Your Web 2.0 resources

As promised, here is a list of what you posted this last week in terms of the tools you use. I have grouped these by student name so that you can find what you added and edit it more easily. This list is far from perfect, as many of you talked about the same resources. However, the point is to edit this list and add any annotations you want to that better explain the resources you identified.

An exception to the "group by student" presentation approach is photo organization software, because it was discussed by a number of you.

Photo management software

• Photo Bucket.
  
• Picasa.
• Flickr.
  

Cindy

• Discovery Streaming
  
• National Geographic’s video site
  
• Hulu’s Movie and TV clips
  
• Imovie and IPhoto
• Google Maps & Street View
• Wallpapers & Screensavers from National Geographic photography

Chenelle

• PBS Kids - For media literacy, specifically teaching the secrets
  behind marketing ads and campaigns.
• Edublogs. A blogging site for teachers.
• A to Z Teacher Stuff. An excellent teacher/talk/information forums and lesson plans.
• Jonathan Bird's Blue World. Jonathan Bird’s Blue World TV episodes, exploring the ocean with award-winning underwater cinematographer and naturalist Jonathan Bird!
• Dictionary.com.
  
• Big Brainz. Excellent 3-D multiplication game.
• Brain Pop. A free trial version but excellent resource.
  
• Promethean Planet Resources. Download Promethean flipcharts and resource packs.
• Multiplication.com. Excellent resources for teaching multiplication.
• Voicethread. Slideshow where students can leave audio comments.
• Google Earth. Used for mapping unit.
  

Sarah

• iWeb - I have created a class website. Through my phone service, I have free web hosting that is free of advertisements and pop-ups. I have a page of links on this website that are arranged by subject. My students access my website in class and at home. They often share their favorite academic websites with me, and after I investigate them, I add them. When I add a website they have recommended, I let them demonstrate it to the class.
• Zamzar - Because Youtube is blocked in our district, I find movies to that relate to our curriculum. I use zamzar to convert them to a movie that is saved to my computer. I once found a Youtube video that was a story from our basal reader
• Everyday Math curriculum - Our school has just adopted the Everyday Math curriculum. Because we are in our first year of implementation, we free access to the everydaymathonline web resources. I use website in a variety of ways including online games, video tutorials, and online references. My favorite feature to this site is the ability to download all pages from the students’ workbook as a pdf. I have saved every page from the workbook, and I use this document for my SMART Board. My students love it because rather than just talking about problem three on page 123, I can show them the problem and solve it with them.
• Engineering Interact, Edheads. I use these two science resources as supplemental tools for some of our science investigations or as enrichment. One of my students introduced me to edheads because I recently had knee surgery, and he was curious about it. After he had the chance to showcase it to my class, all of my students thought I was tough (wow, have I fooled them… smiles).

Here are just a few of some other resources that I use (a few of these aren’t free, but they have free demos and trials that are available without purchase)

• Julie ThompsonSmartboard Resources. SMART Board resources.
• Brain Pop. Movies and quizzes for a variety of topics.
• BBC school resources. Resources from the BBC.
• Discovery education.
  
• Who Dunnit? Crime fighting, critical thinking.
  
• Mac VCR. Allows you to record what happens on your computer screen to a Quicktime movie which you can then replay later at your leisure.

Dallas

• "Grammar Girl" podcast, "Does Grammar Really Matter."
• Tumble Books. This is an online audio book library collection for public libraries and schools. A subscription to TumbleTalkingBooks gives your patrons/students UNLIMITED remote access to your audio book collection.

Marilyn Doore

• Google Lits trips. Combines geography, literature by tracing routes important in literature.
  
• Make Way for Ducklings. A Google lit trip.
• Spelling City. SpellingCity is an online spelling program that makes practicing for spelling tests fun.
• Gaggle Net. Safe e-mail for students.
  
• Edmodo. A piece of software that allows us to make announcements to everyone in the class, for them to do assignments and turn them in and more. Edmodo is a private microblogging platform that teachers and students can use to send notes, links, files, alerts, assignments, and events to each other"
  
• Net trekker. A searchable subject database of Webpages.
• Discovery Education Network. Even if you don't have a paid account there are some free resources too.

David Little

• Google Earth.
• SketchUp. You can use Google SketchUp to create, modify and share 3D models.
• West Point Bridge Designer. The purpose of the contest is to provide middle school and high school students with a realistic, engaging introduction to engineering.
• Car Builder. Creating your dream car.
  
• Personal WebKit. I used these as the Webmaster for Wasilla Middle School.

Trevor

• Punctuation Paintball. From IKnowThat.com.
  
• Lego link.
  
• NeoOffice. A freeware Office program for the Mac (Jason's note: I tried (on 2/2/09) going back and forth between the word processor portion of NeoOffice and Word 2007 and it seemed to work fine.
• Google Notebook, Mac Stickies.
  

Jenn

• Renaissance Learning.
• Accelerated Reader and Accelerated Math
• STAR Math, STAR Reading, and STAR Early Literacy.
• Math Facts in a Flash and UltraKey
• Enchanted Learning.
  
• EdHelper.
  
• BrainPop.
  
• BrainPop Jr.
• EdHeads.

Ashley

• Sellarium. A downloadable program that we use to explore our Solar System. It is somewhat confusing at first, but once you know the keystrokes, is pretty amazing. You can search for stars or planets, look at constellations, and so on. It also gives real time movement, showing how far the planet or star is from Earth at that time.
• Google Earth. We use Google Earth not only for many different things. For instance, if we are reading a story set in a real city or town, we can look at it. It leads into a discussion on setting, and also gives students a connection to the story. I think it makes the story more real to them.
  
• Brain Pop. We watch the animated videos to reinforce skills. My students loved the characters, and were always eager to participate in the interactive quizzes. (costs)
  
• United Streaming. There is wealth of information valuable to teachers on this site. There are videos, audio clips, pictures, and other resources pertaining to all subjects. (costs)
• Solpass. Although it does have much test prep material, this site also has a wealth of interactive games students love. One is “Fling the teacher.” When they get many questions right, the teacher is catapulted through the air.

Naomi

Mashups: a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source. Examples:

• Typeracer.
  
• Kids Quintura.

Gadgets: computer programs that provide services without needing an independent application to be launched for each one, but instead run in an environment that manages multiple gadgets. Examples:

• Google calendar.
  
• Die net. Watch the sun rise and set all over the world on this real-time, computer-generated illustration of the earth's patterns of sunlight and darkness. The clouds are updated every 3 hours with current weather satellite imagery.

Widgets: Widgets are self-contained pieces of code. These code instructions, widgets, are free to use, so anyone can copy the code and move it into, out of and around their blog, profile or Web site. Examples:

• Widget Box.
  
• Widget box today in history.

Misc.

• Edmodo. A microblogging service, a cross between a wiki and facebook.
• Nexio

Jen

• Scholastic. You probably already know, but just in case.
• Promethean Planet. For those who have a Promethean board.
• NCTE Read-Write-Think. Lesson plans and tools that are research based.
• American Library Association. Great place to get reading lists.
• Fountas and Pinnell Books. Offers some great ideas for free, but for some a fee is involved.
• NASA. A great website with photos and video.
• CIA Kids. Provides statistics from around the world and has a special kid’s page. The kid’s page is weak, but there is also a parents and teacher page.
• PBS. You need Facebook or Myspace for some of the activity books.
• Yahoo Kids Learn. Stick with the “learn” header, if not it is easy to become another time killer w/out sustenance.

Lindsey

• i-respond. called i- respond. Students have remotes in their hands and as a quiz or game is projected on the screen, students can key in their answer and send it to my laptop
  which stores it automatically.
• Moodle. Course management software; we can post homework and lesson plans, set up class calendars, teachers have electronic drop boxes where assignments can be turned in and graded electronically, and we can put copies of worksheets online that students can access when they are traveling for activities or on extended vacations.
• Babylon.com. As a Spanish teacher I struggle with allowing students to use online translators to do work. It is just do easy for them to type in something and have the computer do the work for them. Very often the translation is done too literal and is incorrect. However, online translators are good tools to check grammar and vocabulary.
• Audacity. A full feature audio editing program. I used it with Microsoft moviemaker when I made a digital story last semester and am going to use it to record students talking in Spanish. I think it is important for students to hear themselves speaking. I know that when I have heard my voice after I have recorded it I can critique myself better listen for pronunciation and accent correctness.
  
• YouTube. This has been helpful to show movies that other Spanish students have
  made. Also with my government class we watched a lot of the
  inauguration and public service announcements that President Obama has
  made.
• Lomas TV. Online Spanish Video Immersion. LoMásTv is an online video magazine for Spanish learners who wish to improve their Spanish skills. This is a new resource that a college of mine introduced me to. It has songs and videos from current Spanish pop culture. With the songs there are games, vocabulary quizzes, and other activities that
  students really get into.

Brian

• YouTube. I think it gives access to otherwise unavailable material and, perhaps more importantly, provides a compelling medium for students to present their work. It could
  also serve as a valuable log-distance cooperative learning tool, with students all over the the globe exchanging their videos.
• Google earth. I think it is always important for students to be able to tie what they are studying to a location. What better way to dramatically show EXACTLY where something is happening than Google Earth. Because it shows the physical geography so vividly, you would be able to to ask the students how they think the geography of a region affects what is going on there. It's much easier to understand the Sahara desert when looking at Google Earth than an ordinary political map with "Sahara Desert" typed across a few multi colored national borders.
• National Geographic sites.
  
• Skype.
  
• Google Sketch Up. It's basically just a simple to learn 3-d program that comes preloaded with lots of common building material textures that is especially suited to doing architectural mock-ups. I can think of a few uses of the top of my head. First it could be used by students to try to solve real problems in the town they live in. Town needs a new library? Have the studens design what they think would be the ideal building for it. High school overcrowded? Have the students model an expansion and remodel. How about using Google sketch up to recreate the City of Troy, the Alamo etc.