Dangerously Cool Web 2.0 Links for Educators
Feel free to add your finds in the comment section. I try to look at everything I post and give a brief description as well as put it in a category. Let me know if you have found this page useful.
Shoot me an email with your favorite links --> janice.butler@utb.edu
Animation Software
Create your own animated movie easily and free http://www.xtranormal.com/ For a well done video on Xtranormal: http://classroomnext.blogspot.com/2009/11/make-your-own-animated-video-with.html
http://animoto.com - animoto is hot for education right now. But, it seems pricey to me. Go visit and decide for yourself.
http://goanimate.com/ - some nice stuff on this site.
The Best Ways For Students To Create Online Animations - by Larry Ferlazzo Website of the Day.
Blogs
Blogs in Plain English - from Common Craft
http://blogger.com - from Google. Automatically sets you up on the Google search engine.
http://classpress.com - not free at $29.95 per year - but you can gain free months by referring.
http://edublogs.org/ - great choice for educators. Educator Sheri Higgs has this to say about it, "The free mode (which we are using) has 20MG storage. Once you become a "supporter" (various levels) you can add and tie in student blogs." Nothing better than a recommendation from a fellow educator.
http://wordpress.com - easy to use and rather sophisticated templates
http://texasschoolmarm.wikispaces.com/Blogs - Using Blogs in the Classroom is a great resource from Connie Lindsey, Region XV
Collaborative Work Tools/ Web conferencing tools
http://google.com/apps - Links to Google Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Google Talks (IM for Google) and Sites (wiki for Google)
http://skype.com - free computer-to-computer phone across the world with anyone who has an Internet connection. Need I say more?
Google Wave - now out of Beta so anyone can use; would like to see a group project on this. It looks awesome, but I do not have time to play with it right now.
http://tinypaste.com - collaborative editing on the fly. Should use for collaborative brainstorming in Elluminate. On the fly is key here. This is a test one: http://tinypaste.com/d011f
http://www.collanos.com/m1/en/index Collanos Workplace is a peer-to-peer team collaboration suite. It allows internet users to form teams and collaborate together on a shared projects. Available for Mac, Windows, and Linux PCs it enables users to invite colleagues, friends, or partners to a team workspace where members can immediately share and organize their files, notes and links, lead discussions, and assign tasks. Free. Looks a lot like Google Wave (hmmmmm), but is open source so it will stay free.
http://crazeegeekchick.com/blog/27-free-must-have-online-collaboration-tools/ - 27 free collaborative online work tools that you must have.
Concept mapping software
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page - Free download for nice concept mapping tools. Can be used as framework for students to begin a project
http://mind42.com/ - collaborative online
http://mindmeister.com - free version - but for academic, only costs $15.00 per year. Now that's a sweet deal.
Creative Commons
The Creative Commons website provides easy to understand licensing that generally allows others to use your work and/or modify. Various licenses are available under Creative Commons and on this site you can generate your license for posting on your website or on work you have created.
http://ccmixter.org - ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want. Unlike freeplaymusic (which is often used as a source of music for educators), this site offers open source music that can be used in podcasts, on websites, etc.
http://www.freesound.org/ - The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound focuses only on sound, not songs.
Digital storytelling
http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu - One of the best sites for educational use of digital storytelling out there by my mentor in digital storytelling.
http://texasschoolmarm.wikispaces.com/Digital+Storytelling - Many resources from Connie Lindsey at Region XV
Finding Media for Your Story - CogRogDoo from Alan Levine
50 Tools by Alan Levine
Downloading videos (like YouTube)
http://www.pcfreetime.com - Format Factory converts Flip videos to avi so you can import them to Movie Maker. It is free and it will also convert back to MP4 for uploading to iPods, etc.
http://keepvid.com/ - download streaming videos with a click
http://mediaconverter.org/ - converter
http://vixy.net/ - Online FLV Converter : Download online videos direct to PC / iPod / PSP. It's free!
http://zamzar.com/ - multipurpose tool to convert files and download videos online. No need to download software.
http://download.cnet.com/YouTube-Downloader/3000-2071_4-10647340.html - Top YouTube downloader and links to others. This will download as mov files; converter is below
http://winff.org/html_new/downloads.html
Game Templates for PowerPoint, Excel and more
http://people.uncw.edu/ertzbergerj/msgames.htm - EXCELLENT site for many, many, game templates for the everyday classroom teacher; check out the template for Matrix.
http://resources.oswego.org/games/ Awesome site of the day contributed by Karen Arrington, Lower School Technology Specialist. An awesome site for game templates to create your own games with lots of examples. You don't want to miss this site.
Games
Science games and other resources from The Sciencespot.net
Walking with Beasts games from ABC TV. Great games about fossils, camouflage, jigsaws and all sorts of other goodies.
Brain Teasers and Optical Illusions from Yahoo. These are pretty cool!!
Google Things to Do, Tools and Searching
All the ways to search using Google - awesome sight with multiple ways of searching using Google
EveryDay Search Essentials - Handy ways to search for everyday things on Google
Google Things to Do - 52 things to do with Google besides using it as a search engine.
Choose your own adventure story with Google Apps - lesson included with objectives
A Place in Time: The Impact of Photography includes lesson plan with objectives
Google TUT?R - Google Tutorials, Tips and Advice for Google users.
More Got Google? links and more
15 second search tips on Google
Google Apps in the Classroom
Mashpedia - well you just gotta do it to believe it. Search for anything and MULTImedia results will appear.
Things to Do - ways to search you never knew existed. This resource is great for librarians and teachers who want students to do more than Wikipedia
Graphics Tools
Sketchfu - captures and replays drawings you create online.
Having Little to do With Technology and All to do with Beauty
Drew Tretrick - From his worldwide appearances to students and at music conferences sponsored by Gibson & Zeta Music, Drew reflects on his beliefs in education taken from his experiences as an ambassador of education to thousands of students
Internet Safety
Gail Markson, Technology Coordinator, Eleanor Kolitz Academy offers: http://eka.wikispaces.com/MS+Internet+Safety - links to a wiki that contains YouTube videos about Interet Safety
From Libby Hamilton, Instructional Technology Specialist, Azle, TX: Some are sites with information, some with free materials like posters and others with instructional videos: http://www.ikeepbookmarks.com/browse.asp?folder=1822538
From Dianna Martinez, Lewisville ISD, Everyone is welcome to check out the resources we have there through the guest access:
From Paul R. Woods: http://paulrwood.wikispaces.com/Internet+Safety
From Duyen Blanton, Sabine Pass ISD:
Just Cool Stuff
http://doodlebuzz.com - don't know how to describe it - just go try it
http://www.wordle.net/ - a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide; great for brainstorming and discovering key ideas
http://voki.com - Voki is a free service that allows you to create personalized speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile, and in email messages. Didn't know where to put it in the categories and it is pretty cool. They have started to "nourish" Voki for educational purposes so you can get a lot of ideas on their website.
Library Links for teachers, librarians and media specialists
This space is for teacher-librarians to share their lesson plans and otherwise collaborate with each other: http://teachlibrary.wikispaces.com/
New Tools: Wiki with an incredible array of links for educators
Links to Loads of Links
http://arpisd.org/vision2020.htm - website resources as a result of grants. Great source of information for administrators, teachers, parents and students.
From Lynell Burmark, a host of great links: http://educatebetter.org/Web%20Wonders.pdf
Multimedia Web 2.0
http://glogster.com - a multimedia blog that can be imported into PBworks and other wikis. You have got to see this one. Check out the educator site: http://www.glogster.com/edu/
http://storybird.com/. Storybird is great for teaching reading concepts. Storybords are short, visual sotries that you make with family and friends to share and print: Take a look at some of the example books created by writers and start your own stories today. This one is rather good: Just a Girl
http://voicethread.com - great multimedia tool for collaborating and communicating
http://voicethread4educationMultimedia Presentation
http://wallwisher.com - great way to do collaborative brainstorming
http://www.scrapblog.com/
http://slideshare.com - upload your PPTs or download others; some nice slideshows can be found here.
Music and Sounds - copyright free (more sources under Podcasting and Audio Editing)
http://ccmixter.org - ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want. Unlike freeplaymusic (which is often used as a source of music for educators), this site offers open source music that can be used in podcasts, on websites, etc.
http://www.freesound.org/ - The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound focuses only on sound, not songs.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/sdml/sdml.asp - Super dooper music looper is great for looping short clips of music.
http://aviary.com - incredible array of tools: Photo-editing, logos, web templates, filters, color palettes, screen capture & more.
Online Quiz and Survey Tools
http://google.com/apps - use Google spreadsheet to develop a quiz or survey and view results instantly in Google spreadsheet.
http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/ - nice source for educators and students to build interactivity with statistical analyses included
http://surveymonkey.com - brief quizzes and surveys with statistical analyses included
Open Source Applications
50 Open Source Tools that Replace Popular Education Apps - the name says it all. Worth a look!!
Photo Editing
http://www.picnik.com/ - retouch photos online. Free, but has a pro account that is around $20.00 year. Recently purchased by Google which almost guarantees it will be there forever.
http://bighugelabs.com/ - allows you to do some really fun stuff with photos - make posters, press badges, trading cards, magazine covers, etc.
http://photofiltre.com - this surprisingly small with surprising features for photo editing is free and small enough to carry on a flash drive. I use it all the time because it is quick and easy to pop up and use. I accidentally installed the French version and have been trying to learn French - so be sure and get the English version.
http://sketchfu - not sure this goes here, but couldn't figure where else to stick it. App records your drawing and then plays it back. Doesn't sound as exciting as it is. YOu could capture student work to see where they are going wrong - and many other things with this
Photo Sites - safe photos
Some free photos - Some are free and some cost (but are cheap). Photos are high quality and large so do not pixelate on photo stories, etc.
http://sxc.hu - one of my favorite copyright free photo sites; great quality and resolution.
Photo Sharing in Plain English - from Common Craft
http://flickr.com - loads of photos on this site. Be sure to check copyright before using.
http://aviary.com - incredible array of tools: Photo-editing, logos, web templates, filters, color palettes, screen capture & more. This is really incredible - among other things - you can do a screen capture of any website and then make modifications online. You can add screen capture to Firefox for faster capturing. Just amazing tools.
Take a look at this powerful story about today's world and the impact of technology on education. Download the Windows Media Player version or the Quicktime version of the movie and take a look.
Podcasting and Audio Editing (more sources under Music and Sound)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net - open source audio editing software; popular, but much more complicated to use than Wavepad (below).
http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/kb/free.html - easier to figure out than Audacity; can buy master's edition, but the free one works well with many features available. Small enough to install on a flash drive and carry with you everywhere. Very handy when you want to edit audio and don't have rights to install a program on the computer.
PowerPoint Power
Power Point Heaven - doing things with PowerPoint that you never thought possible. Or at least I never thought possible.
Resources for Teachers
California Learning Resource Network - scads of standards-aligned electronic learning resource information that includes free primary sources, secondary sources and reference web sites to search or browse.
Thinkfinity - Verizon Thinkfinity offers comprehensive teaching and learning resources created by their content partners – the most respected organizations in each academic subject and literacy. The easy-to-navigate K-12 resources are grade-specific and are aligned with state standards.
Research/Searching
Those Dark Hiding Places: The Invisible Web Great resources for searching on the Web.
Genamics Journal Seek - the largest completely categorized database of freely available journal information available on the internet.
Google Scholar - is a freely-accessible Web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats.
Resources from Redwood City Public Library - many free resources that can be accessed online for research.
Mashpedia - well you just gotta do it to believe it. Search for anything and MULTImedia results will appear.
Things to Do - Ways to search you never knew existed. This resource is great for librarians and teachers who want students to do more than Wikipedia
Science Resource Links
From Juan Felix at Salinas Elementary, a plethora of cool science links.
Social Bookmarking Sites
Social Bookmarking in Plain English - from Common Craft
http://diigo.com - also allows you to: annotate pages for group, set up groups to share bookmarks, collaborate on research projects via communication tool.
http://del.icio.us - on of the most popular social bookmarking tools
Social Networking Sites
Social Networking in Plain English - from Common Craft
http://ning.com - seems to be the one used in education
Whyville - with more than 6 million members, this site is educational and geared for 8-14 year olds. Many safeguards are built in to ensure a safe environment for students.
Tools of the Trade
LinkBunch lets you put multiple links into one small link which you can share over IM, Twitter, email or even a mobile phone SMS
Twitter
Twitter in Plain English - what the heck is twitter and how/why do you tweet?
Twitter Search in Plain English from Common Craft
http://twitter.com - that thing they have been talking about everywhere.
Voicethread
http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/ Nice, very nice and abundant examples of Voicethread in education.
Video
http://video.kidzui.com - They say that all the videos have been approved by parents and teachers; may be a solution for "unsafe" videos on other spots.
http://edutube.org/ - educational videos
http://www.hulu.com/ - watch TV on your computer
http://schooltube.com
http://teachertube.com
http://youtube.com
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 Links - lots of resources and tutorials from Dr. Coop. This link opens on Google Apps info, but there is lots more on her site.
Links to lots of links for educators
Web 2.0 Best of the Best by Larry Ferlazzo
50 Web 2.0 Tools from Alan Levine
Web 2.0 Cool Tools for educators contains loads of stuff for educators
Many cool web 2.0 tools from Smashing Apps
Webconferencing Tools/Collaboration Tools
http://bigbluebutton.org - looks great with great potential for those familiar with open source.
http://skype.com - been around for the longest; good connections and reliable
Google Wave - now out of Beta so anyone can use; would like to see a group project on this. It looks awesome, but I do not have time to play with it right now.
http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/ OpenMeetings is a free browser-based software that allows you to set up instantly a conference in the Web. You can use your microphone or webcam, share documents on a white board, share your screen or record meetings. It is available as hosted service or you download and install a package on your server with no limitations in usage or users. Thanks to Jeremy Fluhmann for sharing.
http://tinypaste.com - collaborative editing on the fly. Should use for collaborative brainstorming in Elluminate. On the fly is key here. This is a test one: http://tinypaste.com/d011f
Webquests and links about Copyright, copyleft, and Creative Commons
WebQuests for learning about plagiarism and copyright:
From the Trunk of the Old Elm Tree is a WebQuest for 5th and 6th grade students by Ellis.
Excellent WebQuest for high school students by Janice Cooper. Liberal copyright permission is granted. For details, see bottom of WebQuest page.
Plagiarism, How to Cite Online Sources is another WebQuest for grades 6, 7, and 8. Built by Jocelyn Kagan and Susan Victor, the WebQuest also has liberal copyright permissions. You may have to make some modifications as some links need to be updated. It provides a nice foundation to build upon.
This nicely laid out Copyright Website provides an excellent overview of copyright and includes a section on Open Source, GNU and GPL licensing, fair use and more. It also provides some prime examples that students will enjoy looking at and discussing. Samples from music and movies in major copyright lawsuits are included.
10 Big Myths about Copyright Explained provides information about the common misconceptions of copyright in layman's terms.
This Crash Course in copyrights will provide a good overview of copyright law. Also has a quiz to test your knowledge.
The Creative Commons website provides easy to understand licensing that generally allows others to use your work and/or modify. Various licenses are available under Creative Commons and on this site you can generate your license for posting on your website or on work you have created
Webquests - Miscellaneous
While we are on the subject of WebQuests - check these sites out for many examples of WebQuests - all subject areas/all levels:
Bernie Dodge's site provides links to a multitude of Web Quests. This site by the "Father of WebQuests" includes a forum, links to an article database and a new WebQuest garden to help you build your WebQuest.
Best WebQuests provides links to many WebQuests - all subject areas, all grade levels. Tom March has the best 194 WebQuest reviewed out of 1191. His focus is on the "true" WebQuests that endeavor to promote critical thinking rather than gain knowledge or learn facts. He focuses on WebQuests that support a New 3Rs: Real, rich and relevant.
TechTrekker WebQuests provides multiple sources for WebQuests. Covers a large variety of subject areas and grade levels.
T-spider net is an interactive site that will step you through creating your first WebQuest - with students involved.If you have any outstanding links to WebQuests or other emerging technologies that would benefit MTT candidates or teachers, please contact Janice Butler.
Wikis
Wikis in Plain English - Common Craft's easy and understandable video explaining wikis
http://pbworks.com - One of the best free wikis going; allows you to edit html for more precise editing and is ad free for educators
http://wikispaces.com - Another popular wiki for educators
http://wetpaint.com - free, but limited in size. Upgrade is relatively expensive. (Relative to me is more than free. Although I have upgraded this wiki because of the additional features that come with a paid subscription.)
http://epencil.wikispaces.com/crazydictionary - cute use of wiki
Wikis in education
Pbworks in education and PBworks support center
Some info from PBworks about educational use of wikis.
10 Best Practices for using wikis in education from Technology Teacher
How to use a wiki to facilitate learning
Science of Spectrosopy - wiki with information and examples of wikis
http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/Examples+of+educational+wikis - exceptional link of many, many, many wikis used in education
Great links to a variety of wikis used in education.
Some information from WetPaint, another wiki product. However, from the comments, it does not seem to be very user friendly for educators. So use at your own peril. But, they do have some good examples. Seems they decided to go commercial rather than educational.
28 slides of examples with links to wiki ideas for education. These examples use WikiSpaces, probably the second most used wiki for educators. Editorial comment: Wikispaces does a good job on wikis, except it is not quite as versatile as PB because you can't go in and edit code.
YouTube (or other tubes) Video Downloading
http://keepvid.com/ - download streaming videos with a click
http://mediaconverter.org/ - converter
http://vixy.net/ - Online FLV Converter : Download online videos direct to PC / iPod / PSP. It's free!
http://zamzar.com/ - multipurpose tool to convert files and download videos online. No need to download software.
http://download.cnet.com/YouTube-Downloader/3000-2071_4-10647340.html - Top YouTube downloader and links to others. This will download as mov files; converter is below
http://winff.org/html_new/downloads.html
http://download.cnet.com/YouTube-Downloader/3000-2071_4-10647340.html - Top YouTube downloader and links to others. This will download as mov files; converter is below
http://winff.org/html_new/downloads.html
since August 12, 2010.
Verizon Thinkfinity offers comprehensive teaching and learning resources created by
our content partners – the most respected organizations in each academic subject and literacy. The easy-to-navigate K-12 resources are grade-specific and are aligned with
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