webtools


 * NEW EDUCATIONAL WEB TOOLS FOR COMMUNICATING AND COLLABORATING **

 ** WIKIS & BLOGS **
According to Wikipedia, “**A wiki is software that allows users to easily create, edit, and link [web] pages together**. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites.” Wikis are comprised of several pages that are related. The sites below provide teachers with private, commercia-free wiki accounts at no charge. Both are fairly simple to use and give teachers the option to develop multiple wikis. Examples of educational wikis can be found at: http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/Examples+of+educational+wikis


 media type="youtube" key="-dnL00TdmLY" height="260" width="320"  *** WikiSpaces for Educators** **(click on the link below for commercial-free educators sites****)** http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers This is a user-friendly place for setting up classroom assignments with embedded multimedia resources and simple class discussion opportunities. (One of the creators is an alumnus of Scarsdale HS - John Byers) http://pbwiki.com/education.wiki
 * PBWiki for Educators**

https://www.blogger.com/start If you haven’t tried your hand at blogging yet, this is the place to start. A blog is a Web log – a diary of sorts created by individuals to keep track of ideas, experiences, and to comment on just about anything. If you have not seen blogs, it is best to learn about them by doing a simple search on your favorite topic + blog and you can explore the riches. You can delve into education related blogs at http://educational.blogs.com/ and http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs
 * Blogger**

http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/ Subscription multimedia service with downloadable videos, divided into short segments for classroom and presentation use. See Len or Phyllis for code to create account. **
 * * United Streaming**

* THIRTEEN:** **  Teachers' Domain** http://www.teachersdomain.org Free downloadable videos from PBS / Thirteen and National Science Foundation covering all subject areas, many from NOVA, Frontline, American Experience. Advanced Search for limiting grade levels and media type. Example: [|Your Brain and Moral Decision Making]

*** Internet Archive** http://www.archive.org

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 * A digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public to film, photo, books, audio, journals, and more. ** Scarsdale alum Brewster Kahle is compiling "FREE ACCESS to all human knowledge" right here.======

http://oercommons.org/ A global teaching and learning network of free-to-use resources – from K-12 lesson plans to college courseware – for you to use, tag, rate, and review.
 * OER Commons**

*** Google Apps for Educators** http://www.google.com/educators/tools.html Search tools and applications for developing classroom activities and collaborating with colleagues. The search tools include Google Earth. Google Docs is an easy-to-use online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor that enables you and your students to create, store, share and collaborate online in real time documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Google Docs' sharing features enable you and your students to decide exactly who can access and edit the documents. [|Doc for today]

[|Watch this video] for an explanation of Google Docs

http://www.slideshare.net/ Share your presentations with the world publicly or privately. Add audio to create a webinar. Download and adapt a presentation. VoiceThread** http://voicethread.com/ Tired of PowerPoint? Think of VoiceThread as a group electronic scrapbook but better! VoiceThread allows you (and a group) to create, comment, and publish your work. You can create a story from images, documents, and videos. You can add commentary by voice (including phone), text, audio files or webcam. Plus, you can share results with selected others online.
 * [|SlideShare]**

[|http://education.ning.com/] NING is a community devoted to helping teachers build and use social networks in their teaching. To get started, join the “Ning in Education” network and explore the different forums, gadgets and groups.
 * Ning in Education **

TAGGING
**del.icio.us** http://del.icio.us/ If you are still bookmarking or adding new sites to favorites you must sign on to this site immediately! del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website; the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere. On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders. You can also use del.icio.us to see the interesting links that other people bookmark, and share links with them in return.

**Edutagger** Edutagger ** is a social bookmarking service for K-12 learners and educators, allowing you to categorize and store your web links online and share them with others, all within an ** educational ** context. You can keep track of the web resources you stumble across and share them. The first page of the edutagger site offers the newest and most popular sites that other educators have found. **FURL** http://www.furl.net/ Save and share bookmarks. 
 * http://edutagger.com/**

PHOTOS
[|http://www.flickr.com] This free online photo editing and management site enables teachers and students to share photos, grouping and describing them for classroom tools such as storyboards. Big Huge Labs at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ has created utilities for educational use of photos, from puzzles to posters, calendars, slideshows and more.
 * Flickr **

**Picasa** http://picasa.google.com/ This program must be downloaded, but it is free and enables you to organize and edit your photos. You can create collections and share them with others, and use it on either MAC or PC platforms.

[|http://www.animoto.com] Upload a group of photos and this site automatically generates professionally produced slide shows using their own technology and high-end motion design. It analyzes and combines user-selected images and sets them to music, ending up with a most sophisticated and dazzling presentation.
 * Animoto**

[|http://www.tumblr.com] Tumblr provides an easy way to make the transition to Web 2.0. You can create a personal or collaborative site that functions as an online scrapbook. It can hold text, video clips, images, podcasts, web links and more. You can choose your site design from various templates, or you can create your own. It’s easy, it’s fun, and you can share your site with selected others, or not. (Be aware that some of the Tumblr examples provided for new users may not be appropriate for young children.)
 * Tumblr**

** Classroom 2.0 ** http://www.classroom20.com/ This is a social network site for educators interested in using collaborative technologies. Beginners are more than welcome. Here online colleagues respond to questions such as “What do you do with PowerPoint given what we know about 21st century skills?”

http://www.informationliteracy.org/ Courtesy of Syracuse’s Graduate School of Information Science, this expanding site includes lesson plans, handouts, presentations, videos and other resources to help you teach information literacy skills. It also allows you to create and store your own web-based curriculum “builders” which can also serve as pathfinders.
 * SOS for Information Literacy**

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/ This weblog, hosted by Andy Carvin, “explores how new technology and Internet culture affect how educators teach and children learn.” This is where you will find thoughtful commentary on important new tools (plus rationales for using them, or not), along with recommended resources. [|http://www.apa.org/ed/new_blooms.html] As we consider how curriculum must change to reflect needs of digital learners, meaningful assessments are key. This site includes the “New Bloom” model, plus a related model for developing assessments requiring higher order thinking skills.
 * [|Learning Now (PBS Teachers)]**
 * “Using the New Bloom's Taxonomy to Design Meaningful Learning Assessments” (APA Online) **

CREATING PODCASTS & VIDEO:
TeacherTube http://www.teachertube.com/ TeacherTube aims to “provide an online community for sharing instructional teacher videos.” Here you can search for videos or share your own. Now a year old, TeacherTube includes hundreds of videos related to curriculum content and teaching strategies (e.g, 100+ videos on teaching with a SMARTboard). You can keep current through several RRS feeds (e.g., top rated, most discussed).

http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/apr06/Eash.shtml This article, by E.K. Eash, appeared in //Computers in Libraries//. If you are just getting started, read this first!
 * “Podcasting 101 for K–12 “Librarians”**

[|http://www.gcast.com/] The goal of the Gcast creators is “to make personal broadcasting simple.” And they succeed. On this site, you and your students can easily set up accounts and create podcasts in multiple ways, __including by telephone__! You can store and share your podcasts on Gcast’s site, or on your own. The folks who created garageband are responsible for Gcast.
 * Gcast.com**

**YouTube** http://www.youtube.com/** There are gems here for all of us, including terrific Smartboard training videos, language lessons, news footage, some truly irreverent educational videos (check out “ Father Guido Sarducci's Five Minute University” ), plus much, much more. You will find easy-to-understand video tutorials for searching articles in databases, such as ProQuest, EBSCO, and JSTOR. **Motionbox (Video)** [|http://www.motionbox.com] Now that simple, inexpensive video cameras are available that even young children can operate, students can upload videos online in a flash. No software or downloads are required. They can organize videos by date, event, or theme; they can highlight, tag, and share favorite scenes, crop out parts to showcase the good stuff and mix together the best parts of several videos.

MISCELLANEOUS
http://www.epnweb.org/index.php Developed by David Warlick & the Landmark Project, the EPN includes quality podcasts for K-12 listed by subject. If you are looking to enhance instruction using podcasts created by others, this site is a must. It is also a place for teachers looking “to explore issues of teaching and learning in the 21st century.”
 * Education Podcast Network (EPN)**

[|http://www.ted.com] TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design is owned by The Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation whose goal is “to foster the spread of great ideas. It has the best talks and performances from the world's smartest thinkers, greatest visionaries and most-inspiring teachers available to the public, for free. The 18-minute videocasts cover current topics in the arts, sciences, business, culture, etc. and can be downloaded for future viewing.
 * TED**

[|http://audacity.sourceforge.net/] Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds, including podcasts! To get started there are lots of tutorials available online and on YouTube. You and your students can easily record and edit live audio, excellent for innovative productions.
 * Audacity**

**Kerpoof (K-3)** [|http://www.kerpoof.com] and [|http://www.kerpoof.com/teach] Kerpoof (associated with Scholastic) is a place where young children can create and learn using kid-friendly tools. Here, children can make a movie or create an avatar. There is also a teacher area that includes curriculum materials. **Wordpress** http://[|www.wordpress.com] This blogging software, available for free download, is for those who have outgrown Blogger and such Web-based blog sites. It allows you to develop sophisticated blogs. It is freely distributed, easy to configure, and easily customizable, though you should work with your technology experts if you are not familiar with the terminology on their site. The many features are very appealing for those who want to design and add advanced features
 * Kerpoof (Teacher’s Page)**