Ed Tech in Teacher Ed

That Darn Economy

2009-06-16T10:28:00.002-04:00

The recession has definitely started to hit the Internet as evidenced by the closing of several online tools recently. In the past week or so I have gotten e-mails from Circa Vie (timeline tool), Looky Book (online picture books) and Flowgram (slide presentations and tutorial creator) all saying basically the same thing. Due to a lack of money and an inability to generate revenue, they are closing their virtual doors. This is not surprising but always disappointing to see especially when it impacts great resources like these. This is definitely a reminder that "free" usually doesn't mean forever unless a source of funding can be established so we can never become too tied to a particular tool. Thankfully, there are other options out there that offer similar services and options. You can check out some of those tools by exploring the links below.

Timeline Tools

Dipity allows you to include images, videos and text in your timeline. You are also able to embed your finished timeline and share authorship with others so that they can add events to is as well.
AllofMe markets itself as a tool you can use to create a personal timeline of your life but there's no reason you couldn't use it to create timelines for a variety of other purposes as well.

Storybook Sites

BookPALS Storyline has a variety of popular children's books read by different actors that students can listen to. It's a great way to provide students with a chance to be read to by many different people.
SillyBooks allows children to upload their own writing to this site and read stories uploaded by other students as well. Each month a student story is selected and then turned into an animated movie and featured on the site.
Big Universe allows students to create their own online picture books as well as explore books that have been created by other users. You can embed your finished products in different websites and blogs once you are finished.
Tikatok is another tool that allows you to write, publish and embed your on book online. You can also order a print copy of your book for a price.

Slideshow Tutorials

Voice Thread allows you to upload entire Power Point presentations, add audio or text-based comments to your slides and even "doodle" on the different slides. Students can view the slides and add their own comments if you want them to.
Slideshare is a simple presentation tool that you can upload an entire PowerPoint presentation to for online viewing. You can also upload an MP3 with narration for your presentation if you want to add audio.
Vcasmo is an online tool that has many different features that can be used to create a multimedia rich presentation. You can include video, music, links and much more to enhance your presentation.

MapTrot

2009-05-27T19:18:00.005-04:00

MapTrot is yet another mapping tool that you can use to create custom maps online. It uses the familiar Google Maps interface and allows you to add multiple locations on your map. You can e-mail, embed, print and link to your finished map but you need to sign-up for a free account, which is very easy to do. MapTrot also supports layers in KML format and as a GeoRSS URL. With each location you add to your map you can provide a name, comments and url, which is a great way to give students more information or to assign a task associated with that particular location. MapTrot would also be an easy mapping tool for students to use to create their own maps. I could see kids as young as 3rd grade being able to use this tool due to it's simplicity of design and interface.

Photovisi

2009-05-20T13:53:00.005-04:00

Photovisi is a perfect example of a simple tool that is also simple to use. It fits all my criteria for a tool to use in education.

Is it free? Yep!
Does it work on multiple platforms/browsers? Yep!
Does it require any downloads or installation? Nope!
Does it require users to register and log in? Nope!

What more could you ask for in regards to simplicity of use? You pick a collage/wallpaper template, upload your pictures and Photovisi does the rest. Once you have uploaded your images you can choose to download your collage in different sizes and then distribute it or use it as you see fit. The great thing about this tool is that kids could use it easily since it wouldn't require an account, login or e-mail. They could create collages on different subjects, historical characters, books and any number of other things as a way to visually demonstrate their learning or to accompany presentations or other multimedia projects.

Next Vista for Learning

2009-05-14T11:19:00.007-04:00

Next Vista for Learning is an online library of videos that are centered around three main focus areas. Light Bulbs are educational videos created by students, teachers and other educators and they are designed to help individuals learn about a wide range of topics. Global Views are videos made by kids from around the world that provide insight into local communities, customs and cultures. Finally, the Seeing Service videos focus on the good works being done across the globe and help bring awareness to these charitable projects and, hopefully, will help inspire more of this kind of work.

The site requires that videos be kept short, 5 minutes or less, and they screen all submissions to check for inappropriate content. The collection is still rather small but this is the kind of project that has the potential to grow quickly once word gets out. Next Vista can be a great source of educational videos for your students. You can link to, embed and even download the individual video segments so being able to use these resources offline is even an option. I think the site is even more powerful because of the avenue it provides for students to share their own videos. I don't know if there are any plans for this, but it would be nice if there was some way to comment or participate online in discussions about the different videos. Currently, the site is largely designed to be a library of videos for viewing and not as a place to hold conversations around those videos. Obviously, you could use the videos in a social networking environment or some other discussion tool if you wanted to provide this type of experience for your students.

Mad Libs

2009-05-14T11:01:00.004-04:00

I can remember doing Mad Libs during long car trips as a way to pass the time and keep my parents' sanity intact. Now, you can do Mad Libs online for free! This is a great way to have your students practice the different parts of speech and the site even helps support student learning by providing the option to either type in a word or select from a variety of appropriate choices as they float by on the screen. You can also add a Mad Lib widget to your blog or website so that users, such as your students, can play and practice at a moments notice. I have included the widget below so you can see how this works.

You can buy all the Mad Lib books from they site or just play online. The two main topics at the time of this posting were Mad Libs for President and Mad Libs American Idol (both books are available for purchse on the site). I assume these are updated and changed periodically but since the presdential election has been over for several months I'm not too sure on that. Once you finish either Mad Lib story you are given the option to print it but not share it in any other way.

Newstin

2009-05-05T15:09:00.003-04:00

Newstin is yet another site that provides access to a wide range of news items from across the globe. It isn't designed specifically for the K12 population but it has a very cool visual interface (sample shown below) that allows you to click on different main topics and narrow your search down to a specific article or news story related to that topic. As part of the visual display, the individual topics and stories are "tagged" to their respective location on the globe providing a geographic perspective to each story.

You can search through Newstin for different stories based on a variety of criteria. This includes searching by country of origin, topic (i.e. politics, economy, sports etc.) as well as being able to search by an individual (such as President Obama), an organization, company or region of the world. It is also possible to leave comments, and read comments left by others, on different news stories and this is where things might get inappropriate for K12 students. Newstin is a news aggregator of sorts so when you click on a particular news story of interest you are taken to the original site where that story is posted rather than viewing and reading the story within the Newstin environment. You can subscribe to the site in order to get regular updates on all "top stories".

With proper monitoring, this could be a good news source for middle school or high school students involved in a current events class or studying journalism. There could also be some interesting comparisions made in how different countries report on global issues such as the economy, health related issues and politics.

Free Music Archive

2009-05-05T14:32:00.004-04:00

With a name like "Free Music Archive" you can probably guess what this site has to offer. Yep, free music. This is yet another great resource for music that is free and legal to use in your classroom projects. You can search through the music by genre, curator or keyword. The site isn't targeted specifically for the K-12 population so it may not be the best idea to have students go there directly but you could always download a selection of appropriate and relevant songs for them to pick from and make them available on a school network. If you are making podcasts, digital videos or any other multimedia projects that could be enhanced with music this would be a good place to check out.

Moodle Tutorials

2009-04-17T14:46:00.002-04:00

Anyone using the Moodle course management tool might want to check out the Moodle Tutorial site, which has, not surprisingly with a name like "Moodle Tutorial", a large collection of video tutorials demonstrating how to do all sorts of things within the Moodle environment. This is much like a YouTube style video sharing site in that users can upload videos (as long as they have to do with Moodle) and share their videos with others. You can comment on other videos and also embed them on your site or blog. I have included a video from the site for your enjoyment. This is a general presentation/overview of Moodle.

Funding Sources

2009-04-13T13:04:00.005-04:00

I wrote about Donors Choose a while back (read short posting here) but I have recently come across some other similar sites that are designed to help connect teachers and schools with donors who want to provide new and/or used supplies for classrooms. iLove Schools and ClassWish are two other similar sites to check out when looking for supplies or funds, or if you are an individual in search of worthy causes.

iLove Schools allows teachers to create wish lists of equipment and other supplies. Donors can look through the wish lists and then send items, both new and used, to the specific teacher or school.

ClassWish is very similar in that users can create wish lists. Donors are able to donate the required funds for a particular item on a list directly online and then that item will be purchased and sent to the teacher.

Both of these sites allow you to search for a specific school and teacher and you can sign-up to track a school and/or teacher so that you are notified when a new item is added to their wishlist. As a parent, I would rather do something like this than be asked to participate in fund raisers where I'm expected to sell or buy various overpriced products that I have no use for.

MiEarth

2009-04-07T11:33:00.007-04:00

MiEarth is a fairly new site that provides access to a growing selection of videos focused on the environment and what we can do to help keep it clean and healthy. The site is the result of a collaboration between the University of Michigan-Dearborn and Detroit Public TV. There are 5 main categories of videos to choose from. They are:

Green Team: Videos about environmental heroes throughout the state
Green Communities: Videos about the environmental work of local governments
Green Inc.: Videos about the environmental work of companies
My View: Personal videos from members and users expressing their viewpoints on the environmental challenges we face and offering their own solutions
For Kids: Educational videos on the environment for k12 students

You can link directly to different videos but currently there isn't the option to embed them in another site. You can also upload your own videos to the site and while I haven't tried this yet (I really don't have any of my own videos that are specifically about saving the environment) I would assume there is some kind of moderating that goes on to make sure the content is appropriate.

There is a small collection of teacher resources on the site that provides information and links to different environmental related activities, events and fieldtrips that teachers can plan or participate in with their students. The site is fairly new so the amount of resources and videos is still a bit small but this would be a nice resource to consider particularly if you are a teacher in Michigan, but also for teachers in other parts of the country and world.

The History Channel: 50 States

2009-04-02T12:10:00.006-04:00

The History Channel has a great site with a wide range of resources on historical topics as well as many other areas of interest that would be appropriate for the k12 classroom. One resource in particular that I wanted to highlight today is their 50 States interactive map and games area. The interactive map (shown below) allows you to click on each state in order to learn about that particular state.

The screenshot below shows all the options available to learn more about the state of Michigan. The is the typical view of an individual state once you click on it from the main map. Each state has the same range of options and information available for students to explore. The "featured video" option was a little disappointing, however. When I was looking at the state of Michigan the featured video was about New Mexico. Plus, I had to watch a short commercial before the video started. I know they have to pay the bills but couldn't the featured video on the Michigan page at least be about Michigan?

Students can practice their knowledge of the states by playing one of the two flash based games that include "Name that Plate" and "Name the State". In "Name the Plate" players try to match the correct state to it's corresponding license plate in a race against the clock. Name the State is quite similar except you are trying to place the state in the right location on the map in a given amount of time. This site would be a great place to start when conducting research about the 50 states or when you're just trying to help reinforce basic United States geography.

The Cycle

2009-04-01T09:26:00.007-04:00

Since it is April, and Earth Day is coming up later this month, I thought I would share The Cycle, a website with a series of animated videos on recycling. Video topics include an overview of the concepts of reducing, reusing and recycling as ways to help the environment as well as several individual videos on the different common materials that can be recycled such as plastics, metal, paper and glass. These videos have a lot of great information to help kids and adults better understand exactly what can and can't be recycled. You can check out the overview video below or watch all the videos by clicking here. These would be a great way to jumpstart discussions with students or kick-off a recycling unit at your school.

MACUL

2009-03-18T06:01:00.004-04:00

I just wanted folks to know that I will be at the MACUL conference this Wednesday (March 18th) through Friday (March 20th) at booth 814 in the exhibit hall. I will be working a booth for the University of Michigan-D earborn, sharing information about our online Educational Technology endorsement program as well as other graduate programs we offer. My colleague Dr. Mesut Duran will be working the booth at times as well so stop by and see us if you happen to be attending the conference.

I should also point out that there will be a Higher Education Reception held at the Detroit Science Center on Thursday, March 19th for all MACUL participants. This reception is a great way to meet with representatives from a variety of colleges and universities from around the state of Michigan in order to learn more about the graduate programs they offer. You will also get a chance to tour the science center, which is a nice bonus. The reception is being held from 7:30-10:00.

Aviary Suite of Tools

2009-03-14T16:37:00.010-04:00

I first read about Aviary a while back and was pretty impressed with the suite of photo editing tools they were developing. I haven't written about this amazing resource yet but now that they have purchased the online audio editor Digimix, and they are looking to add an even larger array of tools to their already extensive lineup, I thought it was time to share. Since they have so many web-based (and free) tools available and in development, and I must admit I haven't tested everything out, I will just share the titles and tools briefly here.

Currently Available in Beta

Phoenix is their image editor that has many of the same capabilities of Photo Shop. You can check out the video below to see some of the capabilities of this tool. It certainly seems to have the kinds of features teachers would want to be able to do basic photo editing so they could, for instance, prepare images before adding them to a class homepage. You can upload images or access them directly from a URL. You do need an account in order to save your work but Phoenix, like all the other Aviary tools, is web-based so it doesn't matter what operating system you are using nor does it require anything to be downloaded. Plus, you only need one account in order to be able to save with any of the tools.

Raven is a powerful vector editor that can be used to create logos and other types of artwork. The video below shows another time-lapse example of what you can do with this tool. As you watch, remember that this is completely free to use. This tool is actually in Alpha testing rather than Beta.

Aviary vector icons from mpeutz on Vimeo.

Peacock is referred to as a visual laboratory tool and it allows you to play around with images in a variety of ways. You can watch the video below to see a tutorial and get a sense of some of the things that can be done with Peacock.

Toucan is a color palette tool that helps you tweak the colors of your projects in order to find shades that go together. This is particularly useful for someone such as myself who is a bit deficient when it comes to finding colors that match. The video shows another tutorial that will give you a glimpse of Toucan.

Digimix fits nicely with this selection of tools not because it is an image editing tool but because they plan to offer it for free, it is web-based and it promises to be a very powerful tool. There are even more tools that are in development and they extend well beyond image editing to include desktop publishing, 3D modeling, font creation, word processing and much more. You can check out the screenshot below to see the current list of tools in development. This is something that is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Creating an Online Classroom Environment

2009-03-13T09:11:00.004-04:00

Considering that more and more states are requiring high schools to provide online learning experiences for students before they graduate I decided to share some of the different virtual classroom tools that are currently available. Let me first start out by getting some terminology out on the table. I am referring to the tools reviewed in this post as virtual classrooms but you may also see them called learning management systems (LMS), online learning environments, electronic learning systems or a variety of other variations on those terms. As with most of these kinds of tools there are free options, fee options and open source options to choose from. You can find the tools reviewed belowon the Virtual Classrooms page of the Ed Tech Wiki that I maintain.

Tools that cost money

Blackboard: This is a great tool with a wide-range of functionality and a help-desk to contact when you have problems. The problem is it isn't free and would require a district-wide subscription making it unrealistic for a single teacher to purchase and use.

Elluminate Live!: This is similar to Blackboard in the range of features and functionality. The one difference is that you do need to download the Elluminate Live! software and host it on a server.

Tools that are free but require a download

Moodle: This is an open source option that many schools and districts are adopting. The benefits of open source is that it is free and can be modified. The downside is that it doesn't come with a built in help-desk or support department. However, there is a great network of support around the Moodle environment that you can access if you are interested in using this tool.

Claroline.net: This is another open source tool similar to Moodle that requires software to be downloaded and hosted on a server. The best way to learn more about this tool would be to play around with the demo classroom they have or look at their tour.

Tools that are web-based

Chalksite: There is a free version of this tool that is fairly comprehensive. The downside is that only 5 students can subscribe with the free version. For a monthly fee you can upgrade to different options that give you more features and allow more students to use the system. They have a series of screenshots you can view as a tutorial of sorts through the environment.

HotChalk: This is a free tool you can use to create your own virtual classroom. They are affiliated with NBC so you will notice that logo on the site here and there. They have a nice video tour you can watch to learn more about this environment. They provide access to digital content from the History channel, National Geographic, NBC News Archives on Demand, all of which seem to be great additions but they cost money so be aware of that when considering how you might use this content in your site or courses. You can access lesson plans and other content created by the community of users (other teachers such as yourself) for free and use that content in your teaching.

Ecto: This is a free tool that is a cross between a social networking site and a virtual classroom. There is a large emphasis on allowing students to collaborate and on being able to access content generated by other users and instructors. As you can see from the video below, Ecto is being used for both online courses and for supplementing face-to-face classes. The video provides an overview of the features and also some user testimonials for this product.

edu20: This is another free, web-based option that has a huge range of features and tools. You really can't explore any of the features without first creating an account but this would definitely be worth the time to check out considering all you can do with it. The screenshot below shows the list of available features. There is a nice tour you can go through but you need to be logged in to see it, which means you need to sign-up for an account first. Did I mention the account is free?

NICENET: NICENET is run by a nonprofit and when you look at it, especially after seeing HotChalk and edu20, you may think it seems a bit boring or bland. I'm guessing NICENET doesn't have the same kind of financial support that the other tools have and so it has placed it's emphasis on providing a decent set of features in a logical and easy to use environment and not on flashy icons and colorful layouts.

WiZiQ: WiZiQ is a bit different from the other tools that have been reviewed because it is more about actively teaching and presenting information online to students. This tool would be good to use if you wanted to teach or demonstrate something to students in real time but it doesn't have the same range of features as the other tools to support a long term online course where you have assignments, regular discussions and so forth. WiZiQ has an interactive whiteboard you can use with students as well as real-time audio and video chat capabilities. This might be a good tool to use in conjunction with one of the other virtual classroom tools when you want to hold an online meeting with students to go over something. You can check out their tour to learn more about this tool.

embedit.in

2009-03-06T22:54:00.005-05:00

embedit.in is an incredibly easy tool to use that allows you to embed any file or URL directly in your own website or blog. I have included an example below of an embedded website. The website is the Wiki I maintain and you will notice that while you can scroll up and down the page you can't click on any of the links shown on the page.

Here is an example of an embedded file. This is a syllabus from one of my educational technology courses.

As you can see, you are able to zoom in and out, view the file or website in full screen mode and also print either one. All users will also be able to download any file you embed and there is currently no way to make any of your embedded files private or restricted to specific users.

embedit.in is free and you don't even need to create an account. You are asked to log in with a third party account such as Google, AOL, Yahoo or an Open ID account the very first time you use the service. You can retrieve your past "embeds" by clicking on the My Embeds option, which makes it easy to retrieve code from previous sessions. I see this tool being more useful for sharing files than websites. I think it would be a nice way to represent files you want to share visually rather then just providing links to these files and relying on people to download them.

Mendeley

2009-03-04T19:54:00.003-05:00

I wrote about the bibliography tool Zotero a while back and I'm excited to share another promising option in this category called Mendeley. It's a bit misleading to refer to these tools as just bibliography tools since they really allow you to do so much more. When I was a doctoral student I used EndNote to keep track of all the articles, book chapters, websites and other references I uncovered in my research and this was a great help in creating an accurately formatted bibliography for my dissertation. But the downside of a tool like EndNote is that it costs money (boo) and it is confined to just a single machine.

Mendeley is free (yeah) and it allows you to sync your list of references across multiple machines. However, that is just the beginning of the great features available with this amazing tool. Mendeley automatically extracts metadata such as title, author, publication, you know, all that stuff you normally have to type in yourself, and creates a new reference in your library. You can access and manage this library online and across multiple machines. You are also able to share your library with others and invite them to annotate the references in your library. Mendeley also supports full text searching of your articles and you can even capture citations directly from the browser, which is incredibly handy considering how so much of the research we do these days is online. You can even create bibliographies right within Word or Open Office.

I still have that same copy of EndNote I purchased when I first became a doctoral student but I don't think I'll be upgrading it anytime soon. Not with alternative options like Mendeley out there.

Fliggo

2009-03-03T13:25:00.005-05:00

Are you looking for a tool you can use to showcase your students' videos in a safe and controlled environment? Do you want your own video sharing tool that you can get unblocked in your district so that students can use it without fear of filtering? Then Fliggo is just the tool for you. Fliggo allows you to create your very own version of YouTube where you control the video content. You are able to control who adds content, who views the videos and who comments on the videos. This level of control is particularly powerful for the k-12 educator. You can create your own site with Fliggo, upload your students' videos, or other videos you want to share with them, and never have to deal with the headaches and questionable content found on those "other" video sharing sites. There is a great video tour you can watch to learn more about the many features of Fliggo. Like the many web-based tools out there, Fliggo doesn't care if you are using a Mac or a PC and it doesn't require any prior knowledge of HTML or programming in order to use it. If you are looking for a way to showcase student videos and facilitate the use of videos with your students than Fliggo is definitely worth checking out.

Picnik and Cameroid

2009-03-02T22:13:00.011-05:00

Today I'm writing about two more web-based photo tools that are free and fairly easy to use. Picnik is an online editor and Cameroid allows you to take pictures with your webcam and then add a variety of different effects.

Picnik is an incredibly powerful photo editing tool that allows you to pull pictures in from all the major photo sharing sites as well as directly from your computer. It is completely web-based and therefore doesn't require any downloads or specific operating system. In fact, you don't even have to register in order to use it, which makes it even more accessible for classroom use. You can add special effects, backgrounds and text to your pictures as well as do all the basic editing tasks such as color correction, cropping, image resizing and much more. One classroom application of a tool such as Picnik would be to touch-up images before including them on your classroom website.

Cameroid is the equivalent of Photo Booth (Mac only) but web-based so the Windows users of the world can now join in the fun. Cameroid is a photo capturing tool with some editing features built in. One of the common uses of this tool is to take a self-portrait of yourself with your webcam and then add all sorts of fun special effects to create a very customized profile picture.

Humana Games 4 Health

2009-02-25T20:34:00.003-05:00

Humana Games 4 Health is an engaging site where kids can play a variety of games that help reinforce healthy eating and living habits. Users can navigate around the town, stopping at different locations such as the Schoolzone, Hospital, Senior Citizen Center and Workzone. The screenshot below shows a portion of this community.

At each location they can learn different facts and information about healthy living. Most of the locations have their own games for students to play that also reinforce that specific information. For instance, at the Physical Therapy building you can play the Freewheeling Cycle Challenge where you navigate your bike around the course trying to avoid potholes and other obstacles while also needing to pick up water, fruit and other nutritious items in order to keep your energy level high. Students can also participate in The Horsepower Challenge, which is an offline challenge where students keep track of the steps they take and log them online as a way to track their physical activity.

Dummies.com

2009-02-21T13:52:00.007-05:00

It was only a matter of time before the folks who brought us the helpful "Dummies" series of how-to books went digital and started creating how-to videos. Dummies.com has a variety of short videos that explain how to do all sorts of things. The videos are geared towards...well...dummies in the same way as the books. That is, they are easy to follow and learn from. Access to the videos is free and they are searchable by keyword and also categorized by topic. You can share the videos you find through a whole host of social networking tools but it doesn't appear that you can embed them directly into a website or blog. You may not find much for students to watch or learn from on this site but there is certain to be some topics that you may find useful. That's not to say that I would consider you a dummy or anything.

Science Video Resources

2009-02-17T16:26:00.008-05:00

I recently read about the Periodic Table of Videos (I can't recall the blog or source where I read it so I apologize for not giving proper credit) and it prompted me to go back to my Furl Archive and search through for other science related video sites. I found a few more and thought I would share them all in one post.

Periodic Table of Elements
This site is maintained by the University of Nottingham and contains a great collection of short videos that describe each of the periodic elements. The layout of the site is very clever allowing users to click on any element they want to watch the associated video. The content and vocabulary of the videos are suitable for middle school and high school. These videos are hosted on YouTube so there may be filter issues when trying to watch these at your school.

ScienceHack
ScienceHack is a collection of science related videos categorized by various topics. These videos are pulled from different sites across the net and not produced by ScienceHack. They claim to review each video before it is included in their database to insure that the content is scientifically accurate.

TestToob
TestToob is focused on showcasing student created videos that are scientific in content. They have different contests that students can enter with their own videos and each video that is uploaded to the site is reviewed before going live. It seems like the site is interested in promoting science and video production in equal parts. You have to become a member, which is free, in order to view, post and comment on videos.

If you teach science, or are just interested in getting some ideas for different kinds of videos your students could produce, you may find these sites helpful.

The Week in Rap

2009-02-16T16:25:00.003-05:00

The Week in Rap is exactly that. Each week, a new rap recapping the important news is written, recorded and enhanced with relevant video imagery allowing you to learn about the entire week...through rap. The writing is very clever and the videos are well edited making them both informational and enjoyable to watch. I could see this as a great tool to use in a current events type class or just to help kids stay abreast of the major events taking place on a weekly basis. Check out the sample below, which recounts the week of news when President Obama was sworn into office.

The Week in Rap - Obama's Inauguration from Week in Rap on Vimeo.

You can subscribe to the site so that the new videos are automatically sent to your computer. Of course, since these are videos you will probably find they are blocked in your school but many of them include a link that allows you to download the video directly to your computer, thereby avoiding the problem of blocked content.

Storynory & AudibleKids

2009-02-16T12:34:00.006-05:00

Storynory and AudibleKids are two sites that offer audio stories for download. They are built around a common premise but do have some notable differences.

Storynory features only free downloads so their collection is focused on classic stories, fairytales and even some original works that haven't been published elsewhere. You can subscribe to the site through iTunes in order to download their stories more expeditiously or just pick and choose the files you want. They have organized their stories into different categories and you can subscribe to the feed from individual categories as well.

AudibleKids has a few free titles but most of their content is for purchase only. They have a much broader selection of titles ranging from well-known picture books for younger kids on up to chapter books for middle schoolers. You are more likely to find up-to-date titles on this site and can expect to spend anywhere from a few dollars up to, and over, twenty dollars per audiobook.

Both of these sites could be used to bolster your school or classroom's listening library. Of course, another option would be to have your students record their own audio books by using something like GarageBand or Audacity and build your listening library organically from within your own school.

Wildlife Filmmaker

2009-02-16T11:44:00.006-05:00

National Geographic has a great new tool called the Wildlife Filmmaker. This web-based tool allows you to use video from the National Geographic library of footage to create your own movies. The video clips don't have any sound and are fairly short but the library includes a nice range of animals. You can enhance your video by selecting sound effects of different animals as well as a musical background. There is also a feature that allows you to add basic captions to each clip and you can even add multiple captions to the same clip if so desired. Students don't need accounts, and therefore don't need e-mail addresses, to use this tool. It is free and works on both the Mac and PC since it is web-based.

This is what the editing interface looks like. It operates largely by drag and drop so students would be able to start using it without too much instruction. Finished movies can be shared by directly e-mailing them to someone or through a retrieval code that is generated when you save your movie. You can share this retrieval code with anyone you want to view your video. It's important to note that this retrieval code only takes you back to the completed video and doesn't allow you to continue editing your video. In fact, it doesn't appear that there is anyway to save a partially completed video and then come back to it again at a later time so students would have to have their video completely planned out and be able to finish it in one sitting.

You can preview the sounds and music by double clicking on the individual selections. However, I couldn't find a way to preview the video clips. In order to watch each clip I had to first drag it into the timeline and then view it there. This isn't a huge issue but it would take students a bit longer to sort through the clips and find the ones they wanted to use so it's something to be aware of. There is a nice selection of video clips and sound effects but don't assume that just because there is a video clip of an African Civet that there will be a corresponding sound clip of that same animal. Again, this may not be a significant issue but one I thought was worth mentioning.

I hope I don't sound too negative about this tool. If you are looking for an easy to use video editing application that allows your students to incorporate high-quality footage (without having to worry about file storage or copyright issues) then Wildlife Filmmaker is definitely worth checking out. I would love to see more tools of this kind come online in the future.

PasswordBird

2009-02-02T21:07:00.004-05:00

Password Bird is a great little tool that I recently read about on Kelly Tenkely's awesome blog. Password Bird is a great example of a simple yet powerful tool that you can use with your students. As you might imagine, this is a password creation tool. You simply enter a special name, special word and special date and Password Bird spits out a password for you that combines all three. If you don't like the first option then you can just keep generating new ones until you find one that works. This would be a great way to help kids learn how to create strong and secure passwords.

Quizlet

2009-01-21T12:45:00.004-05:00

Quizlet is a nifty (yes I just used the word nifty) quiz generator that has a surprising range of options for testing your students' knowledge. It is largely designed around the flashcard premise so it really works well with vocabulary words or with facts that need to be memorized but if you browse through the different samples in their library of quizzes you will find that people have found ways to use Quizlet for a variety of subjects and purposes.

Each quiz that you create can be used in different modes that include Familiarize, Learn, Test, Play Scatter and Play Space Race. The last two are simple games that help reinforce the content in the quiz. The best way to learn about these different quiz modes is to watch the demo video they have on the site. You can make your quizzes available to the public or private to only those specific people you choose and you can make them accessible through a direct link or by sending e-mail invites directly from Quizlet. You can take quizzes without an account but if you want to keep track of your progress you need to sign-up, which is free. Having an account also allows you to create groups, for instance for your class, so that you can share quizzes directly with those groups. You could even have students create their own quizzes to be used by their peers.

Online Educational Technology Endorsement

2009-01-13T15:27:00.006-05:00

The University of Michigan-Dearborn, where I am employed as an Assistant Professor of Educational Technology, now offers a completely online Masters in Education with Educational Technology (NP) Endorsement. If you don't want the Masters you can just do the endorsement, again completely online. The Masters with Endorsement consists of 3 core classes and 7 educational technology classes for a total of 30 credits.

Our emphasis in the endorsement program is on helping teachers learn how to teach effectively with technology across the curriculum. We aren't just interested in helping people learn how to use tools but instead we are focused on helping them develop effective strategies for integrating technology in meaningful ways so that they can provide enhanced learning experiences for their students. We also stress the use of technology for assessment and differentiated instruction and, in accordance with the new online learning requirements for high school graduates in the state of Michigan (and in other states in the near future), we have two classes devoted to the design and development of online learning. You can see the kinds of things our students produce by looking at a few of their e-portfolios (Student 1, Student 2, Student 3).

Many of our students have taken up technology leadership positions in their districts as a result of their completion of our program. Our students have taken positions as Technology Coordinators, led technology related professional development at the school and district level, been asked to serve on hiring committees for new technology administrators and have been requested to pilot and review new technologies for their respective schools and districts. This endorsement and Masters isn't just for teachers in Michigan either so don't let that stop you from inquiring further about the program. Please feel free to contact me (sbrunvan@umd.umich.edu) with any questions you may have about the program. We would love to have you join the University of Michigan community.

21st Century Classroom Conference

2009-01-13T15:05:00.003-05:00

Are you interested in seeing a 21st century classroom live and in action? If so, I have the perfect conference for you. The 21st Century Classroom Conference is being held at the University of Michigan-Dearborn on Tuesday, February 24th. You can register online for the conference and even enroll for university credit if you are interested. The conference is being offered jointly by UM-Dearborn, Wayne RESA and the One-to-One Institute.

Pamela Livingston will be moderating the conference and demonstrating a 21st century classroom with middle school students. Participants will be able to observe and interact with the students and Ms. Livingston as well as attend breakout sessions to learn more about the tools being demonstrated. You can read more about the plan at Ms. Livingston's blog. This is a great opportunity to move beyond just talking about what education could look like and start seeing it in action! Don't miss out.

Woopid

2009-01-13T13:30:00.004-05:00

Woopid, in addition to having a cool name, has a great collection of screen tutorials on a wide range of applications for both the Mac and PC. You can search through their vast library, which is categorized for easier searching, or even look through the many bundles they have available. Bundles are collections of videos focused on a particular application or system. For instance, you can access the Power Point 2007 bundle to learn more about the features and uses of that software. Or if you recently upgraded to iMovie 2008 you may want to check out the Tips and Tricks for iMovie 08 bundle. I can definitely see myself using these with my undergraduate and graduate classes, especially the courses I teach online. You might find these videos to be a bit over the heads of your younger students but even as a resource for you to bone up on different applications it really is worth checking out. You can watch the videos for free and without an account but if you want to generate a favorites list or share the videos by sending an automated e-mail from Woopid, you need to sign up. Of course, you could always just send the link to the video you want to share to people yourself and skip logging in altogether.

MyClusta & Tizmos

2009-01-08T15:38:00.007-05:00

I know there are a variety of different tools out there that allow you to create your own personalized start pages (I currently am using PageFlakes for this purpose) but there are a few new ones I recently read about on Paul Hamilton's great blog that I wanted to pass along. MyClusta and Tizmos allow you to create your own start page with the sites you visit most often represented visually as thumbnails, screenshots or some other logical image. These are both different from an RSS feed reader in that you don't have to pick just sites that are generating a feed but instead the sites you like to visit often or that you use frequently with your students. Tizmos provides a screenshot, updated every couple of days, for each website you choose to include while MyClusta allows you to pick your own image for each website if you so desire. Essentially, these tools let you take a favorite list of websites and represent them visually on a single page as shown in the screenshots below.

From MyClusta:
And from Tizmos:

ShareTabs

2009-01-06T10:59:00.004-05:00

ShareTabs is one of those tools that is very simple to use and implement in the classroom. As the name implies, ShareTabs allows you to share a series of URLs as tabs with your students. You pick the sites you want to share and the tabs are created for you. You then are given a link to these tabs that you can provide to your students and by sharing just this one link you end up sharing all the tabs associated with that link. It really is just that easy. Check out http://sharetabs.com/?searchengines to see an example. I think this tool would be particularly helpful in an elementary setting where it will often times be easier to provide students with a single link rather than walking them through the process of opening several tabs in a browser and navigating to multiple sites. I have a hard enough time explaining that process to my dad...hope he isn't reading this.

Student Accounts on Wikispaces

2009-01-03T16:09:00.003-05:00

Hello and Happy New Year! For those of you that have your own Wikispaces you probably already heard the news that creating your own student accounts is now even easier. You can use the User Creator tool (look under Manage Wiki on your space) to create the accounts and as always, e-mails are not required for student accounts. They make it easy to create a batch of usernames by allowing you to add suffixes or prefixes automatically and they give you the option of creating your own passwords or having them generated randomly. You can also make the students members of various spaces all in one step. Check out the Wikispaces blog on this topic to learn more about it.

Middlespot

2008-12-13T20:12:00.003-05:00

Middlespot.com is a websearch interface that is specifically designed to help you manage your online research. The site doesn't require a login nor are there any plugins that need to be downloaded. This is a benefit on the one hand especially if you are planning on using it with k-12 students but there are some potential drawbacks to this that I will get back to in a moment. Let me explain the basic features of Middlespot first.

Users can conduct keyword searches with Middlespot and view their results both as text, similar to what you would see in a Google search, and as a series of thumbnails. You can then save different sites to your workpad and add annotations to each site you save. The workpads can be e-mailed to friends to share your research. These workpads are also saved for you and available the next time you visit the Middlespot site. This is where using a tool like this on a public computer, such as the computers in your school lab, becomes problematic and I would rather have the option of signing students up for their own accounts so that they could create and access their workpads individually. To learn more about the tool you can go through the slideshow included below, which comes from the help section on their website.

Middlespot Tutorial

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: engine search)

Playing for Change

2008-12-13T16:19:00.006-05:00

"Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music." They say it so nicely on their website I figured I would just quote them instead of trying to come up with my own description. This movement is a perfect example of the power of multimedia and Web 2.0 technology. Check out the Stand by Me video I've included below and you will see what I mean. There are some other videos on the site but this one is by far my favorite. It is a masterful job of editing and audio mixing and the concept is just sheer brilliance. They recorded street musicians across the globe and mixed them together into one song as if they were all laying down tracks together in a single recording studio.

Now you may be wondering how this site fits into your k-12 classroom. I think it has a variety of potential applications. First of all, it is a great way to introduce students to a variety of cultures and help them develop an appreciation of different musical styles. I think it is also a powerful way to expose them to a social movement that could directly benefit them by promoting music education around the world and even in their own community. Finally, it demonstrates how the web can give a voice to anyone longing to be heard. If nothing else, you could show it to students as part of a lesson on the importance of being and having friends.

Wikipedia for Schools

2008-12-13T15:55:00.003-05:00

To say I have been a bit delinquent in my posting to this blog would be an understatement but rather than making excuses for my absence, I'll just get to the posting. I recently read about the Wikipedia Selection for Schools on Kelly Tenkely's exceptional blog, iLearn Technology. This selection of resources from Wikipedia has been pre-screened for accuracy and appropriateness with k-12 students in mind. They boast on the site that the amount of information is equivalent to "a 20 volume encyclopedia". When I first read that I was a little confused and I had to look up the word encyclopedia. Turns out, an encyclopedia is a book and people used to use them to look up information and learn things. Can you imagine that! Alright, enough of my weak attempt at humor.

Along with over 5500 articles the collection of resources has some 34,000 images for students to view. You can browse the content either by a picture-based index (handy for younger students) or a word index. But I haven't even gotten to the best part yet. You can download the entire collection and put it on a DVD so that students can use the site offline if needed. How cool is that? What I really love about this is that students can still get the practice of parsing information from a larger collection of resources, analyzing the various articles and drawing conclusions based on the information they collect but do so in a safe environment tailor made for them. This seems like a great option for those research projects you have planned for your students.

xtranormal

2008-11-21T21:42:00.004-05:00

xtranormal is an amazingly easy tool to pick up and start using to create fairly detailed animated movies. They advertise the tool by saying "if you can type, you can make movies" and it really is that simple yet the range of options is quite extensive. You can pick your own characters, setting, camera angles, emotions, hand gestures and voices. Then, whatever you type in for a script the characters you select will say, so you can make your movies as complex or as simple as you want. I've included a sample below that is an interesting lesson on the letter B. While this particular example may not be the best representation of how you could use this with k-12 students, I think this tool has a lot of potential as far as a creative way for students to express their understanding of different concepts and subjects. As with many other Web 2.0 tools you can share your creations by giving people the URL or embedding it.

Shidonni

2008-11-12T10:39:00.006-05:00

If you have, or work with, kids that are in the 6-10 year old range than you probably already know about WebKinz and the virtual world associated with these furry little critters. If your not familiar with this ingenious marketing ploy it basically consists of the kids buying a stuffed animal that comes with a code they can use to register it in the WebKinz virtual world where the owner (your child) can then earn WebKinz money by playing games and doing different jobs. This money can be spent on buying a house for the virtual pet (the online representation of the stuffed animal they bought) as well as other highly necessary items like a four-wheeler (what pink bunny can survive without one) clothes, jewelry and a wide range of furniture.

At this point you may be wondering why I'm spending so much time talking about WebKinz since it would be a stretch to call it an example of educational technology. Well, stick with me here. The reason is because Shidonni is a lot like WebKinz except you don't have to buy a stuffed animal and you get to create (draw) your animal yourself. Not only can you draw your animal but you can animate it and have it run or fly all over the place. You can also create a world for your animal to live in and then feed it and take care of it. In fact, you can create multiple worlds and multiple animals so students could use this tool to learn more about the different types of animals by creating relevant habitats and populating them with their animals. You can also share your animals with other users if you like. I am going to suggest using this in my daughters' classrooms (they are in first and third grade) as they learn about the classification of animals. It does require a log in so you would need to create accounts for kids but that's easy enough to do. They have a basic introductory video you can watch to learn more about the range of features within this tool.

Glogster

2008-11-03T08:42:00.006-05:00

I first learned about Glogster a while ago but didn't share it because it is one of those sites with a great tool but also a lot of user generated content that would not be appropriate for k-12 students to see or read. Thankfully, like so many other Web 2.0 tools, Glogster has come out with an education version of their tool that filters through the content more effectively and provides a safer learning environment for students.

So what does Glogster allow you to do? Basically, you can create your own online "poster" using images, text, video clips and audio files. They refer to these creations as "glogs", which I'm guessing is a take-off on blogs (maybe graphical blogs?) but that's just a guess. In a sense, a glog is like a single webpage but I think it also helps to imagine it as an electronic or online multimedia poster. There is a social networking element to this site in that users can create a profile and share their creations with others. I've included a sample glog below to give you an idea of what one of these might look like. Glogster has all the capabilities that you would expect as far as being able to embed your finished product and share it with others. The possibilities are endless with this and it would be very easy to incorporate into an existing website or Wiki.

Zotero: The Researchers Best Friend

2008-10-27T11:34:00.005-04:00

If you are involved in research of any kind, or if you have students who are required to work on research projects, you may want to check out Zotero. This Firefox extension is an incredibly powerful tool that helps facilitate the process of collecting research online, cataloging articles and other resources, adding notes and annotations to those sources and creating accurately formatted bibliographies that can be inserted directly into your writing. They have a great introductory tutorial you can watch to learn more about this amazing tool.

It is a bit like Google Notebook but Zotero takes things a step further by scaffolding the researcher in the process of organizing information and resources. You can quickly save articles that you find online into different folders based on their content and concentration. A single article can be associated with multiple folders in case it has relevance across different areas. You can add notes, summaries and other information for each resource you save much like in Google Notebook and desktop based tools such as Endnote. When you are all finished with your research you can export a bibliography in any of the major formats/styles and put that directly into your Word document or even Google Docs.

Currently it isn't possible to share or sync your Zotero library across computers so you are limited to working on the same computer but they are piloting Zotero 1.5 Sync, which purports to allow you to sync your data in this fashion and that will definitely make this tool even more user friendly. There are many other interesting upgrades in the works for Zotero 2.0 that include the ability to share your data and collaborate with others and the option to create a RSS feed from your bibliography.

Science Up Close

2008-10-22T15:29:00.005-04:00

I was reading about Science Up Close on Paul Hamilton's blog and thought I'd share it here on my blog. Science Up Close is produced by the textbook company Harcourt but you don't need to have the textbook to use the site. In fact, you don't need to login or create any kind of account either. The site provides interactive science content for grades 1st-6th. The content is tied to the chapters of a specific science textbook but that doesn't really matter since the topics are very common and would be covered in most any elementary science textbook.

I decided to check out the module on the Water Cycle for third grade since this is something my daughter's class is going to be covering soon. I liked that I could have the text read to me if necessary but also turn it off if I wanted to. There was also an option to display the keyboard shortcuts for different parts of the screen for students who might have trouble using a mouse. In many ways this is a talking textbook with interactive images and illustrations. Some of the modules have video segments for the students to watch and I must admit I haven't been able to review every single resource on this site to know what else might be available within individual modules, but it is a nice collection of resources that are closely tied to the various science topics taught in elementary school.

Lulu

2008-10-20T22:21:00.004-04:00

Lulu is one of the many online publishing tools that are out there on the net, but unlike tools like Tikatok and Big Universe, Lulu allows you to publish your writing and sell it either as a hard copy book or for download by prospective buyers. You can publish hard cover and soft cover books as well as calendars and even CDs. Lulu sets a publication price based on a variety of factors (i.e. length of book, color or black and white photos, hard/soft cover, binding type) and you get to decide how much above that price you want to charge. Lulu takes it's costs out of the price and you get the rest. That's right, you can actually make money off your writing! The beauty of this model is that they don't print any copies until they are ordered so you don't have huge inventory costs to worry about. You can still share your writing in the usual ways by allowing people to link to it or embed it and they even allow you to create your own storefront within Lulu to help sell your great ideas. Browsing through the site you will find a wide range of quality and styles ranging from professional grade chapter books to short picture books with hand drawn illustrations. They have a nice introductory demo video that you can watch to learn more about this great tool. Check it out, tell your story and become a published author!

Tribbit

2008-10-20T16:01:00.002-04:00

I have used Tribbit before but I was reminded of it today when my daughter's 3rd grade teacher asked me for an idea on how the class could create something for a classmate's father who is serving in Iraq. Tribbit is a basic (free, of course) tool that you can use to create a tribute to someone as a way to say thank you or otherwise honor them. They describe themselves as "the online card that everyone signs." You can pick out a layout and add a picture and description to your Tribbit. Then you can invite others to leave text or audio comments, photos and other embedded files for the person you are paying tribute to. You can make the Tribbit private and only available to the people you invite, or you can leave it public. You also have the option to put a deadline on your Tribbit at which point people will no longer be able to contribute to it. Once your Tribbit is created, you can send a link to the person you are honoring so that they get to see all the nice things people are saying about them. I have included the demo video they provide on the site so that you can get a better idea of what is possible with this tool.

Google Lit Trips

2008-10-16T13:44:00.005-04:00

I'm still here at the ILC 2008 and I just attended a great session on Google Lit Trips. I was tempted to write about the session as it happened but I just couldn't bring myself to be quite that instantaneous. Jerome Burg gave the presentation and his website has a nice collection of lit trips that you can download and journey through with Google Earth. I was quite impressed with the huge variety of ways you can go with this type of learning experience. As you would expect, you can plot the different stops in your trip as well as add pictures, video, text, links, maps, overlays and much more. It has the power to truly bring your trip, and the book, to life. This same technology could be used to create a trip of a historical journey, migration patterns, travel logs and anything else you can imagine. In order to use these trips you need to have Google Earth (a free download) and then download the actual file for the trip you want to use. This file would need to be loaded on any machine where you want the trip used. Of course, once you become more familiar with the process of creating a trip, a topic that would take more than a single blog posting, you could create your own or, better yet, have your students collaborate on their own trips.

myWebspiration

2008-10-15T23:47:00.002-04:00

I'm out in San Jose at the Innovative Learning Conference and I attended a session today where myWebspiration was used. myWebspiration is the online version of the popular Inspiration software. It is currently in beta and the word on the street (or the web) is that it will only be free until March so check it out now. You can do everything that you can do in the desktop version but also, as expected with a web-based tool, you can collaborate on maps. Better yet, your students can work collaboratively on maps.

Fun Physics Tools

2008-10-13T22:39:00.005-04:00

This post will focus on a couple of cool tools geared towards helping kids explore different physics concepts.

The Fantastic Contraption is a web-based tool that presents a variety of different puzzles for students to solve by building different contraptions. Each puzzle essentially consists of having to move a given object across a given distance. You can work through the 21 initial levels without even signing in or creating an account. Upgrading to the "full" account for $10 gets you access to other levels and puzzles created by other users. It also allows you to create your own levels. For most teachers, access to the free levels will be adequate.

Physics Phun is similar to the Fantastic Contraption but it is a desktop application that needs to be downloaded. Versions are available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Phun has quite a few more possibilities than the Fantastic Contraption because it allows you to create your own puzzles from scratch and the possibilities are nearly endless. You can create spacecraft, vehicles, bikes and all sorts of other forms of transportation and then test them out over different terrains and in different situations. There are a variety of videos showing Phun in use and some of them are included below. These videos will help give you an idea of the kinds of things you can do with this software.

A basic tutorial (a little slow but a good overview).

A tutorial showing how to create a rocket (I only included this because of the interesting musical accompaniment).

A sample video showing that you can even create a mountain bike and test it out.

Vodpod

2008-09-30T17:02:00.003-04:00

Vodpod is a great little tool for creating collections of videos that you find online. It works much like Furl or other social bookmarking sites except that instead of saving individual websites you are saving videos to your archive. You can have different "pods" for your videos and share your collections by placing widgets on your blog or website. I have my Vodpod widget along the righthand side of this blog if you want to check it out. There is a browser extension that you can install so that when you come across a video you like you just click on the Vodpod icon in your browser's toolbar and a window is opened that allows you to pick which pod you want to add the video to and even lets you add comments about the video.

TerraClues

2008-09-30T09:24:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I was creating a TerraClues hunt with my 8 year old daughter and I realized that I hadn't written about this tool yet in my blog. TerraClues allows you to create a geographically based hunt with a series of clues. Each clue is tagged to a location on the globe (the location is decided by you as you create the clue). You also get to decide at what zoom level the clue will be found so if you want to focus on specific cities or landmarks you can or if you want to hunt for larger things like oceans and continents, which is what our hunt focused on, then you can zoom out for a wider view. For each clue you enter an answer and even some accompanying text where you can provide more information about the subject. Here is a clue and answer we created in our hunt.

Clue: This is the only continent that is also a country.
Answer/Location: Australia
Answer Additional Text: Australia is home to the Great Barrier Reef, Ayers Rock and the Sydney Opera House.

You can add a photo for each clue, which could become part of the clue, as well as a hyperlink to additional information if you want. To answer the clues, students type into a search box and then either search the map or conduct a basic Google search to get more information. Once they search the map they may also have to zoom in or out to find the correct location. If they search correctly, they are provided with the answer and additional answer text that is provided for that clue. It may sound confusing but I think it will make sense once you try out a hunt. Click here to see the hunt that my daughter and I made for her third grade class so they could review for their continents and oceans test.

I made my hunt public but you could also create private hunts that are available only to your students. This is possible because teachers can set up their own classrooms and provide access to different hunts to their students through these classrooms. You can search the list of public hunts on the site and add any publicly available hunt to your classroom as well. Students can complete public hunts without logging in but their progress through different hunts is tracked by the site if they are logged in so that is another reason for taking the time to set up accounts and create your own class. When you create a class you get to pick a class name and password, both of which will need to be provided to your students so that they can access your classroom. Students will then need to create a nickname and password (or you could assign them nicknames and passwords) so that they can log in. No e-mail address is required for students to create an account and log in to your classroom. You can choose to allow students to be able to create their own hunts if you want, which would also be added to your classroom once they are completed.

This is a very easy tool to manage as far as creating a classroom, getting students logged in and tracking student progress through different hunts. I think the applications in geography are obvious but you could also use it to create a hunt for the major locations of a novel, historical events, migration patterns, animal habitats and more.

Flowgram

2008-09-25T15:08:00.005-04:00

I recently read about Flowgram on one of the many blogs I follow and have put it to use for an online class I teach. Flowgram is a tutorial application that allows you to share and highlight websites, photos, videos and static text documents. You can add audio comments and callouts as well in order to draw attention to certain content or provide guidance. In addition, you can highlight text and add sticky note type comments to each element you add. The tutorials are interactive in that if you are sharing a webpage the user can scroll around the page as they listen to your audio comments and even click on different links on the page. Check out the Flowgram I created for my class below.

You may also want to watch the introduction video on the Flowgram homepage to learn more about this cool tool.

CDs for iPods!

2008-09-25T14:54:00.003-04:00

I first read about iPodmeister.com in Newsweek and couldn't quite figure out the business plan. After looking over their website I still don't see how they are making money. They will except your old CDs and DVDs and give you an iPod, iTouch or even an iPhone in return. They even digitize your music and load it on your iPod (if it all fits) for you. I haven't tried it out and can't quite convince myself that it is legit but I certainly do have a lot of old CDs laying around collecting dust so...

Automated Reminders

2008-09-19T22:06:00.006-04:00

A student of mine recently mentioned that she wished there was a free service that would make calls to her cellphone to remind her of upcoming events or commitments and even serve as a wake-up call service for her. This prompted me to look around the Internet to see what I could find. Here is what I turned up in my quick searching.

Telepixie will call you with reminders for free as long as you are willing to listen to a brief commercial. If you pay a "small" fee they will remove the commercials and just call with the reminder. They say that they will call your "regular" phone so I don't know if that means they don't call mobile phones. It would be worth checking on before you got to far with this particular service.

Snoozeter is similar but is a fee-based system only. It seems a bit more focused on the wake-up call aspect of things and even allows you to snooze with your cellphone so you can get a few extra minutes of shut eye. I'm not sure why you couldn't just use an alarm clock for this.

If you use Outlook to maintain a calendar you can download the free Outlook Reminder plugin to automate calls to your cellphone with reminders of events from your calendar. You can get reminders e-mailed to your phone from iCal if you are on a Mac and use that calendar tool. Google Calendar also allows for reminders to be sent to your phone but neither Google Calendar nor iCal actually call your phone.

I'm curious to know what other tools people use for this type of thing.

Google Election Tools

2008-09-19T22:02:00.002-04:00

Just in case you can't get enough of the Presidential election there are a new set of tools by Google that you can use with your students to help them better understand the whole election process. The Google Election Tools are a great set of tools and resources that students can use to learn more about the electoral college and the various candidates and their positions. If you teach social studies or are just interested in bringing this type of learning to your students then check it out. If you are sick of the whole election process then just skip right on by.

The Living Room Candidate

2008-09-16T16:01:00.002-04:00

I heard about the Living Room Candidate while I listened to NPR on my way home the other day. This site is a collection of political campaign commercials dating back to 1952. Check out the commercial for Dwight Eisenhower that I have included below.

Now compare that to the commercials for John McCain and Barack Obama from this year's campaign.

Imagine the conversations you could have with students about the similarities and differences in style, technology, issues, focus and so much more represented by these commercials. It would also be interesting to see how the use of negative ads has evolved over the years and to look at the issues that seem to appear over and over again with each campaign.

Bringing Video into your Classroom

2008-09-15T13:38:00.011-04:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video must be good for at least a million. That's why I'm devoting this posting to sharing a variety of sources of video that you may find useful in your own classrooms. I have to admit, I'm a bit partial to video as an instructional and inspirational medium and that bias may cloud my writing so beware.

YouTube
It may be hard to believe but there is a lot of worthwhile content on YouTube that you could use with your students. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of junk and chances are pretty good that YouTube is blocked by most schools. One solution to this is to use Zamzar to convert the videos to actual video files and download those files to your computer so that you can share them with your students. This negates the need to go through the Internet (and associated filters) in order to share the videos.

When it comes to video quality it's hard to beat the content on United Streaming. Not only do they have great video segments, but they also have lesson plan ideas and many other resources for teachers. The videos are broken down into smaller segments so they are more manageable file sizes and this allows you to show just certain parts of a longer video rather than having to show the entire thing. A subscription is required but many states and districts have purchased licenses so check around to see if your school has access to this great resource.

Another option for video is TeacherTube, which is intended for more educational content and does more policing of content to ensure that videos are appropriate for a k-12 audience. TeacherTube is very similar to YouTube in that you can upload your own content, embed videos and search based on different keywords. Users are encouraged to flag inappropriate content in order to help keep things "clean". Chances are pretty good that this site will be blocked as well but it will be an easier sell to get this unblocked over something like YouTube.

SchoolTube is specifically designed for use in k-12 education. It provides media sharing capabilities and requires that all student created video be moderated by registered teachers and adhere to accepted school guidelines. This site is full of student created videos and provides a safe way for your students to share their masterpieces. They even have a variety of video related contests that students can enter.

Studio 4 Learning is a great collection of professionally produced videos designed to help students learn about different subject areas as well as get help with homework, college prep and even career planning. As teachers, you can even become part of the Tutor Corp and share your knowledge on different subjects to help others. It doesn't appear that you can upload your own video to this particular site.

AFI ScreenNation is still fairly new but it is designed to help students share their videos online. They have a variety of contests that students can enter with their different videos. It isn't clear if they are moderating content of the videos or not and the library of current videos is a bit limited at this point.

If you have some other resources you would like to share I would love to hear about them.

Sites for Emerging Readers

2008-09-09T11:28:00.004-04:00

Since I have a first grader that is blossoming into a reader I have decided to reach back into my Furl Archive and pull out a variety of sites designed to help emergent readers. Some of these sites I have already written about on this blog but they are definitely worth a repeat visit.

BookPALS StoryLine Online is a site where kids can have popular picture books read to them by different celebrities including Hillary Duff, Elijah Wood and even Al Gore! The stories are presented as short videos with the celebrity doing a brief intro before the book. They have a decent collection of books already and I hope they continue to add to the site. Each story has different activities that you can download and do with your students.

Big Universe allows students to read popular picture books but without any celebrity accompanyment. The resolution and print size can be a bit small at times, making it hard to see the words on the page/screen but this is a nice way to expand your library without having to purchase more books. Students can also use Big Universe to write and illustrate their own books but this is probably more appropriate for students in the mid to upper elementary grades. LookyBook is similar to Big Universe in that your students can read picture books online. Again, the print size of the text can be small depending on the story.

Roy the Zebra is a great site for teaching interactive lessons on different reading strategies and also has some read along activities. This site would work well with an interactive whiteboard or just a computer connected to a projector where you could lead a lesson with the entire class. There are also several interactive games that young readers can play to help reinforce different reading and language skills.

Into the Book is a great tool for helping kids learn the basic strategies of reading including visualizing, summmarizing, using prior knowledge and inferring. Students can work through different sections at their own pace or focus on specific strategies that you are stressing in class. There is a seperate teacher resource section with activity and lesson ideas and you can even track student progress through the different sections.

SillyBooks is a site where you can upload your own stories and read the stories of other users. They pick one story each month to animate so it's possible that one of your students could have their own story featured in this way. The site layout needs some work, there are no previews with the books so you just have to click the picture and see what each story is all about, but it's a neat way to showcase the stories of student writers.

Kerpoof is a fully featured site where kids can write their own animated picture books, create short animated movies and share/collaborate on their writing with others. You can set-up a group where your students can only interact with other members of the class if you are concerned about privacy and safety issues. This is the kind of site where kids could definitely get carried away playing with the different images, animations and sounds and forget all about the writing process so having them write their story offline first before sitting down at the computer might be a good idea. Then again, maybe you just want them to become inspired by the Kerpoof environment.

This is by no means an exhaustive list and I welcome your ideas and suggestions for tools/sites in this area.

MACUL Spring Conference

2008-09-09T09:34:00.003-04:00

This is more for the folks living in Michigan, although all are invited, but I wanted to remind folks about the MACUL annual conference that will be held in Detroit, MI on March 18-20th, 2009 (it is never too early to start planning). I just got a postcard in the mail and thought I should pass along the information on the conference. You can read more about it at www.macul.org and even submit a proposal to present if you are interested. The conference theme will be "Teaching and Learning in a Digital World: Best Practices". I have been to, and presented at, this conference in past years and always found it to be full of sessions with practical applications and great examples of technology use in real classrooms.

The Ultimate Keynote Speaker

2008-09-02T15:02:00.004-04:00

For those of you who have endured a less than inspirational back-to-school keynote speaker, and for those of you who surely will in the future, here is a speech that should get you excited and energized to teach. After watching this video I found out that the district wrote the speech for this young man and provided him coaching on his presentation and diction, but that doesn't change the fact that he pulled off an awesome performance. Find 9 minutes in your day and watch this.

Jam Legend

2008-08-28T13:09:00.004-04:00

For those of you who like to rock out with games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band you can now take your music making madness online with Jam Legend. Jam Legend lets you play along using your keyboard rather than other conventional instruments, which meant that I was even more terrible at playing this than I was playing Guitar Hero. You can even challenge others to play you online and sign up as an artist and add your songs to the site for others to play. I think they are really counting this since the list of available songs is quite short at this point. Jam Legend is currently in private Beta but you can get a preview by watching the video below.
JamLegend Trailer from JamLegend on Vimeo.

Answers.com

2008-08-28T11:34:00.004-04:00

Answers.com is a great reference tool that can add functionality to your website or blog in three easy steps.

pick a Answers.com badge
enter your name, e-mail and URL
grab the code

That's all it takes to add Answers.com to your site or blog. But what, exactly, does that do for you? More importantly is what it does for visitors to your site or blog. Answers.com allows people to double click on any word to get a definition/description complete with links, examples and access to more information on that particular word or topic. It turns your site into a powerful reference tool and lets your users find helpful information without ever having to leave the site. I have Answers.com enabled on this blog as well as my Wiki if you want to see how it works. I see this as being a great tool for teachers to add to their websites and blogs to help students find the information they need easily and quickly.

WiZiQ

2008-08-28T11:22:00.002-04:00

WiZiQ is a great new virtual classroom tool that you can use to host online learning sessions. You can upload files such as PDFs and Power Point presentations to share or search through their growing library of presentations to use and share with others. You can host private (or public) sessions in a virtual classroom complete with an online whiteboard and audio/video chat capabilities. They have a calendar feature so that you can schedule sessions with specific users, send out invitations and even reminders about upcoming sessions. Each session is recorded and saved so you can always refer back to it when necessary. You can even earn money as a teacher by hosting sessions and teaching different topics. I plan to try this out with an online class I'm teaching this fall so I'll let you know what I think of it once I get to use it more extensively.

Blabberize

2008-08-28T11:08:00.002-04:00

I have been a delinquent blogger but a full-scale kitchen remodeling project has kept me occupied for the past month. The plumber is here as I type and I hope to have running water in the kitchen sink by the end of the day. Enough about my remodeling tales of misery...let's get on to Blabberize.

Blabberize is one of those tools that could be categorized as mostly made for fun but with some educational potential. The concept is very basic. You pick a picture of a person, animal, robot or any other organism with a mouth, record a message and then Blabberize makes the mouth move in your picture to say your recorded message. It's similar to Voki but you are able to upload a picture of yourself rather than just creating an animated avatar. They don't have an education only version yet so you can run in to some less than appropriate content on the site so beware. I have included a sample that hits home and seemed perfect for a blog about educational technology.

Mapness!

2008-08-10T15:12:00.004-04:00

Mapness is a travel journal tool that allows you to map out a trip and post pictures, video and text-based comments/descriptions along your route. Obviously, one way to use this would be to map out a trip that you have taken complete with pictures and videos you collected along the way. But for the k-12 classroom that particular application might not work so well since most teachers aren't taking too many trips with their students. However, you could use Mapness to map out trips of historical figures (Lewis and Clark come immediately to mind), historical events (the movement of the Union or Confederate army during the Civil War) or even the travels of fictional characters from a book your students might be reading. At this point, Mapness is still in beta so I'm guessing there may be some more features coming down the road, such as the ability to embed your travel map, but for now it seems to be fairly handy. It's a lot like using Google Maps with Picasa Web Album to plot out things on a map but the interface is more structured and geared towards mapping out a particular route rather than just geotagging images, videos and text on a map. You can share your travel map by giving others the link and it is currently free to sign-up and use.

Lego Universe

2008-08-08T20:29:00.004-04:00

I'm breaking just about every one of my rules in regards to what resources I choose to share on this blog by writing about Lego Universe. First of all, it isn't free (or at least it won't be once it is out of Beta testing). They are planning on providing it on a subscription basis. It is billed as a game rather than an educational tool. They are classifying it as a MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game). And the icing on the cake is that it will run on PCs only and I'm a Mac man. Why then, you may be asking yourself, am I sharing this with all of you? Because I am a Lego maniac and have been ever since I was 5 years old and received my first Lego set from my grandparents for Christmas. I have gotten a set of Legos for Christmas every year since then, I'm 38 now, and I still enjoy playing, building and creating. My daughters are particularly happy when I share with them. Keep an eye on the Lego Universe. It may just be one of those tools that you can utilize that allows you to take advantage of your students' motivation and engagement to achieve some curricular goals.

Capzles

2008-07-29T19:29:00.003-04:00

Capzles is another timeline tool that has a lot of great multimedia functionality. You can incorporate videos, music, photos and text into a timeline to tell a story, represent a series of events or any number of other things you might want to do with a timeline. The end result feels a bit more like a photo sharing tool in that you are able to view a timeline either from beginning to end or by just scrolling through and clicking on the image or event you want to jump to. At this point there doesn't appear to be more than one viewing option so you can't see the dates and event details until you actually select the event or scroll over it. They are still in Beta with this so more functionality may be added later. For now, it is an easy tool to use and provides a nice looking slideshow type of timeline.

Only2Clicks

2008-07-27T21:08:00.003-04:00

Only2Clicks is yet another social bookmarking tool that lets you to create a web archive of your favorite websites. The unique feature of this tool is that it allows you to create a snapshot display of the different sites you bookmark. You can then create tabs around different topics so that you can flip through your bookmarks by topic and see the various snapshots of those sites. The way the sites are displayed reminds me of PageFlakes and other similar personalized start page tools. I think this tool could work well for someone who is really visually oriented and would benefit from seeing websites represented as snapshots. The downside, of course, is that far fewer sites can be represented on a single screen because each individual snapshot takes up so much screen real estate. This may not be an issue for you if you make good use of the tab features and divide up your sites into logical topics so that they can be spread out across a larger array of tabs.

Free File Sharing

2008-07-27T20:56:00.005-04:00

There are a variety of different tools out there that allow you to share files that are too large to send as e-mail attachments. One in particular that I have found to be handy is SendSpace. The free account allows you to upload individual files as big as 300 MB in size! The way it works is that you upload the file you want to share and include the e-mail address of the person you want to share it with. The file gets uploaded and your friend gets an e-mail message letting him/her know that there is a file waiting for them to download. They go to SendSpace, download the file and presto, big honking file is shared. They even have a desktop wizard you can download that will allow you to upload multiple files, add descriptions to the files and much more. It isn't clear if this tool allows you to send the files to multiple recipients but that sure would be nice.

Dancing With Matt

2008-07-27T20:40:00.002-04:00

Many of you have probably already seen this video since there are nearly 8 million views of it on YouTube but I just had to include it here on the blog because I think it is pure genius on so many levels. First of all, what a great way to represent the world and demonstrate that music and dance can translate across so many cultures. Also, this video is a perfect example of how technology can represent emotions and communicate a message that is hard to replicate in any other medium. The great thing is that the message is communicated in the absence of words. Sure, there are titles showing the locations but the main character speaks only through his fancy footwork. I envy this globe-trekking Fred Astaire and look forward to discovering the next new phenomenon that gets uploaded to the vast collection of online multimedia.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Google Sky

2008-07-15T16:41:00.005-04:00

First off let me apologize for being such an absent blogger. I have been on the road for the past week and a half visiting family and while I brought my computer along with me I didn't find much time to post to the blog. Now that I'm back I wanted to share Google Sky with everyone. Yes, the Google geniuses are back at it again and have created yet another cool tool. Google Sky is a lot like Google Earth except that instead of punching in a location on Earth you can explore the sky and various parts of the galaxy. Another thing that differentiates Google Sky from Google Earth is that it is web-based and doesn't require any kind of download to use. Of course, the images you see on Google Sky are going to reflect the limits of our current technology so don't be surprised if you punch in "Jupiter" in the locator window and don't end up with a crystal clear close-up of the gas giant. If you are really into astronomy, and teach it with your students, you may also want to check out Google Moon and Google Mars.

issuu Online Publishing Tool

2008-06-27T09:59:00.003-04:00

issuu is a great little tool that allows you to take a set of PDFs and turn them into a professional looking flipbook that you can either embed or link to on your website, blog or wiki. I have provided several examples featured on the issuu website below. You can see that some print based publications are using this as an easy way to create an electronic representation of their magazines as shown in this first example.

You could also use issuu to create an electronic sketchbook to share drawings, illustrations or other images online as with this example.

This also seems like a great tool to use to create quick and easy electronic versions of student books and writing that you can then embed on your class website, blog or wiki. I couldn't find any such examples on the issuu website, otherwise I would have shared them here.

PhotoShow

2008-06-22T22:03:00.003-04:00

PhotoShow is a wicked easy (I can't believe I just used the phrase "wicked easy") tool to use to create customized slideshows in virtually no time at all. You will most likely spend more time selecting your photos and waiting for them to upload then you will in actually making your slideshow. You can pick from dozens of themes for your show, add captions to each picture and select background music from their huge collection of songs without concerns about copyright infringement. Check out the quick little show I created of my daughter's trip to the farm this past school year.

This slideshow took me about 5 minutes to create and that was largely because I kept wanting to check out the different options, themes and features. You have a couple different options for output format including embedding it as I have done, sharing a link, as long as you set the slideshow as public, purchasing your show on a DVD (at $30 a pop this doesn't seem to be a great bargain) or even broadcasting it on Public Access cable TV where available. You can purchase a version of PhotoShow for Windows that has even more features including the ability to add video but if you are just interested in working with photos and don't have a great need to be able to export your shows the free web-based version is quite adequate.

Rethinking "Computers"

2008-06-19T22:05:00.003-04:00

While wrapping up a session with my class the other day I started to go off on a bit of a tangent, as I'm known to do from time to time. The topic of my verbal wandering this time had to do with the mindset that computers and technology is what we do during that 45 minute period each week when we march our students down to the computer lab. With this line of thinking it's hard to imagine a teacher planning an extended series of lessons or activities that would require back-to-back days in the lab since the structure and rigidity of the school schedule wouldn't allow that. I do think we need to have assigned weekly times for computers just like we need it for other areas such as music, PE, art and library since we can't rely on every teacher working technology into their teaching when left to their own devices. But I also think we need to do a better job of making it possible for those teachers who want to incorporate technology in meaningful ways (more than just once a week for 45 minutes) to be able to do so on a regular basis. This means that some teachers may have more time in the lab because they make the conscious choice to use the technology that is available to them. I would be curious to hear how schools are adjusting their schedules or otherwise making technology available to teachers and students for more than just the assigned weekly trip to the lab.

Big Universe Children's Book Collection/Creator

2008-06-10T09:35:00.006-04:00

The Big Universe is similar to LookyBook, which I wrote about in my last posting, in that it allows you to view and read a large selection of children's picture books online. These books can be embedded like the one I have included below. In addition to reading published books (without needing to create an account or login) you also get access to blogs by other authors and experts in the field of children's literature.

However, the real benefit of this site is that you can create your own picture book and share it online through the site or embedding it on your own site. This book creation tool is very comprehensive allowing writers to add a large selection of images, animations, backgrounds and other visual elements to their writing. This is a powerful tool to use to help kids bring their writing to life. I have included a user created book below about a gorilla and his adventures at school. The plot is fairly simple but I think it's a great example of how students can use the large library of clipart to visually represent their stories.

LookyBook

2008-05-30T13:41:00.005-04:00

LookyBook is a great resource for sharing high quality picture books with students via the Internet. I recently read about this tool on Kevin Jarrett's blog and I agree with him that it would be a great site to use with an interactive Whiteboard. You can access the books and even embed them without signing up for an account, which is a bonus when working with elementary students. Whenever you can utilize a tool without having to sign-up 25, 50, 100 students it is a definite plus. However, in case you are wondering, registering does allow you to comment on books, much like writing a review, as well as create your own bookshelf of books from their collection.

I have embedded a book below to show how this works. If you click on the eyeballs it will show you a larger version of the book. Of course, you could go directly to their site and view the same book but I always like the option of being able to embed content into my own sites such as a Wiki, blog or class homepage because it means my students don't have to learn a new URL just to access the content.

You will notice that there isn't any audio so students don't get any assistance in that regard with reading the book. Obviously, you would have to think about the best way to use this type of tool and take into consideration the reading ability of your students. Considering the cost of pictures books, I like the fact that I can share a broader range of books with my students without having to purchase hardcopies. It's also a nice little break for the environment!

Screencast-O-Matic

2008-05-30T13:20:00.004-04:00

If you do any kind of screencasting to create video tutorials or for any other purpose you might want to check out Screencast-O-Matic (great name huh?). This is an unbelievably easy tool to use to capture your onscreen activity. You can record audio via a microphone and have the option to upload and use their server space or save your video as a Quicktime file. It is web-based so you need to be online when you use it but you can record work in offline applications such as Word or anything else you might want to demonstrate. Once you are done recording you can add notes to different portions of the video that will allow your viewers to jump to those sections and read your comments, which will appear as unobtrusive pop-ups at the bottom of the viewing screen. I tried this out and without even signing up for an account I was able to make a simple clip that I then brought into Final Cut Pro (though I imagine it would work in other editors as well) and incorporated into a larger video project I was editing. I didn't need to record audio so I can't comment on that but the video quality was quite good. I'm really not sure what they could do to make this tool any easier to use. It may not have all the features you are used to in a screen capture tool but you can't beat the ease of use and quality for the price (free). You can check out the demo video below to get a better idea of how this tool works.

Dipity and Time Tube

2008-05-22T11:54:00.003-04:00

You are probably wondering what a tool named Dipity allows you to do that could be remotely educational. Well, if you are interested in creating timelines with your students then Dipity is a tool you might want to try out. It is web-based and free (isn't everything I write about?) and takes advantage of the many benefits of Web 2.0 functionality, which means you can add images and video from around the web, embed and share your finished timeline and even geographically tag the different events or entries on your timeline. Timelines can be viewed in multiple ways including as a flipbook on a map and, of course, as a traditional timeline. Check out the timeline I have included on JFK to get an idea of the kind of thing you might be able to create. Timelines can have multiple authors as well.

TimeTube is a mashup from Dipity that allows you to type in a keyword and then have a timeline automatically generated that includes a variety of videos that match your specific keyword. I like the concept of this but since there isn't a clear way to filter out videos you can get a lot of oddball stuff included in your timeline. For instance, when I used the search term "JFK" I got news footage and historical video clips along with a clip of a comedian who was talking about JFK and a video of people dunking a basketball to a hip-hop soundtrack. I realize I could have tried to refine my search term but it would be nice if you could edit the timeline once it was created to weed out the videos that don't fit with your educational goals.

Just for Fun

2008-05-20T09:54:00.008-04:00

I wanted to share some tools and resources that I have come across in the past few months that are more for fun then for education and since we are fast approaching that time in the school year when achieving educational objectives is becoming increasingly difficult this seemed like a great time for this particular posting.

Face in the Hole
The name of this tool pretty much says it all. The site has a variety of pictures of different celebrities where they have removed the person's face and replaced it with a hole. You get to upload a picture of yourself and put your face in the hole, thus replacing the celebrities face with yours. I have included a sample picture showing myself as Lance Armstrong after winning one of his many Tour de France titles.

Play My Game
Play My Game is similar to Face in the Hole in that you get to add your image to something, but in this case you are adding your image to one of their pre-made games. The games are rather simple and fairly limited but as I said at the beginning, this stuff is more about fun then learning. I tried to upload my own picture to a game but kept getting an error message telling me my picture couldn't be uploaded so I decided to share one of the games on the site that featured our Commander in Chief instead.

Link: PlayMyGame

BeFunky
Once again this is a tool that allows you to work with an image of yourself to create a new customized look. While it can be used for all sorts of fun applications, I do think it has some educational value in the sense that you could take images of students and "cartoonize" them as a way to protect their identities. These images could then be used as profile images on social networks, wikis, blogs and other tools you may have students use in the classroom. I realize students can have a profile without an image, or use an abstract image such as a basketball or lion to represent themselves, but BeFunky does provide another option to consider. Check out my funky look!

TuxPaint: An Open Source KidPix

2008-05-14T09:57:00.005-04:00

I read a review of TuxPaint by Marilyn Western in the Spring/Summer 2008 issue of the MACUL journal that landed on my desk just yesterday and I had to share it with my dedicated legion of readers. As Marilyn mentions in her review, TuxPaint is an open source alternative to KidPix, which means it is free and available for both Mac and Windows. I realize KidPix is available on both platforms as well but of course it isn't free. I encourage you to look over Marilyn's review for some great ideas on how you may use TuxPaint but really, if you have used KidPix you can do essentially everything you have been able to do with that software. If you aren't familiar with KidPix or applications like it, then check out the screenshots I have included to see some of the ways you can use this graphic arts/drawing program.

Students can create their own drawings, design habitats for an assigned animal, visually represent math problems, work with a teacher created template, insert personal pictures in their creations and much more. It is definitely worth a look and the price (free) is certainly right.

iCue

2008-05-12T12:06:00.005-04:00

NBC has introduced a new online resource for teachers and students called iCue. Notice how everyone is trying to cash in on the whole iPod revolution by making sure to put an "i" in front of whatever they create? I heard there is even a state out west called iDaho. Where will this stop? Any way, back to iCue.

I didn't sign-up for an account yet but I did sit through the demo, narrated by Tim Russert no less, and it provides a nice overview of the tool. The demo focuses on the presidential campaign for 2008 but this is just one example of the many topics students can learn about with this tool. The main strength of iCue seems to be it's huge library of video clips from the NBC newsroom. Students can access "cue cards" that are video clips pertaining to different topics. The cue cards also have keywords, can be tagged with new keywords and include transcripts and additional information about the featured subject or event. Students can add notes to them, save and categorize them and share them with their network of friends within iCue. In that sense, this is really a social network with a huge collection of topic specific video clips.

There are games for students to play and a forum where they can discuss different issues. The theme of the content is certainly focused on history, politics and current events but it seems like an engaging way to learn about these types of things. Since the site is so dependent on video, many teachers will probably find it necessary to get the site unblocked in order for students to make full use of it.

Crayola Physics

2008-05-09T08:10:00.003-04:00

There are two cool and very simple tools I recently came across that are designed to help kids learn basic concepts of physics in a fun and engaging way. The tools are called Crayon Physics (Windows only) and Phun (Windows and Mac) and were recently reviewed on the iLearn Technology blog that I follow. I had seen Crayon Physics before and shared it with my graduate students but this was the first time I had seen Phun. Both programs are very similar in what they allow students to do but Crayon Physics presents a task (moving a ball from one location to another) while Phun doesn't provide a specific task for students to complete. With both programs students are able to create shapes and see immediately what impact gravity and friction has on those shapes. That's a pretty simplified explanation of what can be done with these great tools but the best way to explore their capabilities is to watch the respective demo videos.

TeachersFirst.com

2008-05-08T22:28:00.003-04:00

TeachersFirst is an online resource that provides teachers with lesson plans, learning activities, web reviews and much more. You can sort through their collection of resources by different classifications including subject & grade. They are currently offering a full service membership for free to the first 100 teachers that sign-up. They also have a regular free membership that provides access to a limited range of their resources, which is available regardless of how many people sign-up.

Apture the Experience

2008-05-06T11:32:00.004-04:00

I recently learned of a great new tool called Apture from the Weblogg-Ed blog, a fine blog that I follow regularly. I was intrigued by what I read so I decided to look at Apture myself. At first glance it seemed to be quite similar to Snap Shots, which I use on this Blog and a Wiki I maintain. Like Snap Shots, Apture allows you to link to other content and display that content in thumbnail preview windows. Snap Shots, and other services like it, automatically provides a snap shot (thus the name) of any webpage you may link to on your website or blog. Apture takes this process about 15 steps further. You can link to websites, news articles, images, videos, audio and even files such as PDFs. In addition, you can have multiple content sources linked to a single topic.

As I watched the tutorial video on the Apture site I couldn't help but think about how I consumed content and information as a child. We would read books in a very linear fashion. After all, books don't make much sense if you randomly jump around from page to page and paragraph to paragraph. But the nature of the Internet has blown that idea out of the water and Apture is a perfect example of this because it allows you to access content from so many different sources and in so many different formats. I think this has the potential to provide students with a much richer learning and research experience as readers of information but I also think it has huge potential for them as writers of online content. They can have the experience of weeding through content and deciding what they want to link to in order to augment their text and tell the story they are sharing. It's a lot like writing a traditional research paper where you have to find references to support your claims but instead of just citing relevant quotes you can share a huge array of multimedia content and really bring your writing to life.

The way Apture works is that you write your content first and then go back and add your links afterwards. Of course, it is web-based, multiplatform and free to use so I can't think of a single reason why you shouldn't at least try it out. I have put it to use in this posting so you can start to get a sense of what it can do. The list of topics below is simply to give you an idea of the different kinds of links and media that can be added. I want to add this to my UMD EdTech Wiki but that process is still underway at this point.

Grand Canyon
Civil Rights
Global Warming

Now that I've had a chance to work with Apture a bit I thought I'd add a few more comments about this tool. I found it relatively easy to use but it was necessary to refresh my browser on several occasions when adding links. It is still in Beta so there are probably a few kinks to work out but I enjoyed using it. The other thing I noticed was that when I had Snap Shots and Apture enabled it was almost overload with all the pop-up thumbnail windows flying all over the screen so I just turned off Snap Shots.

Build Your Wild Self

2008-05-05T12:07:00.006-04:00

I learned about Build Your Wild Self several months ago but I can't put my finger on the source so I apologize for not giving credit where credit is due. This is a great site for helping kids learn about animals and the different features (wings, fins, claws, horns) that allow them to survive in their respective habitats. Students can create their own "wild self" much like they would create an avatar by picking a human head and body and then adding different animal body parts in place of their arms, legs, ears, eyes and much more. They can even select a background image for their creature. Once they are done they get to read about the different body parts they selected and see how those parts are unique to an individual animal and help that particular animal. I used Build Your Wild Self with my daughter's class last week since they were researching the different types of animals and they had a lot of fun creating their own wild creatures. The site doesn't require a log in or registration and when they were finished they could easily save their creature as an image file to use later in Power Point presentations they will be doing. Here are some other ideas I had on how teachers could use this tool.

Students could create their own wild self and then use that image as their profile picture for different online tools they use. This would allow them to visually represent themselves in a safe way.
Students could create a wild creature and then design a habitat that would be best suited for that creature based on the different body parts it had.
Students could be assigned a habitat and then asked to design a creature that would be able to survive in that habitat.
Students could create and name a brand new creature and write up an informational guide about their new creature. This could even be turned into a class book on mutant animals or some other catchy topic.

As with any tool like this the students (this was a 2nd/3rd split class) wanted to play a lot and had fun just clicking through the different body parts so I think it is important to allow time for some of this exploration before you ask them to complete specific tasks.

Zoho Challenge

2008-04-29T12:03:00.004-04:00

I've been using the various online office tools from Zoho for the past year with my graduate and undergraduate classes and also to facilitate presentations at different conferences. Zoho Writer has been a great way to create a collaborative set of notes for my classes while the Zoho Show tool makes it easy to embed a presentation in a Wiki, blog or other website. These tools, and the many other tools by Zoho, weren't created specifically for educators. However, the folks at Zoho have come up with a new tool called Zoho Challenge that has been created with teachers in mind and it definitely looks like it's worth checking out. Zoho Challenge is an online test creation tool that allows you to create, administer and take tests online. Teachers can view results and student progress as well as set time limits, send test invites through e-mail and much more. I'm not a big advocate for testing kids at every turn but I do acknowledge that tests and quizzes can serve a purpose if they are well constructed and this seems like a tool that is designed to streamline the process for both teachers and students.

ePals Launches In2Books PenPal Program

2008-04-28T13:34:00.003-04:00

I just got an e-mail from ePals informing me of a program they call In2Books that is planned to launch in the Fall. The program is targeted towards 3rd-5th graders and is designed to connect students with "caring adult pen pals" so that they can read and discuss books through the exchange of online letters. For Title I schools, ePals will provide the books and the pen pals. Schools that don't qualify for Title I funds can still participate and use the online service for free but they will be responsible for providing books for their students and for signing up their own pen pals. This seems like a great way to get kids talking about books and a perfect opportunity to include adult members of the community in the education process. I can imagine senior citizens, retired educators, preservice teachers and even responsible high school students participating as pen pals. What a great way to tap into a population of volunteers that might not be able to come into the classroom to help out but could be very helpful as "virtual volunteers".

Minyanland

2008-04-28T10:19:00.005-04:00

I first read about the online world known as Minyanland on Kevin Jarrett's great blog. I encourage you to check him out for a plethora of awesome resources and ideas. As described in his posting Minyanland is a virtual world designed for young kids where they can learn about running a business, managing money, owning property, investing and much more. I decided to check it out with my 8 year old daughter this morning before she headed off to school and so far we are both pretty impressed.

The registration process didn't require her to enter an e-mail but it was optional for me to enter a "parent e-mail". I decided to do that and immediately received a message with a password that allowed me to login and see basic information about my daughter's account. It appears that all players start with $50,000 in savings and they get a condo worth another $50,000. That's not too shabby although I'm not sure my daughter played long enough to even realize she had a place to live.

From a parents standpoint, or the standpoint of a teacher, I wasn't able to do much unless I was willing to sign up for my own "critter". It would be nice to be able to monitor student/child accounts a bit more but maybe that is a bit too big brotherish. Either way, I'm interested in exploring this world a bit more and seeing what my daughter thinks of it. I may even have her post a comment or two explaining her impressions of Minyanland since I'm sure she will learn about the various features of this virtual world much more quickly then I will.

Upcoming Conferences

2008-04-25T08:20:00.004-04:00

This particular post will be more relevant to those of you who live in the state of Michigan as it highlights the upcoming technology related conferences, workshops and seminars in the Great Lake State. The conferences are listed chronologically and this is certainly not an all-inclusive list so if you have a favorite that you want to tell us about please feel free share.

Media Literacy Education, What is it?, Mini Conference hosted by the Alliance for a Media Literate America in Detroit, MI. May 30th-June 1st
ATA Technology Academy in Dearborn, MI provides technology professional development for educator teams. June 18-20th
The Michigan Joint Education Conference in Holt, MI focuses on the integration of instruction across the curriculum. June 25th
Creating an Online Presence in Your Classroom at UM-Dearborn (facilitated by me) will provide hands-on instruction on using Wikis, blogs, podcasts and a variety of Web 2.0 tools in the k-12 classroom. August 20-21st
Meaningful Play 2008 at Michigan State University in East Lansing will look at the use of educational games and virtual environments in education. October 9-11th

I'm sure there are many more that will be taking place over the next several months so please share the ones you are familiar with and have participated in previously.

NASA to Create Educational Games

2008-04-24T07:41:00.004-04:00

NASA recently announced that it is moving into the realm of educational gaming by developing a massively multiplayer online gaming environment that will focus on teaching kids STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills. You can read more about the initiative on their site but it certainly sounds promising. They are seeking to harness the power and engaging aspects of virtual worlds and combine it with their vast array of high quality content to create and educational gaming environment. Unfortunately, I don't have anything concrete to share in the way of the actual game but stay tuned and I'll try to keep you posted of any developments.

Animoto and VoiceThreads Education

2008-04-23T09:43:00.003-04:00

Two great online tools have recently unveiled education versions of their respective products. Animoto education edition provides teachers with a classroom code they can give to all their students. The code allows students to sign up for full access for free. Better yet, student videos can be downloaded so that you don't have to rely on an Internet connection when you want to watch the finished products with your class. This is a great service being offered by an awesome video creation tool and I encourage you to check it out. Here is a short Animoto video I created some time ago and included in my initial post back in September of 2007.

Voicethreads has also recently announced an education version of their great product. Their education edition is called Ed.VoiceThread and it allows teachers or schools to sign up for a classroom account, which costs $60 for an entire year. Students get their own accounts only after they are created by a teacher or school administrator. Students are not required to have an e-mail and they can only see content (other VoiceThreads) that are part of the Ed.VoiceThread community. In addition, they can only communicate with individuals from within that same community. This is a ridiculously low price for a great service. If you haven't checked out VoiceThreads yet here is a thread I created with my EDT 511 class at the University of Michigan-Dearborn to demonstrate how my students (all practicing k-12 teachers) might use this tool in their own classrooms.

Earth Day Ideas

2008-04-22T22:42:00.002-04:00

It has been a while since I last posted but I'm going to try to be more diligent and consistent in my postings from now on. I realize that Earth Day 2008 is coming to an end but I still wanted to share some resources that could be used on every day of the year to help remind us about how we can take care of the Earth.

First of all, there are a variety of Green search engines that you can use to be more environmentally conscious. Ecocho works to offset Carbon emissions by planting 2 trees for every 1,000 searches conducted. The trees are paid for by ads on the site. Blackle is essentially Google but with a black background, which requires less energy on the part of your monitor.

ElectroCity is a SimCity type game where kids get to be the mayor of their own town. In order for their town to grow they need to make decisions about how to supply power and attract more citizens. Mayors are graded on their impact on the environment, population growth and other factors. The game is free and doesn't require any registration.

The final tool I want to share is the Planet Green Game, which provides students with different tasks to complete as they learn about the environment and what they can do to have less of an impact on it. The tasks range between very easy and more complicated so it's hard to tell exactly what age this tool was geared towards but it's worth taking a look at either way.

TokBox

2007-10-15T11:25:00.001-04:00

Tokbox is a free video chat tool that doesn't require the download of any software. You only need a basic webcam and microphone to get started. In addition to doing video chat you can also send video e-mails to your friends who may not be available for a chat. You can embed a video chat window within your site or blog much like the one shown below so that people can initiate chats with you. It isn't necessary to have an account with any of the major chat tools. You simply sign up with Tokbox and you are on your way!

Get your own TokBox at www.tokbox.com.

Digital Video in Practice: Part 5

2007-10-12T09:59:00.000-04:00

This posting features a video created by a student to chronicle the journey of a new immigrant from Europe to America. It's told from the perspective of a young boy and uses only still images, music and narration. The video was made with iMovie but could have easily been created with a variety of other editing tools. You can find this video, along with many others, in the Apple showcase of projects. What I really like about this video is that it requires the student to demonstrate his knowledge of the issues early immigrants faced when traveling to America. He also has to show competency in being able to write a coherent script and make decisions about what images would fit best based on the narration. The use of video as a medium to convey his message works very well and allows him the ability to express a level of creativity that would be difficult to match in another format. The video is called A New Life and I encourage you to check it out as well as the other videos featured in the showcase.

Digital Video in Practice: Part 4

2007-10-11T10:18:00.001-04:00

At first glance you may wonder, how does the Evolution of Dance video have any educational value and why is he bothering to share it as an example of Digital Video in practice? These are both very valid questions that I will attempt to address. First of all, I think this video provides an excellent example of how music and visual imagery can be combined to tell a story, convey meaning and express emotions without the need for the written or spoken word. I also think this video illustrates a very creative way to approach the study of history, culture and the influence of music on society. In addition to the original Evolution of Dance video I have included some adaptations done by different school groups. I think this illustrates the power of multimedia to motivate people to their own works of art. Watch and enjoy.

The Evolution of Dance (Original)

History of Dance (Middle School Version)

Pacific Elementary's Evolution of Dance

Digital Video in Practice: Part 3

2007-10-10T08:59:00.000-04:00

This post features Mrs. Burk the rapping math teacher who has a series of short videos posted in TeacherTube. In these videos she covers a variety of math concepts by singing a simple rap to some funky music. It's a great way to help kids learn and a great idea for a digital video project for students. They could write their own raps, songs, poems, rhymes or whatever and then create a short video to help demonstrate their knowledge of a concept and help teach others. As you watch this video your first reaction might be, "This lady is making a fool out of herself." But I bet her students know perimeter and area really well.

Digital Video in Practice: Part 2

2007-10-08T20:47:00.000-04:00

Part 2 in this series of blog entries features the Amazing Color Changing Card Trick video that at first glance seems to be mostly about, surprisingly enough, a card trick. The video is really a great way to teach about selective attention and what we might miss when we are so focused on specific details. I think this could be an effective way to help kids realize that sometimes they need to look beyond the obvious to see the whole picture. It could also lead into a conversation of the danger of only seeing what we are told to look at.

Digital Video in Practice: Part 1

2007-10-07T20:57:00.000-04:00

For this week I am going to share a different digital video that could be used to accomplish some kind of educational goal in a k-12 setting. I may also share an example of how a teacher is using digital videos (either student created or teacher created) to teach some part of the content. The video I would like to share in this post does a great job of showing how the Internet has evolved with the advent of Web 2.0 tools that allow the casual user to contribute to online content. This video is called The Machine is Us/ing Us and can be viewed below. I think this video raises a lot of issues and makes very clear that our approach to using technology in the classroom has to evolve to reflect the wide range of tools and capabilities that are available to us.

Podcasts in Practice Part 5

2007-10-04T23:00:00.000-04:00

The final podcast that I will share this week is the Coulee Kids' Podcast from Longfellow Middle School in Wisconsin. These podcasts are created by seventh grade students in their writing class but the topics span across a variety of content areas. They define their podcasts as "enhanced" podcasts largely because they include images so they are more like mini videos. You have to subscribe through iTunes in order to view the podcasts but they are worth the look and listen. This is another great example of how podcasts can be used to allow students to demonstrate their comprehension of a topic area while also allowing them to use their creativity.

Podcasts in Practice Part 4

2007-10-04T11:28:00.000-04:00

Chris Shamburg teaches a high school English course called Podcasting and Creative Audio, which sounds like a great class and I wish it was available when I was in high school. Check out the different podcasts and assignments at his blog, which uses the same theme from Blogger as I use in my blog so you may feel like you never left the Ed Tech in Teacher Ed blog. I think this blog has some great ideas for podcasts but also some very creative assignment ideas that could be adapted to other English classes even if you weren't going to use podcasts.

Google Custom Search

2007-10-04T11:16:00.000-04:00

There is yet another new tool from Google that has great potential for use in k-12 classrooms. It's called the Google Custom Search Engine and it allows you to define the individual pages you want included when your students conduct a keyword search. You can include as many or as few sites in your custom search engine as you want. The nice thing about this is that you can provide students with the experience of searching online for information knowing that they are only going to be searching through the sites you have specified. That way, they get the practice of conducting keyword searches without having to weed through 3 million sites that are returned in their searches. One thing to remember is that this is not a filter system in that it won't keep students from clicking away from a site in your approved list once they navigate to it. You can create multiple custom search engines or just have one and you can embed the search engines in your blog or webpage as a way to make it available to students.

Copyright for Dummies

2007-10-04T10:55:00.000-04:00

Here is a great site by Tom Woodward that explains copyright by focusing on what teachers and students can do rather than emphasizing what they can't do. The site is clearly organized and uses green highlighting to denote the things you can do, yellow for the things you usually can do and red for the things you can never do. I strongly encourage you to look this over if you have any questions about what is legal in regards to copyright.

Podcasts in Practice Part 3

2007-10-03T09:28:00.000-04:00

The Downs FM is an example of how a school in the UK is using podcasting to create their own radio show. Many of the students contribute to the radio show with different segments, news items, jokes and more. They don't appear to have any new segments for the current school year but you can listen to shows from last year to see what they did. I hope there will be some new segments coming online very soon. One thing that seems apparent to me as I listen to the podcasts from The Downs FM and other sites like it is the excitement and enthusiasm from the students. I think that is a great benefit of using a technology like this. There is no law that says kids can't have fun when they are learning.