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This wiki is dedicated to an ideal. That ideal is that students are given time within the class day to explore whatever it is they are curious about and then explain it to their peers. This wiki contains lots of information about what genius hour is, how to implement it in your class, and examples of how it has gone for others.

This wiki is dedicated to an ideal. That ideal is that students are given time within the class day to explore whatever it is they are curious about and then explain it to their peers. This wiki contains lots of information about what genius hour is, how to implement it in your class, and examples of how it has gone for others.

how to facebook fan page

Educators rate and review apps, games, websites, etc and explain how they are using them in the classroom.

Abby - This looks like a nice teacher site. It's nice to read a quick blurb about what the sites are along with the rating. I liked that there was a section of the site to connect apps to common core standards. This could be very helpful and I appreciate that I can start with the standard (objective) and connect it to the technology. I think sometimes teachers start with a cool piece of tech and try to make it fit in their curriculum and it becomes more of a bell and whistle than a purposeful use of technology.

Sarah I agree! I will admit that sometimes I see something so cool that I want to use, but am not sure it really fits.

This site allows you to read an online document and highlight the information you are reading. It also allows you to take notes.

I really like this website! I use my SmartBoard often in class to highlight text to demonstrate main idea or important details. I would like to see what this looks like for students. It would be a great teaching tool for students to find main idea or practice researching for a paper. It would be very beneficial for teachers to see how students are highlighting main ideas in texts while also taking notes. Have you used this before? And how successful was it for students?

Sarah - I am new to using both Diigo and Scrible, so I did not realize all of the similarities between the two. I really like how you can highlight things with Scrible. Are you able to do the same with Diigo? Those were some of the same reasons I thought this would be a useful tool as well.

A very interesting educational wiki from Akita, Japan. Currently maintained, and looks like useful information no matter what country you're from! (Site in English). This site would be useful to a teacher interested in seeing how other people groups address instructional technology issues.

A very interesting educational wiki from Akita, Japan. Currently maintained, and looks like useful information no matter what country you're from! (Site in English). This site would be useful to a teacher interested in seeing how other people groups address instructional technology issues.

This wiki is a current listing of edcamps happening around the world. This wiki also provides information on how to organize your own Edcamp. Edcamp is an 'unconference' designed for teachers and their needs. Edcamps are free to attend and usually provide lunch and amazing door prizes.

This wiki is a current listing of edcamps happening around the world. This wiki also provides information on how to organize your own Edcamp. Edcamp is an 'unconference' designed for teachers and their needs. Edcamps are free to attend and usually provide lunch and amazing door prizes.

WOW! Innovative Educator! Support for social media/cell phones in the classroom. Offers online chat to educate educators on current tech topics

This blog is written by Lisa Nielsen. It has won awards for its outside the box approach to delivering material. Many of her posts deal with how to effectively use technology in the classroom. Especially social media. Teachers can use it in the classroom by either networking through her blog and finding content alike teachers or by simply gathering the concepts Nielsen discusses.

This blog is written by Lisa Nielsen. It has won awards for its outside the box approach to delivering material. Many of her posts deal with how to effectively use technology in the classroom. Especially social media. Teachers can use it in the classroom by either networking through her blog and finding content alike teachers or by simply gathering the concepts Nielsen discusses.

Blog discussing how to incorporate new apps, giving feedback to students and much. Toolbox for educators!

Blog discussing how to incorporate new apps, giving feedback to students and much. Toolbox for educators!

Blog by David Andrade with resources available to all teachers. He also explains how to use some of those resources for the newbie techies.

I know many schools have used this but it is all archived online for use. Students can learn about current events and then share what they learn with others.

Kenton - We used to be a channel.one school, but stopped viewing it last year. I love the current news - but hated all of the commercials. Can you view online without all of the commercials? This site reminds me of newela.com. It is a wonderful site for reading current non-fiction articles and is also related to common core standards. I like that you can select the reading level for students on the article. You can create classes and assign readings and it has quizzes, too. I haven't used any of those features. I just used the articles for read-alouds and they were high interest. I can see Channel One working well for history, but also for English. We need to teach students to be critical viewers as well as critical readers. Let's face it - a lot of information they will receive (for elections, ads of products to buy, etc.) will be visual. They need to know how to interpret information in this medium, too.

Kenton - I agree that this seems like it would be a good tool for students and educators. I think that students could watch the short videos and do reports on what kinds of things are happening in around the world. I think educators could use it to stay more informed as well. I had not heard of this resource before I saw your posting. Do they post new videos weekly? Also, how do they come up with their topics? Do people submit ideas of different topics they would like to hear more about?

I think this is a very under-utilized resource in schools today, for both teachers and students. There is so much available on this website. The possibilities that these resources provide teachers are endless. One of my personal favorites that is on this site is Atomic Learning. This provides training resource videos in almost any technology tool you can think of. I have used this multiple times to help me out of a jam when using anything from Movie Maker, to to Excel, to Skype to iPads. The videos are chunked into short, searchable segments that are very useful when you are trying to learn anything about computers and what to do with them. This is a great resource to use in the classroom, both for personal (as a professional) use or for student use. Students are able to search videos independently and use them for assistance, contributing to self-reliance and independence in implementing classroom technology. I am not aware of any similar resources with a database this large, in one location. Although most websites or programs have instructions, sometimes even instructional videos, available to help new users understand the technology, Atomic Learning has them all in one place with easy to use videos that do a great job of demonstrating how to use the particular programs. apps, or instructional technology with your students.

I agree with Tamra and Maria that this is an under-utilized resources. I have introduced and stressed the importance of these databases to students, teachers and other staff for several years. It is too easy to just 'Google It.' I used Atomic Learning when teaching middle school technology explore. One of our 8th grade skills was an understanding of Word, and I let students pick their own topics to study further through Atomic Learning. I just used Gale for peer-reviewed journals. I am also using SIRS to find articles for our Digital Citizenship (Protect It) curriculum. I am not aware of any other collections for education as robust as Iowa AEA Online.

I love AEA Online. Being a former AEA employee, I've become very familiar with it over the years. Like the other ladies who commented before me, it is very underused. I'm not sure whether it's because people are not well enough familiarized with what they have to offer, or because it presents another opportunity for information overload. Regardless, it is a wonderful resource for students and teachers. I used Atomic Learning to help a teacher develop her own skills. I've also recommended it as a resource to our Special Education teachers as a resource to learn when students need reinforcement of new concepts.

show videos with questions built in. 

I laugh at the idea of somebody disagreeing with this resource. I am totally going to use this! I like to incorporate online discussion during movies that I should in my science classroom. One issue I have run into is how to get the conversation to flow and stay on topic. Problem solved! This is definitely a mix of teacher and student usability depending on how you define those 2 types of usage, but I think creation on the part of a student could take place with thi resource as well. Great find!

Blabberize is a fun 2.0 tool that allows you to record your voice with a static photo. Besides, they use a llama on their home page to demonstrate how it's used. What's not to love about that?

I could see a student using this to create an audio story for a classroom exercise. It's pretty ridiculous, but I imagine that's the appeal of it. It looks so simple that it would be a shame to not try it out! And I'm not aware of anything like it, except for JibJab, but that's much more limited in what you can do with it. I just am surprised that the Llama's audio is so poor...

Holt Interactive has a collection of graphic organizers created for teacher use.  There are also teaching notes with lessons and tips on how to use them in the classroom.

This blog by Skype, offers teachers a great place to find various blogs by teachers about the use of Skype in their classroom. These collection of blogs help teachers find ideas for how to incorporate Skype into the classroom.

Grade google form assessments (bell ringers).

Grade google form assessments (bell ringers).

How to incorporating blogging into a high school math classroom.

Canva is a fantastic, user-friendly tool to create professional looking graphics and infographics. After reading this post by Cool Cat Teacher I gave the program a try and really enjoyed it. The tool has stock images available for $1 or you may upload your own for free. Students could use it to make infographics on research topics, business cards, or posters for their businesses.

Canva is a fantastic, user-friendly tool to create professional looking graphics and infographics. After reading this post by Cool Cat Teacher I gave the program a try and really enjoyed it. The tool has stock images available for $1 or you may upload your own for free. Students could use it to make infographics on research topics, business cards, or posters for their businesses.

This allows teachers to hold a forum. Students can reply with audio or text to a question. They can even draw on the existing image to make a point. Others in the group can then respond in turn.

As you could tell from our class using it, I think this would be great for small group discussions versus the whole class. I could see this being used efficiently for a group presentation that the students would create and then have another group comment on the voice thread for pointers on what to consider, etc. This resource is definitely both uses depending on how you set it up whether it is a teacher forum or a student led forum.

Great site to use for collaborative projects. So many ways to share and communicate.