Group items tagged

This is a jumbled collection, but links to a few interesting new things, such as Incredibox, which allows you create music, record, share, and download your composition.

"These videos give you an up to date outline of using the program Blogger. They start off with how to create your first blog all the way through to adding more pages and authors to your blogs" R.Stannard takes you through the updated Blogger program. I have used Blogger for years, but now tend to just use Diggo and Scoop.It, the latter for the more reflective, pedagogically oriented discussions. Blogs are very helpful as a place for student portfolios, and are easy to tag and search.

"The U.S. Library of Congress offers a wealth of fantastic online resources for teachers and students. A quick jump into the teachers resource page will lead you to things like these primary source analysis guides that I have used with students in the past. The LOC also offers a couple of good iOS apps that are worth noting." Shows how various apps can be used with the teachers' resource pages at the U.S. Library of Congress. Great authentic materials for research papers and projects. H/T to R. Byrne

R. Byrne: "Wideo is a nice tool for creating Common Craft-style videos. You can create animated videos on Wideo by dragging and dropping clipart and text in storyboard frames. You set the position and animation sequence for each element in each storyboard frame. When you have completed your storyboards Wideo generates a video for you. "This week Wideo added a new feature that allows you to build interactive buttons into each frame of your video. The buttons can be hyperlinked to any webpage that you like. When people are watching your video they can click the buttons to be taken to the webpage you want them to land on. For example, clicking the buttons in the video embedded below will take you to the website of my favorite animal rescue organizations." Older students could, of course, create videos themselves to instruct others. The new interactive button might also lead to a quiz on Quizlet or in Google Docs, for example.

"Student choice is not only a simple way to increase student engagement, it's also an essential factor in developing digital literacy while building 21st century life and career skills. Choice boards typically start with a specific learning goal, then provide students with a variety of ways to practice a skill, learn a concept, or demonstrate understanding." Site offers a variety of Choice board templates for your classroom use. T/h N.Lafave

A browser-based audio editor

TwistedWave is a browser-based audio editor. You only need a web browser to access it, and you can use it to record or edit any audio file.

All the audio is stored and processed on the server, so you don't need to download anything, or save your work when you are done. Close your browser window and your work is saved. Open TwistedWave somewhere else, and all your audio files, with the complete undo history, are still available.

With a free account, you can edit mono files up to 5 minutes in length. Once you have an account, you can purchase a subscription to increase this limit. T/h to R. Byrne, Free Technology for Teachers.

A video demonstrating some of the things Google Classroom might do for your classes, and how to use it.

"A little while back I saw a Netflix Template for Google Slides. It's essentially a template to replicate the screens you view when looking at episodes for a Netflix series. I immediately loved the idea of creating a Netflix series for a novel (displaying an understanding of plot, setting, characters, etc.). "The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this template could be used for essentially any subject area. Create a Netflix series for a historical event, animals/plants, etc. Unfortunately, the example I saw wasn't fully editable. I forgot about it until fairly recently and decided to build a fully customizable Netflix template based on the screens viewers see when looking at a series on Netflix." The site also offers a downloadable template to customize your own show for Keynote, Powerpoint, or Google Slides. T/h N LaFave

"This study aims at investigating the efficiency of web quests in enhancing the 8th graders' descriptive writing. The 8th graders in the Lebanese public schools in general usually demonstrate poor writing skills. Consequently, they don't show motivation to write in English. The subjects of the study are one control group (n=22) and one experimental group (n=23) enrolled in grade eight in a public school in Beirut and whose ages range from thirteen to fifteen years old. The purpose of the study is to examine whether or not the web quest helps 8th graders achieve unity and coherence in writing descriptive paragraphs and to examine if the motivation towards writing is increased after using the web quest. Based on a pilot study conducted earlier by the two researchers, the prospective findings of the study shall convey that the experimental group produces unified and coherent writings. More importantly, the experimental group is expected to reveal great motivation towards writing. The researchers' prospective recommendations will be mainly urging the teachers of all levels to use the web quests as an indispensable tool requested to enhance students' motivation and to better their descriptive writing skills."

"Use these strategies to help middle and high school students identify relevance, accuracy, bias, and reliability in the content they read." The article includes results of a study on how youngsters use the Internet. Links to guides and other teaching materials. T/h J Coiro

"Programming is magic. It's the ability to create things from pure imagination. We started CodeCombat to give learners the feeling of wizardly power at their fingertips by using typed code. "As it turns out, that enables them to learn faster too. WAY faster. It's like having a conversation instead of reading a manual. We want to bring that conversation to every school and to every student, because everyone should have the chance to learn the magic of programming. "CodeCombat is a community project,with hundreds of players volunteering to create levels, contribute to our code to add features, fix bugs, playtest, and even translate the game into 50 languages so far. Employees, contributors and the site gain by sharing ideas and pooling effort, as does the open source community in general. The site is built on numerous open source projects, and we are open sourced to give back to the community and provide code-curious players a familiar project to explore and experiment with. Anyone can join the CodeCombat community! "

"nCtrl is a series of free standards-based lessons that teach key digital citizenship concepts. These lessons, for students in grades 4-8, are designed to engage students through inquiry-based activities, and collaborative and creative opportunities."

"An Online Drawing Tool That Makes Everyone an Artist AutoDraw.com" t/h to Nick LaFave. AutoDraw turns sketches into more professional looking cartoons. By Google Creativity. Use to illustrate ideas about readings, or one's own storyline.

"#BookSnaps provide fun visual ways to share our reactions to what we read. This post provides my quick take on #BookSnaps built on my experience working with teachers and students. For a more comprehensive look at #BookSnaps, please check out the amazing work of their founder, Tara Martin." T/h Nick LaFave