a free website that makes it easy to create short (20 second) animated movie clips that can be customized with uploaded faces, customized text, music, movement and more.

The federal education program appropriated funds "based on good test scores in math, science, and reading," she said, but it did not distribute money for history or civics. O¹Connor¹s new web site aims to right that wrong. Launched on May 24, iCivics.org is a rebranded, expanded version of an earlier site called OurCourts.org. "Barely one-third of Americans can even name the three branches of government, much less say what they do," O'Connor said. "… I'm worried." Games on iCivics include "Do I Have A Right," in which the player runs a virtual firm specializing in constitutional law; "Executive Command," which offers a chance to play president; "Supreme Decision," about the Supreme Court; "Branches of Power," which gives the player control of all three branches of government; and "LawCraft," in which the player is a member of Congress. The iCivics program is based at Georgetown University Law School. O'Connor is the project founder and leads the board of the nonprofit iCivics Inc., iCivics spokesman Jeffrey Curley said. The project began in 2007 and is in use at schools around the country.

allows teachers to perform routine tasks like recording attendance and grades. Schoology also provides a platform for giving tests and other assignments online. The social networking aspect of Schoology lies in the interface for posting messages to a large community (whole school), to a smaller community (an individual class), or to individual students. The Schoology interface will look very familiar to anyone that has used Facebook.

an online, collaborative notebook that allows colleagues to work together; it has a companion iPhone app, too

an open source program that gives users the freedom to create their own online classroom. With Claroline teachers can produce assessment activities, post and collect assignments, build a wiki, monitor student activities, and create chat rooms or discussion forums. Claroline is available as a free download for Mac, Windows, and Linux systems. Claroline is not a hosted service so you do need to have someone host your installation of Claroline.

Check out Twiducate: http://www.twiducate.com/ as a classroom alternative to twitter

.this site allows you to create your own social network; can be used as an alternative for Ning

an innovative project that emphasizes the use of technology to deliver the Tennessee science curriculum for grades K-8." It's produced by Connie Campbell, Director of Assessment and Curriculum Grades 6-12, Jefferson County Schools, Tennessee.

share embedded recordings. Twitter

will geolocate "this day in history" facts for you. That is exactly what One Day In does. One Day In places "this day in history" trivia facts on a Google Map in the place where each event happened. You can find facts through searching by date or by simply clicking placemarks on the map. Applications for Education I know some teachers like to include a little "trivia for the day" element in their classrooms. One Day In is one way to provide students with a little geographic context for those bits of trivia. One thing to note about One Day In is that the content is crowd-sourced so use your best judgment in determining the validity of all information on the site.

It is a really fun tool where you can take an image and upload audio that goes with that image

If you look at this example of the Gulf Coast oil spill timeline you will immediately begin to see the usefulness of this tool with your students. 2nd graders used it this year to make a timeline of their own life.

This game asks you to drag and drop number combinations until you have the correct sum in each column. You can also choose numbers, dice or coins as well. This game is also available as an iPhone/iTouch app.

Library Shelving Game

45 Websites For Students To Create Original Artwork Online"