New Year, New Links!
Happy New Year! Hard to believe it’s 2010 already. Just in time for the new year, I have a large list of links to share. Mrs. DeStefano is at a workshop today and has been sharing the cool sites she is learning about with me. There are some great sites for students and teachers here, so dive in and explore! All links will open in a new window.
Global Trek: Virtual Travel Around the World – This is a fantastic website that lets students go on virtual field trips to many different countries. As they travel, they keep a travel journal about what they learn. Scholastic provides reflection questions that students can answer in their journal, or you can provide your own. Students can create usernames and passwords (no email required!) so they can work on their journals over time. Journals can be printed when completed.
Read Write Think – A wonderful list of online applications and games to help support literacy learning. They have everything from character trading cards to fractured fairy tales!
BBC Bitesize Games for Literacy – Another good source for online literacy activities.
ABCYa! – Online computer activities for K-5 students.
Daily Writing Prompts - Awesome prompts grouped by month.
Math Nook – Math and puzzle games, worksheets, teaching materials, and more!
National Library of Virtual Manipulatives – Lots of great online math manipulatives.
APlus Math Games - Another good site of math games.
Math Playground – Even more math games!
KSNN – NASA’s Kids Science News Network
Tux Typing – A free typing tutor program.
Brainy Betty - Free PowerPoint backgrounds and templates.
In Pictures – Online, picture based computer tutorials.
Zamzar - Free online file converter.
Google Lit Trips – Use Google Earth to explore and enrich well known literature for all ages.
SwitchZoo – Morph and create new animals in this photorealistic zoo!
Clipart ETC – A good source for free clip art.
Jigzone – Create online jigsaw puzzles.
Nature Songs – Free source of nature photos and sound files.
Phillip Martin Clipart – More free clip art.
Find Sounds - A search engine for audio files.
Primary Source Learning – Find sources online, organize them into collections, and share with students as online lessons.
CyberBee – Online teaching and learning resources.
Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright – Copyright instruction from the Library of Congress.
A Fair(y) Use Tale - Great video showcasing fair use.
Jenuine Tech – Creative projects for the PreK-6 classroom.
CIESE – Online tele-collaborative projects.
BigHugeLabs – Awesome photo based activities. They have some great resources for educators.
Stained Glass Collage – Turn your photos into a stained glass like collage.
Wordle – A fun way to visualize your writing!
Zoho Polls – Fun, free polls.
Vocaroo – Record and send voice emails.
BBC Schools Science Clips - Science activities online.
Exploratorium – The museum of science, art, and human perception.
Weather Wiz Kids – Weather information for children.
University of Illinois - Some great teaching and learning sites.
Mouth Power – National Museum of Dentistry.
You Be The Historian – Learn how historians learn about the past.
Map Puzzles – US and world geography puzzles.
Google Geography – A useful wiki on using Google Maps in education.
Stately Knowledge – Learn facts about the states.
Mystery States – 51 printable Mystery State work sheets. Each sheet offers five clues to help students identity of one of the 50 U.S. states.
Math Is Fun – Another great math resource.
Computer Lab Favorites – Activities from Scholastic that can be completed in the computer lab during a normal class period.
My StoryMaker
The Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh has a wonderful site for young children. My favorite feature on their website is My StoryMaker. This cute, easy to use application is web based, and lets students easily create stories online that they can then print and/or share online with others.
The interface is beautifully animated, and very easy to use. There are very clear directions, and you can access the help function at any stage. Most of the process involves dragging and dropping characters, objects, and scenery around, and the characters all have sub menus that allow you to change emotions, actions, and interactions with other characters.
As you choose your characters and change their emotions and actions, the story begins to write itself based on your selections. You can edit the story given to you, or you can erase it and write your own text. When you are done your story, you can choose if you want to share it with others on the Carnegie website or not. If you do share it, you are given a magic number that you can use to access the story from the website so you can share it with friends and family. Whether or not you choose to share it, you also have the option to print your story. The story prints two pages per sheet and is easy to cut and assemble into a physical book.
This is a great site to entice children to write and share stories. The pre-written text means that even very young children can create their own stories, while the ability to edit and write your own makes it appealing to more advanced students. The only real downside to this program that I’ve seen is that you cannot save a story and then come back to edit or complete it later. It must be finished in one sitting. Even with that one caveat, it is still a wonderful, engaging program sure to encourage students to write!
Cornucopia of Links
Thanksgiving is tomorrow, so today I am sharing a few links that have come across my radar recently.
Google Image Swirl – I love Google’s Image Search; it’s a great way to easily find images on just about any subject imaginable. Now, Google takes it one step further with their Image Swirl tool. Image Swirl is still in the Labs phase, but it works very well on the few test searches I did. Image Swirl groups similar images and is a neat way to find more specific pictures, or similar images. Check it out!
Zimmer Twins – Very nifty! This site has a simple, fun interface that lets you create your own animated movies using a stock set of characters, settings, and actions. It has a nice library of movie starters that you can use to start out with, or you can start from scratch to create your own.
Game Classroom – A nice collection of educations games for grades K-6. The games are well organized according to grade and subject, with the focus on math and language arts. Game Classroom also includes several grade specific newsletters, and homework help links.
Here Comes Science! – I’ve always been a fan of the rather quirky band They Might Be Giants. I was at one of their concerts while I was in college, and heard the song Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas) for the first time. This was one of the first ‘teaching’ songs I’d ever heard, and I loved it. TMBG recently released an entire album of science based teaching songs, including the sun song, titled Here Comes Science! The album can be purchased as a CD/DVD set that includes the musical CD and a DVD of the videos for the songs.
PocketMod
One of my fellow Google Certified Teachers linked to PocketMod on Twitter yesterday, and I was immediately enthralled with this simple but extremely useful and versatile tool. PocketMod uses an easy to navigate Flash interface to let you design and print your own pocket organizer. Each mini organizer has eight pages, including the front and back covers, and each page is customizable. Simply choose what type of organizer you want – including writing guides, calendars, to-do lists, reference guides, and games – then simply drag and drop it where you want it in your booklet.
When you have finished designing your booklet, a simple click of the Print PocketMod button will send your creation to the printer. After that, it’s just a few simple folds, one snip of the scissors, and you have your own custom organizer ready to use. PocketMod is free, but you can donate via PayPal if you enjoy the product.
They even have a nifty video that shows you how to fold and assemble your PocketMod:
Creating a Blog in Google’s Blogger
Blogs in Plain English by Commoncraft
The following videos give step by step instructions on how to create, set up, and use a blog using Google’s Blogger. Videos will open in a new window.
- Creating an Account & Blog – Don’t have a Google account yet? Start here!
- Blogger Sign In With Account – Already have a Google account? Start here!
- Blog Settings – Modify the basic settings for your blog.
- Blog Layout – Change the look and feel of your blog.
- Creating Blog Posts – Add new posts, edit previous ones, and moderate comments
- The Dashboard – Editing profile information, creating new blogs, and following other blogs.
- Google Reader – Organize the blogs you follow with Google Reader.