Edu web 2.0 for the future by Richard Byrne 1.Glogster Glogster Tutorial
5. we played this in HE Micro teaching
2. Word Twist is an online version of the popular board game, Boggle. Word Twist comes in two versions a four by four grid and a five by five grid. The purpose of Word Twist is to identify as many words as possible using the letters in the grid.
3. Super Text Twist is a simple word game similar to Word Twist which asks plays to identify words from a set of jumbled letters. The Super Text Twist game be played online or downloaded for use offline.
4. Parade of Games in Powerpoint was developed by faculty at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. Parade of Games in Powerpoint provides teachers with games and game templates for classroom use. The games and game templates are available for download in Powerpoint format. Some of the games and game templates that teachers can find on Parade of Games in Powerpoint include Bingo, Jeopardy, and scavenger hunts.
5. Arcademic Skill Builders offers a collection of twenty-one quality games for sharpening math and language arts skills. All of the games can be played online and six of the games are even enabled for play using a Nintendo Wii remote.
6. The Problem Site is loaded with great games for students. Some of the games are traditional "hang-man" style games, some of the games are traditional games with a twist, and some of the games are completely new. Each game is designed to help students develop problem solving skills. The games are categorized as word games, math games, or strategy games.
7. Ghost Blasters is designed to help students learn to multiply and divide quickly in their heads. To play Ghost Blasters select a multiple of which each "bad" ghost will have a value that is a multiple of that which you chose. Students then use their mouse to blast every "bad" ghost. For example, if I select "5" at the beginning then all bad ghosts will display a multiple of 5. I then have to blast all of the bad ghosts to gain points, but if I blast a "good" ghost (a ghost that does not have a multiple of 5) I lose points.
8. Learning Games for Kids offers games for mathematics as well as many other content areas. Most of the games on Learning Games for Kids can be played directly on the website although some do link out to other sources.
9. Learn With Math Games is a site that I like because it offers online games as well as PDF templates for games that teachers and students can play in their classrooms. Learn With Math Games is organized by grade level and by mathematics topic.
10. Gamequarium developed by Diana Dell (a great person to follow on Twitter by the way) offers an excellent catalog of mathematics games and video demonstrations of mathematics functions.
11. Primary Games offers a collection of mathematics games as well as games for other content areas. You can grab some of the games on Primary Games and embed them into your own blog or website.
12. Grammar Ninja is a fun game for students to play as they develop a working knowledge of the parts of speech. Grammar Ninja has three levels for students to work through. As long as you answer questions correctly, they continue through the game, but answer incorrectly and the words explode.
13. Mad Libs offers a widget that you can install on your blog to allow visitors to play Mad Libs. I've always thought that having a "fun element" on your classroom blog is a good way to keep students actively visiting the blog without prompting from you. If you're an English teacher, the Mad Libs widget might be something to consider adding to your blog.
14. the World Food Programme's website offers students a large selection of educational online games and activities. The games are categorized by age group. Some of the games, like Food Force, are about world hunger while other games are more general in nature.
15. Taking it Global, an organization for youth interested in global issues, has a small games section that includes a game based on the flags of the world. Flags of the World asks students to match flags to their respective countries. After matching each flag to its country students can click the "learn more" link to find more information about that country.
16. Shape It Up is one of many good educational games and activities on Kinetic City. Shape It Up is an activity that would be good for use in an elementary school Earth Science lesson. The activity presents students with "before" and "after" images of a piece of Earth. Students then have to select the force nature and the span of time it took to create the "after" picture. If students choose incorrectly, Shape It Up will tell the student and they can choose again.
17. The Houghton Mifflin Company produces Grammar Blast. Grammar Blast offers 35 interactive grammar activities for students in grades two through five.
18. The Grammar Practice Park produced by Harcourt School Publishers provides 12 games for students in grades three, four, and five.
19. The British Council's Learn English website offers 69 interactive activities for learning the rules of grammar. The activities are not listed by grade level so you will have to preview them to determine which activities are best suited for your students.
20. Scholastic Inc. has a page for elementary age students called Maggie's Learning Adventures. On Maggie's Learning Adventures visitors will find five grammar activities as well as activities for learning Spanish, Math, and Science.
21. The BBC's Skillswise website is a great resource for a wide variety of content areas. On the grammar and spelling page there are 21 activities suitable for students of middle school and high school age.
22. Playing History is a collection of 128 games related to topics in US and World History as well as civics and geography. The games come from a variety of sources across the web. Feedback on every game and suggestions for future additions are welcomed by the hosts of the site. Visitors to Playing History can search for games by using the tag cloud, by using the search box, or just browse through the entire list.
23. Think About History is a fun trivia game on History.com. The object of the game is to cross the playing board by correctly answering a sequence of history trivia questions. The game has multiple levels that get progressively more difficult throughout the game. The questions on Think About History are a mix of video-based and text-based questions. The game can be played as an individual game or a two player game.
24. Fling the Teacher is a website containing 68 history quiz games. All of the quizzes have at least fifteen questions and a few of the games have more than 100 questions. The average is 30-45 questions per quiz. Prior to starting each quiz game students can create their own custom game character.
25. Scavenger Hunt Through History is a game designed to be played by students in junction with Freedom: A History of US produced by PBS. Freedom: A History of US contains is an overview of US history containing videos, documents, and pictures. In addition to the resources previously mentioned, their are quizzes for students to test their knowledge.
26. National Geographic Kids has a wide variety of games, puzzles, and activities for students of elementary school age. National Geographic Kids has nine games specifically for developing geography skills.
27. Learning Together offers four activities for learning about the geography of the United States. Learning Together also offers a game about world geography and a game about European geography.
28. Owl and Mouse Educational Software offers nine, free, interactive maps for students. The maps cover every continent except Antarctica.
29. Traveler IQ Challenge has 14 interactive geography games. The activities can be embedded in a blog or website.
30. Geosense is a fun way to use and improve your knowledge of world geography. Players can play against the computer or challenge another player. Geosense can be played anonymously or you can register and have your scores recorded for you. There are four Geosense maps (US, World, Europe, or advanced) that players can select from.
31. Smarty Games features games for developing basic mathematics and reading skills. There are six mathematics games covering basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The reading section has two alphabet games and nine animated stories. In addition to the mathematics and reading activities, Smarty Games offers activities for learning to read a clock, puzzles, mazes, coloring activities.
32. Planet In Action is a fun website that features three games based on Google Earth. All three games utilize Google Earth imagery and navigation. The three games are Ships, Places, and Moon Lander. In "Places" you navigate, from a helicopter view, five popular places including the Grand Canyon. In "Ships" you become the captain of a fleet of ships to navigate famous ports of call. And in "Moon Lander" you take control of the Apollo 11 moon lander and guide the "Eagle" to touch-down.
33. The National Center for Education Statistics hosts a collection of games and tools for students. Dare to Compare is a quiz section of Kids' Zone where students can test their knowledge of civics, economics, history, geography, mathematics, and science. After taking each quiz the students are shown the correct answers. Dare to Compare also allows students to see the national and international average rate of correct answers.
34. Brain Bashers offers visitors a nice selection of word games, logic games, and puzzles. Brain Bashers is updated regularly with many games that change daily and new games added every week.Brain Bashers was developed and is maintained by Kevin Stone. Kevin Stone is a mathematics teacher in England.
35. The Discovery Channel website lets you test your trivia knowledge while playing the same quizzes the contestants on Cash Cab play. Play the Cash Cab quiz game and earn fictitious money for every question you answer correctly. Answer three questions incorrectly and the game is over.
1. Grammar Ninja is a fun game for students to play as they develop a working knowledge of the parts of speech. Grammar Ninja has three levels for students to work through. As long as you answer questions correctly, they continue through the game, but answer incorrectly and the words explode.
2. Mad Libs offers a widget that you can install on your blog to allow visitors to play Mad Libs. I've always thought that having a "fun element" on your classroom blog is a good way to keep students actively visiting the blog without prompting from you. If you're an English teacher, the Mad Libs widget might be something to consider adding to your blog.
3. Great Source iWrite from the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt company features an awesome animated and narrated glossary of grammar terms. In this glossary you will find animated, narrated videos explaining the use of punctuation. You can also find the same type of video explaining the parts of speech and mechanics of writing.
4. Grammar Bytes is a great website for Language Arts teachers. Grammar Bytes offers teachers and students a glossary of terms, handouts, interactive exercises, and slide show presentations. There are eighteen slide show presentations available for free download from Grammar Bytes. Each slide show is accompanied by a handout for students to complete as they view each presentation.
5. Daily Writing Tips is a blog that I've mentioned in the past as a good source of content about writing in English. Recently, they announced the release of an ebook about English grammar. The ebook is 34 pages long and is free to anyone that subscribes to their email newsletter. Visit Daily Writing Tips for all of the details about the ebook.
6. The Houghton Mifflin Company produces Grammar Blast. Grammar Blast offers 35 interactive grammar activities for students in grades two through five.
7. The Grammar Practice Park produced by Harcourt School Publishers provides 12 games for students in grades three, four, and five.
8. The British Council's Learn English website offers 69 interactive activities for learning the rules of grammar. The activities are not listed by grade level so you will have to preview them to determine which activities are best suited for your students.
9. Scholastic Inc. has a page for elementary age students called Maggie's Learning Adventures. On Maggie's Learning Adventures visitors will find five grammar activities as well as activities for learning Spanish, Math, and Science.
10. The BBC's Skillswise website is a great resource for a wide variety of content areas. On the grammar and spelling page there are 21 activities suitable for students of middle school and high school age.
Downloadable PDFs from DocStoc and Scribd1. Evaluating Information - A Guide to Websites.
- This is a one page list of guiding questions to consider while viewing a website. This guide is best suited to high school and college students.
2. Gary Library Website Evaluation Checklist.
- A two page document containing checklists in six different categories for determining the validitity and quality of online information. "Smiley" icons provide clues for younger students. Suitable for middle school and high school use.
3. Evaluating the Quality of Sources.
- A one page document outlining a list of questions to consider as you evaluate a website. This document recommends and provides a link for checking the WHOIS domain registry.
4. Boolify Lesson Plan for Evaluating Websites.
- A simple lesson plan from Boolify.org that is appropriate for grades four through nine (give or take a grade).
5. Bear Essentials Evaluating Websites.
- This document is part of series of documents about finding and evaluating online and print references. These documents were produced by the Baton Rouge Community College.
Online Lessons and Activities6. Cyber Smart Lesson Plans and Student Activities.
- Provides more than a dozen lesson plans and activities appropriate for grades K-12. Lessons cover everything from finding websites to evaluating websites.
7. Kathy Shrock's ABC's of Website Evaluation.
- Tried and true lesson plans, online activities, and handouts for teaching website evaluation. The resources found here can be adapted for use in elementary school, middle school, and high school.
8. Cornell University Library - Evaluating Websites.
- Geared toward college students, the resources here can be accessed by high school students. Many links out to other resources on the topic of website evaluation.
For Brushing-up on Your Own Skills9. Evaluating Websites for Learners.
- Created by Maggie Verster, this presentation provides justification for teachers previewing websites, creating their own search engines, links to resources for teaching website evaluation. Presentation is embedded below.
View more presentations from Andrea Tejedor.
Glogster is a powerful tool for students to use to create online collages that they can share with their friends and classmates.
Glogster for Education gives teachers the ability to create accounts for their classrooms. Using their Glogster for Education accounts, teachers can assign to and manage individual accounts for their students.
In this Glogster tutorial you will find directions on everything from registering with Glogster through embedding finished Glogsters into a wiki or blog.
Applications for EducationGlogster can be used in any number of content areas. Creating Glogster collages could be an assignment in and of itself or the collages your students create could be part of larger collaborative project like creating a wiki on particular unit of study.
its about alternatives to YouTube. This post consolidates all of those resources into one list. From http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/12/15-most-popular-posts-on-free-tech-4.html
1,2,3. This list cannot be started and would be totally incomplete if I did not start by mentioning Teacher Tube, Teachers.tv, and iTunes U.
4. Viddler is a service that I enjoy using because of its integrated in-video commenting system. Read my review here.
5. How Stuff Works is a video site that I spent hours exploring in September because I was sucked in by the quality of the content. My blog post about it is here.
6,7. The History Channel and the Discovery Channel both offer a lot of content similar to and, in some cases, identical to that which is found on their respective television networks.
8,9 Vimeo and Blip.tv are two user generated content video sites that have gained some traction over the last year. My reviews of these services are available here and here respectively.
10 Dot Sub is full of user generated content that is subtitled into many different languages. I have a hearing impaired student this year that uses Dot Sub quite a bit.
11. If you're looking for current news content you may want to consider subscribing to the Reuters Video RSS feed.
12, 13. Along the lines of news videos, all of the major US Networks offer most of their nightly news as online videos. For news videos that are kid-friendly try CNN Student News. If you're interested in showing your students the inner workings of Congressional proceedings, visit the C-Span video library.
14. Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and News Corps, offers high quality video of television shows, movies, and old news broadcasts. You can read my review of Hulu here.
15, 16, 17, 18. For videos directly intended for use in the classroom visit the Kids Know It Network, The Futures Channel, Science Tube, and Math-A-Tube.
19, 20 TED and Big Think offer intellectual discussions and presentations about a wide variety of social, political, scientific, and economic topics.
21. Snag Films is a great place to watch full length documentaries from producers like National Geographic for free. My review of Snag Films is here.
22. Google Video serves a lot of results from YouTube, but you will also find non-YouTube videos in the mix that you can use in the classroom.
23. Nibipedia - Nibipedia takes the concepts of Wikipedia and YouTube and combines them. In other words if every Wikipedia entry had a YouTube or a Ted Talk video attached to it, you would have Nibipedia.
24. Untamed Science is a collection of videos and podcasts about biology and Earth science topics.
25. FORA.tv is similar to Big Think in that it presents videos relevant to topics in the news and in the public conscious today. The videos feature well known personalities and experts talking about the important issues of the day. You will also videos of debates, press conferences, and public meetings.
26. iCue, presented by NBC News, features videos about history and current events. There is a capability to connect with other students to discuss topics and learn together. There are also quizzes and learning activities associated with many of the videos.
27. School Tube is a website that is similar to Teacher Tube. School Tube's content is generated by teachers and students contributing videos about a wide variety of topics.
28. Current.tv features user generated content about current news topics.
29. Next Vista is an academic video sharing site. Next Vista has three video categories. The Light Bulbs category is for videos that teach you how to do something and or provides an explanation of a topic. The Global Views video category contains videos created to promote understanding of cultures around the world. The Seeing Service video category highlights the work of people who are working to make a difference in the lives of others.
30. Academic Earth is a video depot for individual lectures and entire courses from some of the top universities in the United States. Visitors to Academic Earth will find lectures and courses from Yale, MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford.
31. Edublogs.tv comes to use from the same great people behind Edublogs.org. Edublogs.tv is similar in function and purpose to that of Teacher Tube.
32. One Minute Wonders from the BBC are short videos that explore all of the amazing things that happen in one minute. There are thirteen episodes of One Minute Wonders. Each episode consists of twenty short videos. Every episode has a corresponding quiz. Each quiz has five questions that continue to loop until the player gets all of the answers correct or time expires.
33. PBS Video offers videos from the most popular shows including Frontline, NOVA, Nature, and American Experience. For the younger crowd, PBS Kids offers videos as well. If you're not sure what you're looking for, but you think PBS has an appropriate video you can search the PBS Video center by topic.
Glogster is a powerful tool for students to use to create online collages that they can share with their friends and classmates.
Glogster for Education gives teachers the ability to create accounts for their classrooms. Using their Glogster for Education accounts, teachers can assign to and manage individual accounts for their students.
In this Glogster tutorial you will find directions on everything from registering with Glogster through embedding finished Glogsters into a wiki or blog.
Applications for EducationGlogster can be used in any number of content areas. Creating Glogster collages could be an assignment in and of itself or the collages your students create could be part of larger collaborative project like creating a wiki on particular unit of study.
2. 30+ Alternatives to YouTube
its about alternatives to YouTube. This post consolidates all of those resources into one list. From http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/12/15-most-popular-posts-on-free-tech-4.html1,2,3. This list cannot be started and would be totally incomplete if I did not start by mentioning Teacher Tube, Teachers.tv, and iTunes U.
4. Viddler is a service that I enjoy using because of its integrated in-video commenting system. Read my review here.
5. How Stuff Works is a video site that I spent hours exploring in September because I was sucked in by the quality of the content. My blog post about it is here.
6,7. The History Channel and the Discovery Channel both offer a lot of content similar to and, in some cases, identical to that which is found on their respective television networks.
8,9 Vimeo and Blip.tv are two user generated content video sites that have gained some traction over the last year. My reviews of these services are available here and here respectively.
10 Dot Sub is full of user generated content that is subtitled into many different languages. I have a hearing impaired student this year that uses Dot Sub quite a bit.
11. If you're looking for current news content you may want to consider subscribing to the Reuters Video RSS feed.
12, 13. Along the lines of news videos, all of the major US Networks offer most of their nightly news as online videos. For news videos that are kid-friendly try CNN Student News. If you're interested in showing your students the inner workings of Congressional proceedings, visit the C-Span video library.
14. Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and News Corps, offers high quality video of television shows, movies, and old news broadcasts. You can read my review of Hulu here.
15, 16, 17, 18. For videos directly intended for use in the classroom visit the Kids Know It Network, The Futures Channel, Science Tube, and Math-A-Tube.
19, 20 TED and Big Think offer intellectual discussions and presentations about a wide variety of social, political, scientific, and economic topics.
21. Snag Films is a great place to watch full length documentaries from producers like National Geographic for free. My review of Snag Films is here.
22. Google Video serves a lot of results from YouTube, but you will also find non-YouTube videos in the mix that you can use in the classroom.
23. Nibipedia - Nibipedia takes the concepts of Wikipedia and YouTube and combines them. In other words if every Wikipedia entry had a YouTube or a Ted Talk video attached to it, you would have Nibipedia.
24. Untamed Science is a collection of videos and podcasts about biology and Earth science topics.
25. FORA.tv is similar to Big Think in that it presents videos relevant to topics in the news and in the public conscious today. The videos feature well known personalities and experts talking about the important issues of the day. You will also videos of debates, press conferences, and public meetings.
26. iCue, presented by NBC News, features videos about history and current events. There is a capability to connect with other students to discuss topics and learn together. There are also quizzes and learning activities associated with many of the videos.
27. School Tube is a website that is similar to Teacher Tube. School Tube's content is generated by teachers and students contributing videos about a wide variety of topics.
28. Current.tv features user generated content about current news topics.
29. Next Vista is an academic video sharing site. Next Vista has three video categories. The Light Bulbs category is for videos that teach you how to do something and or provides an explanation of a topic. The Global Views video category contains videos created to promote understanding of cultures around the world. The Seeing Service video category highlights the work of people who are working to make a difference in the lives of others.
30. Academic Earth is a video depot for individual lectures and entire courses from some of the top universities in the United States. Visitors to Academic Earth will find lectures and courses from Yale, MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford.
31. Edublogs.tv comes to use from the same great people behind Edublogs.org. Edublogs.tv is similar in function and purpose to that of Teacher Tube.
32. One Minute Wonders from the BBC are short videos that explore all of the amazing things that happen in one minute. There are thirteen episodes of One Minute Wonders. Each episode consists of twenty short videos. Every episode has a corresponding quiz. Each quiz has five questions that continue to loop until the player gets all of the answers correct or time expires.
33. PBS Video offers videos from the most popular shows including Frontline, NOVA, Nature, and American Experience. For the younger crowd, PBS Kids offers videos as well. If you're not sure what you're looking for, but you think PBS has an appropriate video you can search the PBS Video center by topic.
3. Twitter is GOOD
As I've mentioned numerous times in the past (this marks the 35th time I've written about Twitter), not a day goes by that I don't learn something from my network of Twitter contacts. My network now includes 3000+ followers and I'm also following 2900+ Twitter users. As the size of my network increases so to do my learning opportunities increase. Having a Twitter network is a great way to learn about new resources for teaching. A Twitter network is also a great place to exchange ideas about teaching. If you're not familiar with how Twitter works, this short video from Common Craft offers a great explanation. If you're a Twitter user looking to expand your network the following are seven ways to find other teachers on Twitter.
1. Twitter 4 Teachers wiki. The Twitter 4 Teachers PB Wiki was started by ed tech specialist Gina Hartman. This wiki is organized content teaching area so that visitors can connect with Twitter users who teach the same subject(s).
2. Educators on Twitter is a Google Docs Spreadsheet started by Liz B. Davis. The list is constantly growing as new additions are added almost daily.
3. Twitter for Teachers is a wiki started by Rodd Lucier with the purpose of educating teachers about the use of Twitter as an educational tool and as a professional development tool. You may want to check out who the contributors to the wiki are and follow them. Rodd has also produced a great video demonstrating how to use Twitter, Delicious, and Google Reader to find more Twitter users of interest to you.
4. Jane Hart, founder of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, has compiled a list of nearly 800 educators on Twitter. Each entry is accompanied by a short summary about the Twitter user.
5. Twitter search. Located at the bottom of the Twitter page is a search link. Try searching for key words commonly used in educational technology. Then follow the Twitter users who are writing messages containing those key terms.
6. Look at who others follow and who others send "@" messages to. One of the ways that I've built up my network is to look at who the "popular" people follow and follow them. If someone you currently follow sends an "@" reply that appears in your Twitter stream, check out who that "@" message was sent to. Chances are good that the recipient of that message is also interested in the same topics you're interested in.
7. Start engaging conversations. There are a couple of ways to do this, you start a conversation around a resource that you've discovered. Another way to start a conversation is to pose a question or problem that you would like help solving. People are generally willing to offer feedback. If someone sends you an "@" message try to acknowledge it (you may not always be able to do this because of time lapse) people seem to appreciate acknowledgement.
Seven Ways to Find Teachers on Twitter
As I've mentioned numerous times in the past (this marks the 35th time I've written about Twitter), not a day goes by that I don't learn something from my network of Twitter contacts. My network now includes 3000+ followers and I'm also following 2900+ Twitter users. As the size of my network increases so to do my learning opportunities increase. Having a Twitter network is a great way to learn about new resources for teaching. A Twitter network is also a great place to exchange ideas about teaching. If you're not familiar with how Twitter works, this short video from Common Craft offers a great explanation. If you're a Twitter user looking to expand your network the following are seven ways to find other teachers on Twitter.1. Twitter 4 Teachers wiki. The Twitter 4 Teachers PB Wiki was started by ed tech specialist Gina Hartman. This wiki is organized content teaching area so that visitors can connect with Twitter users who teach the same subject(s).
2. Educators on Twitter is a Google Docs Spreadsheet started by Liz B. Davis. The list is constantly growing as new additions are added almost daily.
3. Twitter for Teachers is a wiki started by Rodd Lucier with the purpose of educating teachers about the use of Twitter as an educational tool and as a professional development tool. You may want to check out who the contributors to the wiki are and follow them. Rodd has also produced a great video demonstrating how to use Twitter, Delicious, and Google Reader to find more Twitter users of interest to you.
4. Jane Hart, founder of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, has compiled a list of nearly 800 educators on Twitter. Each entry is accompanied by a short summary about the Twitter user.
5. Twitter search. Located at the bottom of the Twitter page is a search link. Try searching for key words commonly used in educational technology. Then follow the Twitter users who are writing messages containing those key terms.
6. Look at who others follow and who others send "@" messages to. One of the ways that I've built up my network is to look at who the "popular" people follow and follow them. If someone you currently follow sends an "@" reply that appears in your Twitter stream, check out who that "@" message was sent to. Chances are good that the recipient of that message is also interested in the same topics you're interested in.
7. Start engaging conversations. There are a couple of ways to do this, you start a conversation around a resource that you've discovered. Another way to start a conversation is to pose a question or problem that you would like help solving. People are generally willing to offer feedback. If someone sends you an "@" message try to acknowledge it (you may not always be able to do this because of time lapse) people seem to appreciate acknowledgement.
5. we played this in HE Micro teaching
10 Places to Make and Find Flashcards Online
Flashcards are one of the simplest and most common ways to study for a test. Free Technology for Teachers has featured numerous flashcard resources in the past. Here are ten good places to create and find flashcards online.
1. Cramberry allows users to share flashcards with other users. After creating your flashcards you can contribute to a public gallery of flashcards. If you don't have time to make flashcards of your own, you can search for and study flashcards in the public gallery. To use the flashcards you will need to create a Cramberry account. For your students that have iPhones (none of my students have one) Cramberry now has an iPhone app called Flash-Me.
2. Flashcards created using Funnel Brain can include a "third side" to a flashcard. A side that contains the explanation for the answer to a question. In addition to text Funnel Brain flashcards can include videos, audio, and pictures. Under your videos and images you can type your question, answer, or explanation. Just as with many other flashcard services Funnel Brain flashcards can be shared with other users.
3. Ediscio is a little different from a lot of flashcard creation tools because Ediscio lets you build sets of flashcards individually or with the help of other Ediscio users. The other distinguishing feature of Ediscio is that flashcards can include images. (Ediscio is also featured in Twelve Essentials for Technology Integration).
4. Cobocards, like other flashcard services, allows you to create customized sets of flashcards. One of the key differences between Cobocards and other flashcard services is that Cobocards provides you with pdf copies of your flashcards that you can print to study offline. Of course, you can study also study your flashcards online.
5. Flashcard DB is one of the most well-designed free flashcard programs that I've seen on the web. Flashcard DB, like most flashcard programs, allows you to browse existing sets of flashcards or create your own custom set of flashcards. What makes Flashcard DB different from its competitors is the study methods that can be used with the flashcards. Flashcard DB allows students to study using the Leitner System or the Graded Space Repetition Method.
6. On Quizlet you can make your own flashcards or study from publicly shared sets of flashcards. Quizlet offers you the ability to study your cards in five different ways including playing a couple of games with your cards. When creating your flashcards you can enter information for each card individually or import information from a text document to be used in your card set. If you don't have the time to create your set of flashcards, browse the publicly shared flashcards.
7. Study Stack is one of the better review game creation tools that I've tried. Study Stack allows teachers and students to create flashcards, crossword puzzles, matching games, word searches, and other classic study games for any subject area. You can create a game using any type of numerical or text data. Once you're data is in your account, you can use that data to create multiple games.
8. On Muchobeets students can create their own customized "stack" of flashcards. For students preparing for a general exam like the SAT, Muchobeets has a good collection of publicly shared vocabulary flashcards. The Muchobeets service is very easy to use. If you want to make your own flashcards simply register with your email address and get started using the very intuitive flashcard creation template. No registration is required if you want to use the publicly shared stacks of flashcards.
9. Knowtes is a great resource for finding or making all kinds of flashcards. The Knowtes library is full of ready to use decks of flashcards covering subjects appropriate from Kindergarten through college. The option to download a library of flashcards is the best feature of the Knowtes program. Students who have laptops can download flashcards and use them to study without having to find an Internet connection. For example, in the district where I teach every middle school student is given a laptop, but many students do not have Internet access at home. Being able to download study tools is very useful for those students.
10. Flashcard Flash is a handy little search engine designed for one purpose, helping you find sets of flashcards. Flashcard Flash was built using Google Custom Search. Flashcard Flash searches six different flashcard services including Flashcard DB, Quizlet, and Study Stack all of which I've previously reviewed and found to be excellent services.
1. Cramberry allows users to share flashcards with other users. After creating your flashcards you can contribute to a public gallery of flashcards. If you don't have time to make flashcards of your own, you can search for and study flashcards in the public gallery. To use the flashcards you will need to create a Cramberry account. For your students that have iPhones (none of my students have one) Cramberry now has an iPhone app called Flash-Me.
2. Flashcards created using Funnel Brain can include a "third side" to a flashcard. A side that contains the explanation for the answer to a question. In addition to text Funnel Brain flashcards can include videos, audio, and pictures. Under your videos and images you can type your question, answer, or explanation. Just as with many other flashcard services Funnel Brain flashcards can be shared with other users.
3. Ediscio is a little different from a lot of flashcard creation tools because Ediscio lets you build sets of flashcards individually or with the help of other Ediscio users. The other distinguishing feature of Ediscio is that flashcards can include images. (Ediscio is also featured in Twelve Essentials for Technology Integration).
4. Cobocards, like other flashcard services, allows you to create customized sets of flashcards. One of the key differences between Cobocards and other flashcard services is that Cobocards provides you with pdf copies of your flashcards that you can print to study offline. Of course, you can study also study your flashcards online.
5. Flashcard DB is one of the most well-designed free flashcard programs that I've seen on the web. Flashcard DB, like most flashcard programs, allows you to browse existing sets of flashcards or create your own custom set of flashcards. What makes Flashcard DB different from its competitors is the study methods that can be used with the flashcards. Flashcard DB allows students to study using the Leitner System or the Graded Space Repetition Method.
6. On Quizlet you can make your own flashcards or study from publicly shared sets of flashcards. Quizlet offers you the ability to study your cards in five different ways including playing a couple of games with your cards. When creating your flashcards you can enter information for each card individually or import information from a text document to be used in your card set. If you don't have the time to create your set of flashcards, browse the publicly shared flashcards.
7. Study Stack is one of the better review game creation tools that I've tried. Study Stack allows teachers and students to create flashcards, crossword puzzles, matching games, word searches, and other classic study games for any subject area. You can create a game using any type of numerical or text data. Once you're data is in your account, you can use that data to create multiple games.
8. On Muchobeets students can create their own customized "stack" of flashcards. For students preparing for a general exam like the SAT, Muchobeets has a good collection of publicly shared vocabulary flashcards. The Muchobeets service is very easy to use. If you want to make your own flashcards simply register with your email address and get started using the very intuitive flashcard creation template. No registration is required if you want to use the publicly shared stacks of flashcards.
9. Knowtes is a great resource for finding or making all kinds of flashcards. The Knowtes library is full of ready to use decks of flashcards covering subjects appropriate from Kindergarten through college. The option to download a library of flashcards is the best feature of the Knowtes program. Students who have laptops can download flashcards and use them to study without having to find an Internet connection. For example, in the district where I teach every middle school student is given a laptop, but many students do not have Internet access at home. Being able to download study tools is very useful for those students.
10. Flashcard Flash is a handy little search engine designed for one purpose, helping you find sets of flashcards. Flashcard Flash was built using Google Custom Search. Flashcard Flash searches six different flashcard services including Flashcard DB, Quizlet, and Study Stack all of which I've previously reviewed and found to be excellent services.
6. Should have thought of this
35+ Educational Games and Games Resources
1. XP Math is a good place to find math games, math videos, math worksheets, and math e-books. The games section of XP Math offers games for basic arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and probability. Create an account on XP Math and you can keep track of your scores.2. Word Twist is an online version of the popular board game, Boggle. Word Twist comes in two versions a four by four grid and a five by five grid. The purpose of Word Twist is to identify as many words as possible using the letters in the grid.
3. Super Text Twist is a simple word game similar to Word Twist which asks plays to identify words from a set of jumbled letters. The Super Text Twist game be played online or downloaded for use offline.
4. Parade of Games in Powerpoint was developed by faculty at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. Parade of Games in Powerpoint provides teachers with games and game templates for classroom use. The games and game templates are available for download in Powerpoint format. Some of the games and game templates that teachers can find on Parade of Games in Powerpoint include Bingo, Jeopardy, and scavenger hunts.
5. Arcademic Skill Builders offers a collection of twenty-one quality games for sharpening math and language arts skills. All of the games can be played online and six of the games are even enabled for play using a Nintendo Wii remote.
6. The Problem Site is loaded with great games for students. Some of the games are traditional "hang-man" style games, some of the games are traditional games with a twist, and some of the games are completely new. Each game is designed to help students develop problem solving skills. The games are categorized as word games, math games, or strategy games.
7. Ghost Blasters is designed to help students learn to multiply and divide quickly in their heads. To play Ghost Blasters select a multiple of which each "bad" ghost will have a value that is a multiple of that which you chose. Students then use their mouse to blast every "bad" ghost. For example, if I select "5" at the beginning then all bad ghosts will display a multiple of 5. I then have to blast all of the bad ghosts to gain points, but if I blast a "good" ghost (a ghost that does not have a multiple of 5) I lose points.
8. Learning Games for Kids offers games for mathematics as well as many other content areas. Most of the games on Learning Games for Kids can be played directly on the website although some do link out to other sources.
9. Learn With Math Games is a site that I like because it offers online games as well as PDF templates for games that teachers and students can play in their classrooms. Learn With Math Games is organized by grade level and by mathematics topic.
10. Gamequarium developed by Diana Dell (a great person to follow on Twitter by the way) offers an excellent catalog of mathematics games and video demonstrations of mathematics functions.
11. Primary Games offers a collection of mathematics games as well as games for other content areas. You can grab some of the games on Primary Games and embed them into your own blog or website.
12. Grammar Ninja is a fun game for students to play as they develop a working knowledge of the parts of speech. Grammar Ninja has three levels for students to work through. As long as you answer questions correctly, they continue through the game, but answer incorrectly and the words explode.
13. Mad Libs offers a widget that you can install on your blog to allow visitors to play Mad Libs. I've always thought that having a "fun element" on your classroom blog is a good way to keep students actively visiting the blog without prompting from you. If you're an English teacher, the Mad Libs widget might be something to consider adding to your blog.
14. the World Food Programme's website offers students a large selection of educational online games and activities. The games are categorized by age group. Some of the games, like Food Force, are about world hunger while other games are more general in nature.
15. Taking it Global, an organization for youth interested in global issues, has a small games section that includes a game based on the flags of the world. Flags of the World asks students to match flags to their respective countries. After matching each flag to its country students can click the "learn more" link to find more information about that country.
16. Shape It Up is one of many good educational games and activities on Kinetic City. Shape It Up is an activity that would be good for use in an elementary school Earth Science lesson. The activity presents students with "before" and "after" images of a piece of Earth. Students then have to select the force nature and the span of time it took to create the "after" picture. If students choose incorrectly, Shape It Up will tell the student and they can choose again.
17. The Houghton Mifflin Company produces Grammar Blast. Grammar Blast offers 35 interactive grammar activities for students in grades two through five.
18. The Grammar Practice Park produced by Harcourt School Publishers provides 12 games for students in grades three, four, and five.
19. The British Council's Learn English website offers 69 interactive activities for learning the rules of grammar. The activities are not listed by grade level so you will have to preview them to determine which activities are best suited for your students.
20. Scholastic Inc. has a page for elementary age students called Maggie's Learning Adventures. On Maggie's Learning Adventures visitors will find five grammar activities as well as activities for learning Spanish, Math, and Science.
21. The BBC's Skillswise website is a great resource for a wide variety of content areas. On the grammar and spelling page there are 21 activities suitable for students of middle school and high school age.
22. Playing History is a collection of 128 games related to topics in US and World History as well as civics and geography. The games come from a variety of sources across the web. Feedback on every game and suggestions for future additions are welcomed by the hosts of the site. Visitors to Playing History can search for games by using the tag cloud, by using the search box, or just browse through the entire list.
23. Think About History is a fun trivia game on History.com. The object of the game is to cross the playing board by correctly answering a sequence of history trivia questions. The game has multiple levels that get progressively more difficult throughout the game. The questions on Think About History are a mix of video-based and text-based questions. The game can be played as an individual game or a two player game.
24. Fling the Teacher is a website containing 68 history quiz games. All of the quizzes have at least fifteen questions and a few of the games have more than 100 questions. The average is 30-45 questions per quiz. Prior to starting each quiz game students can create their own custom game character.
25. Scavenger Hunt Through History is a game designed to be played by students in junction with Freedom: A History of US produced by PBS. Freedom: A History of US contains is an overview of US history containing videos, documents, and pictures. In addition to the resources previously mentioned, their are quizzes for students to test their knowledge.
26. National Geographic Kids has a wide variety of games, puzzles, and activities for students of elementary school age. National Geographic Kids has nine games specifically for developing geography skills.
27. Learning Together offers four activities for learning about the geography of the United States. Learning Together also offers a game about world geography and a game about European geography.
28. Owl and Mouse Educational Software offers nine, free, interactive maps for students. The maps cover every continent except Antarctica.
29. Traveler IQ Challenge has 14 interactive geography games. The activities can be embedded in a blog or website.
30. Geosense is a fun way to use and improve your knowledge of world geography. Players can play against the computer or challenge another player. Geosense can be played anonymously or you can register and have your scores recorded for you. There are four Geosense maps (US, World, Europe, or advanced) that players can select from.
31. Smarty Games features games for developing basic mathematics and reading skills. There are six mathematics games covering basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The reading section has two alphabet games and nine animated stories. In addition to the mathematics and reading activities, Smarty Games offers activities for learning to read a clock, puzzles, mazes, coloring activities.
32. Planet In Action is a fun website that features three games based on Google Earth. All three games utilize Google Earth imagery and navigation. The three games are Ships, Places, and Moon Lander. In "Places" you navigate, from a helicopter view, five popular places including the Grand Canyon. In "Ships" you become the captain of a fleet of ships to navigate famous ports of call. And in "Moon Lander" you take control of the Apollo 11 moon lander and guide the "Eagle" to touch-down.
33. The National Center for Education Statistics hosts a collection of games and tools for students. Dare to Compare is a quiz section of Kids' Zone where students can test their knowledge of civics, economics, history, geography, mathematics, and science. After taking each quiz the students are shown the correct answers. Dare to Compare also allows students to see the national and international average rate of correct answers.
34. Brain Bashers offers visitors a nice selection of word games, logic games, and puzzles. Brain Bashers is updated regularly with many games that change daily and new games added every week.Brain Bashers was developed and is maintained by Kevin Stone. Kevin Stone is a mathematics teacher in England.
35. The Discovery Channel website lets you test your trivia knowledge while playing the same quizzes the contestants on Cash Cab play. Play the Cash Cab quiz game and earn fictitious money for every question you answer correctly. Answer three questions incorrectly and the game is over.
7. the future EL teachers
Ten Grammar Games and Lesson Resources
1. Grammar Ninja is a fun game for students to play as they develop a working knowledge of the parts of speech. Grammar Ninja has three levels for students to work through. As long as you answer questions correctly, they continue through the game, but answer incorrectly and the words explode.2. Mad Libs offers a widget that you can install on your blog to allow visitors to play Mad Libs. I've always thought that having a "fun element" on your classroom blog is a good way to keep students actively visiting the blog without prompting from you. If you're an English teacher, the Mad Libs widget might be something to consider adding to your blog.
3. Great Source iWrite from the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt company features an awesome animated and narrated glossary of grammar terms. In this glossary you will find animated, narrated videos explaining the use of punctuation. You can also find the same type of video explaining the parts of speech and mechanics of writing.
4. Grammar Bytes is a great website for Language Arts teachers. Grammar Bytes offers teachers and students a glossary of terms, handouts, interactive exercises, and slide show presentations. There are eighteen slide show presentations available for free download from Grammar Bytes. Each slide show is accompanied by a handout for students to complete as they view each presentation.
5. Daily Writing Tips is a blog that I've mentioned in the past as a good source of content about writing in English. Recently, they announced the release of an ebook about English grammar. The ebook is 34 pages long and is free to anyone that subscribes to their email newsletter. Visit Daily Writing Tips for all of the details about the ebook.
6. The Houghton Mifflin Company produces Grammar Blast. Grammar Blast offers 35 interactive grammar activities for students in grades two through five.
7. The Grammar Practice Park produced by Harcourt School Publishers provides 12 games for students in grades three, four, and five.
8. The British Council's Learn English website offers 69 interactive activities for learning the rules of grammar. The activities are not listed by grade level so you will have to preview them to determine which activities are best suited for your students.
9. Scholastic Inc. has a page for elementary age students called Maggie's Learning Adventures. On Maggie's Learning Adventures visitors will find five grammar activities as well as activities for learning Spanish, Math, and Science.
10. The BBC's Skillswise website is a great resource for a wide variety of content areas. On the grammar and spelling page there are 21 activities suitable for students of middle school and high school age.
8. Internet research :) useful for our FN students in the future
9 Resources for Website Evaluation Lessons
Nine days ago I published Beyond Google, an ebooklet designed to help teachers and students improve their Internet search results. What that ebooklet didn't include was resources for evaluating the quality of the websites that you find through Internet search engines. Therefore, I've compiled a list of nine resources that teachers can use as part of lesson plan about evaluating the quality and reliability of a website.Downloadable PDFs from DocStoc and Scribd1. Evaluating Information - A Guide to Websites.
- This is a one page list of guiding questions to consider while viewing a website. This guide is best suited to high school and college students.
2. Gary Library Website Evaluation Checklist.
- A two page document containing checklists in six different categories for determining the validitity and quality of online information. "Smiley" icons provide clues for younger students. Suitable for middle school and high school use.
3. Evaluating the Quality of Sources.
- A one page document outlining a list of questions to consider as you evaluate a website. This document recommends and provides a link for checking the WHOIS domain registry.
4. Boolify Lesson Plan for Evaluating Websites.
- A simple lesson plan from Boolify.org that is appropriate for grades four through nine (give or take a grade).
5. Bear Essentials Evaluating Websites.
- This document is part of series of documents about finding and evaluating online and print references. These documents were produced by the Baton Rouge Community College.
Online Lessons and Activities6. Cyber Smart Lesson Plans and Student Activities.
- Provides more than a dozen lesson plans and activities appropriate for grades K-12. Lessons cover everything from finding websites to evaluating websites.
7. Kathy Shrock's ABC's of Website Evaluation.
- Tried and true lesson plans, online activities, and handouts for teaching website evaluation. The resources found here can be adapted for use in elementary school, middle school, and high school.
8. Cornell University Library - Evaluating Websites.
- Geared toward college students, the resources here can be accessed by high school students. Many links out to other resources on the topic of website evaluation.
For Brushing-up on Your Own Skills9. Evaluating Websites for Learners.
- Created by Maggie Verster, this presentation provides justification for teachers previewing websites, creating their own search engines, links to resources for teaching website evaluation. Presentation is embedded below.
Evaluating Websites For Learners
1. Masher is a great, free, tool for creating video mash-ups. Masher offers a large collection of video clips from the BBC's Motion Gallery and Rip Curl video. There is a large music library, an effects library, and a good selection of video player skins. If you don't find content that you like in Masher's library, you can add your own images, video clips, and music clips through the Masher uploader. Masher also gives you the option to insert text throughout your videos. Creating with Masher is a simple matter of dragging elements from the media gallery into the timeline editor. From there you can arrange the sequence of elements using the drag and drop interface. When you're happy with the sequence, publish and share your production.
2. Animoto makes it possible to quickly create a video using still images, music, and text. If you can make a slideshow presentation, you can make a video using Animoto. Animoto's free service limits you to 30 second videos. You can create longer videos if you apply for an education account. In the video below I explain how to create your first Animoto video.
If you're viewing this in RSS you may need to click through to view the video.
3. Stupeflix is a service that allows user to quickly and easily create video montages using their favorite images and audio clips. In many ways Stupeflix reminds me of Animoto, but there are a couple of differences that are worth noting. Stupeflix allows users to drag and drop their images into the sequence that they would like the images to appear. Adding text to the images is easier in Stupeflix than it is on Animoto. Stupeflix offers only one default soundtrack so you have to upload your own audio clips. That said the advantage of Stupeflix is that you can use more than one audio clip within the same video.
4. Photo Peach is a new service that allows you to quickly and easily create an audio slideshow, with captions, from images in your Flickr, Picassa, or Facebook account. You can also use images saved on your local hard drive to create your slideshow. Photo Peach is similar to Animoto and Stupeflix services although they do have some differences worth noting. Adding captions to each image is a little more intuitive on Photo Peach than it is on Animoto. To add captions to your Photo Peach slideshow simply type your desired text into the caption box that appears as each image is automatically displayed by Photo Peach. Changing the order of appearance for each image is also easier on Photo Peach than it is on Animoto. Changing the sequence of images in Photo Peach is a simple drag and drop procedure.
5. Xtra Normal is a unique service that enables students to create animated, narrated movies just by typing the dialogue then dragging and dropping characters and set elements into the movies. There are free and paid plans for using Xtra Normal. The primary difference between the plans being that the paid plan offers more options for the setting of your story. The standard plan should be more than adequate for most academic applications.
6. Memoov is a free service for creating animated videos. Without downloading any software or having any special skills, Memoov allows users to create animated videos up to five minutes in length. Creating an animated video with Memoov can be as simple as selecting a setting image(s), selecting a character or characters, and adding dialogue. Memoov offers users a wide variety options that make it stand out amongst similar services. Memoov allows users to customize the appearance of the characters in their animated videos. On the dialogue front, Memoov gives users the option to record their own voices for use in their videos. Users can also upload pre-recorded dialogue in MP3 format. Memoov users have the option to add background music to their animated videos.
1. Using Wikispaces
2. Setting Up a Blog (directions for Blogger, WordPress, and Edublogs)
3. Drop.io - Easy Media Sharing (1o Things You Can Do With Drop.io)
4. Building a Classroom Website (Using Yola)
5. Using Animoto and VoiceThread
1. The sharing method that is right under most Internet users' noses is Google Docs presentation sharing. Students can create presentations, collaborate on presentations, chat about presentations, and publish presentations using Google Docs. Google Docs presentations can be embedded into any blog or website. Students can also share presentations by emailing or Twittering the url of their presentations.
2. Zoho Show is very similar to Google Docs presentation. Students can create presentations, collaborate on presentations, and publish presentations using Zoho Show. If students don't have a blog or website to embed their presentations into, Zoho Show offers a public gallery to which users can publish their presentations. Some of my students actually prefer Zoho Show to Google Docs presentation because they feel that there are more editing options than in Google Docs presentation. Watch a demo of Zoho Show here.
3. Empressr is a fully functional, high quality, online slide show presentation creation and sharing service. Empressr has a couple of features differentiating it from its competitors. The first feature of note is the option of embedding video from multiple sources into your slide show. The second feature of note is Empressr's editor which allows users to draw, create, or edit images inside their slides. Empressr slideshows can be embedded anywhere.
4. SlideShare is probably the most popular service for publishing slideshows to the web. While you cannot create original works in SlideShare, you can add voice narration to your slideshow with a free service offered by SlideShare. SlideShare offers a variety of widgets for embedding collections of slideshows into one webpage. If you wanted to you could create a collection of your students' slideshows and put them into one widget on one webpage. To learn more about SlideShare, watch this presentation.
5. Slide Boom, like SlideShare, allow users to upload their slide show presentations and share the slide shows publicly or privately. SlideBoom quickly converts your slide shows for use on the SlideBoom website and provides the html code for use on other websites or blogs. SlideBoom preserves the transitions you included in your original presentation when your slideshow is uploaded to SlideBoom.
6. Slide Six is a slide show sharing site similar to Slide Share or Slide Boom with a couple of added features. Just as on Slide Share and Slide Boom users can upload and share slide show presentations privately or publicly. What makes Slide Six better than and easier to use than Slide Share or Slide Boom is that Slide Six users can add narration to their slide show directly on the Slide Six website. Slide Six allows users to embed YouTube and Vimeo videos into your presentations. You can also attach documents to accompany your presentations. Slide Six supports all PowerPoint formats, Open Office, PDF, and MOV presentations.
7. Slide Rocket is a web based presentation creator similar to Empressr. Slide Rocket has some very nice features like 3D transitions and a collaboration feature for sharing the creation process with other users. Slide Rocket's interface is user friendly making it easy to include videos, pictures, or third party plug-ins. The quality and definition of images on Slide Rocket is far superior to that found in many of its competitors' offerings.
8. Author Stream is a service that converts your PowerPoint slideshows to flash media files. Just like SlideShare, Author Stream can be used to host and share your slide shows publicly or privately directly on the Author Stream website. In addition to sharing on the Author Stream website the slideshows you upload can also be shared via Youtube, iTunes, or embedded into a blog or website. A free companion tool to Author Stream is Author Point Lite. Author Point Lite is a desktop application that converts Power Point files to flash files. Files converted with Author Point Lite retain all of the transitions, timings, and narration created in your original file. Author Point Lite is a free download.
9. Photo Show is a great service for making fantastic slideshow and video presentations. Photo Show allows users to upload their photos or use photos from the Internet to make into slide show which can then be turned into a video. Photo Show users can add text and audio to accompany their presentation. There are a few options for sharing projects made on Photo Show. Users can download their projects as Quicktime movies, share via email, or share through embedding.
10. Photo Peach is a new service that allows you to quickly and easily create an audio slideshow, with captions, from images in your Flickr, Picassa, or Facebook account. You can also use images saved on your local hard drive to create your slideshow. To add captions to your Photo Peach slideshow simply type your desired text into the caption box that appears as each image is automatically displayed by Photo Peach. Changing the sequence of images in Photo Peach is a simple drag and drop procedure.
11 & 12. If you convert your slideshows into PDF format, you can upload them and host them on DocStoc and Scribd. Both DocStoc and Scribd will provide you with an editable (for height and width) embed code for your PDF.
View more presentations from Maggie Verster.
Jing is a free screencasting tool available as a Mac or Windows download. Using Jing you can record videos of your computer screen to visually demonstrate and orally explain to viewers how to perform a task on their own computers. You can also use Jing to take screenshots on which you can then draw and label. Jing screencast videos can be resized to fit your blog or website by following the directions given in the Jing help center. Of the five screencasting tools in this list, Jing offers the most free features. The only drawback to Jing is that you do have to install software on your computer.
ScreenToaster is completely free and quite easy to use. It is a great product although it doesn't have quite as many features as Jing. The trade-off between using ScreenToaster and Jing is that to use ScreenToaster you do not need to install any software. ScreenToaster is a completely web based application that allows you to record what is happening on your computer screen at any given time. ScreenToaster now allows you to record audio to accompany your screencasts. With ScreenToaster you can choose to record all of your screen or just a portion of your screen. When your recording is complete you can save your screencast to your computer, upload it to ScreenToaster, or upload it to YouTube. ScreenToaster is the tool I used to make this popular video about Google's Wonder Wheel.
Screen Castle is a simple screencast creation tool that is completely web-based. To use Screen Castle simply visit their website, click the start button and you're recording. You have the option to enable voice recording for your screencasts. Screencasts made using Screen Castle can be viewed on the Screen Castle website (see my example here) or embedded into another website or blog.
Screencast-O-Matic is a web-based screencast creation tool similar to Screen Castle. Screencast-O-Matic allows you to specify how much of your screen that you want to record. Recording your voice is an available option. Every time that I've tried Screencast-O-Matic it was slow so you probably need to have a fast Internet connection to use Screencast-O-Matic effectively.
10. during F&N coursework, we might need this
Four Free Tools for Creating Screencasts
Making screencast videos is a good way to create a record of the instructions that you may have to frequently give to students or colleagues. Post your screencasts online and your students and colleagues can watch them when you're not available to answer their "how-to" questions. In the past I have created screencasts for my students about adding pages to wikis. If you've never created a screencast because you thought that you had to have some special skills, this post is for you. The four tools highlighted below allow you to create screencast videos quickly and easily. All four of these tools can be used on Mac or Windows computers.
Jing is a free screencasting tool available as a Mac or Windows download. Using Jing you can record videos of your computer screen to visually demonstrate and orally explain to viewers how to perform a task on their own computers. You can also use Jing to take screenshots on which you can then draw and label. Jing screencast videos can be resized to fit your blog or website by following the directions given in the Jing help center. Of the five screencasting tools in this list, Jing offers the most free features. The only drawback to Jing is that you do have to install software on your computer.
ScreenToaster is completely free and quite easy to use. It is a great product although it doesn't have quite as many features as Jing. The trade-off between using ScreenToaster and Jing is that to use ScreenToaster you do not need to install any software. ScreenToaster is a completely web based application that allows you to record what is happening on your computer screen at any given time. ScreenToaster now allows you to record audio to accompany your screencasts. With ScreenToaster you can choose to record all of your screen or just a portion of your screen. When your recording is complete you can save your screencast to your computer, upload it to ScreenToaster, or upload it to YouTube. ScreenToaster is the tool I used to make this popular video about Google's Wonder Wheel.
Screen Castle is a simple screencast creation tool that is completely web-based. To use Screen Castle simply visit their website, click the start button and you're recording. You have the option to enable voice recording for your screencasts. Screencasts made using Screen Castle can be viewed on the Screen Castle website (see my example here) or embedded into another website or blog.
Screencast-O-Matic is a web-based screencast creation tool similar to Screen Castle. Screencast-O-Matic allows you to specify how much of your screen that you want to record. Recording your voice is an available option. Every time that I've tried Screencast-O-Matic it was slow so you probably need to have a fast Internet connection to use Screencast-O-Matic effectively.11.Six Easy Ways for Students to Create Videos Online
YouTube claims that twenty hours of video is uploaded to its site every minute. Much of this video is created by amateur video producers. In years past if you wanted to create video, you had to have (often expensive) recording and editing equipment. Today, the web has made it possible for anyone to create and edit professional-looking content without having to purchase any special equipment or software. Creating video content is a great way to get students engaged in projects through which they can demonstrate their learning. The following are six free, web-based, resources students can use to create their own videos.
1. Masher is a great, free, tool for creating video mash-ups. Masher offers a large collection of video clips from the BBC's Motion Gallery and Rip Curl video. There is a large music library, an effects library, and a good selection of video player skins. If you don't find content that you like in Masher's library, you can add your own images, video clips, and music clips through the Masher uploader. Masher also gives you the option to insert text throughout your videos. Creating with Masher is a simple matter of dragging elements from the media gallery into the timeline editor. From there you can arrange the sequence of elements using the drag and drop interface. When you're happy with the sequence, publish and share your production.2. Animoto makes it possible to quickly create a video using still images, music, and text. If you can make a slideshow presentation, you can make a video using Animoto. Animoto's free service limits you to 30 second videos. You can create longer videos if you apply for an education account. In the video below I explain how to create your first Animoto video.
If you're viewing this in RSS you may need to click through to view the video.
3. Stupeflix is a service that allows user to quickly and easily create video montages using their favorite images and audio clips. In many ways Stupeflix reminds me of Animoto, but there are a couple of differences that are worth noting. Stupeflix allows users to drag and drop their images into the sequence that they would like the images to appear. Adding text to the images is easier in Stupeflix than it is on Animoto. Stupeflix offers only one default soundtrack so you have to upload your own audio clips. That said the advantage of Stupeflix is that you can use more than one audio clip within the same video.
4. Photo Peach is a new service that allows you to quickly and easily create an audio slideshow, with captions, from images in your Flickr, Picassa, or Facebook account. You can also use images saved on your local hard drive to create your slideshow. Photo Peach is similar to Animoto and Stupeflix services although they do have some differences worth noting. Adding captions to each image is a little more intuitive on Photo Peach than it is on Animoto. To add captions to your Photo Peach slideshow simply type your desired text into the caption box that appears as each image is automatically displayed by Photo Peach. Changing the order of appearance for each image is also easier on Photo Peach than it is on Animoto. Changing the sequence of images in Photo Peach is a simple drag and drop procedure.
5. Xtra Normal is a unique service that enables students to create animated, narrated movies just by typing the dialogue then dragging and dropping characters and set elements into the movies. There are free and paid plans for using Xtra Normal. The primary difference between the plans being that the paid plan offers more options for the setting of your story. The standard plan should be more than adequate for most academic applications.
6. Memoov is a free service for creating animated videos. Without downloading any software or having any special skills, Memoov allows users to create animated videos up to five minutes in length. Creating an animated video with Memoov can be as simple as selecting a setting image(s), selecting a character or characters, and adding dialogue. Memoov offers users a wide variety options that make it stand out amongst similar services. Memoov allows users to customize the appearance of the characters in their animated videos. On the dialogue front, Memoov gives users the option to record their own voices for use in their videos. Users can also upload pre-recorded dialogue in MP3 format. Memoov users have the option to add background music to their animated videos. 12. The How-to Series
Back in August I ran a series of five how-to posts. Those posts gave directions on how to use six Web 2.0 tools that can be used in any classroom. Because that series ran in the summer, a lot of teachers may have missed it. Therefore, I've put those posts in the list below.1. Using Wikispaces
2. Setting Up a Blog (directions for Blogger, WordPress, and Edublogs)
3. Drop.io - Easy Media Sharing (1o Things You Can Do With Drop.io)
4. Building a Classroom Website (Using Yola)
5. Using Animoto and VoiceThread
13. 12 Ways for Students to Publish Slideshows Online
Creating slideshows can be an excellent way for students to summarize their learning, share their what they've learned, and to share their ideas. If you have students that create slideshows that you or they think should be shared with a wider audience than that of their immediate peers in the classroom, the web offers many ways to do that. The following are ten free ways for students to publish their slideshows to the web.
1. The sharing method that is right under most Internet users' noses is Google Docs presentation sharing. Students can create presentations, collaborate on presentations, chat about presentations, and publish presentations using Google Docs. Google Docs presentations can be embedded into any blog or website. Students can also share presentations by emailing or Twittering the url of their presentations.
2. Zoho Show is very similar to Google Docs presentation. Students can create presentations, collaborate on presentations, and publish presentations using Zoho Show. If students don't have a blog or website to embed their presentations into, Zoho Show offers a public gallery to which users can publish their presentations. Some of my students actually prefer Zoho Show to Google Docs presentation because they feel that there are more editing options than in Google Docs presentation. Watch a demo of Zoho Show here.
3. Empressr is a fully functional, high quality, online slide show presentation creation and sharing service. Empressr has a couple of features differentiating it from its competitors. The first feature of note is the option of embedding video from multiple sources into your slide show. The second feature of note is Empressr's editor which allows users to draw, create, or edit images inside their slides. Empressr slideshows can be embedded anywhere.
4. SlideShare is probably the most popular service for publishing slideshows to the web. While you cannot create original works in SlideShare, you can add voice narration to your slideshow with a free service offered by SlideShare. SlideShare offers a variety of widgets for embedding collections of slideshows into one webpage. If you wanted to you could create a collection of your students' slideshows and put them into one widget on one webpage. To learn more about SlideShare, watch this presentation.
5. Slide Boom, like SlideShare, allow users to upload their slide show presentations and share the slide shows publicly or privately. SlideBoom quickly converts your slide shows for use on the SlideBoom website and provides the html code for use on other websites or blogs. SlideBoom preserves the transitions you included in your original presentation when your slideshow is uploaded to SlideBoom.
6. Slide Six is a slide show sharing site similar to Slide Share or Slide Boom with a couple of added features. Just as on Slide Share and Slide Boom users can upload and share slide show presentations privately or publicly. What makes Slide Six better than and easier to use than Slide Share or Slide Boom is that Slide Six users can add narration to their slide show directly on the Slide Six website. Slide Six allows users to embed YouTube and Vimeo videos into your presentations. You can also attach documents to accompany your presentations. Slide Six supports all PowerPoint formats, Open Office, PDF, and MOV presentations.
7. Slide Rocket is a web based presentation creator similar to Empressr. Slide Rocket has some very nice features like 3D transitions and a collaboration feature for sharing the creation process with other users. Slide Rocket's interface is user friendly making it easy to include videos, pictures, or third party plug-ins. The quality and definition of images on Slide Rocket is far superior to that found in many of its competitors' offerings.
8. Author Stream is a service that converts your PowerPoint slideshows to flash media files. Just like SlideShare, Author Stream can be used to host and share your slide shows publicly or privately directly on the Author Stream website. In addition to sharing on the Author Stream website the slideshows you upload can also be shared via Youtube, iTunes, or embedded into a blog or website. A free companion tool to Author Stream is Author Point Lite. Author Point Lite is a desktop application that converts Power Point files to flash files. Files converted with Author Point Lite retain all of the transitions, timings, and narration created in your original file. Author Point Lite is a free download.
9. Photo Show is a great service for making fantastic slideshow and video presentations. Photo Show allows users to upload their photos or use photos from the Internet to make into slide show which can then be turned into a video. Photo Show users can add text and audio to accompany their presentation. There are a few options for sharing projects made on Photo Show. Users can download their projects as Quicktime movies, share via email, or share through embedding.
10. Photo Peach is a new service that allows you to quickly and easily create an audio slideshow, with captions, from images in your Flickr, Picassa, or Facebook account. You can also use images saved on your local hard drive to create your slideshow. To add captions to your Photo Peach slideshow simply type your desired text into the caption box that appears as each image is automatically displayed by Photo Peach. Changing the sequence of images in Photo Peach is a simple drag and drop procedure.
11 & 12. If you convert your slideshows into PDF format, you can upload them and host them on DocStoc and Scribd. Both DocStoc and Scribd will provide you with an editable (for height and width) embed code for your PDF.
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