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More and more websites are coming online to give students the ability to unleash their creativity in new and innovative ways. From abstract art to pointillism, students now can click and draw their way into original works of art, and today's freebie gives you a great list of places to begin. The sites are labeled by grade level to help guide you to those that best suit your students. In addition, I've added ratings to give teachers and students an idea of how much interactivity is available at each site. Some allow students to create from beginning to end, while others simply generate the final product with minimal effort. What you will not find here are basic virtual coloring sheets. I tried to find sites that would give students a chance to generate their own original works of art. What could be better?

CyberSmart! fosters 21st century skills to increase student engagement and prepare students to achieve in today's digital society. CyberSmart! Online Workshops, facilitated professional development, give educators a hands-on experience in 21st century skills-the new basic skills-to meet the learning needs of today's students. Educators engage hands-on in the same kinds of learning they are expected to facilitate in the classroom. Two free resources support daily teaching. The free CyberSmart! Student Curriculum empowers students to use the Internet safely, responsibly, and effectively. The free CyberSmart! Educator Toolbar puts 21st century skills into practice every day, with just-in-time 24/7 access to annotated essential resources to support student learning.

Created by an expert tutor and a designer, Virtual Nerd gives students a new option to turn to when they need help. For a fraction of the cost of private tutoring, students gain access to hundreds of interactive step-by-step video tutorials that match up with the practice problems in their textbook. Virtual Nerd's patent-pending e-Learning system anticipates students' questions, so they can easily drill down to related tutorials if they get confused. The innovative design makes it easy for students to stay focused. Plus, unique reporting features mean parents and teachers can stay involved with students' progress.

Now that more and more classrooms are publishing student work for digital storytelling, podcasting, or through wikis and blogs it is becoming increasingly critical students follow the copyright and fair use guidelines. To help you and your students, I've created another freebie post - free images and sounds for student projects. Yes, there are multiple websites out there for public domain images and sounds, but I tried to pull those that are safe for student searching. You will find glorious photo landscapes, character illustrations of fairy tale characters, tornado sound effects, and more.

"On October 29, 2014 the Alliance for Excellent Education hosted a webinar in its Project 24 leadership series. Project 24 is a systemic planning framework around the effective use of technology and digital learning to achieve the goal of college and career readiness for all students. This webinar focused on the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1998 to protect the online privacy of children. More than fifteen years later, as digital learning constitutes a critical component of education both in and out of school, COPPA has become yet another hurdle between teachers and connecting students to digital learning opportunities. The webinar explored what educators need to know about this law, and how they and school administrators can successfully navigate COPPA to ensure that students are afforded the full benefits of online and blended learning opportunities.  It showed how teachers can provide consent for students to register for online websites.  It explored whether or not students who are under thirteen years old can even use Web 2.0 resources without running afoul of the law.  And it dealt with how school districts assume the duty of COPPA compliance. During the webinar, Mark Cheramie Walz gave educators straight-forward answers on how to comply with COPPA without sacrificing the potential that digital learning and online resources afford. Tom Murray from the Alliance moderated the discussion. Mr. Cheramie Walz and Mr. Murray also addressed questions submitted by webinar viewers from across the country."

"Digital citizenship education empowers students to make thoughtful decisions and develop a sound digital foundation for the rest of their lives. Cable in the Classroom brings you 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. Digital Citizenship is a holistic and positive approach to helping students learn how to be safe and secure, as well as smart and effective participants in a digital world. That means helping them understand their rights and responsibilities, recognize the benefits and risks, and realize the personal and ethical implications of their actions. Helping a student become a good digital citizen cuts across all curricular disciplines."

Over ten years ago, while teaching middle school students and viewing the naïve behaviors that they exhibited in chat rooms on the internet, Chuck developed lesson plans to teach his students safe behaviors. As students spoke at home about what they were learning in school, parents began contacting Chuck to have him speak at PTO meetings and to local organizations. Since that time, both use of the internet and the dangers that students face while using the internet have grown. Along with that growth, requests for Chuck to speak on the topic of Internet Safety have increased to include presentations to large groups of students in grades 6 through 12, school staff members and parents. Presentations have been made in schools in several states across the US and at both State and National conventions.

"The sites are labeled by grade level to help guide you to those that best suit your students. In addition, I've added ratings to give teachers and students an idea of how much interactivity is available at each site. Some allow students to create from beginning to end, while others simply generate the final product with minimal effort. What you will not find here are basic virtual coloring sheets. I tried to find sites that would give students a chance to generate their own original works of art. What could be better?"

"As educators focusing on 21st Century Learning, it is important that we are able to share examples of powerful student work that we can share with educators around the world. It is important that we have this opportunity to not only talk about how we can empower students, but as examples of how this has ALREADY affected student learning." A nice listing of 21st century student work examples. Add your own!

The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler's high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros' Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century.

Pics4Learning is a copyright-friendly image library for teachers and students. The Pics4Learning collection consists of thousands of images that have been donated by students, teachers, and amateur photographers. Unlike many Internet sites, permission has been granted for teachers and students to use all of the images donated to the Pics4Learning collection.

"Creating slideshows can be an excellent way for students to summarize their learning, share their what they've learned, and to share their ideas. If you have students that create slideshows that you or they think should be shared with a wider audience than that of their immediate peers in the classroom, the web offers many ways to do that. The following are ten free ways for students to publish their slideshows to the web."

or much of the world, it's that special time of the year when students head back to school. The good news for students is that even though that means waking up early and doing homework, there are a number of web-based and social tools to help you get through the school year. From staying organized to improving study habits to making sure you reference your research sources properly, the web can help you be a better student.

"In collaboration with my colleague Mike Hutchinson, I have begun to introduce the tools of the Read/Write web to my students. Specifically, my class is now blogging and podcasting. Blogging and podcasting has allowed me to create a forum where my students discuss current events connected to our social studies curriculum while developing language arts skills like critical thinking and persuasive dialogue. It has also given my students the opportunity to be creators-rather than simply consumers-of online content. Finally, blogging and podcasting have given my students an audience for their ideas, which has increased levels of interest and motivation."

Today's classrooms are more diverse than ever before. As a result, teachers find themselves searching for ways to meet the needs of each student. Add to it the pressures of academic achievement goals mandated by NCLB and many may feel ill-equipped to meet the challenges of diversity in the classroom. Planning perfect lessons with exciting activities looks great on paper, but will it help your students reach their potential? Probably not. If there is anything I learned during my time as a public school teacher is this: The height of student achievement is directly correlated with the strength of the classroom community. By building  community in the classroom, you build an environment where students feel safe to learn, grow and be themselves.

"Webquests make learning more interesting for your students. Using the power of the internet you can tap the resources of almost every library, school, museum, and laboratory in the world! You can take your students on a journey, to anywhere. Webquests allow students to explore content in more depth, but within boundaries that you have selected. This makes them ideal for classes which combine students with different ability levels."

Picturing Modern America (PMA) contains interactive exercises designed to: * Deepen students' understanding of common topics in the study of modern America 1880-1920 * Build students' skills in analyzing primary sources, especially visual sources * Generate questions that students can pursue by searching in American Memory and other sources. Above all, we hope that you use PMA to encourage your students to actively read, question and discuss the photographs and other documents that give us fragmentary evidence of American life at the turn of the last century.

"Challenge Based Learning is an engaging multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that encourages students to leverage the technology they use in their daily lives to solve real-world problems. Challenge Based Learning is collaborative and hands-on, asking students to work with other students, their teachers, and experts in their communities and around the world to develop deeper knowledge of the subjects students are studying, accept and solve challenges, take action, share their experience, and enter into a global discussion about important issues."

"Teaching students to learn from and with each other is a wise acknowledgment that more and more, students are relying on their peers for information. Sixty-five percent of Americans aged 12-17 and 67 percent of those aged 18-32 use social networking sites, according to the Pew Research Center. Students' lives are infused with each other's viewpoints. Teachers and professors like Parry and Camplese are taking group work to the next logical step: incorporating social media into their classrooms. In lieu of fighting teens' use of networking sites, they are communicating with students in a language that they understand. "

There are a lot of SMART Board resources for elementary, middle, and high school students, but younger students love SMART Boards too! This blog post is for you, Pre-school and Kindergarten teachers! Check out some of the wonderful interactive websites that will be sure to get even your youngest students involved in interactive learning.