Scholastic's IWB Activities for Teachers 08/28/2010
 If you haven't already been and looked, you should definitely check out Scholastic's growing number of interactive whiteboard activities. There is a great selection of activities that are optimized for a whiteboard, and they are sorted into categories for Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and Math, and Learning Games & Teaching Tools. Some of you may remember when I posted about their great Underground Railroad Resource. Well, this is just one of a number of useful activities that you will find here. Resources are geared at specific age groups from K-12, and SMART Board users should try the Back to School SMART resource page. Kidopo: Coloring, Crafts and More 08/19/2010
 Kidopo could be a useful site for educators of younger children. It has interactive coloring pages, printable bookmarks and certificates, online games and craft activities. Everything looks to be school friendly and suitable for all. The site is aimed at increasing creativity and learning through online educational activities. No registration or fees are involved. A Second Look at Thinkfinity 08/12/2010
 Yesterday, a colleague reminded me about all the great resources on offer at the Thinkfinity site. It has been around for a while now, but I had forgotten how useful it really is. It was one of those sites that I visited a few times and always meant to come back to in order to explore in more detail. Well, today I had the time to do that, and I am still impressed with all that is on offer here for educators. Thinkfinity's content partners offer a wide variety of multimedia resources that are great for the classroom. Searching from the Thinkfinity homepage is quick and easy, and your results can be refined by grade level, subject, and types of resource. You can also choose to look at community content, or resources that registered Thinkfinity teachers recommend that are outside the scope of the Thinkfinity partners. So, if you haven't visited for a while, or you have yet to stop by, you may be surprised at what you find here to use in your classroom in the new school year. Supplemental Treasures Activity Guide 08/04/2010
 Here is something that will be genuinely useful to anyone who teaches the McGraw Hill Treasures Reading series. Kelly Tenkely, the owner of the iLearn technology blog, has produced a great alternative activity guide to Unit 1 of the Treasures series just in time for going back to school. It covers 1st to 5th grade and has a lot of online, and offline, activities you can do to supplement the activities suggested in the series. You can view the guide here, and you should definitely visit iLearn technology if you have not been there before. Safe Video Websites for Kids 08/03/2010
 Visit MakeUseOf.com for a handy collection of safe video websites for kids to use. They all look like they have good applications for education, and the chances are that they will not be blocked by your district's firewall. They are not as expansive as the likes of YouTube, but the peace of mind may well be enough to make up for that. Some you will have heard of, some you will have forgotten, and some may even be new, so if you are looking for safe ways to use video sites with your kids online, then these are some of the best ones Scribblar.com 08/01/2010
 Scribblar offers an interesting online whiteboard and collaboration tool. It allows a multi-user whiteboard, live audio and image collaboration, text sharing and more. With Scribblar you could collaborate on projects with other schools in your district, or around the world. Sign up is free, but pro accounts with more features are also available. It supports all browsers and is perhaps only limited by your imagination! If you do any kind of collaboration work with your students, then you need to check it out. Visit Scribblar.com for more info. Dropbox for Educators 08/01/2010
 It has been a little while since I have mentioned Dropbox, and with the new school year fast approaching, I wanted to give some of you the opportunity to learn how to use this great tool for school, if you are not already using it. Dropbox is a way to sync the files on your computer with the internet, and with other computers. So, when I work on my Mac at school, I put my files into the Dropbox folder on my Mac. When I get home I can access them on the Dropbox folder on my PC, and, if I use a computer somewhere else along the way, I can access them online too! It even has an iPhone. iPad, Android and Blackberry app. You need never email yourself a file again, worry about carrying a USB flash drive with you wherever you go, or have to remember to back up your files to the school server. Dropbox is your all-in-one solution. If you edit a file, and save it, it is automatically updated everywhere else. You even get a public folder to share files with other teachers, or students. Simply place a file you want to share in that folder, right click on the file for a Dropbox URL to share, and email the URL to whoever you want to share the file with and they can download what you want to share. You get up to 2Gb of storage for free, but anything more than that runs you into their subscription plans. Still, if you just used it for school work, then 2Gb will likely be enough for most people most of the time. It has changed the way I work with digital media, and I would be lost without it. Sign up for a free Dropbox account here, and you will get a bonus 250mb of storage, (2.25Gb total). UEN Virtual Field Trips 07/23/2010
 I have mentioned the UEN already this month, but you should definitely check out their virtual field trips collection. Organized by subject, this mammoth resource has a great selection of websites that can be used for virtual field trips in the classroom. So, whether you are visiting a 1920s farmhouse, or touring Yellowstone in the Winter, you are sure to find something that appeals to you. Some links are better than others, but this would be a great resource to bookmark for future use. Study Stack Flashcards 07/17/2010
 Study Stack is an online flashcard tool that lets you study cards that others have created on a whole variety of topics, or simply create your own. What is nice about this site is the ability to test your knowledge in a variety of ways. Yes you can do the traditional flip method with a question on one side and the answer on the other, but you can also choose to try matching games, crosswords, hangman, or the strangely addictive bug hunt. All of these activities are based on your original flashcard creations and could provide a fun way to study for those reluctant students in your class. You could even create your own for the students to try at home, or use on an interactive whiteboard. Find out more at Study Stack. Tech Tips for Teachers from the NY Times 07/14/2010
 Here is an interesting recent article from the NY Times that has some useful Tech Tips for Teachers. They explore a lot of useful ways to visualize text, make content comic books, create interactive timelines, design interactive presentations, and map and brainstorm ideas. There are lots of familiar looking tools on here like Wordle and Glogster, but new ones too that you may not be familiar with. The article is a good read and worth your time. |
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