to this is if you do not wish for students to have access, as soon as you print them out a progress report, they have their student code and can get online and check their grades at any time. This could be difficult in the instance that students and/or parents are wondering why this person's project is graded and theirs is not. Check out the new wiki feature.

K-12 Online poster creator. User can make personal themed posters, using various fonts, images, videos and links. Classroom Connections: *Teachers- create a poster of vocabulary words in science social studies, literacy or math-- include images, fonts, words, videos to reinfoce concepts * Students- create posters to demonstrate what they learned about concepts in any content area- by including text, images, font * Students- Create posters of research done on various topics- or books reports

Grade level- 7-12 CC- Students can create a glogster for a Roman Emperor as to why they would be the best candidate to be Mr. Rome Overview- A great site to post ideas, important information, and great organizational tool designed with images and color. Cons- Need some time to get used too.

This is a tool to be used by students or by teachers to create an online poster. One con to this site is that students will first have to be familiarized with copyright law before reusing information. If the poster is intended to communicate research information, there is no built-in way of creating a bibliography. Check out "Today's Top Glogs" for fresh ideas.