Middlespot

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

"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

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

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

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.