Monday, February 11, 2008

PETEandC - Top 10 Web 2.0 tools

This session is facilitated by Steve Dembo and the members of the Discovery Educators Network (DEN) Top 10 Web 2.0 tools:

10. Animito
9. Flickr
8. Ustream
7. TeacherTube
6. Moonk
5. Google Docs
4. Blabberize
3. VoiceThread
2. Del.icio.us
1.5. Transl8it
1. Dencommunity.com

More explanation to come :)

Thursday, January 17, 2008

The Envelope Please - Common Craft


Today's Link: Common Craft

Have you ever tried to explain what these new "Web 2.0" tools are? Here is a great site that will help! Here is an example of their video about blogging!



We could all use a simple explanation sometimes...Common Craft will help!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

The Envelope Please - SMARTBoard Link - 1/3/08

Here we are with the first installment of "The Envelope Please!"

Today's link: "Teachers Love SMARTBoards"
  • A great blog for teachers who like to use the SMARTBoard in their classrooms or would like ideas, lessons, or resources to help them get started.

The Envelope Please

I'm forever looking for ways to help classroom teachers with the integration of technology in the classroom. I have used this blog as a way to get my thoughts about technology and were we, as an educational system, are heading in terms of helping our students with 21st Century skills.

Since some teachers would rather be independent learners with technology, I have decided to start a new segment on my blog called 'The Envelope Please.' (A la Jeff Utecht's Daily Links and Jim Gates' TipLine) In these posts, hopefully on a weekly basis (or so), I will be posting links to resources for helping the integration process. Teachers in my buildings and/or district, we can follow up on the resources and discuss ways to take small steps in making you feel comfortable with technology in your classes and hopefully pushing the envelope past word processing.

Hope you find these links helpful!

(image: Handmade Envelope from 3littlemiracles)

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Kwout

I'm just testing a new website that I heard about called kwout....this is a screen shot of Yahoo's front page today:

It's a nice little web tool to allow you to grab and embed screen shots. Visit kwout and try it out!

(Thanks to Alec, for the link :)

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Holiday Links

Recently, my posts have been more philosophical in nature, but sometimes it is nice to just share fun links with each other. And, since it is the time of year to give, here are my three favorite sites for the season:

1. Make Your Own Snowflake - This site allows you to cut-out a snowflake online. Then, you can save your snowflake to have on your computer or print at a later time. I have done this site with my own 3 and 5 year old boys and then we cut-out real paper snowflakes together. This is a site that kids and adults can enjoy!

Link: http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/

2. Elf Snowball Fight - This site is from the Elf movie with Will Ferrell and Bob Newhart. You can throw snowballs at any of the elves, but be careful not to hit Santa! Again, a nice activity for everyone of all ages!

Link: http://www.elfmovie.com/swf/snowball_fight/index.html


3. Elf Yourself - or someone you know! This is a cute site for adults that allows you to turn yourself, or someone you know, into an elf. You can upload as many as four faces, record voices and send your dancing elves to all of your friends! Moms and Dads can have fun with the whole family choosing pics of each other and watching the end result. Here is my family doin' a dance!

Link: http://www.elfyourself.com/

So...hope you enjoy some of my favorite holiday sites this year! If you have any, I'd love to see them!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Some Things Can't Be Tested

Today I read about a girl with a passion to change the world, one day at a time. Her name is Laura and she has decided to dedicate the first 25 days of December to helping people. Each day she will be doing something different in helping people in her community and around the world, and she is posting her daily adventures on her blog.

In the about section of her blog, she writes about her grandfather who passed away two years ago and his influence on her as a person. She was inspired by the way her grandfather lived his life and support her in hers.

Now, it is great that a girl wants to change the world, but what stands out to me with this mission is that Laura is only 10 years old! Here is a child who has taken on a project to make a difference, and in turn, has influenced the lives of thousands of people around the world.

By blogging about her actions, she has made her mission public, a has made a challenge of sorts for everyone who reads it. Not even halfway through her mission as of today (12/11), there have been over 10,000 hits on her blog and it has been viewed all over the world! Now, instead of a 10 year old girl raising a few hundred dollars for a charity in her small town, she has utilized the power of a network to have multiple matching funds offers and thousands of dollars raised!

This is not as much a story of a 10 year old blogger (although there is surely help from her parents, the blog posts and ideas, etc. are seemingly hers), but about what a 10 year old child can do in the world when given a voice and the encouragement to use it. The blog gave her a voice to share her vision...her goal...her mission. Five years ago, the technology wasn't even there to support her in that. Her parents and grandfather taught her that she was capable of making a difference. And now, after reading her blog, I will be sharing this story with as many folks as I can, because Laura has taught me that we can all make a difference.

Show me a test that can assess that....