Group items tagged

Good to read!

"This application takes the idea of those word magnets that are for refrigerators and makes them interactive in your classroom. When I showed this application to some colleagues they were excited about the potential it could provide for class learning and one on one lessons. I'll continue this post as steps in using Word Magnets."

Use this with your writers.

"Following on from my post the other day about StoryLine Online I thought I would compile a list of places where you can get audio for kids. All of the sites listed below give their materials for free."

Great for the home/class

"My students were asked to write a math story problem and download the free trial of Animation-ish to animate their story! All students whose work is posted signed an agreement to allow me to share their project. The "ToonBoom" logo shows up in their animations because they used the trial version of Animation-ish. If you purchase the software, the logo will not show up in the liscensed version, so you will have a clean background in your animation."

Have a look and let me know if you would like your kids to learn how to do this.

"Those special events where everyone seems to have a camera flashing such as field day, classroom performances, and field trips offer a special opportunity for teachers and parents. It gives everyone a chance to grab those candid shots and capture great moments on film, but often there is difficulty sharing all those photos and videos in one place. Email works to a point, but often this is cumbersome and has limitations with file sizes. Worry no more. Today's post will make video and photo sharing easy while keeping those treasures private and safe."

No more not getting those parent snaps that you want!

"I have to tell you that it was a tough call to make these decisions, especially when we're talking every teacher no matter what grade level or subject, but I hope that you find a couple of gems to put away in your virtual treasure box. You may have others you'd like to add to the list. Please post them in the comments for all of us to explore."

Now that you and/or your students are using wikis and blogs, are you curious what could be added to them? From animated slideshows to collaborative documents to interactive review games, many great (and free) tools are available. As a follow up to my previous post "What Teachers Should and Should Not Be Posting on their Classroom Webpages", I've pulled a master list of embedding options that will hopefully spark your imagination.

"Benefits for creating a classroom environment for student blogging begin with establishing a foundation for their success. Why is this important? Integrating blogs transforms a classroom into a learning community where students become self-directed learners and thinkers. This in turn, causes students to use higher order thinking skills as they create and post entries in their blogs, along with commenting on other student's blogs."

"An online library of free videos for learners everywhere - our goal is to gather a set of resources to help you learn just about anything, meet people who make a difference in their communities, and even discover new parts of the world. Next Vista for Learning wants to post your educational videos online, too. Everyone has an insight to share and yours may be just what some student or teacher somewhere needs!"

Wow, some great starter videos to help intro new topics, or find out a little more about almost everything! They are free to download as well!.

Our blog is an online journal tool and can be used to record individual or group experiences, observations, reflections, impressions, opinions, questions and research notes across a range of subjects. Blogs allow the author to display postings in chronological order. A blog allows other participants to comment on postings, creating a networked community of learners.

"This post is an excerpt from the Challenge section in my latest book, Tuned Out: Engaging the 21st Century Learner."

Inquiry Learning reasons 101

"Silvia Tolisano who wrote the great Skype section of The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators recently had a great post on her blog that all elementary school teachers interested in digital storytelling should check out. In Creating a Techno-Tale in iMovie Silvia outlines and gives directions for using iMovie to record a book-style movie in which students use their voices to narrate the story. You can read and download all of the directions from Silvia's blog."

"Economics in the Elementary Classroom posted Sep 3, 2010 6:31 PM by lezlie harris [ updated Sep 3, 2010 6:50 PM ] I am so convinced that little children learn more by pretending and playing. I recently found a role-playing economics unit on the Scholastic site. During this unit, the teacher creates a community in the classroom where children apply for jobs, keep time sheets for those jobs, tally their wages, receive a pay check, cash it at the bank, and shop in the class store. Wow, how powerful is that! Think of all the concepts that can be taught within this unit! I can teach data, charts, graphs, money, persuasive writing, and many social studies standards. Since I am always trying to convert classroom activities into elearning activities, here is a Google Template for submitting job applications. My 2nd graders have loved submitting these applications. Their responses are so sweet! I may copy them to include in my parent conferences."

Very cool templates

Rob/Graham

OMG some very cool use of web2.0 tech here. What could we use?

This was featured on "Free Technology for Teachers" Blog as a website that requires no registration. You just start blogging and you can make your post public or private.  Could be great for the under 13 group.

Broadcastr is a new site that lets you record audio for up to three minutes and then "attach" it to a map location. It also gives you the url address of your recording. This could be a great resource for English Language Learners and all students. They could write, and then record, reflections from a field trip, describe their home countries, talk about something that happened in a particular place in a work of fiction, and then attach it to that geographical location. In addition to being there for an "authentic audience" (someone other than their teacher and classmates), the link to the recording can be posted on a student/teacher blog or website.

Could be great for VIA

Popplet is a new web app that is like Wallwisher on steroids. You can make an online "bulletin-board" with virtual "post-its" (called "popplets), just like in Wallwisher. And, except for the fact you have to register to use it, Popplet is just as easy and, in some ways, easier to use with a lot more functionality. With Popplet, you search for images and videos on the Web directly within the "popplet" instead of copying and pasting the url address (as you need to do in Wallwisher). You can draw within the "popplet" and it doesn't appear to have an limit on the number of characters you can use. You can connect the "popplets." You can also embed the whole thing.

Definitely looking further into this one!

"Our initial post on 10 Great Maths Games Sites - as suggested by friend of the blog Vijay Krishnan - has been one of the most popular ever with literally thousands of teachers taking a look. So I thought it would be fun to try it for a new topic. So here we go - 10 Great Literacy Games Sites:"