Free and collaborative note sharing site that allows students to create and share notes online and search notes created by other students.
An “automatic bibliography composer” that lets users enter sources and fill out a simple forms to be given MLA style bibliographies. I’ve used this multiple times in the past for research pape
Social annotation and bookmarking service where users can bookmark sites and add highlights and notes to them. Great for research.
- Bookmark all of your research articles in Diigo. Add notes for group members about why you chose each article.
“Wizlite allows you to highlight text (like on real paper) on any page on the Internet and share it with everybody (or just your friends).”
Answers.com: Lori Reed
Excellent site for researching anything at all. Make a search and receive results from dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other information sources.
For All Educators:
Chalksite (Teachers): Chalksite is a system built for teachers, students, and parents providing teachers with an easy to use central point where they can communicate with students and parents, post assignments and grades, send messages, and manage a website for their courses.
Backpack: Backpack is an all around great organizer including note taking, file storage, to do lists, a calendar, and more. An example use could be that students can create pages in their organizer for each class and manage notes on class discussions as well as upload related files and class documents.
Schoopy: Built to strengthen community communication, Schoopy provides a system in which teachers can manage participating teachers, students, and parents and send messages, ask questions, keep up with assignments and even take quizzes. Communities/Schools also can create a public website making it easy for students and parents to keep up with recent updates.
Lori Reed
Best described by Gradefix, “Gradefix intelligently organizes and prioritizes all of your homework so you are always on top of it.” Students that use Gradefix create a study schedule used to best spreadout and prioritize homework throughout the week in hopes to decrease stress and improve grades.
KOSMIX
by Elfreda Benally
Kosmix is a topic-based search engine that helps you organize the best information you need for your needs. Students can research specific information by typing in what they want to explore.
http://teachersteachingteachers.org/
by Susan Meece
The site describes itself as a collaboration of teachers who like to "tell new stories" about classroom lesson plans. It is a weekly blog and podcast of a particular topic teachers want to collaborate on. The one this week was about the Bering Strait, and how to get different ideas on teaching the subject. The four main particpants contribute each week as well as several guest commentators. It is definately something to check in on and see if it pertains to your classroom.
by Lydia Horstman
This Google tool allows quick and easy creating, vieweing, and modifying 3-D designs. Students can create 3-D models of any structure they choose, to include their home, school, or classroom. These objects can be placed into Google Earth. This tool contains drawing menus to enhance color and texture. This is a nice tool to provide enrichment to 3-Dimensional geometry.
by Lydia Horstman
Zoho Polls offers a simple interface for creating surveys. It is easy to use and has only three steps: Create, Share, and Vote. It is free and requires a username and password. This made me think of three fourth graders that came to poll my classes for what subject they favored most. I can see an elementary school teachers using this tool, but I'm sure it would be just as effective for older kids.
TikaTok
by Elfreda Benally
TikaTok is a site where children can write, illustrate, and publish a real book. Kids transform their ideas into stories and purchase them if they want. There is no cost to join the site, but if they want printed copies they have to be purchased and the cost is about $20. This would be a good resource for parents.
by Lydia Horstman
This site is free and allows you to create web-based timelines by inserting pictures and video. This site stores all timelines which is convenient when researching timeline information on other topics. I can definately see the benefits of this site in a Social Sudies or Reading class. I saw a wide range of timelines from the history of a bra to the history of video games. This is another great tool to have students publish their work on the web.
Assign-A-Day
by Elfreda Benally
Assign-A-Day is a free online tool designed for teachers and students to help manage information for classes and assignments. A wonderful tool specifically for schools. It is important to note that personal calendars will be deleted without notification or if there are no entries within 2 weeks.
by Pam Lang
Slideboom
This is a free service for sharing PowerPoint presentations on the web. You can publish your slideshows for work, school or just for fun.
Slideshare
http://www.slideshare.net/rpoof
By Ann-Marie Jackson
This site is a neat site for quick how to lessons in a slide show form for teachers and students. SlideShare is the best way to share your presentations with the world. This site has lessons for school and/or personal information such as Why you should run? and Its Elementary (web 2.0 for the classroom). Its Elementary exlplains bloggs, wikis, podcasting etc. It even has fun and entertaining slide shows that are just for fun.
Kerpoof
http://www.kerpoof.com/
Ann-Marie Jackson
This site is so much fun. A student can create a picture, movie, drawing, card or story. Kerpoof is a great way to introduce broad concepts about computers, the Internet, and technical fluency, all while meeting educational standards.
by Pam Lang
Answers.com is an excellent site for researching anything at all. Make a search and receive results from dictionaries, encyclopedias, and oter information sources.
by Pam Lang
Chalksite is a web package developed for teachers to help create a class website and a central point of communication with students and parents. Manage class assignments, student grades, and even a public blog.
by Elfreda Benally
Wink is a program aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software like Excel, Word, etc. It helps you capture screenshots, adds buttons, boxes, mouse movements, and other editing tools with simple drag-and-drop procedures. It includes audio so you can record your voice as you create your tutorial. The nice thing about this program is that it is free, however the only two platforms it recognizes are Windows and Linux (x86 only).
This program would be a great tool for teachers who want to create tutorials for their students to view at home before they use the programs at school. This would greatly cut down the amount teaching time in the classroom.
By: Cheryl Myers
Recipes4Success is your best resource for supporting project work with students. Recipes4Success includes software tutorials and reference guides, online tools, and a step-by-step process for implementing project-building with students.
By: Cheryl Myers
This site gives you access to free music for your students to use in their podcast or imovies. Enjoy there is some great stuff.
By: Cheryl Myers
This site is great for teachers looking for materials for their students to view, to use as an introduction to a content area, or for students to create to help teach others.
Lulu
by Lydia Horstman
Lulu is a self-publishing tool. You can publish written work, photo books, calendars, and more. It is inexpensive and a great way to publish student work. I am sure parents would greatly appreciate their work professionally published as a keepsake.
by Lydia Horstman
Drop.io is a site that allows you to save and drop any form of media you wish. You can keep this private or give permissions to share. This does not require a login or e-mail address. I have included a link to a video below that gives a good detailed tutorial of how to use drop.io.
Drop.io tutorial
by Shannon Walker
Thinkature brings visual communication to the web by placing instant messaging inside a visual workspace. Use it as a collaboration environment, a meeting room, a personal web-based whiteboard, or something entirely new. You can use it to plan your next major product or your next great party. Or you could lay out a new organization chart or the floor plan for your next apartment. You might also gather information about your next vacation destination. This could be beneficial to both teachers and business people alike.
30 Boxes
by Pam Lang
http://30boxes.com/welcome.php
This online calendar site gives you the opportunity to connect with the people in an easy to use format.
by Patti McFeely
This mind-mapping site allows you to create graphic organizers, share them with others for collaboration, and then publish them to the Internet. The user-friendly site includes tools such as adding notes, links, images, color-coding, etc. This site would be a less expensive alternative to Inspiration.
by Patti McFeely
Jing is a free screencast available to download to your Mac or PC. It allows you to capture and share images (video or still) from your computer screen. The images can be shared through Screencast.com, Flickr, or FTP site. The value of this for a teacher is that you can record how to do something on your computer with audio and share it with other teachers or students. For example, you could record how to share an item in Googledocs or create a Voicestream or simply how to force quit an application. The Jing application remains on your computer to use on demand.
by Patti McFeely
This site provides a blog portal for your classroom. It is free for up to fifty students; after that, a fee applies. You can set up a classroom homepage to communicate assignments with your students and invite them to create individual blog pages within your community. It is not necessary for the students to have email addresses to login. The management features include the ability to review any student entries or comments before they are published. Privacy settings allow you to limit who can read and/or comment on the blogs.
by Patti McFeely
An alternative to PBWiki for classroom wikis is Wikispaces. It is easy to use, and best of all, it is free. The site is currently giving away 100,000 sites free to teachers. When I signed up, the count was at 72, 766 so there are still plenty of sites available.
Uses for the wiki could be to have students create a class newspaper, a webquest, a collaborative unit study guide or individual pages for a collection of researched biographies. There are links to help teachers get started and get ideas.
http://us.ajax13.com/en/ajaxwrite/
http://us.ajax13.com/en/ajaxxls/
By: Jonathan P. Craun
If you have Firefox installed on your computer with any operating system then you can use these two sites form Ajax. They are designed to allow any Firefox equipped computer to access, write, and edit word processor documents and spreadsheet documents. This is web-based programming and one of the biggest arguments for Web 3.0 being the end of computer based applications beyond operating system and web-browsers. This is great because you can save these files as the Microsoft version, or not, because you don’t have to have these programs. Microsoft revolutionized computing by solving compatibility issues. The problem is that out of necessity of function they became a monopoly. Ajax and similar web-based programs along with open-source programming are changing the power holders in the applications industry. Power to the people (:
http://www.suprglu.com/
By: Jonathan P. Craun
I think that it is important to be looking forward to the next big thing. Right now you could make the argument the MySpace is the current big thing. Well, there may be a new service that replaces many of the Social networking sites: Suprglu. This service takes any, “services like del.icio.us, flickr, blogger, typepad, etc? SuprGlu is a new way to gather all your content from those sites”. This is something that can be a base where you launch from. Check it out. For the classroom student or teacher this could consolidate sites used frequently saving class time and hassle.
http://rollyo.com/
By: Jonathan P. Craun
This site offers a custom search engine where it will only search the sites that you trust. You can add up to 25 search engines and tags. You can add this custom engine to you Firefox tool bar or make it your home page. This has a tremendous value for any classroom. Students will not be inundated with too much from irrelevant and unauthorized sites. You will be able to set it up ahead of time and then add to it the sites that will be of the most value to the students. Principals leery of search engines may allow this. It provides an easy way for students to use search engine with better and safer results.
Picnik
by Elfreda Benally
Picnik is an photo editing site that works pretty much like Photoshop minus some features. It works on all three platforms, Mac, Windows, and Linux. There is nothing to install which makes it really easy to use. You get a lot of free tools for editing by just registering, but if you want to upgrade for more features, it only costs $24.95 a year. The site is well laid out and easy to navigate. It can pull any of your photos in Flickr, myspace, Facebook, Photobucket, and Picasa Web Albums. Using a site like this would be a good idea for teachers who use photos/images in their presentations as well as students for their own stuff.
Bloglines
by Elfreda Benally
Bloglines is a free online service that manages not only web information such as newsfeeds, but it also tracks information you’re interested in, lists the days hot topics and even reminds you when new articles have arrived. You can receive new events as they happen and organize everything on your own personal web news page, and even search articles through its database you can use in your classroom. You can see other people’s subscriptions to a blog you are a fan of and track what they read, let’s say, an author you are studying to find out what they are reading or recommend.
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Voo2do
http://voo2do.com/
by: Jonathan P. Craun
This is an online planner/organizer. This allows you to manage your work and keep track of ideas. It is designed to make you more efficient. “Organize tasks by project track time spent and remaining add tasks by email publish task lists new as easy as paper, but on the web.” I see this as being a big help to teachers who need help getting organized. This could also have applications for students in high school who need to learn organization skills, especially with their busy life. This could also be used to track learning and for goal setting.
Thumbstacks.com!
http://www.thumbstacks.com/">http://www.thumbstacks.com/
by: Jonathan Craun
Ever have a student want to show their parents a PowerPoint that they created but could not either due to the file being locally located at school or parents not possessing PowerPoint at home. Have you ever had to transfer a slide show multiple times and run into all kinds of technical problems in the process? Then this is for you. You can create a slide show and then link it. Any browser can run it and it can be accessed anywhere. Only it does not incorporate a lot of the media and transitions found in PowerPoint.
iFolder
http://www.ifolder.com
by: Jonathan Craun
I’m excited about this one and plan on trying it. This is a way to access and manage your files from anywhere. You can do this with files saved to your computer. There are, basically two ways to do this. One, you can synchronizes with a server or directly with other computers. You can access your files through a web browser. Finally, it does work with multiple operating systems. This would be great for both teacher who want to share and support the work of their colleagues, and with students by giving them access to files and documents needed for class projects.
by: Joanthan Craun
This is similar to PBwiki with a couple of key exceptions. It is used a lot by schools and therefore is less likely to be blocked. I can’t open PBwiki at my school but this one will. It will allow for unlimited accounts and users. You can use it to create a web page and like a database. This looks like a real good tool for a teacher getting started with Wiki’s and Web 2.0. We already know the possibilities with this: it is a launch pad for what ever you are doing as a teacher. You can create a Web-Quest style assignments, or blogs. Students can be given authority to edit it and thus contribute to a larger project. This would also give parents a real view into your classroom.
by: Jonathan Craun
This is, I think, a step above other calendars. First of all, it’s web 2.0 so you don’t have to be a part of a network or use some purchased and privileged software to use it. Any one can access your calendar, they can interact with it: like RSVP. Not just people you work with see it. It will even notify your cell phone when an event is approaching.
This would be great for teachers who want to communicate with students and teachers. If you coach this would be a gift from heaven. Parents would love the access and ability to more easily schedule appointment. Students would be able to keep up with their assignments. I would get it, how about you?
http://podscope.com/">http://podscope.com/
by Jonathan Craun
This is a neat Web 2.0 tool. It is a special search engine designed for searching a different content. Instead of text it searches the spoken word in audio and video sites. You can search both or individually. It really works. The only thing though is that it uses different rules so you have to be careful if you are use to using the advanced search fetchers and search math in other engines.
Educators can use this to locate media that support their lesson. Students can use this to find media to add to a project, PodCast, etc.
by Adam Hunt
Jotit is another wiki service, but the two neat features of this one are 1) no email is required for someone to log in and 2) it is password protected. So you can set up an account, create a url, give that and the password to just your students, and presto-a wiki all your students can access (even without email) that is password protected. The only drawback I saw here is that the interface is not exactly user friendly. For some things it does ask you to put in code (like to create headings or put in images)-but for a simple text wiki to exchange ideas, it's pretty easy to use. I just got one started here, and the password is edt547. Log in and leave a comment!
Java Timer
http://html_help4u.tripod.com/javatime.html">http://html_help4u.tripod.com/javatime.html
By: Jonathan Craun
I hesitated to share this until I thought about how useful it is. This is one of the most useful classroom management tools that I have ever used. Students can see both a numerical and visual representation of how much time is left for their activity. There is an audible alarm that you can set when it is counting down. My younger students got to the point that when that alarm went of they raised their hand for the zero noise signal knowing that I was about to do so. The timer can count down or up. You can set it and easily reuse the same time over and over without setting it. Its great for fluency test where students have to read for a minute. Check it out. Oh, and its great for Smart Boards.
http://search.creativecommons.org/
by: Susan Meece
"We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare “some rights reserved.” CC
Creative Commons incoporates Yahoo, Google, flickr, bliptv, Owl music, and Spinxpress. When you search for a specific topic or word it takes you to sites that are out of the "limelight" but that give you an array of opinions and perspectives. The good thing about it was that it took me to sites I would probably not have found on my own, plus it linked to videos and podcasts on the same topic.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
by Susan Meece
Wikibooks, a part of Wikipedia, is an on-line site that allows us to view and edit educational textbooks. The content is listed by curriculum, but new and popular books are listed on the home page. Right now there isn't a huge amount of books available, but it provides some overview texts that teachers can skim before they introduce a new topic, or if they're simply interested in the topic. It is especially helpful if you want a quick summary on primary sources like Machiavelli's "The Prince," or want a short list of important sources that can be used in the classroom.
by Lydia Horstman
This site provides space to share your Power Point presentations on the web. This can also be used as a tool to search for Power Point presentations in your topic of interest. This can be helpful to my students given the limitations our students have regarding transporting data on flash drives or sending e-mail. If my students prepare a presentation at home, the only way they can present the information is if they e-mailed it to me or used my log in to retrieve data from their flash drive. This site would make it easier to present material created at home.
by Lydia Horstman
Office Live Workspace is a web site that provides free space to share and save Microsoft Office documents. Microsoft Word or Excel files can be accessed and saved from any computer. All you need is access to the internet and a login. It is free to join. This tool can be used similarly to Google Docs by students working on collaborative assignment.
by Patti McFeely
This user-friendly site allows teachers to create web-based activities even if they don’t know how to create a web site. The fill-in-the-blank style allows the user to design a simple webpage with a list of links for a treasure hunt or a more elaborate WebQuest. You can use it as an introduction to a unit or as a student-directed project. The only drawback is that you can’t add graphics; to do that, you must download the finished product to your own website. But, if you don’t have your own site, this is ideal. Sponsored by AT&T, the site provides you with your own URL and best of all, it’s free.
Engrade
by C. Colcord
Engrade is a free online gradebook for teachers and it is very useful and has lots of interesting tools.
For example, I can manage all of my grades by class time, subjects, or students. Engrade also has some interesting features like the attendance chart and I can edit any or all of the imformation at any time. For example, I got a new student recently and entered her no problem. Check it out.
by Susan Meece
http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm
Just like IDEAL you must have an account through the Arizona Department of Education. But this site is so quick, easy, and fun to use. The index allows you to look up videos and video clips by content area or by typing in the search word. Most videos are designed to help supplement classroom material but there are also historical clips, science, math, and language art materials. The digital media helps engage students and can often improve test scores.
Its ties to Discovery gives it the capacity to provide all content areas with engaging and relevant video clips.
Susan Meece
https://www.ideal.azed.gov/
This site is for all Arizona educators and provides numerous sites for professional development, lesson plan ideas, and curriculum resources. You must have an account through your district, but once you get in you hace access to Arizona Department of Education's professional resources. There is a "collaboration" link where you can discuss topics, innovate, and share ideas with educators from around the state.
It is a work in progress, but eventually it will have connections to Digital Storytelling, iTunes, and other Web 2.0 sites.
Furl
Jonathan Craun
http://furl.net/">http://furl.net/
Here is an example of a Social networking site that is not blocked by school filters. It works a lot like the popular ones. You can save your bookmarks, and share them. You can also view popular bookmarks.
If you are a teacher who uses a lot of web sites then this would be good for you. I know that I like to find several good sites when students are working on a research project. This way students don’t have to enter any addresses or search through much tempting content, or rather distracting content.
Protopage
Jonathan Craun
[http:///
Protopage is a way to setup your own website. It is very easy to do. If you are viewing someone else’s page then you can import tabs and resources that you like. There is a bookmark feature so you can store your bookmarks. You can set up links and categorize them. Videos, PodCasts and RSS feeds can be placed on the page. I'm not sure if you can add a document from Word etc.
I think the classroom function here is obvious. You can place all your online resources in one place. You could also have students setup their own pages as well. If you were a Social Studies teacher you could have a great way to quickly find and sort through current events with the RSS feed feature.
WizIQ
http://www.wiziq.com/
by Ann-Marie Jackson
A great site for all learners of every age. You can be 9 years old wanting to learn how to do 2 digit substraction with regrouping or 16 years old wanting to review on basic algrebra. This sight has many great powerpoints on Reading Strategies and Peer-editting to use in the classroom. There is a place that you can sign up for a lesson and then invite a teacher to teach you in the virtual classroom.
Kids' Vid
Ann-Marie Jackson
http://kidsvid.altec.org/
Wow!!! What a cool and fun site. Its a instructional website to help teachers and students use video production in class to support project-based learning. This site has broken down each part of creating a video to help you successfully: scripting, making the video, editing and showtime. It also has three videos that you can watch to see how other students has done one. The book report on Captin Underpants is quite cute. For teachers, it provides sample lessons to help students on how to get started from writing a script to learning how to work a video camera. This video only has three samples and needs more to help others out. This is your chance for your students to become a star.
Casa Notes
Ann-Marie Jackson
http://casanotes.4teachers.org/
This is a cool site for teachers of all grades (daycare, preschool, elementary, high school). This site quickly make and customize notes to send home to parents and students. I played around for a bit. You can change the colors and fill out information right on the site. I probobly will use it for quick positive notes home for students that are working on making good choices at school. It even has a couple of forms that are both in English and Spanish.
Learning With Technology Course Resources
By Patrick Schwab
North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium, is an organization that provides professional development, information, resources, and technical assistance to K–12 educators.
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by Adam Hunt
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Tabblo is another photo sharing resource, this one allows you to either make a slideshow or place photos into an album and make comments on them. A great application for either a virtual field trip (as you can link from this page) or for digital storytelling (allows you to put cartoon bubbles onto the photos). You can also edit the photos in the program to give a certain look. For a quick sample, view mine here... It also works with Flickr, so if you have photos on Flickr, you can move them into Tabblo seamlessly.
BubbleShare
by Patti McFeely
If you still haven't found a photo sharing site that fits your needs, here is another one with a slightly different look. Like Tabblo, you can add word bubbles to each photo. Bubbleshare also allows you to upload photos for free and create a slideshow. What a great way to develop a visual report. You can limit who has access to your albums or even email them. You can link the slideshow to a webpage or blog as well in different formats. I inserted it into this wiki simply as a plugin. Here's mine using the bubble slider:
by: Susan Meece
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Recently I decided to have my kids design a front page of a website for a project I call "The Ideal Candidate." (The ideal candidate project asks students to describe and explain a presidential nominee who would appeal to the youth. They can't choose famous athletes or actors.) Normally students would present a speech, but this time I wanted to use a media platform that they thought would reach more of the youth vote. The students decided to create a "Myspace" page, but had to design it on paper instead of "MySpace." The formatted the page with visuals, a short biography, and a blog that had short exerpts about the candidate's issues. Once they completed the project they passed each "page" around the class and every student had to add to the blog or make a comment (in reference to the issues and promises that were made.)
Of course, students can't get on to MySpace at school, so this project had to work around the district's rules. The students ended doing really well and were extremely creative in their layouts. If you can't get to MySpace, I highly recommend this project as an alternative.
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by Adam Hunt
Jumpcut is an online movie creation/editing application. It works very similarly to imovie or MovieMaker, but everything is online and free. The interface is quite easy to get around and allows you to pull in still images, video clips, and audio clips. You can import these things from your computer or from other sites, such as flickr, Facebook, and others. One of the neat parts of this, which really makes it a 2.0 application is the ability to comment on other people's movies or to create groups which can share ideas, images, clips, and movies. With this, classes from different schools (or even in the same school) could have a group created and then collaborate on a movie in much the same way we can collaborate on the wiki.
In terms of use, there aren't the variety of tools you would find on a software piece such as imovie and it doesn't allow you to save in multiple formats. However, it does allow you to link or embed your movies in emails or on different sites. I've found it doesn't play quite as smoothly as other movie software programs, but it is a free service and accesible anywhere with the internet. One other caution-on the sign in page they show a still from other movies recently made/viewed...one today when I got on used South Park characters. I don't know what the content was, but be aware there may be some things you don't want your students to watch-at least not at school. Log in ahead of time, so students only see the movie they are working on-and talk with them before letting them loose at home with it.
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by Jonathan Craun
The above link is a how-to-guide by Will Richardson. He has a great idea for using Web 2.0 technology beyond simply exposing kids to RSS but using that as a tool to make his work more efficient. He suggests that if you have students that do online journaling you should make a personal RSS feed from each of your students blogs. This way you can easily manage and quickly review their latest blogs. He claims to have a paperless classroom as a result.
I think that this is not just a great tool but also a great ways of thinking. This would be a good way to model technology use to students and other teachers. Wouldn't it be great if all teachers kept blogs that you could link to as well. One of the biggest problems in schools is the lack of communication: no one knows what anyone else is doing. I would like to do something like this with my students, that is if I can get approval for it.
by Adam Hunt
Flickr is a photo organizer, editor, and sharing service. You can upload your photos to the site, make basic edits, title them, and then share them with anyone you like (or keep them all to yourself if you prefer). The feature I really like, educationally speaking, is the ability to put photos to a map so that you can show your students what a particular place looks like (like my sample for the Grand Canyon). Great for virtual field trips, introducing places, and other similar activities. Could be used to show locations of stories, provide writing prompts, or an interactive guide. Probably lots of other ideas out there as well.
The one thing to keep in mind is that once you are on the page you can search for other photos as well. You can set security so that inappropriate material should be filtered out but not sure how secure that actually is. Students could also leap off to other areas, so supervision (as always) is required. Probably best to either set up the page ahead of time for the class or have a link to the map you want them to view. On the flip side of that, you can always use photos others have taken, so if you haven't been to the Great Wall you can still have a photo tour. Just be sure (as always, again) to preview whatever you want kids to see.
Chitch.at Educational National
By Ann-Marie Jackson
http://chitch.at/
This is a site which allows any teacher to make a class page, build interactive assignments and share with other teachers. These are simply bloggs that are set up by teachers to allows them to create assignments on the web for their students to do at school or at home. The computer collects the work, records the score and allows the teacher to make comments right on the page to give back to the student. As a 2nd grade teacher, I can set up practice pages of what I will be teaching that week and/or that month. I also can use the material that other teachers have posted. It seems like a pretty new site, so there is not much to use.
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by Elfreda Benally
Both of these sites are great social bookmarking sites. They both allow you to store your favorite sites. I've been using MURL for awhile now and like their features. Not only does it allow you to bookmark, you can also use the calendar to plan for events in your classroom and with a simple click you can add in information by day, week, month, and through the year. Another feature it has is a note tab. Here you can type in reminders for yourself or others. All of these features can be shared with others via email. The nice thing about this is it can be accessed from any computer. Furl is another type of social bookmarking similar to MURL with save, store and share with others. A great tool for everyone.
Eyespot is very innovative. It allows members, free of charge, to look at bundles of videos, photos, and music to collect and use in the Mixer. For example, you can look in the videos and music and photos and come up with your own collaborative effort to get your point across as a student, about a presidential candidate for government class. This is very interesting and allows students to use their creativity and inventiveness. This is great for teachers as well, because it takes less effort to use ready-made videos and pictures to convey a lesson.
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Free Social Networking tool
by Jonathan
I stumbled across a piece of Open source software that is designed for social networking its called Moodle. I am just now learning about it and plan to set it up for a trial run. You download their software and then you have a learning community. I have not yet seen if it will work at school, but I'm going to try it this week and see how it goes. I would be interested to find out if any one has heard of this before. As I learn more I will post more.
This could be used in the classroom in a number of ways. You could link up with other classrooms, including other countries. You could have an online discussion. You could use this as a way to encourage collaboration and cooperation among students. One idea I have is to have classes teach what they have learned about a topic, then have subsequent classes learn from them and then add to the instruction. The idea is that each class goes further than the one, which preceded it.
Other Tips
A place to share Web 2.0 ideas for use in the K-12 Classrooms
AACE - Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education
By Patrick Schwab
The AACE is an organization dedicated to bring the life of computer into the classroom. They do this by offering classes, books and other resources to educators to help them. They also offer several other publications that involve and discuss the application of computers and technology in the education environment.
http://del.icio.us/
by Lydia Horstman
del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website. It allows you to store your favorites online, which provides easy access from any computer. With this site you can also build a network. Adding people to your network allows you to share your favorite sites with others as well as view their favorite links.
This tool can be used by students when working on a research project. The students can each have their accounts and be added to the teacher's network. I will be using this to share websites that will help students with their current project. Working from del.icio.lus will eliminate searching the web for information. This will also let students share other sites they are aware of to assist other students in their research.
http://www.voicethread.com
by Lydia Horstman
Voicethread is a tool that can be useful to all educators. It is a user friendly tool which incorporates multiple forms of media. With voicethread students and teachers can add audio to multiple images and comment on each others files. My 7th grade students have recently used voicethread to present their book talks. They first created slides in power point presenting a book review, theme and character analysis. The power point slides were then saved as jpegs. Using voice thread, my students imported the images and added their audio to each slide. After completing their own voice thread, students were instructed to listen to other threads and make comments. 8th grade Math students at my school have also used voicethread to review and teach Math concepts. This is a wonderful tool which allows students and teachers to collaborate and exchange ideas. To view some of the voicethreads students at my school have created click on the link above, select browse and type "GESD Coyote Ridge".
Fun With Librarything
http://www.librarything.com/
**by ****Ann-Marie Jackson**
I love this site! This web 2.0 site can be used for grades 2nd to College level. The lower grades (2nd-4th) may simply use it to look up their favorite book's author to see what else he/she has written. From grade 4th to college they can join a chat group to discuss what they have read and/or discuss the book they are currently reading. Librarything does two main things: first it helps you create a library-quality catalog of your books and it helps connect you with people who enjoy the same book or same type of books. All true book lovers would love to read reviews of their favorite book or reviews on a book they are thinking about reading. Students can create a profile that tells about who they are and lists their books and some reviews that they may have on them. I am still playing with this site. I found this site to be quite interesting mainly because I go crazy over books. I want my students to find a love for books that I have and find a type that they would be always willing to read.
http://www.scrapblog.com/
By Cheryl Myers
This site is an excellent way of cherishing all those wonderful memories that you make with your students throughout the year. It seems easy enough for even your younger ages students to partake in the creation of a beautiful yearbook that they will cherish for years to come. This program would be great for any grade level teacher/student to use.
techLEARNING.com: Technology & Learning
By Patrick Schwab
This site provides information on grants available for teachers and educators in technology. They give templates and other useful information and links to other web site that ether provides grants or other resources to obtain them.
GoogleDocs
submitted by Patti Mcfeely
Suitable for upper elementary, middle school, or high school, GoogleDocs is an ideal tool for collaborating on documents, spreadsheets, and even presentations. With an interface similar to Microsoft Word, it is easy to use. An added benefit is that since it is web-based, students can create assignments at school, home, the library, or a friend's house. If they do not complete the assignment immediately, the students can continue to work on it from any computer without worrying about compatible applications.
As with most wikis, the teacher or student leader can create a starter page for a group project, then share the document/spreadsheet/presentation with others in the group. Students can work individually on the project without having to coordinate a meeting time/place. Alternatively, they can work together on the project in real time from their own computers.
From a teacher perspective, the ability to see a history of revisions means students can be monitored as changes are made. In addition, each student's contributions are noted by color, name, date, and time of contribution.
Final projects can be published directly to webpages or blogs.
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Most Malware Is Launched From Legit Web Sites
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=311713
Jonathan says, I thought this article would be a valuable input to the Web 2.0 discussion. It talks about new trends in virus attacks coming from trusted sites. Upwards of half the attacks that people get are from trusted sites, and, "the growth in social networking sites and blogs, where security is just not one of the ingredients. Hackers are saying, 'It's easier to put our malware on these sites than to build our own...the growth of Web 2.0 technologies and mashups 'may make this even worse. If I can trick you into mashing up stuff from my sites on yours, then I can put malicious code in your mashups.'" This article is especially dear to me as at this very moment I am removing a virus from a fellow teacher’s computer. The teacher decided to renew her firewall and antivirus contract. She also allowed children, unsupervised, access to the computer. Students can be a liability to security risk as much as they can be a target for malicious attacks.
I suppose that the implications to the educator are obvious, we should protect ourselves. The article suggests the following protection, "He suggested that users install what Gartner calls 'Web security gateways,' the URL-blocking tools available from security companies.’We're also telling them to turn on the inbound Web filtering that detects malicious code,' Pescatore added." Bottom line: security is a big deal, and especially so when we are dealing with students. Monitor your students closely when they are online, and especially on social networking sites. Students are in danger of both predators and Malware.
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
By Patrick Schwab
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is a source for professional development, knowledge, and advocacy. A nonprofit organization, ISTE provides service to improve teaching, learning, and school leadership by advancing the use of technology in education.
Jing
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