Greetings!
I noticed an error I made in a web address last week. I mentioned Prezi – a program to use rather than PowerPoint, and I listed the website as www.prexi.com and it should be www.prezi.com. Please excuse my error.
Do you wish you could show short video clips to illustrate something you are learning or to enhance a unit? Go to www.teachersdomain.org and you can have access to thousands of clips. You may need to sign up for an account. I am not sure about this. I know that my school blocks streaming video so I cannot use it the regular way. I think that you could download the clips you want to use on a thumb drive and then show them on your computer. It is a little more trouble, but I believe it would work well.
Tammy Worcester is a presenter I can listen to over and over. She is very entertaining and quickly presents lots of ideas for technology. Her books seem a bit pricy, but the use you will get from them makes it well worth the cost. The following ideas are from her presentation titled “Fabulous Free Web Tools”.
Random Name/Word Picker - http://www.superteachertools.com/instantclassroom/random-name-generator.php. There are many tools out in internet world that have random name picker. You input student names and then the program spins or ends up with a particular student’s name. Sometimes you can remove them from the list so they will not be called upon again, but that is usually an option you can choose or not. Some look like a spinning wheel and the names all appear rolling around and around. The one I found above looks like a blackboard and the names appear quietly. Tammy presented one that acts like a slot machine at http://classtools.net/main_area/template_loader.php/?fruit_machine. I believe that you can choose other options rather than a slot machine, but in any case, it is a little more fun that using popsicle sticks with your students’ names on them. You can save the name list and reuse it over and over. Do you need a list of words? What about listing the states or provinces and students name the capitals? You can input any kind of list and use this multiple ways.
Online Stopwatch - http://www.online-stopwatch.com/ This is a large screen stopwatch or countdown clock or even a classroom timer. This works great on a smart board. Place the timer on your desktop by simply dragging the URL from the website to your desktop. Now you have the timer ready to go whenever you need it.
Classroom Management Tool - http://www.classdojo.com/ This tool can be very motivational. One criticism is that all students can see what everyone’s behavior is. This is true. The people who like to use this program state that all students already know who is behaving and who isn’t behaving anyway, so what is the problem? The program can be used to note participation, behavior, and other idea. Take a look at the demo and see if this is something that would work for you. It is kind of fun to give Brad Pitt a mark for class participation.
Newseum - http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/ - You can view headlines from newspapers across the country or world. You can go back in time for quite a few years. Please note that the front page is the only page you can access. Even so, it is great to have such a wonderful primary source available.
Science online activities – just go to http://edheads.org/ and you can let students actually do a knee replacement or deep brain stimulation or design a cell phone, or simple machines, or more. Very cool!
Traveler IQ Challenge - http://www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq - This site has a fun and addictive geography game. It isn’t as easy as it looks, but it is fun. Try naming the capital and clicking on the place it is located. I hate to admit it, but although I knew the capitals, I did not get the placement correct.
There is so much available on the web and most teachers simply do not have time to sit at the computers and search for sites. I hope these sites have been helpful to you. If you are interested in more next week, please let me know. I can go another week or two on just this information I learned from NCCE.
Hope you have a great week.
Audrey
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