Thursday, April 21, 2011

Website of the Week #15-Wordle

http://www.wordle.com/

Basics: This is a site where you make a word cloud.  You enter the words you want to be in your cloud and the site will create a cloud of your words.

Examples: (Click on Picture to see Full Size)

Cactus Canyon Website Wordle

Wordle: CCJH

Wordle of this Blog
Wordle: Techlearninglab

Declaration of Independence

Wordle: Declaration of Independence


You may be familiar with wordle and I have known about it for a while but, today I came across a presentation that has 51 ways to use wordle in the classroom and I thought others might want to use it.  I found this on http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ and it came from a man named Tom Barrett.  There are ideas for all levels and all subjects.  Check it out below. 



Other Word Cloud Sites:

http://www.tagxedo.com/ (can turn the cloud into a picture)


http://www.tagul.com/

http://wordlin.gs/

http://worditout.com/

Check out more about these at Free Tech 4 Teachers
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Saturday, April 16, 2011

Website of the Week #14-Minute Board (embeddable forum)

http://www.minuteboard.com/

Basics: This is an web application that creates a unique forum that can be embedded into your website.  Students have to create user names and passwords and then they can participate in the forum.

Example:

(Feel free to interact with this forum example.  You can click on the posts to see what they say without an account or you can create an account and respond to the posts.)



Powered by
MinuteBoard.com




Test Kitchen: I have used this with students a couple of times.  It is a very easy way to create a forum and it is a very basic forum.  Basically, you can create posts and people can reply to your posts.  There does not seem to be an option to reply to a reply so the threads are short.  It is a great venue to teach students about appropriate posting and you have complete control over what content is added to the forum.  I used it as a way for students to respond to some different topics but, I don't think that I have gotten the most out of it yet.

Classroom Applications: Forums or message boards can be used in any class and any content area.  It is a great place for people to share opinions and to answer questions that have unique answers.

Ideas for...

Music and Art Class-respond to different works of art
Social Studies-choose a side and support your view
Science and Math-explain a process in your own words
Language Arts-respond to a piece of literature
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Saturday, April 9, 2011

Website of the Week # 13-Jeopardy Labs


http://www.jeopardylabs.com/

Basics: This is a simple way to create a jeopardy game.  No login required.  All you do is add the questions and answers, then they give you a link to your game.  It's that simple.

Examples:

Math

Social Studies

Science

Language Arts

Test Kitchen: We used this as a way to review this past week.  Jeopardy is of course a popular way to review.  The best part of this site is that it is simple, free, and there is no downloading.  I played with the whole class which I think is a little hard and not all of the students can participate fully.  I think that when I use it again I will have them play in small groups instead of teams with the whole class.  They could have all been doing this on their computers.  This is also something they can do independently and it is so simple the students could even create their own board.

Additional Online Free and Simple Review Games:

http://www.superteachertools.com/

Example:

Jeopardy

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

Board Game
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Friday, April 1, 2011

101 Web Resources

Student Created Projects
5.  www.edu.glogster.com  (Create Interactive Online Posters)
7. http://info.scratch.mit.edu/About_Scratch (Create Games and Other Web Stuff)
Student Practice/Graphic Organizers
36. www.what2learn.com (Make Games)
38. www.amap.org.uk/create/  (Create a Web Diagram)
Video Making and Watching 
54. www.jaycut.com (Like Movie Maker but, online and Free)
55. www.khanacademy.com (An awesome collection of Instructional Math Videos)
Online Community/Social Bookmarking
Widgets, Gadgets, and Other Random Stuff 
76. www.vocaroo.com (Podcasting, record your voice and embed on your webpage)
77. www.cosketch.com (interactive online whiteboards)
Tech Resources for Teachers
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Friday, March 25, 2011

Website of the Week # 11-Classtools.net

http://www.classtools.net/

The Basics: This site has games, graphic organizers, and widgets that can be used online and embedded in a website.

Examples: (You can interact with these examples right here in this page.)








Test Kitchen: I used this sight extensively this week with my class.  There are about 15 different tools that they offer and the tools are interactive for the students.  Basically you create a template and the students fill it out.  The students can keep their work by embedding it into a personal webpage of some sort.  I use google sites because it is free, easy, and the kids at my school already have secure usernames and passwords.  The students created a portfolio and have been embedding their creation from this site all week.  They loved it!  I've shown 5 examples here and there is much more.  This would be great for just about any subject.
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Sunday, March 20, 2011

5 Free and Easy Sites

Here are 5 sites that you might want to check out:

http://www.classtools.net/- This site has a variety of templates for teachers and students to use.  It has a timer and a name selector, a venn diagram, a fishbone diagram, games, and other features.  It is free and easy to use.  All of your creations can be embedded or linked.

http://www.vocaroo.com/- This is a very easy site to create podcasts.  You can record your voice for as long as you want and then link or embed the recording.  There are a lot of podcasting tools but, this one is the most simple one that I have seen.

http://www.authorstream.com/- This is a program where you can upload powerpoint presentations so that students can access them.  The uploaded version keeps all of the features of the orginal version.  They can also be link or embedded.

http://www.jaycut.com/- This is a movie making program that is completely online.  You don't have to download anything.  It is similar to moviemaker and your movies can be linked, embedded, or uploaded to youtube.

http://www.litesum.com/- This is a site that creates a more simple version of a wikipedia entry.  All you have to do is enter a topic and it will give you a short summary of a wikipedia article.  This is great for students who have a hard time navigating or reading longer articles.
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Friday, March 11, 2011

Website of the Week #10-Big Huge Labs

http://www.bighugelabs.com/

Basics: This is a site where you can do cool things to pictures.  You can create things like billboards, trading cards, magazine covers, collages, motivational posters, etc.

Examples:









Test Kitchen: I tried this with my students during our propaganda techniques unit.  They made companies and then they each created a poster, billboard, or trading card to advertize their product.  It was easy and the kids loved it.  All they had to do was select a picture, write what was going to be on the poster, and click create now.  It is one of the easiest things that I have done this year and they enjoyed the chance to create a poster.  They can do all of this without logging in.  They just need somewhere to save their creation.  I had them all post theirs to a google wiki.

Classroom Applications: This site could be used in any class.  They are a lot of possibilities with this site.  You could have students create projects to show what they know, define things, illustrate a concept.  You can also use these posters and things to add a little spice to your lessons.  Create a set of motivational posters that define key vocab words.  Create trading cards of historical figures and then let the kids trade them.
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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Thursday's One to One Training for Cactus Canyon



To advance the story click on the arrow on the right side.
To make it full screen click on the little square in the bottom left hand corner.
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Friday, February 11, 2011

Website of the Week # 9 - What 2 Learn (Make Your Own Educational Games)

Website Link: http://www.what2learn.com/

Basics:  This is a site where you can create games for just about anything you are learning.  They have 12 games templates to choose from and you just create 8 questions.  Then you have a game that you can embed or link.  There are games that others have created as well.  You do have to sign-in to create games...and it's free.

Examples:

Zombie Boxing

Play this game on the what2learn site

Link to Tanks Game

Link to Skiing Game

Link to Penguins in Peril



Test Kitchen:
I have only used this a couple of times in my class but, it was a huge success.  Each game took me about 10 minutes to create.  The students were learning about 40 prefixes and they used the games to practice.  With the first set of prefixes they studied flashcards from brainflips.com and then played the games.  When they felt ready they took a quiz in google forms.  After that they moved on to another set of prefixes which they studied and then they created their own game through What 2 Learn. The kids absolutely loved it.  They were engaged the whole time and it got them a lot of repetition with their vocab words in a relatively short amount of time.  Plus, how can you go wrong with Zombie Boxing?

Although I did not try it, there is a feature where you can create accounts for students and it's free.  Then you assign them games and keep track of  the results of what they are doing and they will give you as many free accounts for students as you need.

Classroom Applications:

Great for...
...all subject areas
...vocabulary words
...comprehension checks
...math facts
...fill-in the blank questions
...closure
...quick checks
...review

Technical note: To get the embed code or the link when you finish creating the game, you then play your game, and when you get to the play mode your embed code and link will be on the right hand side.
Also,  they give you a number code to keep to know where your game is in the future.
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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Website of the Week # 8 - Simple Cube

Simple Cube Site Link

Basics:  On this website you can create a cube that can then be linked or embedded in another webpage.


Examples:


Attention Grabbers



RAFTS



Why Use Blogs?





Test Kitchen: I have been using this site in my class for a few months now.  It is a cool gadget that helps engage students.  I have never had any problems with it.  I have not had students make their own yet but, I suppose that it would be really easy to have the students make their own as well.  You don't need to log in to create one but, you can log in and save yours if you want to.  The site is sponsored by the Australian Arts Association but, they don't seem to mind if you use it for your class.  The is one weird thing that it does sometimes when you use long sentences it puts part of the word on one line and the rest on the other line.  Beggars can't be choosers though.


Classroom Applications:
  • Display objectives for the day and announcements.
  • Definitions of words.
  • Choose between different activities.
  • Show examples.
  • Play a game.
  • Use it as dice.
  • Choose a topic.
How to use it:
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