CNN offers a ten-minute, commerical-free, daily news program for middle and high school students. The news broadcast and it’s companion website are free of charge and can be viewed by going to CNNstudentNews.com. If you subscribe to it’s podcast using iTunes you can get automatic updates on a daily basis. CNN not only offers a great news feed highlighting the days events from around the world, but the website also offers free supplimentals for teachers to download. Some of the teacher materials include daily discussion questions, the media literacy question of the day, in-depth learning activities, and downloadable maps that correlate with the days news broadcast. CNN student news will help to develop critical thinking in your classroom based around real world events, and allow for your class to gain global perspectives. The website also offers a daily transcript in order to inform the teacher what stories will be featured on the show.  I believe this could act as a tremendous warm-up prior to starting the school day, or as a wonderful filler activity for those days when a lesson doesn’t last as long as you had originally planned.

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A couple weeks ago I blogged about the website Animoto for those interested in creating quick and easy movies that require very little input from the creator.  Although Animoto is extremely user friendly, the site does not offer much in the way of movie production or customization.  Stupeflix is a great alternative to Animoto and allows for students in the class to determine what their end product will look like prior to rendering.  The example above is a student creation based on the Virginia Standards of Learning USI. 3a-b.  The movie centers around the Inuit culture and highlights how the Inuit were able to use their environment in order to meet their basic needs.  Unlike Animoto where the movie is automatically generated with little student input, Stupeflix allows for the user to group and choose the order of the images, add text to specific images, choose the the effects and transitions, and allows for multiple musical tracks to be played at various times throughout the movie.  Below is a link with directions on getting  started using Stupeflix.

• Stupeflix Directions

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Once I click GO! I can check my email without ever having created or registered for an email account.  Mailinator encourages people to use their mailinator email address as often as possible. Use it in webforms. Post it on forums. Use it any time you need an email address, but don’t want to be slowed down by the sign-up process or spammed for eternity.  This is a great product that does what it says it does.

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Looking for a quick and easy way to have your students create a website? Well look no futher – Roxer.com has arrived. Roxer.com is a free online web 2.0 resource that allows for teachers and students to create a stunning website in a matter of minutes. Roxer allows for live editing.  Just by visiting the webpage and logging on changes can be made to the site in real time – no need to publish or ftp the finished product to a webhost. Every change is made and updated on the spot. Another benefit would include the fact that no programming is involved with the creation of the webpage. Everything on the site involves a click and drag interface. The toolbar on the bottom of the page allows for users to insert text, shapes, images, links, and widgets directly onto the page in a few clicks. I was able to create a sample webpage on the roxer site in under 15 minutes. You can view this site by clicking on the link below:

• http://itrthappenings.roxer.com/

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Google docs is a great piece of online software to get you kids working collaboratively in the classroom.   I recently spent some time working with a reading teacher who wanted to have his kids work in cooperative groups on a creative writing project.  He wanted each person in the group to take turns writing out a different line to a story.  For example, he would start the story with a single sentence such as;

It was a cold, dark, and rainy night.  I was at home all by myself watching television. Suddenly I heard……

Each student in the group would then take turns adding the next sentence to the story.  Google docs lent itself perfectly to this activity.  He basically created the document which housed the directions, prompt, and group members.  Once he was finished, he shared out the public link and made sure that anyone viewing the document had editing privileges.   That way the students did not need a google doc account or sign-in – they just clicked on the link provided by the teacher.  Since students did not need sign in credentials to access the document, each student was idenitified by the font color they chose to type in.  Anything in red was contributed by Danny, any sentence in green was Olivia, etc.  Another great feature of Google docs is that it automatically saves all work every 15 seconds, so you will never need to worry about students not saving their work.   As with everything Google, you have a very realiable product that is free of charge. Anyone can sign up for a google docs account – even if you don’t currenly have a gmail address, just use any existing email address to get started.  Just go to google.com –> click on the “more” link at the top of the page –> scroll down to documents –> click on create an account now.

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I created my first Prezi today highlighting the key characteristics of the 8 regions of the United States of America as outlined by the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL).  My first creation is nothing real snazzy, and involves quite a bit of regurgitation… I was just trying to get a feel for the program.  Turns out, Prezi is pretty straight forward.  It was not time consuming  and did not require much in the way of trial and error. Prezi is presentation software similar to Powerpoint.   However, unlike powerpoint every element that you add to Prezi is done so using a single canvas.   By working on one canvas, viewers can easily zoom in and zoom out in order to show contextual relationships. You can also have multiple editors working on the same project at the same time. This can be a great asset when you are tyring to think of project based learning lessons that involve communication and collaboration.  You can check out my 8 regions Prezi below by clicking on the arrow in the middle.  Continue to click on that arrow to advance the presentation to the next slide.

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Polleverywhere is a great way to get your students engaged in the lesson.  The site allows for a teacher to upload up to three multiple choice questions to the site.  The site then displays an sms number and automatically generates keyword options for each of the choices.  This allows students to use their cell phones to answer the questions by texting in their response.  This is a great way to review prior to an assessment or to get quick feedback regarding a certain topic.  The results are tabulated in real time and you can see the answer choices within a matter of seconds after a student submits their answer choice.  Students really buy into this form of questioning and those who do not have cell phones can still participate using their laptops by taking advantage of the web voting link that is provided by poll everywhere as an alternative for students without cell phones. I use the poll to generate excitement and get the juices flowing.  I like to begin discussions by using polleverywhere followed by students making more formal, in-depth discussions via a discussion forum or blog.  If you sign up for the free version of polleverywehre, you can have up to 30 students participate in the poll.  If you are looking to use it for more participants there is a fee depending on the number of people you would like to participate.

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Animoto allows you to create “stunning video slide shows”.   The greatness of this site can be witnessed in the fact that a person can essentially be brain dead and still create a beautiful movie.  Non-Tech savvy teachers who want the illusion or false pretense that they are computer gurus will love this site.  As far as creativity is concerned it is all smoke in mirrors, but it really generates a cool end product.  Teachers can sign up for an educator account free of charge.  This account lets you create movies longer than the trial 30 seconds.  It also allows you to download the final creations to your hard drive.  You also have the option of purchasing the HD version of the video for $6.  You can create a movie using animoto in 3 easy steps.

1. Upload photos and short videos to the site
2. Add background Music
3. Click on the finalize button

Once you have gone through those 3  steps, Animoto will mix or remix your movie for you in a matter of minutes and send you an email confirmation once it is ready to download.  The clip above is a video montage that we play during the opening segment to our morning annoucncments.  The background music is performed by our very own Mr. Nicholas who teaches U.S. History 2 here at Wilder Middle School.

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• http://etherpad.com
• http://typewith.me

Both sites are exact replicas of Titan Pad.  I would definitely recommend you check out Titan Pad.  This site would lend itself to some great fishbowl activities in the classroom and generate some interesting discussions.

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A colleague recently sent me a very cool lesson involving a WWII radio broadcast.  Students work in groups of three or four and each student is assigned a different role.  This lesson can be easily adapted to a number of different subject areas and would be a great starter lesson for teachers who have little to no experience podcasting.

• Click here to download the file

Also – Below are links to three sites that offer royalty free music and sound effects:

• freeplaymusic.com (Background Music)
• soundbible.com (Sound Effects)
• jamendo.com (Musical Soundtracks)

Once you have added those four glorious letters, you will be taken to an website that will give you the capability to download the video to your computers hard drive as a flash file or as a high quality mp4 free of charge! Now you will have the video forever and you do not need to rely on an internet connection in order to view it. Legalities aside, this seems like a very worthwhile tool for educators.

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The internet can be a scary place.  Teachers are always a bit apprehensive when having a classroom of 30 students surfing the web while working on a research project.  Proximity is always a good idea when students are online, but how can a teacher monitor every site that all their kids are visiting?   Thankfully the filter blocks a good deal of the adult content, but there are always a few sites that manage to bypass the filter.  Google Custom Search (GCS) allows a teacher to create a personalized google search of only those reputable sites that they would like for their class to use.  I created an example search below that will only search websites, wikis, or blogs that I have personally created or collaborated on.  Every other site on the internet is ruled out except for those URL’s that I manually entered when creating the GCS.  Teachers may even want to have students in their class create their own customized searches by having them follow a rubric explaining what makes a site reputable and worthy of being included in the list.  You can create a free google customized search in 3 easy steps.  Just go to the following URL to get started – http://www.google.com/cse/ and click on the button that reads “Create a Custom Search Engine”

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Aviary.com offers an online suite of free creation tools. How this site manages to offer such powerful features and remain free is beyond me.  I personally use the site for its wonderful photo editing options. As a matter of fact, with the help of toondoo.com, I was able to create the ITRT Happenings banner as seen above for my blog using Aviary. Aviary essentially mirrors photoshop and gives me the option to save my work to my hard drive or online (not to mention that it is also a few hundred dollars cheaper than photoshop). By choosing to save a creation online, Aviary automatically generates a link to the saved image and provides me with the HTML embed code so I can share my creation with with friends, family, and collegues. I recently had a sixth grade class work on a Google Earth project that required they insert images into their tour. It is a best practice for Google Earth images to be housed online in order for people who are looking at a shared .kmz file to be able to see those images while viewing the tour on a different computer than the one it was created on.  The class simply cut and paste the embed code into the google earth description box. When the students played the tour the image housed on the Aviary site would automatically pop up at the specified time in the tour. I am attaching a word file to this post with directions explaining how students can upload images and share them using aviary.com.  Aviary is definitely one of my favorite sites and one that I use daily.  If you have never used photoshop before, you will experience a bit of a learning curve.  However, there are numerous tutorials online explaining how to effectively use this site.

Click here to download the directions to save work to Aviary.com

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• Click here to download the .kmz file
• Click here to download directions on how to set up a tour in Google Earth

* Google Earth 5 allows you to record a narration of your tours. In order to hear the audio in google earth you must do the following:

1. Download the KMZ file
2. Click on the File to Launch Google Earth
3. Expand the folder “Explorers” in Google Earth
4. Highlight the Video Camera
5. Click on the Play Button.

mp4

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The winners of this contest receive a cash reward and are acknowledged at an H21 gala event.   Those winning lesson plans, rubrics, and student artifacts are later featured on the Henrico 21 website.  It is the vision of Staff Development that once the ideal lessons are posted to the site teachers will have a more concrete idea about what makes a good 21st century lesson.  It is also the hope that teachers may attempt  to incorporate these winning lessons in their own classroom and begin to dialogue with one another about how to effectively use technology.  I have created a wiki for the teachers at Wilder that has a great deal of information, examples, and important dates regarding the Henrico 21 process (h21.wikispaces.com).  This initiative is still young,  but it is my hope that within the next few years this will be a part of the culture that most teachers will want to embrace.

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http://wuww.wikispaces.com

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Sick of bloggin?  Why not try glogging?  Glogster is an online web 2.0 resource that allows students to create innovative, and interactive posters.  When you sign up for a free edu.glogster.com account you are assigned up to 200 free student glog accounts.  It is important to note that the edu version of Glogster is not blocked by the HCPS filter.  I created a practice glog based on the novel by Elvira Woodruff entitled George Washington’s Socks.  You can check out the glog by clicking on the link below:

http://dasaunders.edu.glogster.com/gwsocks

Click on the links below to download teacher and student setup directions:

– Initial Teachers Setup Directions
– Student Handout

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Wordle is a great teaching tool that makes it easy for teachers to transform mundane primary sources, documents, or vocabulary words into aesthetically pleasing eye candy. Can you guess which famous document in American History is pictured above?

If you guessed the preamble to the United States Constitution… you would be correct!

Wordle.net is a free web resource that can be used in many different ways. Students can create a wordle describing their strengths by having their most prevalent traits stand out as larger fonts within the word cloud. You can take captions from a certain novel or famous speech and have the students try to guess the book/speech by identifying the key words. You can implement this as a pre-writing strategy. You can post your classroom rules/norms using this format. You can take a “wordle poll” in order to get feedback on how the majority of the class is feeling. Make a wordle word wall. Wordle is great for classroom warm-ups or as an anticipatory set.  Needless to say, there are a countless number of ideas on how to use wordle in the classroom. If you can think of another interesting way to incorporate wordle into the classroom, please feel free to leave a comment.

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