This resource is for middle school to high school classroom teachers and gives lesson plan ideas on Shakespeare. With the three choices of resources dealing with three of the Bard's most famous works, using an IWB seems like a natural fit. Even though Topmarks is British, the ideas behind literacy-technology interactivity remain fresh. This resource gives detailed ideas that incorporate IWB and literary exploration. Topmarks' section on Shakespeare allows teachers to closely study Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest. This is useful to me because of the topics covered; Shakespeare can be boring to some students. These lesson plan ideas allow me to reinvent Shakespeare's works on an IWB so that students may interact and rethink their own ideas on classic literature.

This specific lesson on 'The Tempest' seems so interesting because of the graphical nature of the plan. Seeing things on the (IW)board as opposed to simply thinking about it may just be that final push that students need to connect.

This resource for all grade levels lists the major points for using an IWB. Choosing the right Interactive Whiteboard is crucial to whether or not the tool will be helpful in a classroom, or just a nuisance. Scholastic has 8 points to ponder, like how easy it is to use your IWN functionally, size of screen, ability to save images, and other technological issues. For my classroom, these pros and cons of IWB use are beyond pertinent! I do not want to be stuck with a faulty or finicky whiteboard, so having these major questions in my head will help me in choosing the right one. Even if I do not get a say in the type of IWB, knowing that these factors make a difference puts me more in the know.

These points are on cue for future use. If my IWB is not capable of saving the norm of image types, then how can I expect to use it to its fullest potential? The latest and greatest technology should be automatic.

As number 47 on this once-titled "30+ Alternatives" list, The Week in Rap is a great last addition to the rest of the tools. Even though the site is subscription-based, you can view some free videos if you sign up and pay $5 a month for access to everything. The best part about this tool is that is stands as an alternative to schools that have YouTube or Vimeo blocked. I would love doing live performances of these raps, though! The lyrics are posted on the site and what better way to grasp students' attention than to stay topical. Flocabulary's videos reminda me of Auto-Tune the News, but with less vocoder, obviously. Haha. Putting these videos up on Fridays is the perfect time to unwind and consume the latest.

This categorization process of students mixed with new hardware in the classroom makes me feel like gov't. and corporations think of schools as customers. Just because new tech is inside of a classroom does not mean that it will be the godsend that fixes everything. Punk schools of thought can breed creativity!