Targeted to 8- to 16-year olds, Scratch allows students to create and share projects, presentations, stories and best of all - videos games! The emphasis is on multi-media and includes graphics, sound, music, and photos. Supported by National Science Foundation research, Scratch encourages creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration.
Do you need to quickly snap a picture of your screen or record a video of an onscreen action? Jing is the solution; it's free software that adds visuals to your online conversations. Include it in an email, Website, or IM.
This site allows students to place items into virtual boxes; these items can include images, video, text, and sound. MuseumBox can be used across the curriculum and can help students to describe a person, place, thing, event, idea, or issue. The site facilitates description, debate, investigation, and exploration and development of ideas and issues.
This could be a great video to show at the beginning of your new school year to set the tone for class conversations. Julian Treasure's RASA framework for listening is one that could easily be used as the model in your classroom. In fact, I think that I'm going to introduce it to my new students in a few weeks.
Pinterest is a great way to organize yourself as a teacher. Gather up all those ideas you see online and then share them with other teachers (who may or may not be Pinterest users…it really doesn't matter).
Because you can share Pinterest boards with non-Pinterest users, this is a great way to share things with students. The resource could be anything- pictures, a website, a video. Create a board for every unit that you do and share those boards with students so that they can continue exploring and learning.
Students can use Pinterest too, invite young students to help build boards in a class Pinterest account. Create a board for every letter of the alphabet and let students add pictures that they come across to the letter board that it matches. Pinterest has a bookmark tool that you can put in your bookmark bar to make this as easy as one click! Students can put their first name in the description so you (and other students) can keep track of who found what. Like a year-long web scavenger hunt!
Older students can create their own Pinterest boards. Pinterest would be a great place for them to collect images that they feel say something about them-an identity board. These boards can be shared with others and added to all year. Not only will you get to know your students better, but other students will find connections they didn't know they had.
Pinterest is a nice visual way for students to share their web findings. Pinterest even lets students decide if they want to be the only contributor to their board or if they want to open it up for collaboration so others can add their findings to the board. Way cool.
I have two Pinterest boards that may be of interest to you, one is Classroom Inspiration where I am keeping ideas of things I want to do with students or for our classroom. The other is School Design where I am collecting inspirational designs that I want to see in our school when we build our own building.
Especially for 5th grade teachers
It's an amazing course for those interested in the birth of America.
The American Revolution entailed some remarkable transformations - converting British colonists into American revolutionaries, and a cluster of colonies into a confederation of states with a common cause - but it was far more complex and enduring than the fighting of a war. As John Adams put it, "The Revolution was in the Minds of the people… before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexintgon" - and it continued long past America's victory at Yorktown. This course will examine the Revolution from this broad perspective, tracing the participants' shifting sense of themselves as British subjects, colonial settlers, revolutionaries, and Americans.
Activity TV could be a fantastic resource for people who provide after-school care to elementary school students and are looking for hands-on learning experiences to share with their students. Activity TV also has some activities, such as are found in the science section, that could be used during the school day.
Create a group photo album where invited people can upload to photo album and you control who gets to see them. Great for school trips, sports days and performances.