Web 2.0 Tools for Today’s Educator

Last week, I took advantage of the opportunity to join the webinar, Web 2.0 Tools for School with Brad Fountain.  This was a great webinar that refreshed my memory of tools I had once found useful and forgotten about, and presented me with many great “new to me” web 2.0 tools that are surely classroom friendly.

Of course, we are all familiar with SymbalooEDU thanks to the DEN and the great promotions they reward to their STAR members.  If you aren’t sure what I am talking about, perhaps its because you aren’t yet a STAR Educator.  It’s a great way to get connected to Tech Educators and Discovery Evangelists. Be sure to check it out! Apologies for the digression! Well, as I joined the Webinar, not only was Symbaloo explored, but also LiveBinders.  Both sites are essentially Live Bookmarking Sites where all of your favorite sites can be organized, categorized, or shared.  As I embarked on the Web 2.0 Refresher Webinar, I thought it might be nice, to put what I was learning to action.  I created this LiveBinder for all of you to check out and explore some of the great 2.0 tools!

Think you have searched to the end of the WWW?

Think you have searched to the end of the WWW? Think again!  Stay up-to-date on the newest web applications by visiting www.GO2WEB20.net For two years running, this online index is one of the largest sites bookmarking recent applications that hit the web! Check it out early and often to be on the cutting edge! You may just stumbleupon something new.

Transform any Computer into a Tablet PC

  

Any teacher who has had access to a StarBoard, Promethean Board, or Interactive Whiteboard, etc. is lost when it malfunctions or for whatever reason is no longer accessible.  Tablet PC’s may be used in a similar manner.  True the functionalities and application tools may not be as top-notch, but any port in a storm.  Well skrbl.com has answered your prayers!

http://skrbl.com/

Skrbl is an easy online whiteboard that allows for multi-users to work together to sketch, text, share files, upload pictures and more all via URL. 

Create a FREE account and begin your brainstorm for the next writing assignment! Upload a diagram and have students label the parts. 

Go to: http://skrbl.com/more.aspx to learn how easy it is…here is a mini tutorial found on the site!   

Use file menu – ‘email invite’ to email an invite to your skrbl whiteboard, your guests get a link to click on, OR give your skrbl URL to your friends.
To write a note – just click on the blank screen and start typing.
To edit a note click on an existing note and edit.
To switch between drawing and text mode click on the or button.
To upload a picture or a file use the File menu.
The file menu also shows you a list of pictures and files you already have online.
To manage your whiteboards, pictures or files, go to your ‘My skrbls’ page.
Click and drag to move a note around the skrbl board.

Simple and easy online multi user whiteboard, start skrbl, give out your URL & start working together. Sketch, text, share files, upload pictures all in one common shared space. There are no new tools to learn, nothing to download, nothing to install. Brainstorm on our simple whiteboard to start thinking together, everyone sees the same screen, everybody gets on the same page.

Podcasting

Greetings DEN Members,

 This summer vacation sure has flown by! There is no better way to get back into the swing of things than by taking a few workshops.  My district sent me to a hands-on Apple Professional Development Podcasting Institute.  As a techie, I was thrilled to be going, for one reason above all others was that we were given the IPOD Classic/Video with an 80GB memory.  This was such a perk! This workshop was well paced, we were all comfortable to ask questions and work with the information given.  We used a great deal of Mac applications like garageband and iphoto.  These programs were so user friendly that it put my PC to shame.  However, this is nothing to hold the PC users back…the members of the class were so helpful that we all pooled our resources and shared quite a few ideas for making this just as easily adapted to that of the PC.  The pc version of garage band is that of Acoustica’s MixCraft 4.  Both programs allow you to create a voice recording, add pictures, music, and sound effects and animate in some ways.  As part of the institute we created little movies using the Aesop’s Fables.  It was really fun, and super easy! I can’t wait to create some great things for my students to use. 

 I would like to share some great websites that we learned about:

www.podomatic.com is a great site that allows you to publish and create your own podcasts.

www.pics4learning.com allows you to download pictures without worrying about copyrights.

www.soundsnap.com has a library full of sound effects that you can download and use again without worrying about those pesky copyright laws.

www.pbwiki.com is a wiki site that allows you to communicate and discuss things with your students…a lot of the teachers in the training were already using this and LOVE it. I can’t wait to try it

As we went through this workshop I realized that I was already creating Podcasts with my students we just weren’t publishing them to a wiki.  So I decided to take some of the projects created by my students last year and turn them into podcasts.  I published them to iTunes.  I was limited at one point because it was not in an iTunes format…rest assured, someone offered a great alternative.  The site www.ZAMZAR.com is a free convertion website.  I simply uploaded my project to this site, identified the file extension I wanted to convert it to (IPOD) and in a few minutes, I was emailed a link to download the new version! It was fabulous!

 I hope you have an opportunity to take a course like this! It was so much fun and so eyeopening to the things you can do!

Give Rice to The Hungry

Throughout the world, natural disasters have struck leaving many people hungry.  As my students learn more about the Myanmar tragedy and the Myanmar’s governments neglect to provide aide, they have discussed their desire to help.  A website www.freerice.com is a website that allows them to do just that.  There is no sign-up necessary! Students go to this website and play a vocabulary game.  Words are presented and students are asked to choose the synonym.  The students love to play and they learn new words.  The whole time they are playing, they are infact helping to donate rice to the hungry.  For each word the player gets correct, 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger.  This game has been online since October 2007.  I wish I had known about it sooner! To date, 32,538,647,330 grains of rice have been donated through this game.  Yesterday, 193,454,560 grains of rice were donated! This is an amazing program! Our class is going to play as much as we can to help!

Myanmar and students

I think it is truly important to expose students to the happenings in the world around them.  A great way to inform students of current events is through the use of CNN Student News, http://www.cnn.com/studentnews/  This is a free tool that teachers may sign-up for.  Each night, an e-mail is sent in that you may preview the content.  For the most part, the content is appropriate for my fourth grade students.  About three times a week, we watch the 10 minute segment and then discuss the content.  The reals focused on the Presidential Election have proven to be a great resource.  This past week we focused on the tragedy of the cyclone that hit Myanmar.  My students have been motivated to write their own news stories to inform their fellow school mates about the tragedy.  Discovery Atlas has provided to be a great resource as well.  We used Atlas to locate Myanmar and learn about the people, government, customs, and history using the short video segments.  I used the Writing Prompts Teacher Tool to create the News Story Assignment.  Our class wrote great news stories to demonstrate their understanding of the event and share their feelings about the tragedy.  I am impressed with the caliber of work produced by these fourth graders.  Their enthusiasm and motivation was enhanced through the use of the technology and tools provided by Discovery Streaming!