Free Anonymous Web Hosting
Here's a really easy way to publish a webpage without having to register: PasteHtml. Simply paste you HTML code, formatted text, plain text in their box and click "publish page". You can also take a snapshot of a page webpage and stor it online. Here is a sample I made to show you what it looks like.
Easy Way to Create a How-to-Do Page
Set up your lesson, email your link and your page is ready to go! Here's a sample tutorial on creating a Google Form.
June 8
Wonderful Listing of Web 2.0 Tools to Support Technology Standards
I found this site on Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators and it is very helpful! Presented in a very easy-to-use chart, each technology standard is listed with the web tools which support that standard. Whether you are a newbie to Web 2.0 or not, you will really enjoy Web 2.0 to Support the Nets.
May 31
Explore the Web Using The Dewey Decimal System
Looking for a unique way to browse the web? Try Dewey Digger, a search engine which divides the web by Dewey Decimal number. Simply click on a Dewey number (I chose 000's below) and you'll see a list of subject areas to search:
Once you pick your subject, you will be brought to a screen which gives you the choice of 27 different ways to search your topic. Choices go way beyond Google, by adding educational search engines such as ERIC, EBSCOHost, WolframAlpha, ScienceDirect and the Library ofCongress. More choices, YES.
May 26
Swap Books With Other Readers
Recommended by USA Today, Bookins provides free shipping to send any books and a flat rate of $4.99 when you receive an order of books. The trades are arranged by Bookins, so you don't have to contact anyone. The site claims the only 100% "trade risk-free" guarantee, which assures you will receive payment and/or "quality items".
Looking for the Meaning of a Word? MetaGlossary provides definitions from various sources across the web. They currently have over 2 million terms, phrases and acronyms. Looking for synonyms? You'll find them here as well.
May 25
Looking For a New Way to Navigate Online? Infomous offers word clouds for news, sports, business and technology. When you roll over each word, you see information related to it. Demos on the site show how Infomous can be used: how Craigslist would look if it used Infomous or a mock-up of the Huffington Post page. There is even Infomous for Twitter: I searched a person and an interactive word cloud appeared. The website is still evolving, so they have said that not all their links are working. But I have to say this looks very promising. Here's what the Infomous word cloud looks like:
Free MakeUseOf Guides For Download
The current total is 38; and if you've never taken advantage of the free downloads on MakeUseOf you are missing an incredible resource. Some titles include: The Complete Guide to Twitter, An Idiot's Guide to Photoshop, Build Your Own WordPress Site, Guidebook to Internet Searching and The Facebook Marketing Guide. Sign up in order to be able to download these very helpful manuals.
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May 22
The Unconference That Rocked
I attended edcamp Philly on Saturday, which was held at U Penn.
What a wonderful experience it was to meet people with the same interests in education and technology. I traveled with a friend who, although a true nervous newbie was interested in learning about how this thing called the Internet has turned our world upside down. It was fun to hear her talk about Twitter (So I can twit you?) and take notes in a spiral-bound notebook while everyone else had a laptop, iPad or Smartphone. By the end of the day, I personally came away with a wonderful fundraising idea, (Thanks, Arlen) ways to save huge $$ in our tech budget, (Thanks, Rita) an interesting discussion format called "Things That Suck" (Thanks, Dan!) and learned more about Google Docs from Laura. The day ended with a Web 2.0 smackdown, where people came up to the podium and shared a favorite Web 2.0 tool. To close the event, they raffled off many wonderful gifts. I was thrilled to win a copy of "Snagit". Thank you all for making the 4 hours roundtrip worth every mile!
Farther Than the Eye Can See
Looking for a movie to show at the end of the school year? This one is full of inspiration. "Farther Than the Eye Can See" is about Eric Weihenmayer's climb to the peak of Mount Everest. What makes him so special? Well, he's the first blind person to accomplish this feat. Excellent movie!
A Cool Way to Brainstorm
Here's another great online mindmapping tool which allows you to drag, drop. edit, and connect different objects such as images, text, maps and more. Here's a quick video to show you how it works:
New Technology Aids Children With Motor Problems TAP•it (Touch Accessible Platform Interactive Technology)
is a portable interactive screen which aids children with different disabilities. Students with fine motor delays, visual challenges, hearing impaired and developmentally delayed will benefit from this classroom tool. Learn more here by viewing the sample videos.
Organize Your Videos with Squrl
Manage your videos in one spot and then watch it on the iPad, PC. iPhone, or TV.
The Squrl App will search for videos, allow you to bookmark videos and make collections of your videos. Watch the short interview with Squrl's co-founder Mark Gray:
May 11
Great Interactive Experience For Kids
With exhibits, games, interactive books and live classes, Fraboom Online Children's Museum is a wonderful site for kids aged 6-12. The site has wonderful kid-friendly graphics and is easy to navigate. Thanks to iLearn Technology for the site!
Infographic Shows How We Brought
Bin Laden Down
Click on the graphic to view Bin Laden's last hour on this earth.
May 4
A New Look at the Digital Book: Mike Matas
Push Pop Press software developer Mike Matas is responsible for creating the first full-length interactive book for the iPad. How interactive, you might ask? Well, you can blow on the screen at the windmill to make it move. Certainly sounds more exciting than a Kindle, wouldn't you say?
Thanks to Dr. David V. Loertscher for the tweet.
May 2
Resources About Osama Bin Laden
I have updated and added to my section on terrorism with subsections on Osama Bin Laden and September 11th. Click here to view.
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April 26
Design and Share Graphs For Free
A few weeks ago, one of my teachers asked if I could find a free online charting program that her kids could use. She wasn't sure if there were any free programs out there, but sure enough, I found one. Chart Tool allows you to design bar charts, pie charts, line charts, bubble charts and radar charts. Here are the choices:
Have You Been Laid Off? Here Are Jobs For Teachers in Transition Danver A. Chandler has put together a blog entitled 52 Teaching Jobs in 52 Weeks for all those teachers who have lost their jobs and are looking to transition into another field of work. Some ideas include: governess, education coordinator, social worker, educational sales and circus teacher.
Related resource:Jobs For Teachers, my own section, which includes resume templates, job interview tips and job search information.
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April 22
Digital Citizenship Wiki is Very Comprehensive
Jason Ohler. author of "Digital Community Digital Citizen" has created a wonderful wiki which covers the many elements of digital citizenship. Originally meant to be a companion to his book, the wiki can also be used as a resource for digital citizenship. Categories include character education, copyright, fair use, cyberbulling, digital literacy, information literacy, media literacy and much more. There are hundreds of links which can help guide you and your students. Jason welcomes contributors to his wiki; just email him at jasonohler@gmail.com to receive an invitation to join.
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April 12
The Importance of Libraries: An Infographic
Archives.com has posted a cool infographic which honors libraries during National Library Week.
You can view it here.
Watch the video below about the value of libraries. Honorary Chair John Grisham shares his thoughts.
April 11
Auschwitz Revisted By Irving Roth
Holocaust survivor Irving Roth takes a group of college students to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and talks about his experience there. This is exceptionally moving and should be used in history classes.
March 28
Salman Khan: Let's Use Video to Reinvent Education
As founder of the Khan Academy, Salman Khan spoke about how his interactive videos have been helpful to people and why teachers should consider sending their students home to watch their lectures at home.
This TED presentation was taped this month. Here's a direct link to the Khan Academy, where there are over 2,100 educational videos, covering math, science, test prep, humanities and other subjects.
March 24
Writing Letters of Recommendation
I've just added a new section on the site which shows how to write a student recommendation. There are several examples of letters of recommendation as well.
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March 21
Another Way of Using Go!Animate: The Overdue Books Video
Librarian Tiffany Whitehead made this short video using Go!Animate:
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
March 17
Five Tests For a Good Thesis
Springfield Township Teacher-Librarian Joyce Valenza has provided an incredible guide for thesis development, which includes "Five Tests for a Good Thesis", a cartoon created with Go!Animate. This is an excellent site for your students to utilize!
March 14
An Infographic About Creative Commons and Copyright
Here's a great infographic which explains the Creative Commons license by using cartoon characters. It's easy to understand and your students will find it very helpful. You can download it and print it out to display in your classroom.
March 13
Jon Stewart's Daily Show Presents CRIBS: Teacher Edition
Apture Has Been Added to This Site
With a few lines of code, Apture allows you to highlight text within this page and immediately explore more content about that text. Confused? Take a look at the video below and then try highlighting something on the blog.
Kids Learn About Finances
With a list of lesson plans, worksheets, activities, quizzes and more, CreditScore is a wonderful site to use to teach your students about credit.
There is enough here to cover every topic, including debit/credit cards, Federal Reserve lesson plans and money management.
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March 8
Create Topic Bags & Organize Your Stuff
Teachers, students & researchers will appreciate how cool BagTheWeb can be. It's a great way to organize information you have collected on the web for yourself or your website. Here's an example of how 5th graders are using bags for learning reading, and another example of how Jeff Thomas has organized his 293 bags with EdTech resources. Thank you, Jeff for introducing us to BagtheWeb.
What's Happening in Education & Technology Edudemic is a "7,000+ person global community designed to keep educators, administrators, and everyone up-to-date on what’s happening in the world of education and technology." There is a section of "How To", ideas for "In the Classroom", current items "In the News", "Tips & Tricks", "Top 10 Lists", guides and a job board. There are RSS feeds for daily access through your reader. Thanks to Greg Limperis, Technology Integration in Education for info about Edudemic's site.
March 6
Bill Gates: Why We Need to Care About State School Budgets
March 5
The Importance of Data
School administrators can obtain education data, research and tools to assist them in creating policies to "result in higher student achievement."
In addition, Data F1rst has interactive polls, videos, and of course, lots of data. A grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded this site.
March 1
Spring is Just Around the Corner......or is it?
A Tool to Assist Students With a Thesis
Tom March has designed the ElectraGuide, which takes students through the process of building a thesis and making an online outline for their project. The instructions are simple; the student fills in 6 answers to the questions and then clicks "Build a Thesis." If they are content with the thesis statement, they click "Make an Online Outline" to continue.
Librarians Do Gaga
This video has been around for a while on YouTube, but it's so good I thought I would post it for a good laugh. Students and faculty from the University of Washington's Information Science School do their own version of Lady Gaga's Poker Face. The lyrics can be found here. Enjoy.
February 28
Learning From Mrs. McRae: A Documentary Feature Film Project
Ossining High School teacher Jillian McRae is the subject of this film documentary
by Israeli native Nitzan Ofir. We've all heard the statement "those who can't do teach". Ms. Ofir says her film firmly rebuts that statement. Currently looking for backers, the project has 28 days to go and has raised $850.00. (They need $15,000 do make the film) The project shows a lot of promise. You can find more information on the film here.
February 27
"Outside My Window" Connects People Through Photos
Students at Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose, California started Outside My Window in 2003, hoping to make new friends from around the world through photos. "This network helps people see the worlds as other people see it- the first step toward understanding and friendship." I took a look at the gallery of photos and was very impressed. Perhaps your students would be interested in contributing to this wonderful project.
February 26
The 9/11 Interactive Timeline presents the events of that fateful day with photos, audio of passengers, videos taken by witnesses and news reports. The timeline begins at 5:45 a.m. that morning, when hijackers passed through security in Maine (security camera photo) and ends that night at 8:30 p.m. with then President George W. Bush addressing the nation. There were many especially touching moments, such as flight 175 passenger Brian Sweeney leaving a voice mail message for his wife after he found out that the plane was hijacked, and flight attendant Betty Ong (flight 11) describing what was happening on the plane. This is a must-see for your older students. Thanks to Jeff Thomas for the tip.
February 25
Dr. Seuss' Birthday is March 2nd
I have put together a huge listing of resources for Dr. Seuss, including lesson plans, printables, projects, puzzles, games and books. Click the cat to get there. Happy 107th Birthday, Dr. Seuss!
February 24
Nominate a Hero
Do you know an extraordinary educator? Wouldn't you love to be recognized? Register on Classroom Heroes and others can support the hard work you do every day. Classroom Heroes is a project of the National Education Association. Here's a short video about the site:
February 23
Cartoon from cagle.com | Looking for more teacher cartoons? Click here. Library cartoons are here.
February 22
Record and Upload Audio With Audioboo Audioboo is "a mobile & web platform that effortlessly allows you to record and upload audio for your friends, family or the rest of the world to hear." It is available for the iPhone or Android smartphone. Here's a short video which shows you how much more than audio this app is.
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February 21
42 Sites to Get Free eBooks
I've been a busy little bee, adding to my website, section by section. My latest update is here, where I've listed 42 sites where you can download free eBooks. There are also 5 eBook search engines listed here.
February 17
"How To" Science Activities
The Museum of Science + Industry Chicago has a wonderful section devoted to science activities. Here's a few which are available:
How to Grove a Garden in a Glove, How to Cook Food Using the Sun, How to Construct a Worm Farm, How to Make Recycled Paper and How to Make Slime. I'm sure kids will enjoy this site!
February 16
Capture, Annotate and Share
I've been using SnagIt screen capture at work. Although it's not a free program, it has so many great features. At home, I've tried several trials of programs and just never found anything I liked as much as SnagIt. BUT....alas, today I learned about Awesome Screenshot from Richard Byrne's blog, and this FREE program has just about everything I need!
Some features include capturing a selected area of a page, the entire page and annotation with rectangles, arrows, lines and text. You can also blur out information you don't want your students to see. Here's a great way to do a handout for your class or a tutorial. Although sizing your image capture is not an option, I'm ok with that; Photoshop is always waiting in the wings.
Just install the browser plug-in (Chrome and Safari only right now) and you are ready to go! I'm excited to get started with Awesome Screenshot.
Access Bookmarks Wherever You Are It's the quickest way to save your favorite sites and has a very easy interface. Watch the video below and see what I mean. I'm planning on using Only2Clicks to reorganize sites for my students.
February 15
Teacher Tenure Necessary, Says Teachers' Unions
Here's an NPR radio interview from last Friday which was with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. It runs a bit over 6 minutes and covers the future of teacher tenure in our public schools.
Organize Notes, Sites and More in One Spot
I have been using SimplyBox for a few years now and have really liked it, but as I'm always looking for a better way to organize, SpringPad caught my eye when I read about it on the Educational Technology Guy's blog. I set up an account and started using it to compare the two programs. What I found was that SpringPad's clipping of websites produced a much better result for me. Another perk: You can access your information on their mobile app, which is available for the iPhone or Android phones. Organization has never been this much fun!
February 14 Happy Valentine's Day
Search over 120,000 articles in 27 categories for answers to your questions. I opened the Technology and Gadgets section (3,065 articles) to find a HUGE two-column list of questions, such as " What is a megapixel?" "What is a digital note pad?" and "How do I recycle a cell phone?" Other categories include The United States, History and Government, Finance and Investing and The World. There is also a blog and widgets you can put on your website. WiseGEEK looks like a very helpful site.
Make Your Own Personal Dashboard Netvibes allows you to gather all your favorite stuff off the web and put it on one page, which they call a dashboard. Every time you open your dashboard it will update for you. Netvibes allows you to have a public as well as private dashboard, where you can manage and update your Facebook and Twitter accounts right there. With 180,000 widgets to choose from you are able to cover every subject you can think of, including science, sports and movies.
February 13
24 Famous People Who Have Been Teachers
John Adams (Former President)
Alexander Graham Bell (Inventor)
Dan Blocker (Actor-Bonanza)
Billy Crystal (Comedian-Actor)
Sheryl Crow (Singer-Songwriter)
Tony Danza (Actor)
Roberta Flack (Singer)
Robert Frost (Poet)
Art Garfunkel (Simon & Garfunkel)
Sir William Golding (Author)
Dennis Green (Former Minnesota Vikings Football Coach)
Andy Griffith (Actor)
Lyndon B. Johnson (Former President)
Stephen King (Author)
Kris Kristofferson (Singer-Actor)
Spike Lee (Movie Director-Writer)
Kal Penn (Actor)
Mr. T. (Actor)
J.K. Rowling (Author)
Gene Simmons (KISS)
Sylvester Stallone (Actor)
STING (Singer-Songwriter)
Oprah February (Talk Show Host-Businesswoman)
Ron Wood (Rolling Stones)
Valentine's Day Resources For Class
I've put together a nice list for you to use on Monday. Mainly for young students, there a a few activities you can do in middle or high school. Have fun!
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February 12
Media Specialists....Teacher-Librarians-
Check Out These Resources For You
I've expanded this section to include media center management, blogs, lesson plans library magazines, organizations and sites.
February 11
15 FREE Online Alternatives to Microsoft Office
AbiWord- open-source word processing program runs on Windows, Mac and most Linux systems; layout looks like MS Office.
Atlantis Nova- basic word processor for Windows computers; download required.
GnomeOffice- suite of apps which can be used for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations; for Windows computers.
GOffice- offers word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and desktop publishing; use right in your browser.
Google Docs- if you have a Gmail account, you can use the documents section to create documents, presentations, forms or drawings; download your file as a Word document or RTF; (rich text file) use in your browser and save in your Google Docs.
Jarte- "A free word processor based on the Microsoft WordPad word processing engine built into Windows."
KOffice- online open source software includes KWord, KSpread and KPresenter; works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Lotus Symphony- Windows download; includes Lotus Symphony Documents, Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets, Lotus Symphony Presentations.
NeoOffice- made for Mac computers; includes word processing, spreadsheet and presentation; download required; also available for Android smartphones.
Open Office- looks just like MS Office 2003; download required; (about 148 MB) Windows only.
OxygenOffice- more professional version of OpenOffice; has templates and clip art; download required.
QJot- word processor for Windows which can open MS Word files; you can save the program on your flash drive to carry with you.
SSuite Office Software- free downloads for Windows computers; many different free versions available.
ThinkFree Online- share and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations on or offline; convert a file to pdf format; edit a MS Office document online; manage files from your mobile phone with an account.
Zoho- like Google Docs, with writer, spreadsheet, presentation offered for free. Zoho writer allows collaboration.
February 10
The New Teacher Forum is up and Ready!
Yesterday I found out about a really easy way to embed a forum on my site: Tal.ki. I registered through my Twitter account, (there are many other choices) copied the code to embed the forum and poof! All done. I welcome all of you to participate by asking questions, commenting and starting discussions.
February 9
Information Literacy: More Important Today Than Ever
The video below is part of Project Information Literacy, which studies young adults' research habits. The full report (pdf) can be download here.
Here's the research pathfinder I created for my students on our school website.
February 8
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Four interactive exhibits highlight this wonderful site, which has biographies of J.F.K. and his family members, speeches, a media gallery, an online research center with digital archives and a lot more. It's an amazing tribute to the youngest man ever elected as president of the United States.
Top 100 Technology Blogs For Teachers
Looking for technology integration ideas? This list of 100 blogs should be a great place to start. If you want technology integration resources on a smaller scale, here's my section on this site.
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February6
Fake Facebook Wall Generator
With Facebook blocked at your school, how can you get students to create fake walls? MyFakewall is a great alternative which looks like Facebook and can be used by students to create walls for famous people in history. Here's one which was made for Christopher Columbus. Looks like a fun way for kids to do a biography on someone! Thanks to Free Technology For Teachers for the post.
February 5
LIBOX Offers No Limit to Your HD Media Storage
As a free service which "syncs your media collection across your computers and streams it to any browser or mobile device", Libox looks very inviting. It claims that it does not add, copy, delete or upload any files to the Internet, just that it remembers where you have them stored on your hard drive. The only question I have relates to the security which is available at that free price. Download is necessary.
February 3
Positive Discipline Strategies Yield Quick Results
Here's a helpful video from Edutopia which can help teachers hold their students accountable for their behavior.
The Photo Encyclopedia Which is Constantly Growing
With over 44,000 articles and close to 662,000 photos, Fotopedia is the first collaborative photo encyclopedia. I tried a search on the Wright Brothers and received many results for pages and photo, including other choices for search terms, including Wright Brothers Day, Wright Brothers National Memorial and Wright Brothers flights of 1909. Just like with a Google search. you have to be careful what you click on, because Frank Lloyd Wright was an architect, not one of the Wright Brothers who built a plane. Since none of the results matched what I was looking for, I then clicked on Wright Brothers flights of 1909, which brought me to a question: was the Wikipedia article below relevant to the article I wished to create? It also asked me if I wanted to add photos. There was a map of Kitty Hawk at the end of the article. This project is a collaborative effort; people are constantly adding things to the encyclopedia. This made me see that this project was far from complete, as it couldn't give me what I needed in this search. Perhaps a different topic would have yielded better results. Patience, I told myself. This is a great concept; it just needs time to build its collection. It's on the back burner for now and I'll revisit it in a few months.
Teaching the Ten Steps to Better Web Research
Produced by Dulcinea Media, this wonderful slide show is being used by a top library science school.
Change Plain Presentations With MyBrainshark
Take your plain PowerPoint presentation and add your voice. Narrate. Upload a video and describe it. Or just add your voice to photographs. That's what MyBrainshark will allow you to do. Then you can share your presentation with the world. A free account will let you do all these things. MyBrainshark Pro adds features which I feel will appeal more to businesses than educational organizations.
Sift Through Your Text and View the Word Cloud
Here's a program I'm sure will assist English Language Learners with vocabulary. Once you enter your text, WordSift analyzes it and creates a word cloud of the most used words. You can select individual words and WordSift will provide you with images, videos and a visual thesaurus (word web) for that word. Here is a video of how to use WordSift in the classroom.
February 1
A Portal to Media Literacy
Michael Wesch talks about Web 2.0 and how we need to "rethink information, learning and education". Although this presentation was made in 2008, it still has relevance today. It is well worth watching.
I found the video above on Open Thinking Wiki, which is written and compiled by Dr. Alec Couros. Here is a link to 90+ videos for Tech. & Media Literacy.
Scoop.it Collects Information For You
Sounds easy. Create a topic and Scoop.it will proceed to find you links on the Internet which are related to your topic. If you are interested in trying out the free program, click here for an invitation. Here's a short video entitled, Scoop.it in a Nutshell. Thanks to Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyberhero for the post.
January 31
The Scantron Alternative : Dataport
Tired of those expensive Scantron forms? Worrying about the machine breaking down right in the middle of your grading a test?
With Dataport, teachers can have "bubble sheets at their fingertips!" The best part is that it is free. Currently, the site is accepting people through invite only, but don't despair; if you answer their short survey you will be given priority over the wait-listed people. Why not give it a try? You can read their blog here.
The Civil War In Four Minutes
Here's an excellent video which tells the story of the Civil War with animation and music which is perfect for that time in history. Thanks to Ken Halla, history teacher and blogger. (U.S. History Teachers Blog)
January 28
Students Will Like This Multimedia Encyclopedia
I posted this Wednesday on Twitter, and noticed that many people are talking about it. Here's my take: With short visual presentations, I feel that Qwiki will be more interesting to students than Wikipedia. But just like Wikipedia, entries can be edited by registered users, so information might not be as reliable. So, that said, you can always create your own Qwiki for a class. I searched the term "Study Skills" and found this entry:
TEDBooks Debuts Available as Kindle single downloads, TED Books are a bargain at $2.99 each. They are just long enough to read at a single sitting. You can find The Happiness Manifesto, Homo Evolutis, and Beware Dangerism on Amazon.com. If you don't own a Kindle you can still read these books on your smartphone or iPad if it has the Kindle App loaded.
January 27 Snow Day #2...............
Taking Notes Just Became Easier
Created by high school senior Shantanu Bala, Quicklyst aids students in the taking of notes by assisting them with organization. Other features include access to Wikipedia and the Merriam-Webster dictionary and the ability to study using a Kindle, smartphone or iPad. Teachers will also find this program useful when taking notes at meetings or PD workshops. Getting started does not require registration. Thanks to iLearn Technology for the post.
How Do You Use VoiceThread in the Classroom?
Here's an actual VoiceThread with teachers talking about ways that they have used the online program in their classrooms. I personally used VoiceThread last summer in a class I took online. It is very easy to use. Click here to view. Thank you Shelly Terrell for sharing on Twitter.
Blogging for Elementary & Middle School
Here's a really easy, safe site for your students to blog. Kidblog.org was designed for elementary and middle school teachers and students, and requires no student email addresses.
The interface for the blog is very easy to navigate and teachers have control over privacy settings, i.e. who can read the student posts, post approval etc. Mashable.com rated Kidblog the #5 social media tool for teachers.
January 26
Want to challenge your students? The ThinkQuest International Competition will allow them to utilize critical thinking, communication and technology skills as they solve a real-world problem. Entries can be as a ThinkQuest Project, Application Development or Digital Media Event. There are several age divisions, covering up to age 22. The early submission date is April 27, 2011, with winners being announced on June 22, 2011. With great prizes to be offered, this competition is sponsored by the Oracle Education Foundation. Click here to view the tutorial.
Jan 25
Looking To Share Certain Parts of Your YouTube Video? SnipSnip.it allows you to use parts of a YouTube video in class. It's an easy three step process:
1. insert your URL
2. snip
3. your new URL will appear for the "snipped" video
January 24
Understand Life Outside Your Home If It Were My Home is a site which shows how life is in countries around the world. Students can use the country comparison tool to see how people live in other countries compared to theirs and the visualization tool to understand how disaster impacts lives.
Common Questions & Answers For PC Users
Although I am a tried and true Mac user, I am well aware that more of the world's computers use the Windows operating system. So, that said, here is a neat article I found on pcworld.com which answers questions such as "where do my downloaded files go?" "I hear beeps when I turn on my PC. What do they mean? Read more here.
January 20
Readable Results From Twurdy
Here's a great search which provides results by reading level. Using Google's search engine, Twurdy "reads" pages and rates the readability level of that page. EXAMPLE: I searched "information literacy" and waited roughly 40 seconds for Twurdy to process my search. Results? Eight pages which were color-coated (shades of the same color) from easier to read to harder to read. I was able to change the chart to show approximate ages for each web page result. By the way, in case you're interested in how Twurdy got it's name, the site says it "comes from a play on words with the question "Too Wordy?"
January 19
The 3 A's of Awesome
Neil Pasricha talks about attitude, awareness and authenticity and how optimism will help you lead an awesome life. His blog, 1000 Awesome Things won the 14th annual Webby Awards and each day presents another awesome thing in life. Examples: "the smell of a library", "when someone already highlighted your textbook". Neil's book, The Book of Awesome, can be purchased here.
January 18
Click! A Brief History of Computing
LIFE Magazine has put together a great slide show which shows us how computers evolved.
The Library of Congress' Digital Collection is One of the Largest
This video explains how items are scanned at the Library of Congress and what's available in their online collection. To visit the Library of Congress site, click here.
January 17
The Role of the Teacher-Librarian and the School Library Program
Mike Eisenberg, Dean Emeritus & Professor of the University of Washington Information School talks about how the 21st century has changed the job description for school librarians (library media specialists) and the things they need to do to adapt to those changes. Excellent series. Find all four parts and more from Dr. Eisenberg here. Thanks to Joyce Valenza for posting on Twitter.
Concerned About the Environment? Shout invites you and your students to get involved by sharing, collaborating and interacting with others online. The website provides online events, access to Microsoft's Partners in Learning Network and six areas referred to as "shouts", which includes connecting live with experts in the field. Partners in this venture include the Smithsonian Institution, TakingITGlobal and Microsoft Partners in Learning.
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January 16
Makeuseof.com's 20+ Free Calendars & Planners List
I love this site because they always have such great information. Makeuseof.com has posted "Best of" and "How to" lists, provides guides, including The Complete Guide to Twitter, An Idiot's Guide to Photoshop and more. This 20+ listing provides downloads for 12 page calendars, one page calendars, a monitor strip, (yes, a year-at-a-glance calendar which you can stick above your monitor) a bookmark calendar and much more. These are hardly ordinary calendars; they are creative and colorful. I'm sure there is something for everyone here. Click here to view them.
January 15
Stories About Primary Sources Awesome Stories offers a large collection of document which cover biographies, trials, sports, religion to name a few topics. Started in 1999, the site uses experts who approve the stories, and teachers who have given their input as well. Lesson plans, slide shows, videos images and audio clips are stored in their archives. Awesome Stories has been recognized by the National Institute for Literacy, CNN, NPR, USA Today and others. The best part of all is that it's free.
January 14
Looking For Feedback? Answer Garden is a "minimal tool for maximum feedback." It's great for online brainstorming or you can use it as a poll. Here's my sample "garden" for you to fill:
Collaborate on a Photo Album to Produce.....
...a muvee (it's their term for movie)
with music. Students can use this when working on a project, as it's a great alternative to PowerPoint. Here's a video that explains what Shwup is all about:
January 13
Meet, Share & Collaborate
Teachers will find that the Adobe Education Exchange is THE place to go for learning how to integrate Adobe software into the classroom. With lesson plans covering everything from educational practices to math to eLearning, there is something for everyone. It's free to join and well worth it!
Gifted Classroom Ideas Byrdseed Gifted is a website created by a gifted teacher named Ian Byrd who shares lesson ideas, links/resources, technology articles and social emotional articles. He also has a free pdf entitled "Improve Your Gifted Classroom: 7 Ways in 7 Days."
January 12
School Library Media Kids for K-6 SlimeKids is a cute site which is great for elementary media specialists to add to their resources. Divided into sections for games, book reviews, book trailers, authors and reference, it is easy to navigate and is very visually appealing to young kids. It can also be helpful to those media specialists who needs ideas for setting up their own school library media center website.
Here's a Site Like TED Talks
The 99% website has articles, tips, and videos which deal with creativity on some level. Here's a sample below, with Jay O'Callahan, who talks about how storytelling "taps into our imagination".
January 11
An Encyclopedia with a Video Twist Encyclomedia is a video encyclopedia which offers free video clips with everything from Martin Luther King, Jr. to The Great Barrier Reef. Interesting concept.
How to Make an Infographic
In November, I had a posting about how useful infographics could be in the classroom. There is a nice section on my website for creating infographics and a listing of resources for infographics. Today I came across a video which shows how the Golden Parachutes infographic was made in Photoshop. It was so good I had to share it with you. The completed project can be viewed here.
30 Hours of Free Professional Development
Edublogs is sponsoring the first Teacher Challenge,
which gives teachers the opportunity to "kick start their blogging". There are beginners' and advanced activities, depending on your level of expertise. Collaboration will take place on an open discussion forum. Are you a pro at blogging? You might want to sign up here as a mentor.
This is a great infographic to use in junior or senior high health classes. It was produced by Medical Insurance.org.
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January 9
Argument Wars Game for Civics
Compete against another lawyer in a Supreme Court case. Five cases are available to choose from.
Students will enjoy Argument Wars.
January 8
CopyPasteCharacter is Awesome!
I don't know about you, but I have found it annoying to add certain characters or symbols to a document or webpage because I can never remember the keyboard combination for that character. CopyPasteCharacter has around 130+ popular characters, and all you have to do is click on the character you need and it is automatically on the clipboard and ready for pasting! ☺
Got a Flip Camera?
I found this great presentation in a newsletter I regularly receive from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Tom Barrett shows 45 ways to use video in your class. The presentation is here. I also have a new section of resources for using digital video in the classroom here.
January 6
The Project Continues.....
I am happy to announce that I have totally redesigned the site map page! With so many links, it was a tedious task, but it's just the beginning. I have been adding, updating and correcting day and night. (well, it seems that way)
Mr. Hastings Talks About Library Fines
I saw this on Twitter today and had to share it with you.
Media Specialist Jeff Hastings made a video where he discusses sharing books and those annoying library notices we have to send out when a book is not returned. Thanks, Joyce Valenza for posting!
January 1
In With the New, Update the Old.......... Happy New Year everyone! Hope you enjoyed your week off and are ready to get back to the classroom on Monday. Here is a list of the changes I made to the web site this week. More to follow:
Anne Frank, The Graphic Biography If you would like to introduce your students to The Diary of Anne Frank, this graphic biography is a great place to start. Here is a direct link to the book.
2010 Archives
Dec. 28
Greeting Cards and Updates
In case you've already noticed, I haven't been posting as much as usual. That's because I am taking this holiday vacation to update my web site, something I really need to do. In the meantime, I thought I'd pass on a cute site which you can use for making greeting cards, slideshows, collages, photo albums and scrapbooks. Smilebox has over 1,000 templates and music for you to use.....and it's FREE. Hope you all have a safe, happy, healthy new year!
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Dec. 26
12,000 Newspapers From Around the Globe
The world's 400 largest cities are represented on Newspapers24.com, with just about every language covered. This is a great resource for any world language teacher.
Dec. 24
Tech Ease Provides Assistance For Teachers
With an easy-to-use interface, Tech Ease makes it easy for teachers to get answers to common questions they might have. There are tutorials, chat, information about sharing, saving, scanning and managing technology in the classroom. Thanks to Educational Technology Guy for this resource.
Dec. 22
Teaching about Plagiarism
Here's another great video short made on xtranormal's site--- "The Principal and the Lazy Plagiarist". Perhaps some of your students can relate to this young man. I'm always looking for new ways to show my students what it means to plagiarize. Here is a list of more resources on plagiarism.
Dec. 21
Infographic Teaches Us Where the Presidents
Went to College
Do your students know that ten of our presidents did not graduate from college? Or that our current president, Barack Obama graduated from Harvard Law School? This wonderful infographic is a great way to teach classes about which presidents had a law degree, medical degree or business degree, as well as what political party they were affiliated with.
Click on the graphic to view an enlarged version.
Dec. 20
Nothing to Hide and No Excuses:
Video Evaluation to Raise Teacher Quality Here's an interesting look at teacher evaluation. Did you know that the Gates Foundation will be investing $335 million in teacher evaluation. Wow. That's a lot of video recording.
Dec.19
Google Body Browser
Anatomy classes will find this amazing: 3D rendering of the human body.
Zoom in and out; explore all systems of the body. HTML5 allows you to view the rendering without needing Flash or Shockwave. Viewing must be made in Google Chrome. Here's a demo:
Dec. 18
Wanna See Why Google Docs is Awesome?
Take a look at the collaborative document process.........
Dec. 17
Explaining RSS Feeds
Many of you have asked what exactly RSS is and why it is such a great tool. RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication"
and it acts as a news feed for all the sites you wish to follow. Let's say, for example that you have close to thirty sites that you follow on a daily basis. Going to each site would take loads of time, but if all your sites let you know when they were updated via this news stream, wouldn't that save you loads of time? You bet it would. The first thing you need is a reader. Here are some choices. (If you have a Gmail account, use Google Reader.) Every time you come to a site you would like to subscribe to, they must have an orange or blue RSS symbol or something that indicates you can subscribe to the site. Below is a video from Common Craft which explains RSS in Plain English.
Dec. 16
Famous Failures
Are your students in need of a bit of self-confidence? Are they feeling like failures? Show them this short video and I bet they will think differently.
Dec. 15
First Nomination, First Runner Up!
I am so proud to announce that tonight I won an Edublog Award as First Runner Up for the Best Library Blog. The other librarians nominated with me are all incredible educators and I am humbled just for being nominated.
Thanks to all who voted for my blog! Here is a list of all the winners.
Dec. 14
100 Awesome Search Engines for Bibliophiles
Yes, there really are 100 awesome sites here. Divided into 9 categories, including research and study, online books, speciality, literature and sharing and swapping, there's something for every bibliophile to utilize. One of my favorites: The Library of Congress Online Catalog, one of the largest libraries in the world, with millions of books.
The Smallest Library in the World
Somerset, England converted an old red phone booth into a library. The collection is a little over 100 books and music CDs. Take a look here to see people lined up outside the "library" waiting to go in. Incredibly quaint, don't you think?
Dec. 13
Free Web Tool Listing is Excellent
As a member of Classroom 2.0, I come across interesting articles all the time. Although this list was originally posted in 2008, I'm sure there are many of you who will be finding out about these tools for the first time. John Costilla has divided his list into a dozen categories, including organization and collaboration, Google, (yes, a full section just for Google)
templates and lesson plans, online libraries and activities. If you are new to Web 2.0 or the Internet searching/research and want a great list to start with, this is the one for you.
Looking For Beautiful Photos? National Geographic's Image Collection has over 11 million images which covers the world from the end of the 19th century to the first decade of the 21st century. Categories include animals, history, people and culture, science and space and underwater.
Dec. 12
Say Thanks to Our Troops!
A great project for your students is to send a free printed postcard to the troops who are serving overseas. All they have to do is select one of the online designs (made by young kids) and add their message. After hitting the send button, the postcard is off in the mail. Let's see if we can warm their holiday season away from home. Xerox is partnering with a list of other companies to support Let's Say Thanks.
University of Wisconsin-Stout Offers Two Great Courses For Media Specialists
I was very fortunate to take two terrific courses online which were taught by Winona, MN Media Specialist Mary Alice Anderson. Not only was Mrs. Anderson thorough in her lessons, she was always available through e-mail to answer any question I had. The first course I took was "Innovations and Opportunities for Media Specialists" and the second one I took this past summer was "Teaching Information Literacy Using Primary Sources". As a media specialist, I found these two classes invaluable. I'm able to utilize the information learned and work collaboratively with my teachers. Each course is 3 graduate credits. If you are a classroom teacher interested in online courses at Stout, click here to browse their list. I rarely recommend classes on my blog, but Mrs. Anderson's classes were excellent.
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Dec. 11
Watch Documentaries For Free
With over 200 films including "Sicko", "The Men Who Killed Kennedy", "Supersize Me", "Bowling For Columbine" and "Eyes on the Prize", Free Documentaries.org is a great resource for any high school classroom. I hope the site is not blocked in your school.
Dec. 10
WebQuests Can Spur Student Interest in Class
Our digital learners are always on the Internet. They are connected to their phones. So it would seem only natura lfor them to participate in a webquest as a learning experience. I have put together an extensive listing here which explains how teachers can locate webquests online, the webquest creation, templates, lists and subject-specific webquests by grade. I'm sure everyone can find something to use.
Dec. 9
LiveSlides Makes Web Conferencing Easy
In 3 easy steps, you can make a presentation to an unlimited number of your colleagues. The best part is that there are no downloads necessary. Merely upload your slides, pick a URL and send the link to the people you want to view your presentation. Oh, and it's FREE. LiveSlides is worth a look.
January 20 Webinar- Tech 4 U: Technology Programs For Every User
Middle school librarian Megan Fink will talk about web applications which teachers can use in their classrooms or after-school programs. Cost is #$39 for YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) members, $49 for other individuals and $195 for group registration. Information and registration can be found here.
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Dec. 8
Your Virtual Research Assistant Zotero is a site which I highly recommend to my students and colleagues who are attending graduate school. Since the program "lives in your browser", you simply download the extension and then restart your browser. Zotero assists you in collecting, organizing, citing (it extracts the bibliographic information for you!) and syncing your information between many computers.
Watch the short video below which gives an overview of Zotero.
Dec.7
Welcome to A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet!
If this is your first time here, take your time and browse the blog, the site map or your grade level. Download any of my free guides. If you would like to see certain resources, just drop me an e-mail. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. As you can guess, I'm thrilled to be nominated for an Edublog Award and hope that you will consider voting for me after you see my blog and website. Thank you again to Michael Zimmer from The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness for the nod.
With only three steps, you can upload your files and share the link with your friends. Let's Crate allows you up to 20 MB per crate. It's a great way to share files with colleagues, students or parents.
Thanks to David Andrade for the post.
Dec.6
Photos of Baby Animals on Zooborns
From aardvarks to zebras, Zooborns showcases the cutest photos of baby animals on one site. Browse by animal or sort by zoo and aquarium. Even your students will be crying out oooh's and aah's when they see these adorable creatures.
Writers Can Write & Connect on Figment
Young people who enjoy reading and writing should take a look at Figment. Beginning today, this free platform will be up and running on the Internet, and kids are invited to write poems, short stories or novels to submit and share with others online. Collaboration on projects is also encouraged. Work which is uploaded to the site will receive feedback. Thanks to Joyce Valenza for tweeting about this.
Dec. 5
Virtual History Lesson Using Pop Songs
Two history teachers from Honolulu, Hawaii decided to produce history-based music videos using pop songs, and now they have their own YouTube channel with over 2,400 subscribers. They like hits from the 80's, but I think today's students will love these videos. Take a look and see what you think.
Dec. 4
Another Online Bulletin Board For Collaboration Stixy allows you to create "Stixyboards" and share them with your colleagues. Drag, drop and release documents, photos or notes into the free-form design, which is very easy to use and navigate. You can then share your Stixyboard with the people you choose, keeping each of your Stixyboards separate from each other. The adding of tags helps you to sort your list of Stixyboard later. Stixy offers a lot of flexibility, in that you can change colors, fonts and font sizes with a quick click of your mouse. For other collaborative tools, click here under my Web. 2.0 list.
Dec. 3
Collaborative Planning
This video was produced on xtranormal.com, a site which converts text into a movie. It is funny, yet frighteningly real.
A Few Little-Known Educator Discounts I was talking with some colleagues the other day about all the discounts that are out there for us through NEA. Surprisingly, not many of them were aware of the two special dollar saving deals I am about to share with you. First is the product discount for educators from Bose. Yes, THAT Bose. In fact, pricing is so secretive that you have to call this number to inquire and place your order: 1.800.353.4207. The National Educators Discount Program from FedEx/Kinkos will give you 15% off on most of their products and services. Simply fill out the online application and you will receive your card in the mail. You can find a more extensive listing of discounts on NEA's member benefits site.
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Dec. 2
100 Awesome Search Engines For Bibliophiles
Love to read? Can't wait to get your hands on the next book? Check out this huge listing of search engines which will assist you in finding your books. There are 9 categories, covering subject areas such as sharing and swapping, literature,
online books, shopping and research.
Edutopia's Weekly Giveaway
Edutopia's bundle of Google books will be given away to five winners at the end of this week. This package is worth $109.85 and isis geared mainly towards middle school age students. (Google Tools for Teaching and Learning covers grades 3-12) Good luck! Enter here.
Dec. 1
Visit 76 Different Museums Without Leaving Your Classroom
I've put together this long list by dividing it into 4 categories: Art & Our Culture, History, Miscellaneous, Natural History and Science & Technology. With school budgets being slashed every day, isn't it nice to take your class on a virtual tour where it won't cost a dime? Here's my updated museum list.
Locate information by historical year, or browse their 8 collections, including The Civil War, The Holocaust Collection, Vietnam Wall and the Newspapers Archive, which houses historical comics and vintage ads. Footnote is a wonderful site!
Nov. 30
A New Infographic Each Day I don't know about you, but I am a very visual person. This site presents information in the form of a giant graphic and these 'infographics' are excellent. With 24 categories, you are sure to find something to use in the classroom. Thanks to Michael Zimmer of the Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness for the tweet.
The Week in Rap From Flocabulary
One year ago I mentioned the site Flocabulary, which uses hip-hop music to teach students vocabulary. Well, here's their sister site The Week in Rap, which gives a review of the week's news stories through rap music.
Nov. 29
Digital History of U.S. & Europe
Produced by Virginia Tech University faculty member and student assistants, Digital History Reader is divided into two sections, United States History & European History. Each section is divided into modules and is perfect for AP history classes in high school.
The site provides a teacher's guide, in both print and presentation formats.
What a Unique Bookcase!
Nov. 28
Caption and Subtitle Videos
Created by a group of volunteers, Universal Subtitles allows you to add captions to your own video or a video you import from YouTube and other sources. Hearing impaired students as well as ESL students will benefit from having subtitles imbedded in their class videos. There is no download and it's easy to use. Best of all, it's free to use! Watch the overview of Universal Subtitles here.
Nov.27 .............................Back From My Mini Vacation
5-Alternatives to PowerPoint
ReadWriteWeb's channel ReadWriteBiz had a great posting today on other web-based alternatives to PowerPoint. (If you are a Mac user, you probably have used Keynote) The 5 listed are Prezi, SlideRocket, 280 Slides, Google Docs Presentations and Zoho Show. Read the article here.
What Do Other Countries Serve Their Kids
For Lunch? Here's a look at 11 sample lunches from around the globe, including Japan, China, India, South Korea, United Kingdom, West Africa, France, Tailand, Taiwan, the United States and Italy. This is a very interesting blog segment from Tripbase.com.
Nov. 24
Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!
Here are some ideas for elementary school teachers, including coloring pages, books and even a turkey hunt. Enjoy your 4-day weekend!
Everyone Loves Free Stuff
I've compiled a page of all sorts of free stuff, including software, worksheets, tech stuff etc. which are all FREE. Click here to view.
Search 30,000 Digitized Images For Free
With subjects as diverse as African-American Cartoons, American History, Clothing and Dress, Fur Fashions, Native Americans and Slave Ships, these 80+ year old images are part of an incredible collection. This picture collection was created in 1915.
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Nov.23
Having Trouble Choosing Your Search Engine?
Try your search with Bing vs. Google, and your results will be shown side by side.
I tried about ten searches and the results were varied. Sometime Google brought more results; sometimes it was Bing. See for yourself.
Another Great Collaboration Tool Writeboard allows you to write, share and revise a document with others. Other collaborative Web 2.0 tools can be found here.
Nov. 22
University of Wisconsin-Stout's Newsletter
I've taken a few classes from the University of Wisconsin-Stout and found their tech tips newsletters to be filled with wonderful resources. I had been receiving this information via e-mail, but anyone can access the newsletters online here. Although they don't have an RSS feed for the page, you can always stop by every month to read online. They also have archived their newsletters back to 2008.
Nov.21
High Resolution Digital Scans in the Rare Book Room
Around 400 books can be found here, from issues of Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac to original handwritten scores from Beethoven and Mozart. You can also view a first edition of the Sonnets by Shakespeare.
The Rare Book Room is a 'rare' find.
EduTecher is a wonderful site with instructional videos, links and a blog. Find sites by subject or grade level. Click to learn about how we can change the world. (The 1 cent challenge ends on Thanksgiving Day.)
Nov.20
My Most Popular Twitter Posts So Far.....I Just Started Tweeting.... Although I usually post 1-2 items on my blog every day, there are dozens of things I haved shared on Twitter because it is so much easier to do from any Internet-ready computer or smartphone. Each day has seen around 20 posts. The most recent popular ones are below:
The Future of Tech According to Kids: Immersive, Intuitive, and Surprisingly Down-to-Earth | The Committed Sardine http://su.pr/1SFtpl
Checking Your Word Document for its Reading Level
How many times have you written a handout for your students and wanted to make sure that it was on their reading level? I put together a guide which walks you step-by-step through the process for Windows and Macintosh computers.
Home Libraries Aid Students in Their Academic Success Tom Jacobs has written an article which tells how important it is for a family to have a home library. Twenty-seven nations provided statistics for a study he writes about, which showed that in "China, a child whose parents own 500 books will average 6.6 more years of education than a comparable child from a book-less home". The researchers also reported that "regardless of how many books the family already has, each addition to a home library helps the children get a little farther in school". Here is the full article.
Nov.14
Project Information Literacy Report on College Students' Research Skills
Hack Education's site has an eye-opening review of Project Information Literacy's report "how college students evaluste and use information in the digital age". Although students said that they utilized research skills they had learned in high school, only 11% said thaey consulted a librarian. Another suprising thing was that when collaborating on a project, very few students said that they had used Web 2.0 tools. Wow. With such a plethora of free tools out there (here's a list I put together) I find that hard to believe. But I'm also shocked at how many of my high school students don't even know how to search for a book in the library media center.
Now THIS is Really Recycling!
Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands used old books recovered from a fire to create a new administration desk. Very 'green' wouldn't you say?
Nov. 13
Teaching Students How to Evaluate Websites
It's very important that students understand how to tell if a website is credible or not. Too often, Google is the trusted search engine and students feel if a site is listed there it can be trusted. Below is a video I have used to show students what to look for when they are on a given website. After you preview the video, I have listed several websites which are hoaxes. Give your students a list which includes the sites below with some real sites. (I chose those which didn't have the best design but were legitimate.) See if your students can tell the difference between the real sites and the fake ones. My students had a lot of fun with the exercise.
The Fake Sites:
Buy Dehydrated Water- if your students don't know the meaning of the word "dehydrated", they will believe this is a real site.
Dog Island- with photos, rates, press, products and a weather forcast box, this site really looks like the real thing. Can your students see through the slick design?
Driver's License Search- everyone in your class will be fooled until they get to the end of the license search.
Sellafield Zoo- where wildlife has a half-life.....because it boasts it's own nuclear power plant!
The White House- the links connect to the REAL White House, so will your students understand how to spot the differences in the URLs?
Yoga Kitty- a step-by-step guide to enhancing your life and your kitty's life through yoga. They even have a store where you can buy a Yoga Kitty mousepad or mug.
Nov. 12
Nominations Open for 2010 Edublog Awards
With 23 categories, including best individual blog, best class blog, best teacher blog and most influential blog post, this year's nominations require only two steps: write a post on your own blog which links back the Edublogs Awards homepage and email Edublogs the link to you post. I will post my nominations within the next few weeks. Deadline for nominations is Dec. 3, the voting ends Dec. 14 and the award ceremony is Dec. 15.
Asia for Educators Provides
Resources for All Levels
With resources organized by time period, Asia for Educators covers from 4000BCE to the 21st century. Modules include Living in the Chinese Cosmos, The Mongols in World History and East Asia in Geographic Perspective. There are timelines, primary sources, lesson plans and links for professional development courses.
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Nov. 11
Search Histories and Timelines on History World
Here's a site where the aim is to "make world history more easily accessible through interactive narratives and timelines". Currently there are 300 narratives and around 10,000 events on the searchable timelines. History World is written by author Bamber Gascoigne.
Free Video Training from KATE
The Kentucky Academy of Technology Education is offering free training on their site for the following programs: Microsoft's Access, Excel, Office, Outlook, PhotoStory 3, PowerPoint, Windows,Windows Movie Maker and Word. Other tutorials on Google applications, interactive classroom boards or pads are included and more. Tutorials are for different grade levels. If you are interested in using Audacity, the free podcasting tool, you can view short video guides to help you learn how to use it.
Nov. 10
Maintained by history teacher Susan M. Pojer, this content rich site has tons of resources and is divided into sections including war in Iraq, American History AP, U.S. History & Government, history research tools, for history teachers, historical resources, video podcasts, web quests, historical societies/institutes, media research center, European history AP and global studies. If you teach history, Historyteacher.net is the site for you!
If you are looking for grants or gifts involving technology items, Digital Wish offers many opportunities. You can join the web site as a teacher or as a donor. Donors can choose from the wish lists of hundreds of schools throughout the country. Teachers can browse the grants which are available, search the 24 subject areas for lesson plans which implement technology or read stories on their blog about how teachers are using technology in the classroom.
Nov. 9
My Day Job...
There are thousands of resources for junior and senior high school students on my "other" website for the media center in our school, Ridgefield Park JSHS. The "What's New" section has cool new technology ideas and the reference section provides resources from encyclopedias to clip art. I try and update the "What's New" every week. Most of the items on that list are usually different than what I put on this website. I've put a permanent link to my media center's site on the left. (look for the smiley face...)
Nov.8
Virtual Cell Animations
The Molecular and Cellular Biology Learning Center has put together an archive of animated colorful cellular and molecular processes. Major funding was provided by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from Maya®, the Academy Award winning 3-D animation and effects software and the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. Honors classes in high school would benefit the most.
Excellent Resource For Lesson Plans
Choose your grade level or browse by subject area, including information literacy and interdisciplinary. There are currently 2,000 lesson plans here and a link to The Gateway, which links to over 40,000 educational resources.
Nov. 7
Need Images For Your Blog?
Wylio allows you to search through millions of Flickr photographs which are considered under the Creative Commons license. When you find the image you need, just resize it and copy and paste the code into your page. I searched the word "technology" and came up with over 7,000 results. Quite awesome. Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for the tip.
Nov. 5
Animated GIFs Are Easy to Make with Picasion
As an avid Photoshop user, I have used it to make my animated GIFs. With Picasion, anyone can make an animated GIF online for free. You can upload your images from your computer or import them from Flickr or Picasa Web.Picasion also makes it really easy to then post your GIF to Facebook, MySpace Digg etc.
Almost Every File Format in the World!
Wondering what that strange suffix is at the end of your file name? You are bound to find it on this site, from A-Z. Very useful bookmark for the future.
Uncompress Your Files Online Wobzip scans your compressed file for any viruses. You can unzip files at school, work or anywhere you have an Internet connection. Yes, that means uncompressing that file from a URL.
Have a great weekend, everyone! If you enjoy this blog and the website, click here to subscribe or pass on the link.
Nov. 4
13 Alternative Search Engines That Find What Google Can't
Many of my students think that all they need is Google to solve all their searching. Not. Sometimes you might need to search for a certain type of music you saw on tv, or clips from hundreds of video/television providers, covering world news, business or sports. Two of the most interesting engines on this list includes Quotiki, which searches quotations, and What's Open, which provides a map interface and lets you know how late a store, a mall or a restaurant is open. What's Open is fairly new, so they are adding locations every day. The Makeuseof.com article is right here.
Using Political Cartoons in the Classroom I originally mentioned this site in March 2008, but it deserves another nod. With close to thirty columnists and bloggers and an array of cartoonists from all over the globe, this is an excellent site for students to be introduced to current events. Everything from the Republican takeover to the rescued Chilean miners are presented as cartoons. The site has a teacher guide, which provides lesson plans for elementary, middle and high school students. Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoonists Index is well worth a look!
Nov. 3- A Day For Interesting Facts
What 1 Gigabyte of Storage Looked Like 20 Years Ago
Yes, that's the "older" storage on the left......and today you can store 1 gig on the little card being held on the right. Amazing how two decades changes things!
You love them. I wish I had purchased their stock when they first went public. Here is a fact-filled poster with information you probably didn't know about Google.
Nov. 2
Math Help Reference Sheets
Students will love these help sheets, which cover algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus. There is an online version or downloadable pdf for each of the six sheets.
As Promised, Using SchoolTube to View YouTube Videos
Those of us who are blocked from YouTube at our schools now have a great, easy way to view the video in the classroom. My step-by-step guide will take you through the process. Please use "single page mode" under options when viewing. Allow a day (although they have approved moderators in much less time) to obtain moderator status so you can approve of your videos.
Thank you to my principal for passing on this information from a discussion board.
Schedule Events and Meetings with Doodle
Teachers or students to schedule meetings, study groups, or events.
You can connect using your mobile device. The free version of this program has ads.
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Oct. 31
Top 100 American Political Speeches of the 20th Century
This list was compiled by professors from the University of Wisconsin and Baylor University in Texas. Full text is available and you can download a pdf or Flash version.
Bought a Kindle or Nook Yet?
Check out this poster, which shows books vs. e-books in a blow-by-blow, fact vs. fact showdown. Who's the winner after round one? You'll just have to see for yourself here.
Oct. 29
More Resources on One Webpage Than I've Ever Seen!
Oct. 28
Interactive Look into the Future
This article orignally appeared in the June 2010 issue of Scientific American. Zemi Media created an interactive version here, which shows "12 events that will change everything." Some of those events include: Polar Meltdown, Cloning of a Human and Nuclear Exchange.
YouTube Videos Blocked at Your School? DownloadTube.org has created an easy way to get YouTube videos when your school has blocked the site.
Just enter the URL for the blocked video and check what you'd like to convert the video to, including Windows, (.mpg) Macs, (.mov) Flash, (.flv) or iPone/iPod. (.mp4) I tried it and it works very well, but the only downside id the watermark (see above logo) remains on the upper left side of the screen throughout the video. Monday I will show you how to get that YouTube video through SchoolTube. To be continued.......
Oct. 27
The World's Resources By Country This poster, from The Mint.com, displays a world map showing a resources from each country. Students will be able to see for example, who produces the most diamonds in the world. (it's Russia)
Need Ideas For Your Newspaper or Journalism Class?
I've compiled a list of great resources under "Writing For a School Newspaper." I've thrown in newspaper samples from various schools.
Oct. 26
Time Out For Trivia
About 5 years ago, I was working as a media specialist in an elementary school. As I was reading a story to my kindergarteners, the word "Walkman" came up. One little boy asked me what a Walkman was. I told the class that it was "kind of like an iPod." They understood what I meant and I continued to read the story. Looking back, I really felt a HUGE generation gap between me and the kids. After all, I remember the day Sony created the Walkman. Anyway, Sony's last batch of Walkmen were distributed in April of this year. Seems like yesterday since it was released in 1979, and yet it seems like a long time ago.
Oct. 25
Huge Collection For Math Teachers
No matter what math subject you teach, you will find stuff on this site. Cool Math Sites covers grades K-12with puzzles, blogs, links lists, interactive whiteboard resources, lesson plans, real life applications, webquests, podcasts, videos and so much more. Several awards have been given to this site. Thanks again to Kathy Schrock for the suggestion.
Oct. 22
Use SpeedyMarks to Create Visual Bookmarks
The 'ABOUT' page on the SpeedyMarks website says that you can "quickly open your favorite websites." Students who are doing research can easily gather their information by just clicking "Add" at the top left part of the screen. This will store the sites on the computer the student is working on. Storing the sites on the SpeedyMarks server requires registering, (FREE) but it will allow students collaborating on a project to access their 'marks' wherever they have Internet access. You can choose a background color from many choices. I left mine with the default black since it looked the best to me.
Oct. 21
How to Avoid Creating a Snooze-Worthy PowerPoint Presentation
I saw this on the 10,000 Words blog and thought that many people would benefit from these six suggestions. If you use PowerPoint a lot in the classroom, take a look and see how to keep your students interested.
Oct. 20
All this talk about bullies made me create a pathfinder on my school's website. Lots of helpful resources.
Who is Talking About Me?
I decided to Google my website to see what is being said and found four nice write-ups. As word spreads, I will continue to add the comments on this page.
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Oct. 19
10 Steps to Better Lesson Plans
Here's a great article that Kelly Tenkely wrote about lesson plans for TheApple. Kelly's blog, iLearn Technology is a super resource you should check out.
Thousands of Resources in this Education Directory
Search for a career, technical education or related vocational learning resources here. This very a very extensive site! Thanks to Kathy Schrock's sites of the school days for this link.
Oct. 18
Docs Teach Offers Over 3,000 Primary Sources
With a list of activities to choose from, or the ability to create your own, The National Archives Experience has designed a website which is chock-full of incredible resources. Teachers can also find information on professional development workshops. Enter Docs Teach here.
100 Ways Google Can Make You a Better Educator The Online Education Database has compiled a list of ways that Google can enhance your teaching experience. I personally have used Gmail to show students how they can open a zipped document from MS Word (.docx) if they have a Gmail account. (zipped filed are blocked in our school) Many assignments have been saved. There is so much more, so take a look here.
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Oct. 17
Help Your Students Become Smart Consumers
You Are Here is a site which was created by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) to teach kids about being smarter consumers by " demonstrating the effects of advertising and the benefits of business competition." The site is very user friendly, with separate sections for students, teachers and parents. The student section is set up like a virtual mall, which is something they will enjoy.
Oct. 14
Ten Excellent Research Resources to Use Instead of Google Your students love Google. But if they have to locate trustworthy, educational sites for their research, they need to understand that Google merely finds the sites; it doesn't review them, make sure they will offer reliable information and give them resources which will acurately cover their topic. Here are ten great resources (I spoke two days ago about LibGuides) your kids never knew existed:
Academic Info-subject guide descriptions provide relevant sites.
Bubl- selected Internet resources covering all academic areas.
Infomine- annotated academic sites and subject databases
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Oct. 13
Teaching the Dewey Decimal System
I love this game because it is the only interactive Dewey game I can use for my junior and senior high school students. Future Library-Media Council members practice from level one to the top level, which is called "Master of the Universe". When each level is completed, the student can print a certificate. Spanish version is available. Order in the Library is highly recommended.
Oct. 12
118,235 Guides and Growing! What is a LibGuide? Think of it as a pathfinder; a guide which contains recommended sites etc. which would be useful for your topic. There are currently 1,675 libraries worldwide which are part of the LibGuides Community. Colleges, public libraries, K-12 libraries and special libraries all contribute to this incredible online community. Looking for World War i websites? Check out the Garibaldi Secondary School in Canada. How about library databases? The Schauffler Library has a LibGuide here.
Oct. 11
Google Templates Offer Thousands of Choices
Okay, seems I am on a "template kick". I'm sure a lot of you are aware of Google's incredible template collection and I just want to remind you that it keeps growing every day. Anyone can add a template to the gallery, and the categories cover everything from calendars to lesson plans. I'm going to be using a pre-made form for my school's website, which I also designed and manage. Take a look here at the collection.
Using Games to Get Students Motivated
It's no secret that kids love to play games. When you can teach them something AND they are having fun, it's a win-win situation.
I've put together a section with various game templates and links to sites with thousands of subject area games. Here's a nice Jeopardy template and one for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire which has sounds from the show embedded in the template! The full section is here.
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Oct. 7
The Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Portraits
The Library of Congress has obtained a photographic colllection of close to 700 highlighting Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. These images are high quality and represent the young enlisted men in their uniforms. Small and large jpeg files as well as uncompressed tiff files can be downloaded. This is an excellent resource!
Oct. 6
Here's a Blog for Math Teachers Mathematics and Multimedia is a blog specifically for teachers of mathematics. The site also has math links, and a long list of free E-books for algebra, calculus, and geometry. BONUS: a list of 33 free math software programs.
Oct. 5
What Would You Like to See? Perhaps you are doing a unit on the book, "To Kill a Mockingbird", or teaching your students about the Vietnam War. Let me know, and I'll provide you with a string of reliable resources to support your curriculum. Just let me know: jgreller@gmail.com .
Lego Bricks in Education? Sure enough. The Lego Education site has lessons for robotics, energy, structures, math and early learning. The lesson plan clearly spells out what materials you will need, duration and resource links. Nice job!
Oct. 4
Cyberbullies Must Be Stopped In light of the latest incident involving a student at Rutgers whose privacy was invaded, causing him to commit suicide, I have added more resources to my section on cybersafety and cyberbullying.
Oct. 3
It was bound to happen. Google is now offering a URL shortener. Twitter users are already familiar with Tiny URL, bit.ly, and
if you'd like to pick your own from 1-9+ character shorteners, the URL Shortener.org.
Oct. 2
The Nautilus Expedition is Amazing Follow scientists 24/7 and watch them discover underwater volcanoes, explore shipwrecks and whatever comes their way. Your students will be glued to the computer screen. Here's where they are today and here's the home page for the site.
Sept. 30
The Complete Shakespeare Site You'll find annotated editions of text, study prompts, essays, video, links to other Shakespeare-related site on the Internet and a very extensive teacher's guide. The Interactive Shakespeare Project is hosted by the College of Holy Cross.
Your Mobile Phone As A Scanner?
Yes. All you have to do is register on their site, then take a picture with your camera and it is saved as a pdf file. Click here to see all the other cool things this free program can do.
Sept. 29
Free Storage Up to 10GB Forget the USB drives. Humyo Free offers access via the web only, with no support. Humyo Premium will give you 100GB of online storage which has extra secure SSL encryption for $6.99/month or $69.99/year. Your choice.
Sept. 28
PosteRazor Makes Posters From Smaller Pictures Take one letter size picture (8.5 x 11) and make it as large as you want, just by using this free program. PosteRazor saved me $$ when I needed to print a fund raising poster. Take a look at the video below:
Forvo is the "largest online pronunciation guide in the world." Students in world language classes or ESL students will benefit from Forvo.
Sept. 26
Infomine Offers Scholarly Internet Resources Imagine a virtual library which provides information from databases, electronic journals, online library card catalogs and more. Infomine is a wonderful resource for teachers who are taking courses to further their education, or students in college. Search by ten different categories.
Sept. 25
Search Credible Uses Resources You Can Trust With 27 different ways to search your subject, Search Credible offers resources such as EBSCO Host, ERIC, Google Scholar, WolframAlpha, Yahoo and the Library of Congress.
Sept. 24
Professional Development Resources I've put together a comprehensive list of professional development resources, many of which can be done online. Of course you will see a few from New Jersey, as that is where I live.
Sept. 22
Please Check to See Which RSS Feed You Have for My Site If you are following the feed called "Guide to the Internet" via Julie in Google Reader, you are now being redirected to the correct working feed. HOWEVER, this will not last much longer and will be deleted by Feedburner. The easiest way to correct this problem is to CLICK "subscribe" at the top of this page and add that new feed to your reader. Then, delete the first one. THANK YOU for everyone's patience as I worked to fix this problem. It's something I wouldn't have had so much trouble with if I had not designed my own website.
Technology Teachers: This Poster is Great! The Periodic Table of the Internet was created by Wellington Grey to showcase some of the most popular sites. The design is a familiar one which most of saw in chemistry class. You can view the chart here.
Sept. 21
Listphile Has Many Uses in the Classroom Create social lists, atlases, databases and so much more with Listphile.
Take a look at this video and learn how you can take advantage of this very cool online program.
Sept. 20
My RSS Feed Finally Works!
YES, this time it's for real. This newbie finally worked out the kinks, so please click the orange icon above and subscribe! NOTE: the site is also filled with thousands of resources in addition to the blog, so bookmark the site map for easy access to your topics. Anything I have just added will say "NEW".
Create Funny Logo : Make Your Own Personal Search Engine Choose from 34 company designs, including, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook. Just enter your name, pick the style and you are done! I made mine (above) with Google's style.
Sept. 16
77 Pathfinders and Counting In addition to this site for teachers, I created and manage my school's website. I currently have 77 pathfinders for students and the list is growing all the time. From African American writers to Writing for the school newspaper, I'm sure you will find a topic to assist you and your students in the classroom. If there is a particular new pathfinder you'd like to see, just let me know.
Sept. 15
The Power of Music Therapy Nap time for the kindergarten children. They are all rolling around and trying to close their eyes. Playing music to calm them down is a no-brainer. My self-plug/recommendation: "Welcome to the World: A Musical Collection for the Nursey". Since most of my tracks are instrumental, the music will work for 5 years olds as well as newborn babies. Give a free listen here. You can also sample or download tracks on iTunes. Just search Julie Greller. End of plug....
Sept. 14
Back Up Your Files! Don't Wait For a CrashSugarsync allows you to "back up, access and share your files instantly and securely between any Mac, PC or web-enabled mobile device."
Sept. 13
High Quality Icons For Your Website Search 186,760 icons which are free or cost $$. You can choose either no license filtering or allowed for commercial use. I search the word "photography" (my hobby) and drew 46 icons which were really nice.
Graphic design teachers-your students will find this site really cool.
Sept. 12
Protect Your E-Mail Address From Spam Using this free service allows you to block spam robots and email harvesters from spamming you. If you post on forums, Twitter or any classified sites like Craig's List, this is a great way to to only hear from real people. Click here for more information.
Sept. 11
Are You An Adviser for the Yearbook? TheYearbookBlog.com is written by the yearbook ladies, four women who used to be yearbook advisers, but now work as yearbook reps for Heff Jones, Inc. They refer to themselves as YERDS ("Yearbook Nerds") and have loads of great information for anyone who is currently a yearbook adviser.
Sept. 10
What Will They Learn Grades Colleges As your students start researching colleges, they might want to take a look at What They Will Learn. This website claims to focus "on seven key areas of knowledge. It's designed to help you decide whether the colleges you're considering prepare their graduates to succeed after graduation." This guide really tells it like it is: Ivy League Cornell University's grade was an F. Wow.
Sept. 9
The Open Library Offers Close to 1 Million Books for Blind and Dyslexic Users
Created by the Internet Archive, this site currently has 612,643 works and 959.053 ebooks published between 1099 and the present. With 20 scanning centers in five countries, they are constantly adding to their collection. Since they are making books available to people with disabilities, there aren't any issues with copyright infringement.
Sept. 8
My Blog and Website Are Mentioned on Free Technology for Teachers! Richard Byrne's wonderful site, Free Technology For Teachers has been one of my favorite blogs to follow, and today I was quite pleasantly surprised to find my own website mentioned! Thanks, Richard, I can hopefully build a large following like you have!
Sept.7
Resources for Differentiated Instruction
Differentiated instruction, according to Carol Ann Tomlinson (as cited by Ellis, Gable, Greg, & Rock, 2008, p. 32), is the process of “ensuring that what a student learns, how he/she learns it, and how the student demonstrates what he/she has learned is a match for that student’s readiness level, interests, and preferred mode of learning”. I've compiled a list of resources including videos, templates, lesson plans and articles. Click here to access.
Sept.6
Help for New Teachers Here's a collection of great resources for new teachers.
This list was updated today.
Sept. 1
Welcome Back to Another School Year!
Here's a repeat of my listing of Icebreakers, to help get your students interact with one another. The list was updated last month.
July 11
Robert Lang Talks About the Mathematics of Paper Folding:
O r i g a m i
July 8
A Personal Plug for My Talented Nephew Ken Greller, 2010 Park School graduate, playwright, and future freshman at NYU is proud to present his play, "This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" on August 12-29, 2010 at the Copeland Theater Le Clerc Hall College of Notre Dame Street, 4701 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21210. Tickets are only $10.00, so if you are in the Baltimore area or plan on being there next month, go see the show. This is not the first time one of Ken's plays has been performed by a theatre group; he has worked previously with the Run of the Mill Theater in Baltimore, MD. Information can be found on FaceBook or here.
July 7(Happy Birthday to me)
The Library of Congress Has its Own YouTube Channel!
If you have ever explored the Library of Congress' site, you will agree that there is an incredible amount of information there. With 13 million digitized items, it is one of the greatest free resources a teacher could ask for their classroom. Below is an example of film from 1906 which documents the arrival of immigrants at Ellis Island. It is one of the hundreds of uploads to their YouTube Channel. (I downloaded the flash video using MacTubes)
July 1
New Section on Web 2.0 Tools
I've just posted a new list of great resources for Web 2.0 tools! It's a project I've worked on for a few months and hope that you'll find some great apps for your teaching. This section will constantly be updated.
June 22
John Underkoffler Speaks About Computers in the Future
Will the mouse become extinct? Watch this 15 minute video and see.
June 20
Geo Teachers Institute
Here's what they have to say about this FREE event July 21-22, 2010: "This July, Google is hosting the first Google Geo Teachers Institute. This event is a FREE professional development experience designed to help educators get the most from Google's Geo products and technologies. The Geo Teachers Institute is an intensive, two-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google's Geo products: Google Earth, Google Maps, and SketchUp, including a focus on features like Mars, Moon and Sky in Google Earth. Attendees will learn about innovative instructional strategies and receive resources to share with colleagues. The Google Geo Education team hopes this event will empower educators to bring the world's geographic information to students in a compelling, fresh, and fun way". To apply, send email to geoedu@google.com.
June 17
Create Motivational Posters for Your Classroom Upload your own photo or use one of Automotivator's choices; you can order prints for as low as $9.95. Students need motivation these days!June 15
Snag Films Offers Free Documentaries
Watch online or embed ("snag this") on your site, blog or wiki. They currently have about 1300 films, covering the environment, history, politics, music, women's issues and much more.
June 13
Teaching About the Holocaust? This site is very interesting and takes you inside the house that Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis. You see 3D images which are 360 degrees, as you move from one room to the next.
June 7
Google Docs Explained Collaboration is a snap when using Google Docs online. One copy. One location. Many people to work together. Take a look at why Google Docs rock.
May 30
Getting Around YouTube at School Many schools have decided to block YouTube, leaving teachers frustrated because there are videos on the site they would like to use in their lesson plans. Have no fear, there is a way around this problem. As a Mac user, I was easily able to locate a program which would allow me to download a video from YouTube (at home, of course) and then embed it here on my web site for you to see. You can also download the video as an MP4 movie, viewable in Quicktime in your classroom. Below is the very file I got using MacTubes. (short PSA) Now for the PC, there is a program called YouTube Downloader, which allows you to download the video and convert it to many different formats, even for the iPhone!
May 10
Ideas to Keep Students Focused at This Time of the Year With only weeks left until school ends, here is a list from Larry Ferlazzo's blog (he compiled it last year but it's timeless..) to help you with ideas on keeping your students (and yourself) focused.
May 7
Create Your Own Badges Online I've used Badgemaker to create badges for the newspaper staff, but you can even make ID cards for class trips and much more.Choose your colors and style. All you need is a color printer and the cards to print on. (I found them at Staples.)
May 6
Convert PDF Files to Microsoft Word Files Did you ever get a pdf file you just needed to edit? To fill out? I've tried a few free online programs, but PDF Online is by far the best. I uploaded a large manual and it converted it to a Word file which left all the formatting in tact!! Sweet.
May 4
Today is National Teacher Day, so here are a few of my favorite quotes about my profession:
1. "Teachers teach because they care. Teaching young people is what they do best. It requires long hours, patience, and care." --Horace Mann 2. "Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth." --Helen Caldicott 4."The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." --William Arthur Ward
May 2
First Report on the Internet from CBC Primetime News It seems like just yesterday, but a lot has changed since this report.
April 29
Just Added: Jobs for Teachers With all the job cuts to education, I felt that it was necessary to create a section on jobs for teachers. There are three sections: Job Interview Tips, Job Search and Resumes and Cover Letters.
April 28
Helping Young Authors With Their Stories Lightning Bug is a great resource which aids students in writing their story from beginning to end. There are teacher resources, including worksheets, ideas for lessons, blogs from famous authors and "dozens of writing ideas for the classroom".
April 27
Bullycide Takes Center Stage Again The January suicide of Massachusetts teenager Phoebe Prince reminded me of how mean kids can be to one another. As a preventitive measure, I put together a section on this site with Cybersafety resources. Sections include: chat rooms, cyber bullying, general Internet safety sites, Internet predators, netiquette and privacy online.
April 26
Professional Looking Diagrams Create flow charts, organization charts, sitemaps and more. Lovely Charts offers this service for FREE.
April 25
Open Cuture Offers FREE Educational Media This site is packed with resources, including audio and podcasts, eBooks, movies and online courses. It's all FREE.
April 24
Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity The author of "Eat, Pray, Love" talks about the "impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses -- and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person "being" a genius, all of us "have" a genius. It's a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk".(description from TED.com)
April 23
History Teachers: Bookmark This Blog! If you teach about The Civil War, here's a blog that you need to bookmark. Written by Dr. James Beeghley, you will find links to other Civil War related blogs, videos, primary sources, lessons, famous people and much more.
April 22
Teachers Connect, Share Ideas and Lessons TES Connect has well over 900,000 education professionals in their community, as well as close to 45,000 teaching resources and lesson plans. This web site is based in the UK, so the 6,000 job postings are just for that country.
April 21
21 Things for the 21st Century Educator From blogging to podcasting, online videos to productivity tools, this is a one-stop resource for every teacher. (just a coincidence that today is the 21st......)
April 20
Newsmap Is a Visual Palette of Current Events Stories You can choose from 15 countries as well as how recent the news was posted on the site. Simply roll over a story and you will see a sample of the news article. Click and you are directed to the original page of that article. Very interesting concept.
April 19
Tagul Takes the Word Cloud to Another Level Have you used Wordle? Well, Tagul takes the word cloud a step further,
by connecting to a Google search for each word you roll over. (the rollovers
look really nice!)
April 18
Share Files Up to 5 GB Via File Dropper Ever want to end a really large file via e-mail but were blocked? File Dropper makes it as easy as uploading your file and sharing your personal link. Although the limit is 5 GB, that should be plenty for most people. Best of all, it's free.
April 16
What Adults Can Learn From Kids Child prodigy Adora Svitak (age 12) has been writing (over 300 short stories) and blogging since she was seven years old. Her speech explains how the world needs "childish" thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Diane Sawyer, of Good Morning America, referred to Adora as a "tiny literary giant." Her first book, entitled "Flying Fingers, Master the Tools of Learning Through the Joy of Learning," was published when she was only seven. It runs only 8 minutes, but has a powerful, inspiring message.
April 15
A Nation Without School Librarians Shonda Brisco's map shows where school librarians (media specialists) are being eliminated/cut/fired from school districts. In a world where children need to be information literate, this is truly a crisis. Click the map to view it full size.
April 13
Excellent Handout for You to Download Richard Byrne teaches in Maine and has one the BEST blogs for teachers I have read so far. (And I read about 30+ blogs a day!) He has written an excellent 33-page guide called Google for Educators. I am very impressed at the wonderful free resources Google has, and it is well worth your while to download this file and read it. According to Richard, "This guide avoids some of the obvious things, like using Google Docs for collaborative writing and instead focuses on some of the lesser used Googletool options like publishing an online quiz using Google Docs."
Education Widgets for Your Webpage Education.com has several widgets you can put on your website: worksheets, activities and articles to name a few. I just added this on the left side of this page so can see them in action. I was able to choose the color and measurement of the widget so it could fit my column. You can choose any grade level for the worksheets.
April 6
PicGhost is a FREE online image editor which allows you to crop, rotate & resize your photos. All your work is done online (you can upload up to 20 images at a time) so there is no program to download. You can create a watermark on your images. FREE is always good.
Destroy Your Old Hard Drive
the Correct Way DriveBurn will melt it down and recycle what is left.
March 28
Going Green- It Can Be Done! After being inspired by the blog TeachPaperless, (I signed the pledge to go paperless on Earth Day 2010)
I've put together a page with ideas for teachers and students to save paper and energy in their schools.
I will be constantly updating the list and I urge all teachers to take the pledge for April 22, 2010.
ESL Students Will Enjoy Using Wacky Web Tales Remember MadLibs when you were a kid? Well, Wacky Web Tales is today's online version. ESL students will learn to use nouns, adjectives, adverbs and other parts of speech by creating a funny story.
March 13
Create Your Own Online Jeopardy Game Without the use of PowerPoint, use any of the 1,000+ templates (all different subjects) or make your own. Perfect for all grade levels.....kids LOVE to play games.
March 27
Social Studies Teachers Take Note C-Span Classroom has tutorials, videos and current special offer, a 6 ft. American Presidents Timeline Poster. Membership is FREE, so take advantage of this great resource.
February 21 Self-Graded Quizzes in Google Use Google Spreadsheet to create a quiz for your students which grades itself automatically. Step-by-step directions can be found on Robin's Technology Tips. Best of all, it's FREE.
February 20
Feel Like You're Actually Turning the Pages of Your PDF File Turn pages like a real document. Youblisher is a free service which allows you to upload a pdf file and link to it on your website. Here's a sample of what they do.
February 8
Web-Based Tool for Your Series of Websites Take your students through a series of websites based on your lesson plan. Here's a sample to view and Jog the Web's home page.
February 7
LiveBinders is Your 3-Ring Online Binder! Organize your information with this free online tool. Upload pdf files, web URLs etc. to your personal binder. View the video and see how helpful LiveBinders can be for you.
Wonderful Video
From TeacherTube A colleague in my school told me about this video, and after watching it, I believe every teacher should take 7 minutes out of their day to watch it. It will change the way you create your lesson plans. Thanks, Alex!
February 3
Haiti 360 Offers Views After the Earthquake Three different videos can be paused, then you can click and drag around 360 degrees. The devastation will bring tears to your eyes.
January 24
Language Learning Games With 59 language choices, this site offers students 19 categories, including: vocabulary, clothing, colors and food. Games can be played with or without audio.
January 23
Motivate Your Students Through Contests Loads of opportunities here to win big while your students have fun. Take a look today and keep coming back for new contests.
January 13
Science-Science Science! Extreme Science boasts that they are "the place online to find the biggest, baddest, and the best in the world of extremes and learn about the science behind what makes each the most extreme example of its kind."
2009 Archives
December 22
A New Twist on Vocabulary Once you see the videos, download some free stuff and try it on your students, you'll be hooked. Flocabulary teachers students vocabulary words through hip-hop music. The site claims that the program raises state test scores, You be the judge.
December 20
Share Student Videos Online Your students can create videos and upload them, sharing only with their classmates. Best of all, it's free. Fliggo is easy to use.
November 15
Teaching & Technology Presentations & Resources for Teachers This blog is written by John Larkin, Australian teacher & instructional technologist. He has compiled a list of handouts from his workshops, covering Web 2.0, podcasting, RSS, digital photography and much more. This is a blog you should bookmark if you're looking for tech information.
October 4
Edgar Allan Poe's 200th Birthday This site is a tribute to the poet, and has everything, including a blog, resources for students, teachers, upcoming events, biography and much more. English teachers will love this site.
September 30
Blue Web'n Highlights Blue Ribbon Websites This ATT Education site showcases over 2,000 sites, with twelve content areas. Search by subject, content or grade level.
September 15
Welcome to the 2009-2010 School Year! I have assembled a section for the beginning of the school year, including a full listing of icebreakers, by grade level. New teachers: here's a listing of resources especially for you!
All My Faves: A Visual Search for Sites There are over 300 sites listed by their icon, and that's only the section for eduction. You can also locate games, entertainment, kids, shopping, travel and much more.
June 25
Teacher Resources for All Grades TeachersFirst is chock full of information for teachers of all grades and subjects. With two dozen sites added each week, there are roughly 10,000 links here.
June 7
Microsoft Word Tricks Here are ten of the best tricks when using MS Word; presented by Mrs. Smoke is a Technology Instructional Coach and Integrationist for the Andover Schools.
May 29
Internet Safety is a Very Important Issue I've created a page full of resources for cyber safety, including cyber bullying, privacy issues, chat rooms and Internet predators. There are also videos on the page.
May 16
Educator Resources: Picturing America Posters If your school was fortunate to be chosen to receive the We the People Bookshelf and the Picturing America Posters, (my school was) you should check out this educator resource section.
FREE Plagiarism Detection I've been looking for this for a long time and finally came across it today! PlagiarismDetect.com allows you to upload you students' papers to find out if they plagiarized it. You get a thorough report with links.
Lexipedia: Visual Word Map Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs synonyms and antonyms appear in word maps, which are interactive. ESL students can listen to the words being said for them.
PageKeeper "allows teachers to quickly and easily create a page of weblinks to share with their classrooms". This is free with no advertising."
Ethics 101: Cheating, Plagiarism, Site Evaluation, Patti Tjomsland, Media Specialist at Mark Morris High School, Longview, Washington, has created an incredible resource for teachers. She's listed cheat sites, sample policies on plagiarism, web sites to assist you in tracking down plagiarism and information on site evaluation, something most students don't know how to do. Copyright and citing sources are alsohere. Excellent!
The National First Ladies' Library Teachers can find lesson plans, photos, trivia, timelines and a gift shop! A one-of-a-kind site.
Contribute or Delve into Thousands
of Resources Curriki is set up as an educational community, where teachers can find lesson plans, student worksheets a whole lot more. Every subject you can think of is located on this excellent site.
Network Offers Standards-Based Teaching Resources On ArtsEdge, you will find instructional guidelines, lessons, web resources, & articles for foreign language, language arts, math, physical education, science, social studies & technology.
Need History Resources? History on the Net is a very comprehensive site, which includes worksheets, online lessons, games & loads more.
Lincoln Bicentennial Teacher Resources Lessons include web sites.
ePals Allows Students to Connect Globally This is the "Internet's largest global community of connected classrooms!" There are currently sixteen million students in twenty countries who are currently members online. It is FREE to join, and you can communicate with any country thanks to the translation software in their E-mail, which translates 72 language pairs!
An Alternative to YouTube School Tube offers videos which are uploaded by teachers and administrators. If you have some free time, navigate the site and see what it has to offer.
Shmoop, a New Educational Website Shmoop
has been touted by School Library Journal and Librarians' Internet Index. It is in the early stages of development, having been created by mostly Ph.D. and Masters students from Stanford and Berkeley. Your students will find it easy to navigate and understand.
Another Great Resource Annenberg Media Learner offers teachers interactives, videos, distance learning, workshops & courses. You can also purchase products.
Presidential Inaugurations is a "collection of approximately 400 items or 2,000 digital files relating to inaugurations from George Washington's in 1789 to George W. Bush's inauguration of 2001." This site is part of the Library of Congress.
2008 Archives
OK, I know I missed the holiday deadline on this one, but for all your future photo printing jobs, here's a listing of 14 companies which offer all sorts of printing, from calendars to mousepads. SNAPFISH scored the top rating.
SimplyBox is simply great! Organize your ideas, websites etc. online so you can access it anywhere, anytime! SimplyBox is a "free service to capture, share, and organize ANYTHING you find on the web".
I haven't seen anything like this before. Keep all your videos, photos, clip art etc. in different folders on the site. You can save portions of a web page. Watch the video tour to see all the things you can do. Best of all, it's FREE.
Free Collection of Stories & Poems From Florida's Educational Technology Clearinghouse, Lit2Go says it offers:
---Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go,
---Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer,
---
View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen,
---
Print out the stories and poems to make your own book.
Thinkfinity is Awesome! Teachers, students & parents will all find loads of information on this site. Twelve subject areas are listed, with lesson plans, homework help & standards alignment available. The Arts & Foreign Language areas each have eighteen subcategories!
Discovery Education's New Teacher Survial Central is very helpful. It covers everything, including technology integration & a survival toolkit.
New Video Site is Worth a Look Everyday Explorers is a web site created by National Geographic which showcases films made by up & coming filmmakers. The visuals are stunning! "Our goal is to display the powerful impact that science & nature have on audiences in a fun, creative way," says Scott Lunt, senior producer for National Geographic Digital Media.
Here's a great online tool to help you organize your classroom. Set your room's demensions and drag & drop pieces of furniture.
MiddleWeb If you haven't already heard of this site you have been missing a lot. You will find loads of resources for middle school teachers, a section just for new teachers, a slew of middle school blogs & a section on hot links.
The American Museum of Photography You'll find many exhibits here, including "The Face of Slavery", "How Photography Bridged East & West", & "Masterworks of Photography"
Randy Pausch's Last Lecture If you never watched this video, you must see it. The lecture was given by Dr. Randy Pausch, former professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who passed away in July 2008 of Pancreatic Cancer. His performance is anything but morose and is very uplifting.
FREE Teaching and Learning Content from
Around the World OER Commons offers subjects from Arts to Social Studies, and covers grades K-12 and college. You can contribute your own lesson plans too.
20,000+ Backgrounds, Themes and Templates for
PowerPoint Presentations! Presentations ETC offers a friendly license which allows teachers and students to use up to 50 items in a single, non-commercial project without further permission.
Did You Know?
According to the American Diploma Project, 40% of high school graduates feel unprepared for college or work.
Teacher Icebreakers for the Classroom Teachnology has a great list of teacher icebreakers to start your year off with a bang!
Scratch Lets You Get Creative on the Web "Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web. Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design." Best of all, it is free! Works on Windows or MacIntosh computers.
Looking for Graduate Credits?
PBS TeacherLine boast that it is "the premiere provider of high quality online professional development, PBS TeacherLine has been recognized for its excellence by organizations such as the United Distance Learning Association, National Educational Association, and the Software and Information Industry Association. Our collection of more than 130 top-quality, graduate-level courses for educators spans the entire curriculum: Reading/Language Arts, Mathematics, Instructional Technology, Instructional Strategies, and Science".
K-12 Science Teachers: Great Resource!
The National Science Digital Library offers tons of information for science teachers by grade level. You will also find blogs, wikis, publications, science literacy maps, web seminars and a podcast.
Free Video Training for Adobe Products Learn about Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash and any other Adobe product on this great web site! Sponsored by the National Assoication of Photoshop Professionals, Cory Barker and R.C. Concepcion produce a weekly show which is filled with great tips.
New Version of Word Saves Files With A Different Suffix! If you are using the newest version of Microsoft Word, be aware of the fact that the file will save as a .docx instead of the old .doc. Make sure to save as a Word '97 file.
Daryl Cagle's Cartoon Index for Schools Teachers can utilize the lesson plans on this wonderful site, which contains hundreds of cartoonists' work from all over the world. There is a special section with lesson plans which covers elementary, middle and high school.
Pestworld for Kids This site is managed by the National Pest Management Association, and has really cool facts about all sorts of pests, including bedbugs, ants, termites, rats and mice. The kids will love the educational games and teachers will love the lessons and worksheets.
InvestorEd Offers Lots of Money Tips
The site has"free teacher resources to help teachers develop students' saving, budgeting and investing skills."
The Digital Library for Earth System Education is an easy to search site with "electronic materials for both teachers and learners, such as lesson plans, maps, images, data sets, visualizations, assessment activities, curriculum, online courses, and much more" in the area of the study of the Earth.
George Lucas Goes Beyond the Movies
The George Lucas Education Foundation produces a magazine entitled Edutopia, which is a fabulous free resource for teachers. When you go to their web site, you will find many resources. According to Edutopia, they offer "An in-depth and interactive resource, practical, hands-on advice, real-world examples, lively contributions from practitioners, and invaluable tips and tools. Edutopia video: Through an extensive offering of documentaries, Edutopia video is a catalyst for innovation by helping educators and parents, as well as business and community leaders, see and understand pioneering best practices."
Collaborate with Schools Across the Globe Check out my new section on Internet Projects. You can connect with schools alll over the world on a variety of projects, in many subject categories.
2007 Archives
Best of History Websites Here's a great site which lists everything history including prehistory, medieval history, American history, early modern Europe, WWII hitory, art history, oral history & maps. You'll also find lesson plans, games, activities & research resources.
I found out about this wonderful organization from a recent episode of ABC's20/20. Teachers looking for funding for their school projects can submit a description of the project and the amount of money needed to fund it. Donors can go to the site and look up schools by state and pick a project to help fund. I was so moved by the stories I read that I picked three projects! Take a look at DonorsChoose.org.
Here's a very cool site which lists all sorts of templates for PowerPoint, including pencil toppers, mini books, candy "rappers", bag tags & Jeopardy games. One site listed has as many as 208 templates; another has lesson plans with the templates. While you're at it, check out Microsoft's template web site.
I have a brand-new section on Primary Sources! Currently there are 42 resources listed, but I'm sure more will follow. Also, I've added a section for Streaming Video Online, covering history, news & science. If you'd like me to add anything, please let me know.
Have your students practice their vocabulary AND help world hunger at the same time. Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice for every correct answer on their site. I watched my 16 year old nephew get just about every question right and he was just as thrilled to see the grains of rice add up.
It's the next best thing after the iPod----audio Playaways. They are available from Follett Library Resources and can help ESL students, dyslexic students and slow learners with their reading. As the student listens to the audio, they can follow with a copy of the book. The speed of the audio can be slowed down in case it is too fast for the student to follow. Kids will love the fact that it is about the size of an iPod and accepts any kind of headphone with a mini jack. It runs on a AAA battery and comes with a lanyard. The price is the only thing which concerns me; average is about $35.00 per book. Very cool concept!
The Smithsonian Institution has just launched the online site for the National Museum of African American History & Culture. The site contains stories from ordinary Americans, with photos, audio tracks and text. You will also find samples of the Smithsonian's collections, including art, historic artifacts and photographs. K-6 teachers will find lesson plans.
A new section on pathfinders was added today. I will be adding more and more to that section as the school year progresses. If you'd like to see a pathfinder on a specific subject, let me know.
I have gotten a lot of positive feedback about the templates area, so I've added and updated various sections on the page. If you bookmark the site map page, you can have easy access to whatever you'd like to find in a hurry.
Resources for teachers of Italian have been added to the World Languages section.
The WEB QUEST section has been expanded to 120 links and is sorted by grade and subject level.
A section on the BIG6 has been added to the technology page.
TeacherLingo has blogs, message boards and news. Joining is free and you can connect with teachers by subject and grade level. I was impressed with all the information which is available here, and whenever I come across something interesting, I will pass on the information here.
Imagine the popular YouTube, only the participants are all teachers. TeacherTube has professionally done videos from contributors like MTV and the AD Council.
Access Bookmarks Wherever You Are
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Search over 120,000 articles in 27 categories for answers to your questions. I opened the 
Media Specialists....Teacher-Librarians-
Check Out These Resources For You
15 FREE Online Alternatives to Microsoft Office
If you enjoy this blog and the website, click here to 
This is a 
I was very fortunate to take two terrific courses online which were taught by Winona, MN Media Specialist Mary Alice Anderson. Not only was Mrs. Anderson thorough in her lessons, she was always available through e-mail to answer any question I had. The first course I took was 
In 3 easy steps, you can make a presentation to an unlimited number of your colleagues. The best part is that there are no downloads necessary. Merely upload your slides, pick a URL and send the link to the people you want to view your presentation. Oh, and it's FREE. 
Welcome to A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet!
With subjects as diverse as African-American Cartoons, American History, Clothing and Dress, Fur Fashions, Native Americans and Slave Ships, these 80+ year old images are part of an 
Around 400 books can be found here, from issues of Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac 
Tom Jacobs has written an article which tells how important it is for a family to have a home library. Twenty-seven nations provided statistics for a study he writes about, which showed that in "China, a child whose parents own 500 books will average 6.6 more years of education than a comparable child from a book-less home". The researchers also reported that "regardless of how many books the family already has, each addition to a home library helps the children get a little farther in school". 
There are thousands of resources for junior and senior high school students on my "other" 
You love them. I wish I had purchased their stock when they first went public. Here is a 
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The 'ABOUT' page on the 
Search for a career, technical education or related vocational learning resources 
With a list of activities to choose from, or the ability to create your own, The National Archives Experience has designed a website which is chock-full of incredible resources. Teachers can also find information on 
Your students love Google. But if they have to locate trustworthy, educational sites for their research, they need to understand that Google merely finds the sites; it doesn't review them, make sure they will offer reliable information and give them resources which will acurately cover their topic. Here are ten great resources (I spoke two days ago about LibGuides) your kids never knew existed:
118,235 Guides and Growing!
What Would You Like to See?
Please Check to See Which RSS Feed You Have for My Site
Going Green- It Can Be Done!
OK, I know I missed the holiday deadline on this one, but for all your future photo printing jobs, 
Google is Not JUST for Searching the Web
Did You Know?
K-12 Science Teachers: Great Resource!
InvestorEd Offers Lots of Money Tips
George Lucas Goes Beyond the Movies
I have a brand-new section on 
A new section on 
I have gotten a lot of positive feedback about the 
Imagine the popular YouTube, only the participants are all teachers. 
