I present what I consider to be the top 10 Tools/Websites/Resources for teachers and students from 2010. These are in no particular order because I believe they are all great, but for different reasons. They might have been around before 2010, but were an important addition to education this past year.
1.) Glogster
A resource that allows students to use creativity and several other tools to share knowledge with fellow students through the creation of a digital poster. The incorporation of organizing the Glogs by categories for students and teachers to search through was a great addition to an already outstanding product. To see my previous posts about Glogster, CLICK HERE.
2.) Diigo has been one of my most favorite tools to use this year. With so many websites out there that teachers can use with their students, it is important to organize them in a fashion that is easy to use and find. I always suggest to teachers that they use it by creating list separated by the different units that they teach, then when it is time to plan a lesson they can find the resources. I also suggest tags based on vocabulary as well. Diigo is not just a site for saving websites, it is also a great site to network with other educators who are saving and sharing resources.
3.) Skype was a resource that I always knew about, but never really got into until this year. I created an account initially to be able to talk with distant family and for them to see my children. I then realized the educational benefits as I started seeing it being used at conferences and reading about it being used in the classroom. Then, this year, I had the privilege of setting up Skype for a teacher to continue to teach her class while she was home with a broken foot. She was able to keep her AP classes on track. It was a great experience. CLICK HERE for other posts about Skype.
4.) SimpleBooklet.com is a site that was a fairly new product that came out during the end of this year, and is an easy way for students to publish a booklet for projects. You can read a PREVIOUS POST about SimpleBooklet.com to learn more about it if this is the first you have heard of it. I highly recommend it for student projects.
5.) Personally, Prezi has been one of my favorite tools to use for presentations. I enjoy the ease of embedding YouTube videos as well as the ability to zoom in and out which allows more focus on important aspects of a presentation. CLICK HERE for several of my previous posts where I discuss using Prezi as an alternative to PowerPoint.
6.) Creaza is an all in one web resource that allows you to create Mind Maps, Comics, and edit Audio and Video. When using this site for the first time I found it easy to use and efficient at meeting my needs. The audio and video editing tools are very simple to use and are an adequate tool to create digital stories. You can see my PREVIOUS POST for more information.
7.) Common Craft Videos have been a great addition to my own understanding of several web 2.0 tools. What is also great about their videos is they have several related to Money, Society, and Going Green. I highly recommend viewing them if you are a social studies teacher. I also came across a great blog post where the teacher shared how he had his students create their own version of Common Craft videos. What a great idea. You can read my PREVIOUS POST about Common Craft to learn more.
8.) fotobabble is a site that I think is really interesting because it allows for the user to create talking photos. It would be a great way for students to present information about a person, place, thing, or event. I great tool for geography teachers as well to play "Where am I Game." Here is a great blog post where a teacher discusses how to use it integrating another one of my favorite sites, Wallwisher. There is also an app for iPhones as well for easily recording over photos.
9.) As mentioned above, Wallwisher has been one of my favorite sites to use with teachers. I have seen it used in various ways in the classroom with students as well. You can easily embed it into a website for students to access, or create a link for students to discuss a multitude of topics. The great thing about Wallwisher is how easy it is to use and setup an account. You can see my PREVIOUS POST for more ways to use Wallwisher in the classroom.
10.) ToonDoo has been a great addition to the classroom for many teachers. It makes creating comic strips very simple with a drag and drop interface. You can upload your own photos as well and add in dialogue. You can also create a book of comics to create a storyline. See my PREVIOUS POSTS for more comic sites and ways to use them in the classroom.
BONUS - Twitter. Well, because you should just use it. Just read all my PREVIOUS POSTS to find out why.
This will most likely be the last post of 2010 as my wife and I are expecting our second child this week and I will be taking a leave of absence from blogging for a while to concentrate on family. Please enjoy a look back down The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness memory lane!
From oldest to newest:
1.) Do You Tweet? As An Educator...You Should - This was my first real post on my use of Twitter as an educator and how it truly has improved my own professional development.
3.) The Power of T.W.I.T.T.E.R. - This was a post where I shared my acronym for Twitter that I created when I woke up one morning and everyone was sharing there own. Mine received a lot of praise, so I shared it here.
I unintentionally intended to write some "10 Tips/Ways" posts and before I knew it, I just kept going. With that, I ended up writing 11 blog posts that contain "10 tips" related to educational technology and various websites. So, in case you missed them, here they are:
Spend some time reading and thinking about these during the holiday break. Go back to school inspired to try something different in your classroom and with your students.
Christmas season is upon us. This will be the last Weekly Core Subject Resources post of 2010. The next post will be in 2011 and it might be a few weeks in as my wife and I are expecting and I will take a leave of absence and not post as often. What that means is that the next Weekly Core Subject Resources post will contain tons of resources. Happy Holidays to those that celebrate them and enjoy your break if you are having one!
English
1.) Copia is a social network for eBooks. Think of it as a digital book club. I wrote a previous post about it and thought that I should share it here.
2.) Magnetic Poetry is a fun way to "write." This site allows you to create magnetic poetry and words are available based on subject matter. You can also read other magnetic poetry which is divided into categories as well.
Mathematics
1.) Algebra.help is a site that has calculators, lessons, and worksheets to help students learn algebra. Each section is divided into different subject matter that is taught in math classrooms.
2.) Bridgeport Mathematics Department is a website from the Bridgeport school district. You can find several resources that are divided by subject matter. There is also homework helper and other links that students and teachers would be interested in checking out.
Science
1.) Physics Math is a combination of a math and science site that offers visitors assistance in understanding formulas and equations related to science. There are also several other resources for Physics on the homepage.
2.) Another Physics site, The Physics Classroom offers tutorials, multimedia, and other resources for teaching physics.
3.) The European Space Agency has a great website for learning about Earth-Space Science. It is basically an online journal for information.
4.) Nature by Numbers is a video that is inspired by numbers, geometry, and nature using the Fibonacci sequence. You can also find some other information and resources about the film.
5.) OLogy is a site for learning about biodiversity from the American Museum of Natural History. You choose an "ology" and it will provide information and resources for each one.
6.) Science Fix is a blog where a teacher films science experiments and explains what processes are happening in the video.
8.) Planet Hunters is a site to learn about stars and planets. It is an interactive site and seems really interesting, but my knowledge on space is minimal at best, so I am struggling with understanding it. If you teach science, this is probably one to check out.
9.) Symphony of Science is a site that takes lectures and other science videos and adds music and other audio to turn the words into songs. It is kind of interesting. I would check out the site to just see what I am talking about.
10.) Google Body Browser is like Google Earth for the human body. It uses software already on web browsers, so it does not require any add-on, java, or flash to work. Really a great asset for teaching anatomy.
11.) Game for Science is a site providing a virtual world devoted to science, technology and free educational games online.
2.) Country Studies is a site that provides data for over 100 countries in the world. The data available depends on the country. For example, there is a lot more for Afghanistan then there is for the British Virgin Islands.
3.) The dMarie Time Capsule is another site that offers you the ability to type in a date and see historical events that happened. Could be a great site to use to start a class each day.
4.) Project Explorer is a site I just recently wrote a post about, so you can click here for more information.
5.) Gapminder is a data exploration site that allows users to see how data changes over time and changes based on major events in history as well. I really enjoy this site.
You might also be interested in my publications to learn about various Web 2.0 Tools to use in the classroom.
If you are visiting this blog for the first time and would like to subscribe to the RSS Feed you can do that here. To learn about RSS Feed and Google Reader, watch this great RSS in Plain English video
I minored in geography in college, as my original goal was to be a meteorologist and chase tornadoes in Oklahoma. The geography resources available now, are nothing in comparison to what is available to students today. I have a passion for geography, always liked maps and learning about countries. Not sure where it came from, but it helped guide me towards teaching social studies. Here are some tips that I have for teaching Geography with technology.
1.) Google Earth is by far the best tool to explore the continents, countries, cities, and oceans. I am a huge fan of Google Earth and it is only getting better. One way to use Google Earth is to zoom into a location in the world. Zoom in really close. Then have students ask yes or no questions. Every question that gets a yes, you zoom out just a little bit. This is a great method to teach kids Absolute and Relative location. Google just released version 6, so I suggest downloading it. If your district blocks access to it, create a list of ways you plan to use it and submit it showing it as a powerful education tool. If you need help with Google Earth, check out the following resource. Other Resources include: How to Teach With Google Earth, and Google Earth Lessons,.and Google Earth for Educators: 50 Exciting Ideas for the Classroom. If you don't want to use Google Earth for the activity you might also be interested in using MapCrunch which is a random Google Street View location.
2.) Use Google Maps to "Trek" across places in the world. I wrote a post about this earlier, and I will just share it again. This is a great way to teach the movement and places themes.
3.) Climate is something that is part of geography at the high school level. One way to teach change in climate is have students set-up a webcam either at home or at school when a storm is supposed to be coming. Set the camera to take pictures at a certain interval of time. Use Time Lapse Creator to show change over time for climate in your hometown as the storm system comes through. The site has a great example. Students can then discuss local climate change. You could then take this into a discussion about Human-Environment Interaction.
4.) If It Were My Home is a great site for students to understand the themes of Place and Region. It allows you to compare sizes of several countries and natural disasters to your home town. Students have a hard time grasping the actual size of countries, so if you can put it over your home town, they will better understand is size.
5.) Maps are a great tool, and over the past five years, there has been a huge increase in map based resources. Coloring maps is so 2008. Students in geography should be studying the impact of humans on nature and the impact humans have on each other. TargetMap is a site that allows users to create their own maps with data sets they can determine based on research. When students are done with the maps, they can then submit them to the teacher to be graded. This site can help cover all 5 themes of Geography.
6.) Another Map tool is ShowWorld. As mentioned above, students have a hard time grasping size and data. ShowWorld helps compare countries based on certain data and then alters their physical size compared to the data selected. You can choose between 5 different categories, which then breaks down into sub-categories, which then provides options for different data sets. A great tool for teaching the five themes of Geography. Each map provides information as well in terms of ranking and numerical data.
7.) Atlas of the Biosphere is a site that presents maps from each continent based on 4 areas - Human Impacts, Land Use, Ecosystems, and Water Resources. Each of the 4 areas is then broken down into specific data (Infant Mortality Rate, Life Expectancy, etc). There are also schematics available that show processes in motion, like the Hydrologic cycle.
8.) Country Studies is a "website contains the on-line versions of books previously published in hard copy by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress as part of the Country Studies/Area Handbook Series sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army between 1986 and 1998. Each study offers a comprehensive description and analysis of the country or region's historical setting, geography, society, economy, political system, and foreign policy." Another great option is Atlapedia. Students doing a country project? Maybe using Glogster or Prezi, or a Digital Story Telling Tool? This would be a great start.
9.) Scribble Maps is a site that allows you to digitally write on top of Google Maps. This would be a great site to use to teach about different countries or aspects of the earth (Longitude and Latitude, rivers, borders, etc) because you would be able to draw and highlight specific lines for students to see. Each STRAIGHT line you draw gives you a distance and latitude and longitude point. You also get all the regular features of Google Maps.
10.) A couple of tools to use in the classroom with your students is the Map Maker where students can decide what goes on a map in terms of borders, cities, and categories of data. This would be a great tool to use in the classroom as an introduction to a lesson. Another great website is Gapminder, which allows students to see data change over time in relation to statistics, like World Population. You can pause the interactive to discuss why the data changes (World events like WWII). To see it in action, watch the great video below.
In the coming weeks and month(s) I will be doing similar posts for Economics, Government, U.S. History, World History, Reading, Writing, Spelling, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth-Space Science, Algebra, Geometry, and Health and P.E. So Stay Tuned!
Just because the weather outside is frightful does not mean that education can't still be delightful. The age of 21st Century education and learning allows education to continue even when school is closed. How might you ask? Well, here are just some ideas to get your mind flowing...especially those teachers who have AP kids and are on a strict schedule.
With it being winter for the majority of the United States and talks of snow days and snow storms, I thought this would be an appropriate post for today.
1.) If you have a Facebook page, you can still "hand-out" assignments to your students via Facebook, and they could still "hand them in" by attaching in a message or providing a link.
2.) If you have a Classroom Twitter account, you could still share assignments and links to readings for students to complete over the snow day.
3.) Want to teach from your computer, use a site like Join.me and share your screen with your students. Be an easy way to explain math problems in a step by step process or share a document they don't have access to.
4.) Upload a PowerPoint to Slideshare or add the slides to a Prezi so that students have access to notes and a lesson if needed for a quiz or test when they get back to school.
5.) Use TitanPad or TodaysMeet and have a backchannel chat with your students over a topic you are discussing in class.
6.) Use the site JustPaste.it to share a Word document that you want students to use or answer questions. I always made any worksheets using Word, and with this site you have the ability to upload the Word Document and it will maintain the formatting. You can then create a URL to share with students.
7.) Use your email and send students a text message to their phones to let them know you have a new assignment/project posted to your website. See my blog post about sending text messages from email.
8.) Embed a video from YouTube or link to an article and have students use a site like Wallwisher to discuss the video. Or have them type a response in JustPaste.it and share the URL. Make sure to approve messages first before posting!
9.) Plan ahead, have students know that they will always have a free writing assignment to do. Provide them a list and tell them to choose a topic each snow day, or designate numerical order for each snow day.
10.) Math teachers, use Twiddla and plan a time to meet with students online to go over math assignments, problems, homework, etc.
I always hear teachers say that kids think because they have a snow day that work assigned before the snow days is not due when they come back to school. If you set the expectation that work is to continue over snow days, then the problem will take care of itself. If students know that they will still have work over snow days, then it will definitely take care of itself.
If you have students that don't have access to the Internet, then you can ignore these. This is just something for us all to think about. How is the landscape of education changing? Because this was never a possibility just FIVE years ago.
Twitter has become a valuable tool for educators who are wanting to network with other educators. Many other teachers have realized that Twitter can be a valuable education tool and communication tool to use with their students. Some teachers have been using it for a while and have a great handle on how to use it. Others are new to implementation and might want some further ideas for how to use it in the classroom. Hopefully these tips can help provide some guidance.
1.) The initial trouble is getting students and parents signed up. They are the Facebook Generation. Several teachers I work with have offered extra credit/bonus points on a test for creating an account and then contacting their teacher. This has been rather successful for those teachers. Create some kind of form to send home to parents explaining the procedures and purpose and have students bring it back in with their username and parents usernames.
2.) Create a classroom hashtag. Make it something simple like #mzush10 (Mr. Zimmer U.S. History 2010). Have students search and follow the hashtag and that is an easy way for students to follow what you share. You can search for hashtags using the following directory to make sure that you don't have any that conflict with other hashtags.
3.) Make your classroom Twitter account the only place that you provide extra credit. This way when a student needs some, they know that is where you will provide it. You can post assignments on an alternate website and have students visit it to complete the work. When students complete it, have them reply to you so that you can expect it.
4.) Organize students into list. If you have multiple classes, this is a great way to track students on Twitter. You can create lists of students organized by class period, grade level, etc. This way it is easy to track what they are doing, saying, and working on as it relates to their Twitter account.
5.) Once you have developed a PLN, I recommend using them to your advantage. I highly suggest using them for taking polls, teaching geography, or getting opinions. If other students from other schools are on Twitter, you could have a Twitter Chat and create a hashtag for them to all participate. Use Tweetdeck to track the conversation. The Teach Paperless Blog has a GREAT example of this.
6.) Posting reminders and homework assignments to the Twitter account is a great way to get students to create an account and use it beneficially. You might even make Twitter the only time you will share the homework assignment. This way they have to check it in order to know their homework, and it is something that you can do at the end of the class period or day. It is such a simple task because it is only 140 characters long!
7.) Have a 140 Character reflection with your students. Provide a link to a video, article, or news story. Have kids provide their thoughts in 140 characters. You might even create a separate hashtag for such an assignment. This can provide students with an easy way to follow the assignment. The next day in class you can then display the discussion and talk further about it, possibly even highlight specific student repsonses.
8.) Exit Slips are a a growing method of assessment. Twitter would be a valuable asset to asses student learning by using it as a form of an exit slip. When students leave, you can delete the previous classes responses, or ask a different question. This way you have a log of the exit slips responses, and they can even be your bell ringers for the following morning.
10.) Backchannel is another valuable way to use Twitter. Whether you are using it in class with students, or at home while watching the news, documentary, television show, or movie, you can create a backchannel for students to have a discussion. Once again, you can create a hashtag for that specific discussion. I like this as an option because it is easier to track specific students unlike other backchannel sites where students can make up any name.
There are several lists out there for ways to use Twitter. These are some of my personal favorites. What are some of yours?
ProjectExplorer is a website for virtually taking students around the world. They are videos that you can watch separated by grade level. They recently won a 2010 Edublog Award which is how I discovered their site. The idea behind PorjectExplorer is "To foster the next generation of global citizens by encouraging awareness of the world beyond a student’s own community through the creation, production, and distribution of engaging and free multimedia educational materials." You can currently explore Mexico, Jordan, and South Africa. A great addition to classroom geography lessons.
Copia is a site dedicated to creating a social network for people who read eBooks. "If a book is worth reading, it is worth discussing." With Copia you will be able to browse and buy eBooks, create an account (which will give you 7 free eBooks - a $42 value), get into groups of people who are reading the same eBook as you, and enjoy powerful desktop reading and/or iPad reading through their app.
If your school has gone to eBook readers, or students are reading books via iPod Touches, you can download the free iPad app or desktop software and students will then be able to discuss the book with one another. Same goes for teachers. Think of Copia as taking the Book Club to the digital format. To learn more about Copia, click here. To take a tour and watch a video, click here.
I could really see this being a valuable asset to schools that are taking reading to a digital level. Having access to classic books is becoming easier and easier as they become free for download on various sites. If Copia would create an education aspect for adding school textbooks it could be a beneficial addition as well.
If you are new to the idea of reading blogs, or are looking to add to your Google Reader, then I recommend checking out the 2010 Edublog Award Winners. Although I came up short of finishing in the top three, being nominated at all is quite an honor and I am humbled to be included with so many great educators. The winners are not specifically limited to blogs, there are other websites to examine that include wikis, audio, video, and elearning sites.
It was about a year ago that I really started to get into the idea of blogging. I was hesitant, unsure, and fairly new to the whole idea. I spent most of the initial stages of blogging just learning how to use the site to benefit myself, understanding widgets and embedding, and learning how to write for an audience. Below are tips that I would offer someone based on my own experience.
1.) Develop a Memorable URL and Title - I originally titled this blog ZimmerTIS. I did not think that let people know the purpose, plus the URL did not help explain what the blog would be about. So I changed the title and URL. Make yours something simple, memorable, short and sweet.
2.) Develop a Theme and Focus - I started doing daily posts related to different aspects of Educational Technology last year and created a Focus for my blog. I no longer do that, but it helped me to create posts that are relevant and specific.
3.) Create a Weekly Post - Develop a post that you have each week to keep readers coming back. Make the post something that will be an easy read and provide beneficial knowledge or resources. I started this year creating posts related to the Core Subjects of Math, Science, English, and Social Studies.
4.) Educate Yourself on Formatting - I have had to take some time and learn about HTML coding and embedding. I like for my links, images, videos, and other resources I embed to be flush with my template, so I learned about understanding the simple aspects of HTML code. This can be very helpful in the future and be beneficial to your readers.
5.) Learn About Widgets - Widgets are a great addition to a blog. It allows you to add things for readers to access. There are several out there that can be great additions. There are also some that will slow up the speed of your page load. I made the mistake of over doing this. Be simple with what you add (blogs you read, labels, previous post, popular post, search bar, translator, etc. A great addition will be to create a Social Signature. Jason Bedell has created a great site called Social Sig 4 Me. Use that site to add your RSS feed, Twitter name, etc. This way your readers can find you in other social networks.
6.) Use Copyright Free and Creative Commons Images - There are several images out there that are copyrighted and you want to be careful when using those images. Wylio is a great site for finding such images. I recommend you bookmark that site and use it for adding images to your blog.
7.) Watch Your Labels and Tags - You can add labels to your posts. Be broad with your labels. If you are to specific then you will have a ton of different labels and struggle with the organization of your blog postings. I find myself editing my labels about twice a year where I merge some of the labels together. For example, I had "comic," "comics," and "cartoons" all for the same resources, but did not include the same label throughout.
8.) Choose a Welcoming Layout/Theme - When I first started this blog I had a dark black background (even though I had "Happiness" in the title). I realized that this was not as welcoming and inviting. So I went with a lighter background and brighter hyperlinks. So far I am happy with the change. Blogger, Wordpress, and Edublogs all have themes and layouts that you can choose. Choose one that is welcoming to your readers. Here is a great post by The Edublogger for Introducing Blogging using Edublogs
9.) Join and Share Blog on Twitter - I discovered that Twitter was the BEST way to share my blog with others. Steven Anderson has done a great job putting together An Educators Guide to Twitter, where you will also find my So You Are New to Twitter post. Through Twitter you will be able to connect with other educators and share your blog. It is the greatest way to increase the readership of your blog, as well as introduce you to other blogs that you can comment on. By commenting on other blogs, many blogging educators will return the favor.
10.) Interact, Interact, Interact - When people comment on a blog post, interact with them. Tell them thanks for commenting and taking the time to read your post. Answer questions if they have any as well. Turn your blog into a form of networking with others. Creative commenting can lead to a large growth of readers.
Have you just started creating a blog? Comment here and share it with those that read my blog.
Project PLN was developed by a couple of educators that I follow on Twitter. Nick Provenzano and Kelly Tenkely have done an excellent job creating these great "books" for educators. So far, with the help of the members of their PLN they have published 4 books. They are:
1.) All About PLN's
2.) Best Practices for Start of School
3.) The Administrators Issue
4.) The Web Tools Issue
You can find all four issues here. I highly recommend that you read some of the entries by some great educators.
Facebook, the growing social network that receives negative publicity, but offers a great network for teachers to communicate with students and parents. A while ago I created a Facebook 4 Education Wiki in the hopes of creating a place for teachers to share the positive uses for the Social Network in education because of all the negative press it was receiving. With a growing group of readers, I thought it would be good to share it again with this post.
1.) First and most obvious use is to create a classroom based page for your students to follow. Keep the page simple to a place to share news, homework assignments, reminders, etc. I would limit students to just having the ability to comment and not post their own stuff to the wall, because that will also help reduce spam. Our kids and parents are on Facebook, so it would be a great idea to go where they are. This would also be a great way to post events and then students can RSVP their attendance or not as well.
2.) A lot of businesses/programs are on Facebook. I recommend searching for some and suggesting students add them to their own feed. For example, The Library of Congress, NASA, a Literature Page, or Khan Academy. I suggest just doing a search for what you are teaching and see what pages are available.
3.) Use the Facebook discussion board as a place to discuss books, assignments, movies, articles, etc. Create a communication place to have a discussion and then share the discussion in class the next day. You will know if kids are doing their homework because it will time stamp when they reply.
4.) Not really in Facebook, but someone has done a great job of creating a PowerPoint Facebook Page Template. This would be a great way to create a presentation over historical figures, authors, etc.
5.) Have students create a Facebook Page for a historical figure, book, movie, time period, event, etc. Students in the class can then follow that page. It can then be an ongoing project that students can update with links, videos, pictures, etc.
6.) Facebook is filled with Apps that students can use related to education. 25 Apps for the Facebook Classroom is a good starting point to share with your students. I know there are several issues with privacy, so do make students aware of those.
7.) Create a Poll using the Poll App. This would be a good way to gather information about the thoughts of your students as well as take polls on current events and popular culture.
8.) Use the new Facebook Groups feature, you can create groups of your students that they can follow and then that can also allow more teacher control. Here is an article about using Facebook Groups with students. Although the article is for college students, it does provide information relevant to the K-12 classroom.
9.) Use your classroom Facebook page as a way to teach Digital Safety and Digital Citizenship. Share resources and information related to privacy and understanding a digital footprint. Students have little information about that, and using Facebook responsibly can teach kids how to properly use the Internet and social media.
10.) Over the years, Facebook will become a great resource in itself to have former students share experiences from your classroom, in college, or even in their new careers. You will create your own list of Guest Speakers.
Facebook is a great tool to use in education and I admit there are several learning curves that teachers and students will have to adjust too when it comes to "friending" each other. I suggest you start calling yourself a mentor on Facebook as well. Good Luck!
Another week has gone by. Is it just me or has the first part of this school year FLOWN by? Hard to believe that there is only one more week before Christmas break.
English
1.) From the Visual Thesaurus, A spelling bee competition online. Test out your spelling skills. You compete and score points for correctly spelled words and streaks of correctly spelled words. If that is not enough for you, here is another Spelling Bee site you can try. Oh, but I am not done, from Dictionary.com here is another spelling game.
2.) Figment is a site that allows students 13 and older to share their writings with others. I am not a fan of reinventing the wheel, so head on over to Kelly Tenkely's iLearn Teachnology Blog for a good explanation.
3.) StoryJoin is a site similar to Figment in that it provides a place for students to share their writing with other authors looking for an audience. They have a story of the week and writings are divided into several different categories. For more information read the opening paragraph as it describes their site.
4.) TextNovel is...guess what, another site for students to share their writing with an available audience (is it just me, or does this say something about the state of writing education when students have to go online to feel that their writing has an audience?) The difference is that TextNovel allows users to submit their writings via cellphone. The Innovative Educator does a good job of discussing this website.
5.) Woodlands Literacy Zone offers interactive English games and activities broken down into several different categories and units of study.
Mathematics
1.) New Zealand Maths is a site that offers units for math teachers separated by subject matter that then have links to various resources that you can use in the classroom.
2.) MathCentre is a site that offers resources that you can search for by narrowing down your search topic. There are over 10 different types of resources, such as iPod video segments, online quizzes, etc.
3.) Free Math Help offers just what the title of the website says. There is also a question of the day that students can answer. Students can enter in a math problem and then the computer will solve the equation for them and even provide them the steps to the solution. Another site is the Equation Solver. You input a linear equation, systems of linear equation, or single quadratic equation and it will solve it for you. HOW DO KIDS NOT PASS MATH CLASS WITH SITES LIKE THIS??? KIDS STILL DON'T DO MATH HOMEWORK??!!
4.) "Mathwire.com is designed to provide activities and appropriate worksheets for teachers to use in their classrooms. All activities and worksheets support the constructivist approach to learning mathematics and the NCTM Standards."
5.) Yummy Math is another site that provides teachers and students resources for learning math that is relevant to the real world. Free Technology for Teachers has a good write up about this site.
2.) The Interactive Science Dictionary is a site that allows users to learn the meaning of science words. There are videos and it provides users the ability to ask questions as well. Science words can sometimes be hard to pronounce, so this site will also help you learn to pronounce them.
3.) Operation Conservation is a wiki that provides resources for teaching about the environment and learning to conserve energy and resources.
4.) Learn Genetics from the University of Utah is a comprehensive site that allows visitors to learn all they need to know about genetics. A great resource for teachers and students. There are several virtual labs available as well.
5.) Looking to connect with NASA? Well, now you can. NASA has created a directory so that you can collaborate and connect with astronauts and other NASA scientist. You can connect via Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, and Gowalla.
Social Studies
1.) StreetLaw has put together a great site for Landmark Supreme Court Cases. Whether you are teaching them or students are learning them, this would be a great starting point.
2.) Virtual Middle School Library is a site that offers tons of links and resources for teaching social studies. They are broken down by subject matter. Don't let the title fool you, these will work at the high school level as well.
3.) Our Story is a site dedicated to sharing the stories of American Citizens. There are activities, books, and field trip suggestions for learning about American History.
4.) From the Library of Congress is a great map collection. There are six different categories of maps that visitors can select from to view and use. If you plan on teaching a lesson involving maps, I highly recommend examining this site first.
You might also be interested in my publications to learn about various Web 2.0 Tools to use in the classroom.
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YouTube has become a hot commodity in the classroom, especially in high school. Teachers are sharing videos from their classrooms, professors are recording lectures, and then you have videos from the likes of Khan Academy and Periodic Table Videos to really add an educational value. Below are some tips for using YouTube in the classroom.
1.) The biggest issue that most administrators have with YouTube is not the videos themselves but the extra content that normally accompanies them. Its the comments, the ads, and the similar videos. One way to alleviate that problem is to use a site called Safeshare.tv or ViewPure (which has a bookmarklet you can use). It will remove all the extra stuff and provide you just the video. So if you are having trouble convincing the administration to allow YouTube, show them this option.
2.) Sometimes, it can also be necessary to download YouTube videos in case you are worried about the Internet being down. Keepvid is a site that allows you to download a YouTube video in several different formats. It is simple to use and can make it easy to share videos. If your school is blocking access, download them from home and then bring into class.
3.) Do you have some students who are visual learners but struggle keeping up with the auditory aspects of videos? CaptionTube allows you to easily add captions to a YouTube video to help those students who have trouble listening and prefer to read, or hearing impaired students.
4.) There are some great videos on YouTube, but sometimes, those videos are really long and you only want to show just a section of a video. You also don't want to have to search through the video in front of class to find the spot you are looking for. Well you can use a site called YouTubeTime that allows you to specify a time that you would like the video to start playing. YouTubeTime can really help you narrow down to the important part of a video.
5.) Wallwisher is a popular site among educators. Combining it with YouTube can make for great implementation. When you provide a YouTube URL link in Wallwisher it will allow visitors to view the video without having to leave the site. You could provide the video to students and have them comment on the video in 160 characters or less. No longer is it just a video to watch, but it is a video to interact with. If you don't want to use Wallwisher, you can use the Embed feature of YouTube and place the video on a website, wiki, or blog as well.
6.) As much as I am anti-PowerPoint, I do want to provide this option. It is possible to embed a YouTube video into a PowerPoint without downloading the video. You can learn how to do this simple step here. Do know that you will have to have a working Internet connection for the video to play and you will want to allow some time for the video to load as well, so have a discussion ready.
7.) YouTube itself can be very daunting. There are billions...yes billions of videos that you can watch. So as a teacher how do you find ones that are specifically for education? Luckily there are a couple of lists. 100 Incredibly Useful YouTube Channels for Educators and 100 Best YouTube Videos for Teachers are good lists that are broken down by subject matter. This would be a great starting point to find videos to use in your classroom.
8.) I encourage your school, departments, or class to create a channel (i.e.: create a user name that is easy to find) for your students to use. This way you can share videos with the community. Using a FLIP camera makes it even easier because you can easily upload videos from within the software. You can customize your channel as well. Here is a great tutorial for how to do that.
9.) Understanding the benefits of YouTube to Education, they now have an entire section dedicated just to education related videos. YouTube Education is a great supply for videos specifically for teaching. The videos are broken down by category so that you can easily find what you are looking for. You will find that a lot of colleges and universities have their own channels and professors have uploaded their lectures. Want to give students a taste of the college classroom, have them watch a lecture. Of course there are some videos that are non-educational that come from the institutions students, but this is still a valuable resource.
10.) A great way to use YouTube would be to start your day with one and have it as your Bell Ringer activity. Each day you could choose a focus: entertaining, academic, thought provoking, etc. Students will probably be excited to see what the "video of the day" is in your classroom. With billions of videos it might be worth while have a different video for each class period so that students can't share with other students what the video is for your classes later in the day.
Google Reader and RSS have been a very beneficial addition to my PLN. I like how easy it is to stay organized with the latest information available on the web. It makes reading what is important to me easier, especially since I can use it on the iPhone and iPad. At the same time, Google Reader can be a valuable tool for teachers in the classroom.
1.) We should all be teaching current events. News websites are a great way to keep up to date on current events. Each morning you could check your Google Reader account and share the news with your students. You could take it one step further and subscribe to the feed for CNN and Fox and then compare how the two news station report the news.
2.) I love the weather and in science classes, the weather can be a great unit that can be integrated into other units. The Weather Channel has an RSS feed that you can subscribe to for national and local forecast, as well as a weather blog. It makes checking the weather forecast much easier and saves me time.
3.) Just mentioned to me by an English teacher is subscribing to a website like The Onion for her unit on teaching satire. You could then compare these stories to the real news stories that you get from tip #1 and discuss the difference in wording.
4.) With an increase in Web 2.0 sites, it is very beneficial to try your best to stay on top of the updates that these software sites go through. What is great about these sites is that they all have a blog that provides updates on the changes to their service or additions that might be useful to know about. Following the Prezi Blog allowed me to learn about the new feature of Prezi Meeting.
5.) There are several free online journals related to the various subject matter and educational technology. The key is finding them and searching them out and then discovering if they have an RSS feed for updated articles. This would be a great way to stay on top of what is going on with your curriculum. Here is a great Directory of Open Access Journals in Education that would be worth starting to look at. THE Journal is a a great educational technology magazine that offers RSS feeds as well.
7.) Do your student's blog? If they do, Google reader would be a great way to keep up with all of your students blogs without having to visit each one individually. Create a folder for these blogs and then easily read them at your convenience.
8.) Google Reader allows you to share what you are reading. This would be a great way to collaborate with other teachers in your building so that you can see what they are reading and you can see what they are reading. You can choose a custom style as well as a URL so that it can be easy to find. If you are wanting to get students to comment on each others blogs, this would be a good way to share the blogs with your classes and create a reading and communication portal. When you share your Google Reader you follow people similar to following blogs and you can select what you want to share, so it is not a mass share of your entire reader account. You might share one a week for students to comment on. And for the sake of "sharing", here is My Google Reader.
9.) Google Reader has a neat feature called Notes. This allows you to drag a bookmarklet into your browser and then when you come across something that you might not be subscribe to but want to keep and read for later you can "Note in Reader" so that you have it available for later and have a note about it so you can remember why you marked it. This is a great feature for when you find a resource while surfing the Internet, or a post on a blog that you really like, but might not necessarily want to follow the blog and have a way to save it in something you read all the time.
10.) Sometimes it can be difficult to find an RSS feed on a website. Google Reader has a "Subscribe" bookmarklet that you can insert into your browser and when you visit a site click on that button. It will then search for the sites feed. If it cannot find it, it will let you know. If it finds the feed it will direct you to your Google Reader where it will provide feed stats and then ask if you want to subscribe. This could be very helpful for those teachers who have trouble understanding copy and paste and how to look for a feed. It is also an easy way to subscribe to feeds for your favorite sites.
PowerPoint is one of those software that most teachers are willing to jump right in and learn because they see it EVERYWHERE. I myself am guilty of over-using PowerPoint to the "point" that it was an ineffective teaching tool. Now that I am out of the classroom, several other options for lecture are available for teachers to use that provide more engaging and effective methods of teaching.
1) Probably the most notable and most widely used is Prezi. I have written about Prezi several times and you can see those posts here. Another option is a software called Ahead that uses the similar Zoom features. I have had little experience using it solely because I have been more impressed with Prezi. If you are someone who is determined to use slides, Slide Rocket is an option I recommend because it allows you to easily share the presentations over the web with students. If doing a PowerPoint Presentation is completely necessary, then I would recommend viewing the Do's and Don'ts of PowerPoint.
2.) Digital Story Telling - A picture is worth a thousands words. We have all heard that saying. If that is the case, wouldn't this be a great way to lecture? The great thing is that there are so many Digital Story Telling tools available on the web to use that you could always use a different one to keep the presentation format fresh. You can read about several digital story telling tools here. Choose one and try it out. Use pictures to convey meaning.
3.) Glogster is a great tool and has been one of my favorites for the year. A lot of teachers view it as a great tool for student presentations. I also view it as a great tool to use for lectures. With the ability to embed video, audio, and links, it because a fully interactive presentation tool. If you can make students use it for presentations, why not use it for lecture?
4.) In college, every professor was a lecture king. That is the way I was taught. Rarely was I provided visuals or supplements for a lecture. I might have been provided an outline, but not much else. If you are giving a lecture to students, take them to the computer lab and allow them to participate in a lecture using a Back Channel Chat. This can turn a standard oral lecture into an engaging discussion. When you mention something and students have more questions about it, they can ask without interrupting. It makes for a great interactive lecture. There are several options for Back Channel Chat: Todays Meet, Typewith.me, and TitanPad for starters. For math teachers, it might be a good idea to use a site like Twiddla so that you can work on math problems collaboratively.
5.) Use Skype and have a guest lecturer speak to your class. Use a site like Wallwisher for students to engage in a discussion with each other, you, and the guest following the lecture. Have students prepare questions ahead of time for the guest. Bringing an expert into the classroom is a great way to engage students in a new way.
6.) Comic Strips are a growing aspect of education. More and more sites allow teachers and students to create comic strips for no cost at all. A good idea might be to turn your normal Power Point into a cartoon lecture. Provide spaces in the comic for students to fill in the blanks or answer questions. You could engage students by asking them what they think might happen in the next frame. You could also expand on the lecture and have students create their own comic strips based on your lecture or create the next lecture for you. You can find information about comic strip sites here
7.) Another great option that goes right along with comic strips are cartoons. There are a couple cartoon creating websites available out there, Go Animate and Xtranormal to name a couple. Something tells me that it would catch your students attention if they walked in class and watched a cartoon for their lecture and had to take notes. You could stop the cartoon at any point to allow questions or cue students.
8.) Use Twitter with your lecture. Create a PLN and share your lecture topic a couple days before. Use a Hashtag and ask questions to other educators that relate to your lecture topic. Create an interactive lecture with students. Teach Paperless has a great example of how Twitter enhanced his lecture.
9.) As mentioned above, it might be worth while to create a Wallwisher for your lecture and allow students to comment and share their thoughts and questions about the lecture. You might provide further discussion based on the student's responses.
10.) You may have used some of these options. You may be a teacher who just lectures orally. Expand on that lecture by copying and pasting your lecture and creating a Word Cloud. Use a site like Wordle and help students get a better grasp of what was discussed most in your lecture. Chances are your test will appear similar to what words appear most in the Word Cloud. If it does not, you might want to compare your lecture with your test again.
There is an increasing use and ease of access to cellular technology in the classroom. Our students are pros at using text messages to communicate with friends. Why not turn this into a proactive solution to communicating with students in and out of the classroom. Remember to get your students information at the beginning of the year. Do they have an unlimited plan? Can they accept and send MMS messages?
I understand that not every student has access to text messaging, but chances are they have a friend who does that might let them use their phone. Always require students to tell you their name and class period in a reply message so you know how to organize the SMS you receive. If students have an iPod touch, there are several free text messaging apps available to download as well. If all else fails, provide an alternative for those students.
Some of you might get complaints from parents, and that should be expecting, but share with them this simple statement: "If your kid is going to text, wouldn't you prefer them to text for school?"
1.) The most popular use is Poll Everywhere. You can create a poll and students use their cell phones to respond to the poll and it updates responses in real time. The free account keeps it anonymous, so be cautious with the questions you create.
2.) Use a site like Wiffiti and have the student's SMS appear on a screen similar to a bulletin board. The messages appear real time and you can really enhance your discussion. This might be a great tool for students who are afraid to speak up. Be mindful though that students can put in anything and you might not know who it is, so use cautiously and with trustworthy students.
3.) Create Groups and email students reminders to complete homework assignments, study for test, and work on projects.
4.) Testing is not going anywhere, so it would be a great idea to send your students some messages before testing encouraging them to do their best and eat a good breakfast. Sometimes it is the little things that make all the difference.
5.) Offer extra credit assignments. Text students extra credit assignments at night. Teachers always have those kids that always ask for extra credit. Let them know that this is the method for extra credit. You could make it as simple as asking a question and getting the answer in a reply. You could go above that and create a whole new assignment and share it via SMS.
6.) I like to watch the news every night. I like to know what is going on around the world. Our students, not so much. Encourage students to watch the news and let them know that you will be sending out extra credit questions related to the news: What is the big picture with __________? How might this impact the United States/your country? How does this relate to _________________ that we talked about _________?
7.) Share a picture MMS and have students reply with what they think the picture means, or their thoughts on the picture in 160 characters. Get creative with their "writing."
8.) On the same note, have students quote famous speeches, books, movies, music lyrics, but in SMS text. It truly is a whole other language, might else well use it to teach concepts that are more important than the usual conversations students are having.
9.) Share a link to an article for students to read. Have students respond to the article in class the next morning. You might also have them respond via SMS that night to see who is doing the assignment that night.
10.) Create a contest with your students. Ask a question and the first student or first 5 students to respond get bonus points on a test. You could do this multiple times throughout a day or weekend, but always at different times.
What ideas do you have? There are several out there I am sure. You can find more general ideas about cell phone implementation by reading the blog by The Innovative Educator who had several post at the end of November about Cell Phones in Education, I highly recommend reading those entries.
The first full week of December and only a couple more weeks before the Christmas break. This weeks edition of Weekly Core Subjects Resources brings some interesting links and resources.
English Spreeder is a site that allows you to create a bookmarklet and then easily read text by copying and pasting any text from the webs to improve your words per minute. A simple and user friendly site to increase your reading ability.
Repeat After Us is a site created by a student that is an online library and language lab. You can search the site by author, title, and genre. You can also search through the library based on three difficulty levels.
Mathematics Numdic is a number dictionary. You put in a number and it will provide you a wealth of information about that number.
WebMATH is a site that helps you solve your math problems from Discovery Education. The help is divided into several different levels of math and categories to help students with math problems.
Geogebra is a well known math software available for download to learn algebra and geometry. I will avoid reinventing the wheel and point you to Free Technology For Teachers who has recently shared some valuable links to resources and video tutorials for Geogebra.
Mathematical Doodling is an interesting site with some videos where I am guessing a student turns regular doodling into mathematical formulas and functions. Kind of entertaining.
Another great site for math students and teachers provides interactives for various formulas and functions in mathematics. There are also some for science as well.
Science - See link above as well. Chemicool is another site offering an interactive Periodic Table of Elements as well as the history of the Periodic Table.
Tree of Life Web Project is a site that explores how life is developed. You start at the trunk of the tree and then expand into the different branches.
CSI The Experience: Web Adventures is a great site for teachers who have units or even an elective class for Forensic Science. The shows CSI really has exploded student interest in Science, and this site brings the experience to life.
The Human Touch of Chemistry is a great site with information and interactives related to the study of Chemistry. You can learn about famous scientist, everyday chemistry, the history and future of chemistry as well as other neat resources.
The Science Resource Center is a site with, well, resources for science teachers. Resources are divided by subject matter. All resources are open to be reproduced, but at the same time, they provide the ability for users to submit their own materials for other teachers.
Social Studies Edinformatics is a site for education in the information age. One of their sites is the Greatest Inventions of All Time. I always taught a unit on inventions and the impact on society. This site would have been very useful for that unit.
50 Amazing Museum Exhibits You Can Enjoy Online is a great resource to bring what could be an expensive field trip into the classroom. The museum exhibits are broken down into 4 different categories.
Chronicling America is a site by the Library of Congress and it is intended to provide historic American newspapers. You can view pages from the newspaper from all the way back to 1860-1922 from about 25 states. You can also information about newspapers from the 1960-present. Click here for a list of all the newspapers available.
You might also be interested in my publications to learn about various Web 2.0 Tools to use in the classroom.
If you are visiting this blog for the first time and would like to subscribe to the RSS Feed you can do that here. To learn about RSS Feed and Google Reader, watch this great RSS in Plain English video
