Links+to+resources

Links to Web 2.0 Tools for students and teachers
From the Spring session of "Learning and Teaching with Web 2.0 Tools", students investigated many online tools. In the list that follows, you will find the links they decided best fit their curriculum. Decisions were made based on ease of use for both students and teachers and functionality of the tool to meet the learning objectives of the subject area. For a detailed explanation of how these links fit into the curriculum and address learning for all ages, see the page of Final Project Templates.

If you find new resources as you build new lesson plans with web 2.0 tools, add your link here. Please give yourself credit by attaching your screenname to the link you add.


 * Mathematics**
 * Teacher website for Geometry students


 * Animation/Video Apps**
 * You can easily make your own movies with ready made scenes and actors. All you need to do is type in the dialog for the characters. Great way to get students to write. They type it, Xtranormal produces the movie.
 * Apple's Garage Band offers students an easy way to record their voices with lots of extra functionality. This is a great application for creating podcasts.
 * Audacity is a free application for recording your voice.
 * You can capture flash video for use on your computer with FlashVideoCapture. You can try it free for 30 days or purchase it for a small fee.
 * Jing is a free application that you can download to your computer to snap a picture of your computer screen, record video of your action on the screen and share the video/picture instantly with your friends. This is a great tool for creating instructions so that you will no longer need to repeat them to your students.
 * Learn about podcasting through wikipedia.
 * Links to a variety of video about animals from National Geographic
 * Create talking avatars with Voki. Students will be excited to use this application to practice their foreign language or explain a complex process in science, or tell a story in language arts. This is a free service.


 * Global Connections**
 * Practice a foreign language with a partner school. eTandem is a special project for European Year of Languages for 2001 and continues to function today.


 * Multi-Purpose Applications**
 * Voicethread is a versatile application for sharing and collaborating ideas and comments about your images, documents and even videos. You can talk, text, or draw your thoughts with a group of users you invite to join you in viewing your work.
 * Wallwisher is a post it note type of application. Great for a quick way to get feedback, ask students to note their favorite character in a book, describe a scene, post a picture, sing a song, etc.
 * Webspiration is free at this time. It is a graphic organizing application. Create mind maps, organize your thoughts for a project, lay out your personal learning network organization, or plan a book report.


 * People and sites** **from which** **to learn**
 * The Cool Cat Teacher has a wide range of ideas and connections to interesting technology and web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Vicki Davis is an avid user of the web and shares her ideas on her blog.
 * Edmodo is a free environment for students and teachers. You just need to sign up for access. Take a tour to learn how it might become part of your classroom. It is bit like Facebook for messages, contains a gradebook space and a library for all your files.
 * Feedburner teaching ideas is a collection of websites with lots and lots of teaching ideas. Just click on the link and review someone's idea, project or lesson plan.
 * Feedburner teacher news has another link for teacher news. You can read about what's going on in classrooms all around the world.
 * Librarians will enjoy the ideas presented by Tracy Richards in her Ning. She shares her world through the blog part of the Ning, collaborates with teachers through the discussion, and shares student work in videos.
 * Moving at the Speed of Creativity is the results of a Wesley Frye's efforts to keep teachers up to date with technology and the world of education. With some reading you can get new ideas to blend technology and curriculum to create lessons that entice students to want to get involved with projects and learning.


 * Personal Learning Network Applications**
 * Collect all your resources in one location and connect to your favorite sites from any computer. Delicious helps you to share your resources with other teachers and their resources with you.
 * Diigo is a powerful research tool that offers much more than collecting and sharing resources. It encourages collaboration with research including simultaneous editing on documents.
 * Google Reader helps you to maintain and organize your web sites. You can use your google email or create a new one to join this web 2.0 tool community.
 * iGoogle is a personal home page that you can initiate on your computer. Read all about the benefits and features by reading the information presented in this wikipedia.
 * Edutopia is a web resource for teachers who are interested in leading their schools.
 * Twitter is a fast paced message board. You can keep up to date on the latest information of many subject areas as well as keep your family and friends up to date on your news.
 * Facebook is a vast site for people who like to keep in touch with one another. You can play games, send quick messages, create walls of photos to share with friends, and much more. Good for personal use and for professional use.


 * Smartboards**
 * Julie Thompson, a member of the emints program, shares her many ways of using the Smartboard with students.
 * Smartboard links to many sites. Includes music and sounds, ideas for using smartboard with students, and much more.
 * Links to sites that can be used with a Smartboard.


 * Tag Cloud Generators**
 * WorditOut is an easy to use site that generates word clouds. Can also be used with foreign languages such as Chinese.
 * TagCloud is under renovation, but is a terrific site that creates word clouds. Look for it after it comes back.
 * TagCrowd is a word cloud generator with more ideas on its usage. It too is refluffing its clouds.
 * Tagul is a word cloud generator that creates aesthetically appealing images.
 * Wordle is the original word cloud generator. It is easy to use and has many examples in their gallery.


 * Young Children's Sites**
 * Noggin or Nick Jr. is a great site for preschoolers. It has lots of animation that teachs children about shapes, colors, numbers, and much more. Lots of music and songs.