"ClassBadges is a free, online tool where teachers can award badges for student accomplishments. Through your teacher account, you can award badges customized for your classroom or school. "
"If you've ever wanted to paste "Pop Up Video"-style commentary bubbles over your favorite YouTube clip, Popcorn Maker's drag-and-drop UI couldn't be simpler. But you can also add more sophisticated interactivity like Google Maps, live Twitter feeds, and Wikipedia articles just as easily. "
"Amazing digital scrapbooks for student creativity, imagination, and self-expression.
Combine images, videos, text, and more
Manage students, classes, and projects
Collaborate, share, download & print
Astoundingly easy to use"
Great resource for teaching students how to use the tools. Students would rather watch a video instead of listen to the teacher talk, and why not watch a video created by another student?
WOW! You could get lost in this site rather quickly. I'm often looking for "activating strategies" and usually discoverystreaming is my "go to" source for video clips. Now this site will be another resource for me to use!
Agree with Rich why not use other students to explain how to use the tool. I only think of the endless possibilities you could use to collaborate on different readings or assignments using the tool.
When I was a regular ed teacher, I used this site a lot for a choice in centers. The students really enjoyed them. At that time you were limited in how many videos could be viewed per day. Is it still limited?
While a bit involved to get set up, this is a great resource to either provide background knowledge of the setting of a story OR as a review of what happened in the text. Limited text selections but could very well be an inspiration for you to make your own Lit trip!
Very interesting article. I found it perplexing that the "21st century survival skills" listed in the article are not those (in my opinion) that are taught and/or used very frequently in our classrooms. When will this era of teaching to the test end so we can get back to "real" teaching? (sorry, that may have sounded a bit bitter...)
I have used Skype to read aloud to another classroom on the other side of the county. I will be using it this year to connect to a class in Hawaii and will try to use it for reading, science and social studies.