To start with today, two web based drawing tools that should appeal to elementary teachers. The first is Sketchfu, which comes via DE Tools. Sketchfu lets you draw and record at the same time, so you can share the playback with others online. Could be good for art teachers wanting to teach how to draw something. Playback can be slowed down or sped up. The second drawing tool is Crayola's Digi-Color, as found by Kevin at NCS-Tech. Draw online with Crayola crayons, markers, stampers and more. Great fun.

iTeach has 15 Slideshow Tools for Teachers. Not a whole lot of new content here, but worth bookmarking if you use a lot of presentation based tools. There may be something on here with features you are looking for.

Larry Ferlazzo has linked to the unusual Glitchscape. This online music composer lets you create music by drawing boxes at various points on your screens and looping the resulting tune. Different.

FreeTechnology4Teachers has a list of Six Easy Ways for Students to Create Videos Online. These six tools are a great collection of online video editors. And speaking of videos, has anyone used Fliggo? It looks like a great place to share classroom videos online safely and securely. However, their blog says that they will soon be merging with Vidly, so I don't know how much of this functionality will transfer to the new site. Leave a comment if you use or have used Fliggo in an educational setting. I would be interested to hear what you think.

Finally, if you got any use out of my article on Creating Free Video Slideshows with Animoto in the Classroom, then you may also like Using Glogster EDU to Create Interactive Online Posters. It is a similar beginner's guide on how to get started with the popular Glogster EDU website.

The Teacher Chronicles is a curious but interesting way to organize a raft of Web 2.0 tools for teachers by Swedish teacher Jesper Isaksson. Everything is sorted by categories like photo editing, or communication, so just click on the category of your choice and see what there is on offer.

Ever wanted to find a decent PDF to Excel converter?  Well, look no further. This free online version will quickly and accurately send you an Excel file from your PDF file to your inbox.

Wordle is still capturing the imagination of educators around the world, so here are some fresh ideas in case you are running dry. This slideshow has 43 Interesting Ways to Use Worlde in the Classroom, while Jamie Keddie has A Really Useful Wordle Trick.

EDTE.CH is a new blog to me, but has a great article to share with you. 10 Digital Writing Opportunities You Probably Know and 10 You Probably Don't is a great list of online writing opportunities for your students.

Finally, Learning Today has some Interactive Whiteboard Lessons for Math and Language posted in its Teacher Resources section. All lessons are split up according to grade level. There are only a small number of each, but they may be useful for your class.

Web 2.0 in Education is a UK based site that includes lots of great links to web 2.0 resources and projects. They have a great interactive Prezi to check out, and one section in particular stood out for me - Comics and Cartoons has great ideas and tools to recommend.

If you have been following Ozge Karaoglu's Digital Storytelling Series, you will be glad to know that she has released part 4 today, so there are yet more great tools to check out for advancing your digital storytelling journeys. On the same theme, I also came across a site by the University of Houston on Digital Storytelling and its uses in the classroom. It is worth checking out.

FreeTechnology4Teachers has a collection of great sites to share with you from the last few days. See the highlights below:

• BigHugeThesaurus does exactly what it says on the tin and more: synonyms, antonyms, rhymes and more.
  
• National Geographic has a great statistical map of the world that would be great to share whole class, or for individual interpretations of our global populations.
  
• If genetics is in your Science curriculum, you will probably appreciate Richard Byrne all the more for highlighting Learn Genetics. It is a useful interactive Science tool.
  
• The final offering from FreeTechnology4Teachers today is 12 Ways for Students to Publish Slideshows Online. Find somewhere useful to show off those PowerPoints.

Successful Teaching has a useful post that highlights a few useful classroom tools that you may or may not be familiar with. For instance, a useful selection of PowerPoint games. For a few years I have used a Who Wants to be a Millionaire PowerPoint to review Science chapters. This and others are here for your perusal.

Finally, I have created a short guide for Using Animoto in the Classroom to Create Free Video Slideshows. It is written for those who have not tried it before and are wondering what it is, or how to get started with it. Please feel free to pass it on to anyone you think would appreciate it. I have also added a link to it on the Articles page.

WatchKnow is a non profit site that aims to pull together a variety of educational videos from the web that are designed to be instructional learning experiences for children. You can filter them by age group or by subject. Worth a look.

Google Swirl is finding its niche on the web of late as a creative image search tool. When you enter your search term, Google Swirl will attempt to group together images of the same type. For instance, search for 'car' and it will group cars by color, or make together.

Public Earth takes Google Maps and adds some extended features. You can search a map for everything from arcades to vacation sites, and everything else in between. There is a huge variety of topics you can select from so I could see this being useful in Social Studies when analyzing different regions for resources.

Mashable has 35 Tools for Teachers, Tutors and Students. Some on this list may be familiar to you, but others are new to me. Grading tools, teaching tools, and social networks are all on here.

DE Tools has a link to a UK site called SafeSearch which is basically a modified Google search engine that is safe for kids to use. Searches are filtered and there are also no distracting ads. What more could you ask for?

Finally, I have seen this a few times now, but have never got round to posting it. Richard Byrne has linked to a TED talk on How to Make a Wiimote Whiteboard. It is a fascinating video and will make you wonder why interactive whiteboards are as expensive as they are when you can make your own for $50.

DE Tools links to a couple of sites worth mentioning. The first is pixer.us, another free online photo editor. The user interface is pretty simple and allows easy adjustments of all the basic photo adjustments. Special effects can also be added to give your photos that unique touch.

The other site you may want to visit from DE Tools is a collection of tools that allow you to convert Power Point presentations to video. Robin Good leads you through all that you need to know to make that PowerPoint into a video clip.

In my previous post I linked to Ozge Karaoglu's 100 Digital Storytelling Tools part 1 and 2. Well, part 3 has just been released, so why not head over and see what the latest tools to be added to this great list are.

Richar Byrne has collected 6 Ways for Students to Publish their Writing Online. Google Docs, Zoho, Scribd and more are all here in a concise and useful collection of online writing  and publishing tools.

ZDNet has a review of PhotoSketch, an unusual but extremely powerful looking online photo montage tool. You create your montage by drawing rough outlines of what you want it to look like (nothing more than stick men needed here), and the computer renders the rest. It need to be seen to be believed.

Finally, the votes are in, and Jane Hart has published her Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009. How many have you used? How many have you even heard of before?!

LEGO offers a free digital designer download where by children can design and create their own virtual LEGO creations. It is available for Mac and PC and could be a great, creative design tool.

Ozge Karaoglu's blog has two great posts on digital storytelling. 100 Digital Storytelling tools for your Digital Selves Part 1 and Part 2 has an exhaustive list of tools you can use for digital storytelling. I won't profess to having tried them all out, but I surely will when I get the time to go through this great looking list.

Richard Byrne has an online guide entitled Beyond Google - 15+ Tools and Strategies for Better Search Results. This useful guide includes alternatives to Google and tips and tricks on how to maximize your search results with Google.

PicLits is an interesting creative tool for your inner poet. It gives you a picture as inspiration and you can create an emotional response to the picture by dragging some keywords and punctuation onto the picture, or by typing directly on to it. Good for a short, creative activity for Language. There is a gallery of pictures to choose from, so your creations can go on and on.

If you have not yet tried out Spelling City, especially in an Elementary classroom, you definitely should. They have made a number of improvements recently to try and make the site more user friendly, so even if you have been before, you should go back and see what is new. The students in my class love it. Can you think of a more fun way to practice your assigned spelling words?

Create your own motivational posters, magazine covers, trading cards and movie posters at BigHugeLabs. Upload a picture and you can choose from a variety of fun ways to customize it into a project of your liking. It is easy to do, and could be used in any number of ways in the classroom.

I am in the process of changing computers. I recently bought a new desktop, so am currently in the process of copying over all my files, feeds, favorites, etc. but it is taking some time. When I get all this done - hopefully this weekend - I will return with some new material for you. Maybe I will even throw in a Windows 7 review if I get the chance, because that is my new OS of choice. Thanks in advance for your patience!

Recently, the more observant visitor may have noticed a new page added to this blog: the articles page. As well as writing for this blog, I also post some other instructional articles, or reviews, on technology based topics for other websites. For instance, I have recently been asked to review some ebooks for Sylvan Dell Publishers, so I should be appearing on their blog soon. Basically, anything that I write and think may be of interest to you, I will link to on the articles page. RSS subscribers, (I love you all), just  have to click on a link, like this one, to access all that is currently online. If you have any suggestions for topics you would like to see written about, I am more than open to suggestions. Just leave a comment, or email me via the contact page.

Another great A-Z list of web 2.0 resources can be found at Technology and Education. This comprehensive list has lots of new tools I have yet to try, and I look forward to testing them out in the coming weeks to let you know which could be most useful.

iPod Touch users may be interested in this article, 50 Educational Apps for the iPod Touch. It has a list of some really useful apps to use in the classroom, for all curricular subjects, and most of them are free to download.

Richard Byrne has posted a link to a great English language learner site, LearnEnglish, from the British Council. Good resources and ideas for ELL teachers.

iLearn highlights a great BBC site for kids on World War 2. Aimed at kids aged 7-12, this site has plenty of facts, figures, and interactive content.

Shape Collage is like Wordle with pictures. I found this on MakeUseOf.com. This handy tool lets you make instant collages from any website url you enter into a search box. Choose the shape you would like the collage to appear as, and in less than a minute you have your own picture collage.

A couple of days ago I got an email from Animoto. They will shortly be releasing a new holiday gift card feature using their popular video animation engine. Click here to see the sneak peek video they created to give you a taste of what is coming.

Vermilion Parish Schools have a great collection of Twitter Links for Educators. There is everything here from Twitter 101 tutorials, to how to use Tweetpic and TweetDeck. A handy collection of links all in one place.

Check out Showdocument for a great, free, online collaboration website. Exchange ideas via a collaborative whiteboard, work together on a joint text document, upload, view and share documents online with others. Great for distance learning or student projects.

Mashable has an in-depth look at Google Wave. It dissects all the ins and outs of this new real time collaboration tool. Another comprehensive guide can be found in an online book called The Complete Guide to Google Wave.

Finally, iLearn has a link to Phillip Martin's free clipart page. This talented artist has created a large selection of good quality clipart for classroom and non profit use.