Useful sites (weekly)

  by  mikefisher821 

• ::: CHILDREN’S LITERACY LAB ::: It is an interesting programme which is trying to investigate how children actually use digital books. It is hoped that the research will help school librarians and teachers to adjust to the way in which pupils use E-books.With lots of resources, information, tips and news, this is an interesting site to peruse 

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – LeakyPedia For all things Harry Potter. Presented as a wiki, the LeakyPedia has excellent information on Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, however the rest of the books and all of the films need additional information. This could be an opportunity for students who are fans of the books and/or the films to submit something to the site. The style of articles for the wiki has already been laid out, so students would be able to easily follow the templates on the site 

• i.read Susan Mapleson, a Teacher Librarian at Christian College (Senior Campus) Geelong has developed an interesting blog for lovers of literature. The i.Read blog is cleverly titled and is continuing to develop.

• Community | Edublogs – education blogs for teachers, students and institutions Edublogs has organized a community and blog directory, making it easy to find blogs that fit your area of interest 

• Book Trailers – Adolescent  Movies for Literacy!  From Dr. Mark Geary the site offers a collection of short movies that are intended to coax students into reading a variety of texts. They show you just enough to peak your interest and make you want to find out more. There are trailers for early elementary, late elementary and adolescent movies. If nothing else, they make a great idea for a class project as they are quick and easy to make. Dr. Geary used Photostory 3 to create the movies, but iMovie and countless other video editors could achieve the same effect. 

• Blue Peter Book Awards: Axed author hits back – Telegraph

• Hello, World! | Qwiki ”Qwiki is the world’s first “information experience”, powered by a technology that transforms static information into interactive stories. What can I do with Qwiki? To start, Qwiki covers 2 million reference terms – including a wide variety of people, places and things. You can type in any indexed term and Qwiki will generate an “information experience” describing it. Feedback is most important! The purpose of the Qwiki Alpha is to gather feedback on each Qwiki you watch, via a form that appears at the end. You can also leave feedback at any time by clicking the “leave feedback” button.”

• Spelling & Vocabulary Website: SpellingCity SpellingCity is an interactive site used to help children of all ages improve their spelling skills and expand their vocabulary. Each word is spoken by a “real” human voice to offer more clarity. With each created list, a student has the option to: Teach Me, Test Me, or Play A Game.  

• Just Crosswords: Free Crossword Puzzles to Play or Make Your Own Just Crosswords provides 15×15 crossword puzzles. Click on the clues or the spaces in the puzzle, and then simply type to fill in the blanks. Over 300 to choose from. Also, make your own puzzle, save it, play it and link to it.  

• Artisteer – web design software and joomla template generator  Artisteer is a Web design automation product that instantly creates fantastic looking, unique website templates and blog themes. The trial copy does not support saving your web design projects, but you can still create and export your web design as HTML, theme, template or skin.

• teamer: sports team management Teamer is an online team management system that uses email and text messaging to notify your entire team. Team members can respond by email or text message and their response is captured in real time on your private teampage. Cut the time and cost involved in organising your team. Designes for sports but may be useful in other senarios 

• – MonkeyJam – Resources free animation software

• Illuminations: Welcome to Illuminations Illuminations provides a library of 102 online activities that help to make maths come alive in the classroom or at home. Includes a Graph Creator and Isometric Drawing

• 250+ Places for Free Books Online Gizmo’s Freeware provides a list of over 250 sites that offer free ebooks for download or online viewing. The list is organised alphabetically and in genres. 

• TodaysMeet ”TodaysMeet helps you embrace the backchannel and connect with your audience in realtime. Encourage the room to use the live stream to make comments, ask questions, and use that feedback to tailor your presentation, sharpen your points, and address audience needs.”

• OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap is an editable map of the whole world allowing you to view, edit and use geographical data in a collaborative way from anywhere on Earth. Embed the map in your website.

• The ChemCollective The Chemistry Collective is a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities and concepts tests, which can be incorporated into a variety of teaching approaches as pre-labs, homework, and in-class activities for individuals or teams. 

• Nivo Slider – The Most Awesome jQuery Image Slider  Excellent jQuery image slider script. A nice alternative to lightbox with good transition effects. It allows the use of thumbnails. Have a look at the demos to get an idea of what can be done with the Nivo Slider or check out the showcase of sites using the Nivo Slider

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Goodbye 2010

My colleague Tania out this video onto our Ning.  I thought it would be a good final post before I leave work this year. The stocktake is done, the orders and invoices are all signed off and the vacant position for a TL in our school library has just been filled. Hello Christmas and school holidays!

Useful sites (weekly)

  by  chamada74 

 

• SoundCloud – Your Sound, At The Heart Site is great for audio applications and distributing audio via cloud “SoundCloud is a platform that puts your sound at the heart of communities, websites and even apps. Watch conversations, connections and social experiences happen, with your sound as the spark.” 

• ScienceImage – CSIRO Scienceimage is an image library specialising in science and nature images. It is presented by CSIRO, Australia’s major science research organisation.

• Picsearch – innovating image search Allows you to search the web for images. An image search service with more than 3,000,000,000 pictures, well organized and offering high-resolution pictures, free for educational use, from all over the web. The site has a nice filtering system which allows child-friendly searches.

• NSW Teachers Federation: Media Centre: Latest News 2010: The misuse of NAPLAN data ”Associate Professor Margaret Wu gave impressive addresses to both the Federation’s Principals’ conference and to the Federation’s September State Council, exposing the folly of placing high stakes on NAPLAN test results. She strongly supports the teaching profession’s continuing campaign against the misuse of student performance data.” 

• EmbedPlus Adds Extra Video Controls to YouTube Embeds

• Critical thinking In the classroom Designed to assist teachers to help their students, Microsoft offers this a free 37 page ebook entitled Developing Critical Thinking Through Web Research Skills. The ebook presents strategies for teaching Internet search skills and strategies for evaluating information. The ebook also links to many additional resources for teaching web search strategies. There are strategies and resources appropriate for students from in early elementary grades through high school included in the ebook. AOf course it has many references to Bing and other Microsoft products, but overall it is a good resource. 

• Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano in Education & Language This is a 120 page guide to using digital storytelling tools in your classroom. The guide offers clear directions for using tools like Audacity, Google Maps, Photo Story, VoiceThread, and other digital media creation tools. Silvia’s directions are aided by clearly annotated screenshots of each digital storytelling tool. It also provides a good explanation of digital storytelling in general and the benefits of using digital storytelling in your classroom. You can download the ebook for free on Lulu. You can also purchase a paperback copy of the book

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.