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t's the 21st century and I'm sure your school district has been embracing technology. With budget cuts, however, can your school keep up with the need for new and updated computers? I work in Bergen County (N.J.) where we have the highest property taxes in the nation, and yet this fall I'm not sure whether or not our media center will see more computers for our students. (Thank you, Governor Christie) I know of districts where every student has their own laptop. Not where I am. Still, I try to use what we have to prepare our students for when they graduate and go out into the world. No matter what they will do in their career, whether it's an auto mechanic or a lawyer, they will need these digital skills. If you are still wary about technology, it is time to jump into the water. We don't want you and your students left behind.

SchoolTube provides students and educators a safe, world class, and FREE media sharing website that is nationally endorsed by premier education associations. SchoolTube is the recognized leader for moderated, internet media sharing for teachers and students. All student created materials on SchoolTube must be approved by registered teachers, follow local school guidelines, and adhere to our high standards.

Video for students, by students

Developed for middle school and high school students, this online game gives your students the chance to learn important personal finance skills as they play and compete against fellow classmates.\nThe game includes fifteen Missions in which students attempt to help people in financial trouble. Students join the Gen I Revolution, strategically select their Operatives, and begin to explore and earn points as they work to complete each Mission.\n\n

Thinking Blocks is a suite of learning tools designed to help students solve math word problems accurately and efficiently. Using brightly colored blocks, students model mathematical relationships and identify known and unknown quantities. The model provides students with a powerful image that organizes information and simplifies the problem solving process. By modeling increasingly complex word problems, students develop strong reasoning skills which will facilitate the transition from arithmetic to algebra.

"When we're working with our K-8 students it is always a concern that students privacy and anonymity be maintained. Most sites require users to register so they can sign in to use the resource. Many educators will create an account and log students in to use a web 2.0 resource in the library, lab or classroom as a variety of sites provide for education accounts. The extra steps necessary to set up such accounts might take time that any librarian or teacher finds hard to locate in their busy day. Surely too a majority of us are quite tired of remembering every username and password we create for ourselves let alone keeping track of those of our students. We also wonder how many footprints we are leaving on the web. Below are some sites that can be used without creating an identifying username, email or password. All sites were tested, Some have examples on the example pages."

I think placing a survey or poll on your classroom blog or website is a great way to get informal feedback from your students. I usually put a survey on my class blog a week or so before any formal assessment that my students are going to take. That feedback helps me identify the areas that my students need more help and or clarification on. - R M Byrne

"This lesson uses the four modalities of reading (reading, writing, listening, \nand speaking) on a math word problem to bridge the gap between reading and math. \nAfter a read-aloud from the book Math Curse by Jon Scieszka and Lane \nSmith, students create their own word problems with answers. Students solve each \nother's problems. As they reread the word problems, fluency and comprehension \nincrease. Finally, students use the skills they've learned creating word \nproblems to complete a crossword puzzle. As students read the math concept words \npresented in the\npuzzle and write the correct answers, their reading and \nwriting math vocabulary skills increase."

Connect - We invite you to join or log in to our social network for youth voices, where students and teachers work together (see Curriculum and Guides) to create student-to-student conversations and collaborations. We hope that you will make Youth Voices your destination for many different activities in school and out. Comment - Be heard. This is a place for you to engage in discussions. To find something that you may want to comment on: * search with keywords in the search box * choose one of the New/Current Discussions * consider the Popular Discussions, the ones with the most comments * browse by Topics * find posts by members of your school or community groups We encourage you to spend a lot of time writing thoughtful comments back and forth on other students' Discussions. Create - Be known. Show who you are through your creativity and scholarship. At Youth Voices you can post updates many times each day on the microblog, What's up? And you can use your cell phone to post audio. You can also create, revise, and polish three types of Discussions: * audio podcasts * text with embedded media * discussions that begin with videos and VoiceThreads

Create online assignments with video and images to engage students, provide practice, and assess their speaking.

"Lingt Classroom helps teachers enable their students to speak. -Create online assignments that make engaging and assessing spoken performance as natural as giving out a worksheet. -Make oral exams that take a fraction of the time to administer and assess. Perfect for IB and AP preparation. -Offer targeted feedback to individual responses to maximize student improvement. - Incorporate video and images to create media and culture-rich exercises. - Archive all your assignments and students' responses to reuse next time and track individual improvement. "

"The Visual Ranking Tool brings focus to the thinking behind making ordered lists. Students identify and refine criteria as they assign order or ranking to a list. They must explain their reasoning and can compare their work with each other in a visual diagram. This tool supports activities where students need to organize ideas, debate differences, and reach consensus. The tool and related resources are available for free, from any computer that is connected to the Internet. Students may work on their lists at home or at school, and can even compare their ideas with students located in distant classrooms. "

Add voice to photos

Yodio enables students to create and participate in individual or collaborative digital storybooks using a mobile phone. For example: a class of 1st graders on a trip to the zoo creates a collaborative digital sotrybook with Yodio concerning what they learned about the animals on the trip. Each parent chaperone has a group of four or five students, who take turns calling in to the yodio phone number (on the parent chaperone's phone) and recording their observations about an animal, perhaps even capturing the animal's sound. Students also take a picture of their chosen animal with the cell phone. Back at school, the students log in to Yodio and create a digital sotrybook combining their recorded narrations and photos.

"Anyone can use LeveledLibrary without registering for a free account. However, registered users have access to many features that are not availble to the unregistered users. Most notably, registered users can: Everyone Keep an inventories of the books you own and their levels Specify the leveling system in which you want the book levels displayed. Print labels for your leveled books in popular label sizes View book details, such as binding, dewey decimal number, suggested categories, and cover images Keep books in your shopping cart across multiple computers All Educators Search the inventories of colleagues at your school Vote on book levels for books in the system Manage Courses and Track Student Lending Access reports about your classroom library Administrators Purchase and unlock reports: See what books are in your school Analyze how well a teacher's library matches the students in the class Track student reading growth over time See how well your students are picking books on their reading level"

I have often wondered if there was a tool to organize my own library of books and I think th is may be it.

"Blogging is becoming more and more popular in the classroom. Teachers can blog to stay in touch with parents and students or they can incorporate blogs from all of the students as a learning tool. The beauty of the student blog is that children from Kindergarten to high school can blog. No matter how you use blogs in your classroom, these tools will help you get started, enhance your experience, or bring the students into the fun. "

Connect your favorite courses to relevant learning resources. Exchange knowledge and information with other members whose academic interests match yours. Join peers and professors in exploring the newest academic frontier: free online courses. A new public beta version of a web-based college course library aims to help students and faculty find open curriculum content with a search function designed to narrow their hunt for free video and audio lectures. Einztein, a California-based nonprofit, launched the beta version of its library with more then 2,000 complete online courses grouped into more than 30 categories. Einztein's libdrary features a search enging that helps students and educators drill down to the course they're searching for. Users can sort their search by tags, media type, subject matter, and course provider, among other criteria. Students also can see course ratings on the Einztein site. Web sites featuring hundreds or thousands of free online lectures are often difficult to navigate, and students can struggle to find the next in a series of lessons from the same professor in the same course.

Would be helpful for those looking for supplemental information.

"Kidblog.org is designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each student with their own, unique blog. Kidblog's simple, yet powerful tools allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community. Teachers maintain complete control over student blogs. "

Lure of the Labyrinth is a digital game for middle-school pre-algebra students. It includes a wealth of intriguing math-based puzzles wrapped into an exciting narrative game in which students work to find their lost pet - and save the world from monsters! Linked to both national and state mathematics standards, the game gives students a chance to actually think like mathematicians.

Kids love this game! Although can be used from 5-8 grade with problem solving. It also has a whole graphic novel/comic style story that students get in segments as they complete levels of puzzles. They can go back to the story episodes at any time. They use maps and grids to find their way through this fantasy world.

"FREE printable certificates, recognition awards, and blank certificates, certificates of appreciation, honor, and merit from 123certificates.com Use this certificate maker to print rewards for students, friends, family, party guests, anybody. Reward the student of the week, the player of the game, the spelling bee winner, teacher of the month, employee of the year, a student that has worked hard, you can even reward yourself! It's as easy as 1, 2, 3! "

"At Google, we support the education of families on how to stay safe online. That's why we've teamed up with online safety organization iKeepSafe to develop curriculum that educators can use in the classroom to teach what it means to be a responsible online citizen. The curriculum is designed to be interactive, discussion filled and allow students to learn through hands-on and scenario activities. On this site you'll find a resource booklet for both educators and students that can be downloaded in PDF form, presentations to accompany the lesson and animated videos to help frame the conversation. "

"Google teamed up with online safety organization iKeepSafe to develop curriculum that educators can use in the classroom to teach what it means to be a responsible online citizen. The curriculum is designed to be interactive, discussion filled and allow students to learn through hands-on and scenario activities. On this site you'll find a resource booklet for both educators and students that can be downloaded in PDF form, presentations to accompany the lesson and animated videos to help frame the conversation."

"n Project Based Learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. While allowing for some degree of student "voice and choice," rigorous projects are carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help students learn key academic content, practice 21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking), and..."

twiducate.com is a free resource for educators. Developed in 2009, our goal is to create a medium for teachers and students to continue their learning outside the classroom. We attempt to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners in a social networking environment. We understand that many social networking sites exist, however the control of content is limited for teachers. Also, many of these social networking sites are continuously being blocked by school firewalls and administrators. Our service proudly differs in that only teachers and students may view classroom posts, thus creating a private network for you and your students and a safer online learning environment.