Webheads

"A movie trailer is a perfect summarizing activity. It can also act as a "teaser" as an introduction to a presentation or student paper. A movie trailer can readily showcase the acquisition of knowledge of a lesson or unit." A good description of how to use iMovie on the iPad/tablet.

A neat tool to mind-map, show related features of pro and con in a debate, etc. Versatile and free. Over 12K maps already available on many topics.

This blog entry describes what a rubric is and how to create rubrics for your own purposes. "Authentic assessments typically are criterion-referenced measures. That is, a student's aptitude on a task is determined by matching the student's performance against a set of criteria to determine the degree to which the student's performance meets the criteria for the task. To measure student performance against a pre-determined set of criteria, a rubric, or scoring scale, is typically created which contains the essential criteria for the task and appropriate levels of performance for each criterion. "

Describes the mind-mapping tool that saves to Google Drive, and pedagogical applications for it. Also links to 4 other mind-mapping applications.

Great links for using Google Earth for science classes, as well as for English/Language Arts (see "Lit Trips"), math, culture and history, etc. Pre-made lessons. Also links to "How to create Placemarks and Tours," "To Geography and Beyond," etc.

A terrifically useful article by R. Byrne on making and using QR codes. He describes the tools that can be used and gives good examples of what to do with them, including QR Voice, which allow you to create a short audio message that will come up when the QR is scanned. Links to other useful articles on using QR.

From R. Byrne: "Creating and delivering quizzes and tests online offers a number of advantages over paper-based quizzes and tests. Many online quiz services allow you to create quizzes that give your students instant feedback. Some of the services provide the option to include picture and video prompts in your quizzes. And all of these services save you the hassle of printing your quizzes. "

This is a useful way to use Google to create your own search engine. The screencast embedded in the blog entry here gives informative details on the how-to for this built-in Google feature.

While the article by R. Byrne talks about various tools, it often gives great tips for lessons using the QR code makers in ingenious ways.

This creative mapping tool can hold text, photos, and multimedia. Would be nice to use with an international project. Requires sign-up and log-in. Available in several languages, including Chinese and Turkish.

This might be an improvement over Google Docs for collaborative writing, as revisions are clearly labelled by color for each participant. The teacher could keep track of who was doing what.

Potentially a place to publish your students' creative writing. A good place to learn about writing by reading short narratives and poetry. Some classic authors also.

Great resources for planned and executing project-based learning in your school: "According to Edutopia, studies have shown that students who use project-based learning remember the material much longer and have healthier attitudes toward education. "Project-based learning is based on the idea that students learn best by tackling and solving real world problems. Students are much more engaged with the subject matter and look to the teacher as more of a coach who guides them through their own reflections and ideas. Project-based learning often involves students working in pairs or groups, thus facilitating a deeper understanding of cooperation and communication in solving problems."

Project this web page in your classroom and have at it! A nice application to get a low-cost alternative to the whiteboard.

Kids may be inspired to learn more -- reading, writing, planning, creativity -- when inspired by lessons in how to make games. The site has a weekly "feature" and lots of tutorials.

One teacher explains how to teach thinking skills. A nice build up, e.g., from concepts to topic sentences, observation to finding patterns and drawing conclusions. Starts with magazine advertising as a short path to larger works. Points to intersection with Common Core targets.

This is BBC's short science videos page. You can find all kinds of topics on physicas, the brain, biology, genetics, etc. Very helpful stuff for use in classes or flipped classrooms. Thanks to R.Byrne's blog.

This is a great creative app for iPhone or Android to create up 1-hr-long videos for YouTube. Your students can make shorter videos on their mobiles, then upload and splice them together.

R. Byrne: "Wikispaces recently added a Quizlet widget to the library of widgets that you can embed into your Wikispaces pages. Quizlet is a free flashcard service that anyone can use to create and share flashcards. Quizlet offers a massive library of flashcard sets created and shared by other users of the service. And now you can search for Quizlet flashcards, embed them into your wiki, and use four different study modes while those cards are embedded into your wiki. The screenshots below provide directions for adding Quizlet to your Wikispaces wiki." Quizlet can handle various types of media, so it makes for interesting flashcards. This step-by-step visual explanation makes the embedding task easy; creating the flashcards at Quizlet takes some work and thought.