High Def Teacher

High Def Teacher is a a totally free community of teachers dedicated to finding the best resources on the web and the site provides links to resources that are divided up by content area, top rated, and newest.  On the main page you will see the most recently shared resources and an average rating for each site.  Also you will find the "Site if the Week" for each content area based resource.  You will also find a feature article on the right side of the page.  Visitors to the site can also submit their own resources and participate in forums as well.  If interested you can follow High Def Teacher on Facebook and Twitter.

Nota - Whiteboard Collaboration

"Nota allows users to mash your ideas and media together with friends in a dynamic whiteboard wiki. Using photos, videos, and other web content you can instantly create brainstorms, presentations, scrapbooks, and enjoy an interactive chat with more than 50 friends."
"Using Nota’s proprietary toolset, users can instantly integrate text, video, maps, clip art, photos from web album or on the local computer, or license-free images from Flickr, and material from an ever-expanding array of sources. Users can then instantly embed their work in Facebook or blogs, and can share and collaborate with friends."

To see Nota in action check out the video on their About page.

Prezi Theme Wizard

Prezi, one of my favorite new tools has finally created a Theme Wizard for their colors and fonts, thus allowing for even more personalization.  They have also made it a lot easier to embed a YouTube video as well by providing a simple URL copy and paste window.  Below you will see three screen shots and each one will explain what the new Theme Wizard allows you to do.

Theme Wizard Page 1 allows users to select various background colors as well as upload a logo to the presentation.  The logo is limited to a 250x100 pixel image.

Theme Wizard Page 2 allows users to choose both the font AND color for the Title 1, Title 2, and Body text. 

Theme Wizard Page 3 allows users to choose the colors of the various frames, the shapes, arrows, and lines, as well as the highlighter color. 

What is great about the wizard is that as you make the changes, the wizard shows you what your changes will look like, so there is no going back and forth seeing how your presentation will look.  If you prefer not to use the wizard, you can also click on the "Manual" button and it will allows you to type in the color reference keys that you would like for your presentation.  This has taken a great product and made it even better. 

Weekly Core Subjects Resources

Here is another edition of Weekly Core Subjects Resources. 

English
1.) The Poe in the Pit is an interactive comic that allows you to click on icons to view images, videos, and information about Edgar Allen Poe. 

2.) Vocab Genii is a site that offers users the ability to play a game to learn vocabulary.  The game will switch up the letters and you have to put them in the right order based on the definition provided.

3.) Grammar Bytes has several features for teaching grammar.  You will find detailed definitions, exercises, handouts, presentations, and tips and rules about grammar.

4.) Creative Writing Prompts provides just what you think; prompts to help write stories, poems, blogs, etc.  There are over 300 possible prompts...almost enough for every day of the year.


5.) The National Writing Project focuses the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation's educators on sustained efforts to improve writing and learning for all learners.

6.) The Poetry Archive exists to help make poetry accessible, relevant and enjoyable to a wide audience.You will find resources for teachers and students as well as valuable resources for teaching poetry.

7.) Poetry 180 is designed to make it easy for students to hear or read a poem on each of the 180 days of the school year.  

Mathematics
1.) Math Learning Games for Kids is more of a site for elementary and middle school teachers.  It seemed promising so I thought that I would share it here.  Some interesting games to learn about common math
concepts.

2.) Real World Math is designed for educators who wish to extend the concepts of the math curriculum beyond the pages of the text. Within this site you will find lesson ideas, examples, and downloads for mathematics that embrace active learning, constructivism, and project-based learning while remaining true to the standards and all while using Google Earth.

3.) That Quiz are math activities for students and teachers to help prepare for various math tests and learn various math concepts.

Science
1.) DNA from PBS is a great site to learn about DNA.  The site has videos separated into five sections.  There is also a section for Teachers with resources for using the site. 

2.) 3D Solar System Simulation is a simple simulator to learn about the location of the planets and other aspects of the solar system.

3.) The Molecular Workbench is a free, open-source tool that creates and delivers visual, interactive simulations for teaching and learning science and engineering.

Social Studies
1.) European History Interactive Map is a great way to see how the continent of Europe changed over time.  There is also a lot of statistical data available for those changes as well.  A great resource. 

2.) Teachinghistory.org is designed to help K–12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom.  Resources are available for K-12 classrooms.

3.) History Matters serves as a gateway to web resources and offers other useful materials for teaching U.S. history and is designed for high school and college teachers and students,

4.) HyperHistory is an expanding scientific project presenting 3,000 years of world history with an interactive combination of synchronoptic lifelines, timelines, and maps.

Tools for the 21st Century Teacher - Volume 2

This is volume 2 in what I will become a series of Tools for the 21st Century Teacher eBooks.  I have made this available through Issuu again and also made this document available for download.  So if you visit My Library where this is stored, you will see an icon to download it as a PDF at the bottom.

Happy Reading!

Open publication - Free publishing - More web 2.0

SPENT - Experience Life on a Low Income

SPENT is a great interactive for Practical Living and Economics classrooms.  The site comes through a Faith Based Ministry called Urban Ministries of Durham, so if that is an issue for your school, I wanted to let you know that.  However, I hope that it is not an issue because this could be a great lesson for students who don't have a grasp of reality.

Students will go through a process of seeing if they can make $1000 a month last while trying to take care of a kid, daily issues, bills, make a paycheck last, etc.  The goal is to finish the interactive with positive money in the account after 30 days.  Each selection that a student makes in the interactive, it provides a scenario for making that decision and information about homelessness and poverty.  It is a great way for students to gain a "realistic" view of life on a low income.

I highly recommend doing this as a class and letting students choose options as a class and see if as a class they can succeed.

IDroo - Intergrated Whiteboard for Skype

IDroo is a collaborative whiteboard for educators.  There are several other options for collaborative whiteboards: Twiddla, Flock Draw and CoSketch to name a few.  What sets IDroo apart from those options is that it integrates directly with Skype, so it uses your Skype Contacts to collaborate on the whiteboard.  With IDroo, not only will you be able to video conference with others, but you will be able to also draw with each other.  You also have an unlimited number of participants that can participate in the collaborative drawing.

For math teachers, there is a professional math typing tool that you can use for integers and functions.  There are also several geometrical sheets that you .  You can easily add pictures through upload and drag and drop as well.  For homebound students and absent students, IDroo offers a great service for supplying those students with notes and other aspects of a daily classroom lesson.

Weekly Core Subjects Resources

Hope everyone is having a great President's Day.  Our district will be in session because we are using it as a snow day make up, so no celebrating George Washington's birthday for me.  If you are off, then take this time to check out some great resources for the subject area that you teach.

English
1.) VocabAhead has a great Study Room where students can go to learn about critical vocabulary that you would see on the GRE, SAT, and ACT test.  The Study Room provides a short video providing the definition of each word and a real life example of its use.  There is also the text available for the video for students with special needs.  A great resource and possibly an even better tool for Bellringer activities.

2.) Readability is a web & mobile app that zaps online clutter and saves web articles in a comfortable reading view. No matter where you are or what device you use, your reading will be there.  It does cost $5.00 a month to use the service, but for those of us that read on the web a lot, it would be a great add on.

Mathematics
1.) Math-Drills.com is a site that provides various worksheets for mathematics classrooms.  There are several to choose from and are available in links at the top of the page.  Each worksheet is available in PDF format.  Another option is The Math Worksheet Site.

2.) Math TV is a website for sharing video tutorials for explaining various math concepts.  You can choose from videos for basic math, algebra, geometry, calculus, and trigonometry. 

3.) AplusMath is a site for students who need a little extra help learning math.  There are several activities, games, and even a homework helper.  There is even a flashcard creator. 

Science
1.) The Apollo 13 Mission Transcripts is a site that provides all students would need to know about the Apollo 13 mission.  You can get the transcripts that are divided into 6 difference phases of the mission.  An excellent personal and primary document resource.  The site Spacelog also has transcripts for other missions as well that are worth checking out.

2.) The Encyclopedia of Life is a valuable resource for science teachers and students in the science classroom.  Students can learn about the various species as well as get the latest news on life sciences. 

3.) The Arthropod Story takes you on a tour through the amazing evolutionary history of arthropods. Along the way, you'll get a healthy dose of taxonomy, paleontology, natural history and principles of evolution.  Looks like a great webquest from the Understanding Evolution website that has other valuable resources for science teachers.

4.) The Plant List is a working list of all known plant species. Version 1 aims to be comprehensive for species of Vascular plant (flowering plants, conifers, ferns and their allies) and of Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts).

5.) The Science Museum provides a great website with resources, activities, interactives, simulations, and games that students can participate in to learn science concepts.  There is an educators section that has classroom resources, one if which is a game called Thingdom, a fun game about genetic inheritance and selective breeding – adopt a thing, care for a thing, make baby things!

Social Studies
1.) Time Zone Converter is a valuable tool when teaching geography to help students understand time.  It is always a struggle for students to understand how it is a different time and day in other parts of the world.  This would be a great supplement. 

2.) 65 Twitter Feeds for History Teachers is a great blog post for teachers looking for ways to integrate Twitter into the Social Studies classroom.  A great list of hashtags and usernames. 

3.) The CIA World Factbook and Google Earth are great resources for teaching Geography.  Now thanks to a one man project by David Tryse he has combined the two into the KML Factbook.  Awesome is an understatement.  You might be interested in checking out his other Google Earth Projects.

4.) Legistalker is a great website for staying up to date on what legislators are up to.  Always good to see current events in real time.  A great resource for studying government trends and happenings. 

5.) The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features sets of primary documents modified for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities.

Fur.ly

Fur.ly is another site offering users the ability to shorten multiple URL's into one.  You can find previous posts where I discuss these services.  Fur.ly is not much different.  You copy and paste several URL's and then it provides you with one short URL.  When you visit the URL it created you then view each website in a slideshow fashion. 

Fur.ly does allow you to open links you shortened in a separate window and it also provides a drop down menu to each long URL you provided.  An added bonus is that you also receive stats to determine how often they have been viewed.  These stats will help you determine whether students are accessing the links that you have provided them.

Psykopaint

Personally, I was never really that good at art.  I remember one time doing a stencil drawing of a still image and being impressed with my skills...after that, it all went down hill.  Needless to say, my artwork at 4 was better than at 14.

Psykopaint is a website for those of us that have a limited ability to think abstractly or understanding colors and shading.  We also might struggle understanding the different styles of art.  With Psykopaint you can upload and photo and turn it into a fascinating work of art.  From the picture the software knows what colors go where, you just determine the style.  When you are finished you can pay to have your artwork put on a canvas, thus making it a great gift idea.

So what about classroom use.  Psykopaint would be a great way for Arts and Humanities teachers to discuss the various styles of art, both modern and contemporary.  It might be a neat way to take images that you share in class and change the appearance and then have students guess what they are looking at, and then reveal the original, especially famous people. 

The site still takes some artistic creativity, but at least you can start with something instead of a blank canvas....but the site also allows you to use a blank canvas if you so desire.  Just visit the front page of Psykopaint and see the samples and play around with the samples.

Kideos - Videos for Kids

"Kideos is the premier destination for kids to safely watch videos online. Each video on Kideos has been screened by our Video Advisory Council before it makes it onto our site. Our goal is to empower parents to feel comfortable allowing their child to spend time on Kideos, while also making sure children have a thoroughly entertaining experience." 

Kideos provides videos for various age groups from 0-2 to 9-10.  There are various channels that you can search through to find videos that you are looking for as well as the ones that are rated most popular.  Think of Kideos as a combination of YouTube and Hulu.  There is also an iPhone App available so kids can watch videos on the go.


I know I normally focus on Secondary resources, but this seemed too valuable to pass up...especially since my wife teaches 3rd grade.

Cosketch and FlockDraw

Cosketch is a multi-user online whiteboard designed to give you the ability to quickly visualize and share your ideas as images.  It can be integrated with Google Maps, so if you are doing a Google Trek, this would be a good resource to use.  What I like is the ability to upload a photo and then draw/sketch on top of that photo.  This would be a great way to take a screen shot of a Power Point Slide or other document and have students take notes, make edits, etc on those images.  If you use a blank canvas it would be a great way to teach Geometry concepts because students could participate in the drawing of Geometry concepts. 

With Cosketch, everything that you sketch shows up in real time as it is happening.  With one click you can save your sketch to embed on a blog or forum, providing students more ways of communicating concepts.  There is also a chat feature so that you are not limited to just drawing.  There are several drawing tools to choose from. 

The Internet is truly providing new ways for students to collaborate on projects in the classroom.  There are several options for students to create stories in sections and students finish them.  Cosketch could be used to draw a story that students complete in segments.

FlockDraw is another option for online whiteboard collaboration.  Flockdraw is a free to use web based painting/drawing tool. It makes it easy to draw with multiple people for fun or business. You can have unlimited people in a room and it updates in real time. Uses different colors, shapes and text. Save your work to our gallery and show it off!

Magnoto

Magnoto is like an all in one website for sharing various types of multimedia.  Think of it as an online bulletin board, online poster board, and a blogging platform.  Several features remind me of Glogster.  There are also several features that remind me of Lino It.  Then there is the idea of making it into a blog, yet it is a blogging platform like one I have never seen.

I learned about this site from Kelly Tenkely and her iLearn Technology blog does a great job of explaining several of the features and concepts of Magnoto, so I point you to her blog post to learn more instead of my attempt at reinventing the wheel....plus, giving credit where credit is due!

Thanks Kelly!

Time Warp - Posts from February 2010

A year later it is interesting going back and looking at what you said, sites you found, ideas you had, and "re-reflecting."  In February 2010, I was still fairly new to the whole blogging and Twitter experience, so much of February focused more on what I was experiencing in my new job and new Professional Learning Network.  So here are some of the best posts from February 2010 and a short description.

1.) Integrating Technology One School at a Time - Discussing with my readers what my new job was and how my district was working to integrate technology.

2.) My First #edchat - A reflection on my participation in an #edchat and how it made me reflect on how I reflect.

3.) Oh Come On...Not Another Power Point - A post encouraging the use of Web 2.0 tools in place of Power Point.

4.) How Do You Reflect? - An extension on my post about #edchat and encouraging teachers to reflect through blogging and encouraging administrators to encourage teachers to blog as a form of reflection and observation.

5.) Facebook 4 Education - There was a lot of negativity in the news about Facebook and how teachers and students were using it inappropriately.  I created a wiki with the goal in mind of promoting the positive use in classrooms, schools, and districts.  Since that time, Facebook has taken off from an education stand point.  I wish I had more time to update it though.  Hopefully some of you all can help!

If you have a blog, what were you writing about a year ago?

Weekly Core Subjects Resources

A full week off from work last week due to snow has made it hard to get back into the groove of things.  I have come to the conclusion that snow days are a love-hate kind of thing.

English
1.) 50 Places to Find Free Books Online is another list of sites where students and teachers can find books online.  For schools with a 1 to 1 program in place, these types of sites are a beneficial addition to the curriculum. 

2.) Wordfaire is a "live" writing/blogging/publishing platform.  The site advertises that as you write, it is published to the web.  There is no waiting for the post to appear.  The program is currently in beta, but if you are someone always looking for a new tool to try with your students, this might be worth looking into.

Mathematics
1.) WOW Math is a personal teacher website for a math teacher who teaches Algebra 1 and 2, as well as AP Calculus.  You can find links to his YouTube videos as well on his personal YouTube channel.  He came up with the site name because when people see his resources and videos, they say "Wow!"

 2.) InterMath is a professional development effort designed to support teachers in becoming better mathematics educators. It focuses on building teachers' mathematical content knowledge through mathematical investigations that are supported by technology. InterMath includes a workshop component and materials to support instructors.

Science
1.) The Institute of Physics has a great YouTube channel of videos to share in physics classrooms.  The power of online video is changing the landscape of classroom teaching.

2.) Sun Motions is a Flash based interactive that allows users to see the angle of the sun from months, latitudes, and times of day.  You can play an animation of the motion of the sun as well to help students see how the sun acts through certain time periods.  A great asset to teaching this aspect of Earth Science and Geography.  There are several other data sets you can examine as well as settings that you can change.  This is neat.

3.) Explore Biology is a resource for teachers of high school biology and especially AP Biology.  I highly recommend it for AP teachers.  On the site you will find lecture notes, blogs, handouts, and Activities and Labs. 

4.) Planet Foss is a Science Photo Sharing site.  The iLearn Technology blog has a great write up, so I will point you to that.

5.) 2011 is the International Year of Chemistry and they have a great resource site for Chemistry teachers.  You can find ideas and activities for the classroom as well as other various resources. 

Social Studies
1.) The History Teachers Channel on YouTube takes popular songs and changes the lyrics to teach various content in history.  Interesting use of music, and a great way to show students what they could do for a project.

2.) From Nikon comes THIS DAY which is a website that provides an image from history for the day you visit from various years in history.  Free Technology for Teachers does a write up on this site, so check it out.


Miscellaneous
1.) PsykoPaint is a web based software that allows you to create and paint amazing art from photographs.  An interesting way for journalism and art students to collaborate.

2.) DrawIsland is a free online version of Microsoft Paint.  Easy to use.

3.) Graphic Organizers are getting a lot of buzz and here are 30 or so.

Bounce - Collaborate on a Website

Bounce is a fun an easy way to share ideas on a website.  You provide a URL to a website and then it will grab a screen-shot of the website.  From there you can then click and drag to create a textbox around an area that you want to take notes about.  You can provide a title for the page and after you are finished taking notes, you can share the page via Facebook and Twitter.  You can also provide names so that Bounce can label the feedback.  

Students could use Bounce to analyze a website or as a teach you could use the site to provide feedback about a website that you want students to review.  If there is a website with an article, you could provide notes at certain parts of the article you want students to be prepared to discuss, or write about.

My Fake Wall

My Fake Wall provides students and teachers the ability to create a Fake Facebook wall.  Not sure how long this site will remain open before Facebook claims copyright infringement or some other lawsuit.  As much as our students are on Facebook, this would be a great website for a student project.  You can find several sample Fake Walls to show students as an example.

My Fake Wall could be used across the curriculum in various ways.  It would be a neat way for students to create a wall over a math problem or formula.  History teachers could easily incorporate it into a project over a person or event.  Same goes for Science Teachers and English teachers.  The possibilities are endless and once again provides an alternate project idea for students.

Using My Fake Wall does require signing up with an email and a password, this will allow you to save and share the walls that you create.  You will want to check with your district to make sure the site is not blocked as well.  You can see a sample below of Franklin Roosevelt.

Weekly Core Subjects Resources

I have created several Google Docs that will be updated monthly with Core Subject Resources, but I still wanted to continue with my weekly updates as well.  Many of these resources will be added to the Google Docs later.

English
1.) Random Logline Generator will create a random sentence or topic that you can utilize in the classroom for students to write freely and creatively.  It will provide students with a good starting thought point.

2.) QuietWrite is a site that you could use in correlation with the resource above.  QuietWrite removes the editors so that you can focus on writing.  Create an account and it saves your writing, and it saves it automatically as you type.  This would be a great way to create a blog as well.  You can export to a WordPress blog and even edit the writings on an iPad.

3.) From Read Write Think comes an Acrostic Poem generator and and interactive.  The interactive goes through the steps of creating an acrostic poem.  They also have the same interactive available for a Diamante Poem.  If students are not working on a Poem, they have also created a Letter Generator interactive as well.

Mathematics
1.) Whiteboard Resources offers flash based games and interactives for math teachers.  You can find interactives separated by content and curriculum area.  Each interactive comes with a short description of who can use it and what it is.

2.) A Complete Source of Online Math Tools offers 100s of resources for math teachers separated by subject matter.  This would be a great starting point for math teachers looking to integrate web based resources into their math curriculum. 

3.) Virtual Math Museum is a website that takes several aspects of mathematical formula and used them to "create art." 

4.) The University of Mississippi has an online Math Contest where students and classes can answer a problem of the week and when they solve it correctly have their name and location added to a list.  Also available are Algebra, Middle School, and Elementary based math problems.  To learn more about the program, watch the video below.

Science
1.) Google Sky is like Google Maps for the Solar System.  You can examine the Constellations, Hubble Images, and several other aspects of our solar system.

2.) :60 Second Science is a video competition for students to submit science videos.  There are several other resources available on this website and you can also find the rules for the contest.

3.) Sumanas Multimedia Development Services offers animated tutorials in a variety of formats for the various scientific disciplines.  The Science in Focus section offers animations for science that is currently in the news.

4.) The Biology Project is an interactive online resource for learning biology developed at The University of Arizona. The Biology Project is fun, richly illustrated, and tested on 1000s of students. It has been designed for biology students at the college and high school level.

5.) DnaTube is a scientific site providing video based studies, lecturers and seminars. One of the best features of the DnaTube, is that it supports other types of scientific works through flash animations, powerpoints, in addition to videos.

Social Studies
1.) The United States National Archives has a valuable and useful YouTube Channel worth checking out and bookmarking to share videos with your students.  

2.) A growing area of study in the Social Studies classroom is the Middle East, and thankfully there is a site for Teaching the Middle East which provides links, resources, and activities for teaching this part of the world across the social studies curriculum. 

3.) A great video that explains the Civil War in 4 Minutes.  Great for an introduction or a review.

4.) Picturing America, from the National Endowment for the Humanities brings masterpieces of American ar into the classroom.  Students can gain a deeper appreciation of our country's history and character through the study and understanding of its art.

5.) DataMasher provides the data available from the United States and allows users to create mashups to visualize them in different ways and see how states compare on important issues. Users can combine different data sets in interesting ways and create their own custom rankings of the states.

6.) ARTSEDGE: Multimedia Library is a website that provides images, audio stories, music, video, and interactives from the Kennedy Center.  There are valuable resources for teaching about the arts as well as lessons for educators. 

7.) The Old Photo Album provides a walk down memory lane by providing vintage photography of war and everyday life.  You can search through the photos by category or by tag.  It is a blog that has been around since April of 2009.  Visitors can submit photos as well.  A great primary source website.

Foreign Language
Bab.la offers translations in many different languages, ranging from colloquial and regional expressions to more technical or field-specific vocabulary. Special features include search filters, synonyms, pronunciation, sample sentences and much more.

Art
The Google Art Project has received quite a few blog posts in the blogosphere but I thought I would share it here as well.  Through the Google Art Project you can explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces

EmbedPlus

EmbedPlus is a website that takes watching YouTube videos to the next level.  Using the EmbedPlus software, when you embed a video you have several options that you can include to make watching that video online interactive.  Here are some of the features that you can add:

- Scene Skipping - Like DVD chapter buttons, use the wizard to mark notable parts like game highlights, changing performers, and lecture sections.
- Movable Zoom - Dynamically magnifies the area you point over. Use it to get a close look at objects, writing, and things like moving athletes.
- Slow Motion On-Demand - Instantly watch videos at a slower rate to more clearly see what happens.
- Real-time Reflections -Add a discussion to your video
- Third Party Annotations - You can add your own annotations to the video

Using EmbedPlus is as easy as copying and pasting a URL from YouTube.  From there choose your size, Start time, and Scene Markers.  You then choose your annotations and then are provided the code and URL.  See a sample video below.

Quicklyst

Quicklyst is a website that allows user to easily take notes.  It looks and has a similar feel as another note taking web-based app WorkFlowy, but it has more features..  The application requires no registration or login to get started, although that is still an option so that you can save notes for the future.

Quicklyst provides you with instant access to the most popular Internet sources, including Wikipedia and the Merriam-Webster dictionary.  Quicklyst makes it easy to organize your notes into study guides for upcoming exams. You can even search your notes for a specific topic or subject.  Quicklyst allows you to study with an Amazon Kindle device, printable study guides, and a smartphone or tablet computer

Cramberry

Cramberry helps you study with online flash cards, similar to Quizlet. Students can make cards on Cramberry, or choose from our catalog of free public flash cards. The difference is that when you study, Cramberry analyzes your progress using an algorithm and presents those cards at intervals for maximum retention.

Signing up for an account is free and simple.  The interface is also simple to use as well.  If students don't feel like making a list, they can search the public library and find a list of vocabulary for the words that they are needing to study. 

Another benefit of Cramberry is that it also has an iPhone and iPad app so that you can take your studying with you.   

Writeboard

Writeboard is a shareable, web-based text document that let you save every edit, roll back to any version, and easily compare changes.  You can use Writeboard in a solo effort or in a collaborative effort.  For each Writeboard you provide a name, a password, and your email address.

When you write something you can share it, revise it, compare it, and then store it in a virtual backpack to help keep them organized.  The software allows you to click various versions via a check-box and then you are able to make comparison between the versions and see what has changed.  You can subscribe to a document's RSS feed so that you can be notified when changes are made. 

Web-Chops

"Web-Chops is a fun and easy way to collect, organize and share any content found on the web. With web-chops you can save "chops" from web pages to your own custom topic pages. Instead of loosing your way through hundreds of meaningless links on your favourite list, why not create your own custom pages containing the content itself, be it text, video clips, audio, flash applications and forms. The clipped content looks and behaves exactly as it does on the original page. Here are some examples of how Web-Chops can make your life easier:"
- Collect Videos and then store them in one place
- Research Products/Subjects and then create a page for them
- Conduct textual searches through your own topic pages so that finding the right topic page is as easy as a couple of clicks.
- Share your chops with students so that they only get relevant information
- Collect search forms from different websites
 
The Web-Chop tool can be downloaded for both Internet Explorer and Firefox and it will create a toolbar application in your browser. 

Digigogy - A New Digital Pedagogy

Digigogy - A New Digital Pedagogy is "dedicated to the development of 21st Century Fluencies within a strong pedagogical framework to enhance professional practice and to ultimately do what is in the best interest of students.  This certainly includes a multitude of cutting edge technologies, with an emphasis on collaboration, conversation, critical thinking, and global connectivity."

On their site they have reposted 100 Online Videos That Will Make You a Better Teacher.  The categories of the videos are: 

Creative Learning Environments

Technology

Information for New Teachers

Information for All Teachers

Teaching Specific Subjects

Special Needs

Arts

Physical Education and Health Education

Lectures From Intellectual Professors

After checking out the videos, I suggest spending some time on this site.  There are several valuable resources for all teachers as it relates to developing a sound pedagogy while examining the digital impacts on education.   

Weekly Core Subject Resources - All Together in One Document

One of the schools that I work for is in the middle of a SACS review, which is an accreditation review.  We also were provided a document that helps teachers connect standards with lesson plans.  Part of my job was putting together web-based resources in a list that I could share with the staff that they would have access too through from both of these projects.  My plan is to update that list on a monthly basis and because it is on the schools network, the teachers will all get the updates that I include.

I wanted to make them available to my readers as well.  So I have created five separate documents and they are available through Google Docs.  Every month when I make my updates, I plan to make any new additions in red.  So as long as you have the link below, you will have access to these great resources.

I have organized the links based on the various curriculum within each subject matter.  I have also provided a brief description, whether it be my own, from the website itself, or an alternate source, such as a blog post (source provided).  Please feel free to share these documents with your fellow teachers.

Math Web Based Resources - General, Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, and Trigonometry

English Web Based Resources - General, Reading, Writing, British Literature, and American Literature

Social Studies Web Based Resources - General, History, Government, Economics, and Geography

Science Web Based Resources - General, Earth-Space Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Anatomy

Electives Web Based Resources - Foreign Language, Special Education, Art, Agriculture, Business/Marketing, PE/Health, Music, Practical Living

Hopefully you will find resources that you or your teachers have yet to discover.  Some have been shared previously in posts on this blog, so not all of them are new to you all, my loyal readers.  Happy Reading. 

January's Most Popular Posts

I know I have been neglecting the blog for the past couple weeks, but having a new baby, plus one of the schools I work for is getting a SACS review, and not to mention Master's classes has kept me very busy.  Hopefully I will get back into form in the month of February.  I still have a plan for a 2nd Edition of Tools for the 21st Century Teacher, but it has also taken a back seat to other things in my life, so hopefully it will be a February publication as well.  I also hope to get back to my posts "10 Resources for Teaching _________ with Technology" as well.

I hope all my fellow educators in the path of this past storm are all okay...it was a big one.  Just rain for me luckily.

January's Most Popular Posts
1.) 10 Resources for Teaching History with Technology
2.) 10 Resources for Teaching Economics with Technology
3.) 10 Resources for Teaching Government with Technology
4.) Weekly Core Subject Resources from January 15th
5.) Weekly Core Subject Resources for English

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