Anita Foster

Interactive Reading and Writing, Oh MY!!

Would you like for your elementary students (and maybe even ESL students) to read books and write books online? This is a great site that allows you to read published books at various age ranges and write stories to be published on their site. And it is (a teacher's favorite word) FREE!!! (And no this is not owned by Google!) The membership is free, the resources are free and the hours of enjoyment, you got it, FREE!! You do not have to be a member to read the books. However, if you join, you can write stories and they will let you add books to your "bookshelf" to read later.

www.biguniverse.com

Here is a link to one of their books.

Thank you Amy for this wonderful site!!

The Google Classroom

I have been working hard to create The Google Classroom for the Georgia Educators Technology Conference (GaETC) next week and for the Florida Educators Technology Conference (FETC) in January. I have the site "complete" for the presentations. I say complete because if you know me, I will probably continue to tweak and add things from time to time.

I don't want this to just be for the presentations, I would like for other educators to benefit from the information. So, please feel free to visit www.thegoogleclassroom.com and see what Google has to offer for classroom teachers.

Banners and Text Creator

Wouldn't it be great if there was a way we could make banners in just a couple of clicks on the Internet? Well, there is... www.cooltext.com is a great resource for creating banners to use in presentations, blogs, websites or just about anything else. You can pick your font, color, effect...just about anything and then download your new creation to your computer and use. This site also has tons of free fonts you can download. Have fun!!

 

Visualize del.icio.us

As many of you know, I love del.icio.us. It is an easy way to "tag" or bookmark websites that I find useful. Recently, I have found favthumbs.com which allows you to see screenshots of your tagged websites using your del.icio.us login. Often, after I tag something, and time goes by it is easy for me to forget about it. This website allows you to not only view your tagged sites, but also sort them by your tags and see more than just a few on one page. This is a must tag for any del.icio.us user.

Great Online Resource

I was in a classroom at McClure Middle the other day and the teacher was using this great website. I wrote the name of the website down. When I went to the website, I found that not only does it have resources available for middle school, but also elementary and possibly high school. The teacher was using this as a review for social studies, but again...it has other subject areas on it as well.

I suggest that you check it out...and then tag it in del.icio.us!

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/

Interactive Science Website

One of my SMART teachers at Smitha shared a website in our last SMARTBoard class. I thought it was great and I want to share it with others!! http://phet.colorado.edu/new/simulations/index.php This is a science website that allows you to download experiments in java script for the students to use in class. He is using it with his SMARTBoard and his students love it! Thank you Dean!!

November 30, 2007

I come across great sites that are often saved in my del.icio.us account. But, I thought it would be great for me to highlight them on my blog as well.

Primary - This site has a lot of K-2 lessons in which technology is embedded into the lesson. http://www.lubbockisd.org/dgarcia/K-2%20Lessons.htm

Intermediate - This site has resources for K-6 using technology. It even includes some Internet Scavenger Hunts! http://www.wmtps.org/eletech/lessons.htm

Middle School -  Digital Storytelling is a great way for students to  give oral presentations while digital images and sounds displayed in such a way as to grab the audience and entertain while educating. This link shows you examples and gives you resources on how to make this happen with your students. http://www.coe.uh.edu/digital-storytelling/default.htm

High School - Here is a great site that explains  podcasting and its use in the classroom. I know some of my high school teachers have been interested in podcasting and are starting to use this great tool for projects. Here is a resource that you will want to check out. http://learninginhand.com/podcasting/