Online Tools for Educators 2009
http://www.delicious.com
Delicious is a social networking website. Here you can keep your bookmarks and/or favorites online to share with colleagues and to access your links anywhere you have an internet connection.
Frequently Asked Questions about Delicious: http://delicious.com/help/faq
Firefox Delicious Add On
Internet Explorer Delicious Add On
Our district delicious accounts:
http://www.delicious.com/nppsd (Elementary Level)
http://www.delicious.com/nppsd_secondary (Secondary Level)
The new kid on the block is Diigo (Similar to Delicious with "more features")
The following are more online instructional resources. If you already use some of these, please share your experiences and products that students have produced.
Online Instructional Resources 2/26/2009
The following are some new and old online sites that you may find useful as educational resources and fun instructional tools. I have included links to each site, a brief description, and information quoted from each site. Let me know if you find something is blocked and we will make quick a fix.
Wordle
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.
Lesson Plans, Resources, and SO MUCH MORE!!!
Thinkfinity http://www.thinkfinity.org/
Remember the Marco Polo site? Thinkfinity is Marco Polo in its new incarnation.
“Thinkfinity.org makes it easy for educators to enhance their classroom instruction with lesson plans, interactive activities and other online resources. Thinkfinity.org also provides a wealth of educational and literacy resources for students, parents and after-school programs.
All of Thinkfinity.org's 55,000 standards-based K-12 lesson plans, student materials, interactive tools and reference materials are reviewed by the nation's leading education organizations to ensure that content is accurate, up-to-date, unbiased and appropriate for students.
At Thinkfinity.org, you'll find primary source materials, interactive student resources and grade-specific research lists to help you tailor materials to meet your needs. Start exploring now!”
Web Tools
Tiny URL http://tinyurl.com/
Have a long web address/url/or web site “number” as VP Biden calls it ;-)? Tiny URL can assist in creating a much shorter url for you to use or remember.
“Are you sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together? Then you've come to the right place. By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires.”
Web 2.0 Sites
Glogster http://www.glogster.com/
This site has some possibilities and there is an education version: http://www.glogster.com/edu/
I envision students using this to create posters, collages, etc. for various classroom projects. It is very new to me; so, you will want to try it out on your own and we can visit about application before utilizing it with students.
“Mix graphics, photos, videos, music and text into slick Glogs. Glog yourself every day!
Amaze your friends - send others links to your Glogs.
Pimp your profile! - share your creations on Myspace, Facebook, Hi5, Friendster, Bebo or wherever you want...
Find new friends by their style
Have fun browsing Glogs, comment on other people's Glogs and get inspiration”
MorgueFile http://www.morguefile.com/
This is a place to free photos and there is also a classroom section where you can learn the basics of photography.
“Morguefile, where photo reference lives. This morgue file contains free high resolution digital stock photographs and reference images for either corporate or public use. The purpose of this site is to provide free image reference material for illustrators, comic book artist, designers, teachers and all creative pursuits.”
GigaPan http://www.gigapan.org/index.php
See the “GigaPan” from the Nebraska vs. CU football game (Click the following link and zoom in to find yourself if you were there!): http://tinyurl.com/88ao9d
“GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them. The GigaPan website allows hosting and sharing all kinds of panoramas, and so the robotic GigaPan mount is recommended but is certainly not required to be part of this community.”
Picnik http://www.picnik.com/
Online photo editing and more.
“Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames. It's fast, easy, and fun.”
BeFunky http://www.befunky.com/
Create artwork with your photos.
“BeFunky Photo Effects allow everyday people to easily create photographically rich and artistic results from their digital images without the need for any technical knowledge. These "one-click" photo effect options produce desired results effortlessly and each effect comes with the option to make simple adjustments.”
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.