Newsvine is a great news source for students. It’s a clean and friendly social news site containing articles from the Associated Press, ESPN, and New Scientist as well as user contributions. Students can browse the site comfortably, rate news articles, participate in article discussion, and even start their own news column where they can write and publish articles.
Neat site where users can actually create video mixes online and share them with others. You can add up to 100 clips or photos to a movie as well as add transition effects and video effects.
Wetpaint’s wikis come fully equipped with smart navigation, tag clouds, awesome editing interfaces and neat customization features that allow users to make their wikis as beautiful as possible.
Google sites is a great way to teach middle and high school students how to create a dynamic web site. This is still a beta program, but google sites allows users to work together or on their own to design web sites that can be used for a number of dfferent purposes. I think that this kind of a program will have a variety of purposes in the classroom. Just imagine, someday everyone will have their own web site and this will be how they communicate, interact, work, and play.
Animoto creates videos for you from your own images or videos. What sets it apart are the effects, which give it a very professional look. All the effects are timed with the music you select-which could be your own or one from their own pre-loaded library. For middle school students, these videos will really catch their eye. In terms of use, anywhere you'd make a slideshow or some other presentation this would be another choice for students. It is actually very easy from the user end-simply upload and arrange your images/video (or get them from another site), select your music, and then the site does all the work for you. It does take a while to finish the movie but the result is very cool. My movie was made from 12 still photos...imagine what students could do with more, or with video segments. (Creating their own commercials for Presidential candidates comes to mind as one....)
Working off the site Shannon found, I figured ToonDoo could be used to get students talking about social situations. They provide a straightforward platform and the students can make them goofy enough that they won't mind talking about serious social situations they encounter daily in the wild world of middle school. Even better, if students can make toons for others to finish, then there is a common discussion point and we can bring in different point of views. A basic idea below...not sure why you have to scroll on it...I'll see if I can post a better copy later today or tomorrow...
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