InkleWriter is a website that helps writers tell interactive stories while also providing opportunities for adaptive reading. The software aims to give readers a choice as they read to what happens next. As a writer, you develop those choices and the software makes it easy for you to continue the writing. I like this idea because it creates an engaging avenue for readers to the text they are reading. After writing a story, users can actually have it converted to an eBook for Kindle.
Christmas is just around the corner and the kids in your classroom or at your house are probably interested in seeing when Santa will be where. Well, Google has their Santa Tracker read to assist you. There is currently a countdown that kids can see. From this page you can find Santa on Google+, download an Android App or install a Chrome Extension. And what is fun this year, is tracking Santa on Google Earth. My son is 5 turning 6 and enjoys my iPad as much as I do, so I am looking forward to sharing this tracking tool with him.
Through the Google Tracker site there are graphics and games as well that kids can play related to Christmas and Santa Claus. A cool feature is a virtual "chat" with Santa to set up personal phone calls, messages on Google+, and an email. You provide some information, and Santa will contact your kid. For more information about the Santa Tracker, click here.
If you don't want the Google Santa Tracker, the NORAD Santa Tracker is a good option as well. It has a countdown as well and here is a short video about it.
Share My Lesson, from the American Federation of Teachers and TES Connect, is a website dedicated to providing teachers an avenue to share lessons they are doing in their classrooms and assist teachers in finding lessons to use in their classroom. Because of the creation of Common Core, we are seeing quite a few of these sites pop up. Teachers Pay Teachers is another option that has teacher resources for free and for purchase and you can find my profile HERE. It has links to my free eBooks and to a lesson planner.
On Share My Lesson teachers can get information about Common Core Standards and a forum to discuss the implementation of the standards. A featured section currently has information on how to respond to a school crisis, something all of us teachers are thinking about. They are also running a contest where teachers can win a vacation for being the top resource uploader. With the holiday season, they also have resources and activities for teaching about the holiday season. If you need a place to ask questions or get more information, there is a Forum Area for those discussions as well.
There are currently over 250,000 free teaching resources to be used in the classroom and they are divided by grade level and there is a section for special education as well. When you click on the grade level (which can also be broken down to individual grades), you can then look at the various content areas as well and they are broken down by individual subjects within a content area, which are then broken down by units most commonly found in those subject areas.
In a trial use in searching for resources, I found Share My Lesson to be easy to navigate and purposeful in their direction in serving teachers. They have several partner websites that have share lessons as well, so not everything is teacher submitted; but that does not take away from the quality. By creating an account, users can save searches, add favorites, follow other users, and of course, add their own resources.
To use Share My Lesson completely, meaning access the PDF and other files, you must create an account, which will require email verification. For more information, see the video HERE. Or see a longer video below (9:00)
Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas Day One - Edcanvas
Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas Day Two - Cubby
Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas Day Three - NextUp
Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas Day Four - Otixo
Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas Day Five - Quiklinkr and Listango
Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas Day Six - Educlipper
