Nassau BOCESDepartment of Curriculum, Instruction and Technology

Kerpoof’s multimedia software is used by kids worldwide to create original artwork, animated movies, stories, greeting cards and more. The site is meant to be fun, but also provide great educational value. Elementary and middle school teachers can use Kerpoof in many ways to enhance classroom activities while meeting a range of educational standards.

The site offers free educator accounts and students can be organized into classes where they can collaborate on projects in a moderated environment.  They also provide a wealth of lesson plans and ideas that are aligned with both the ISTE NETS for Students and New York State Standards (as well as other states).

Get started with KerPoof here: http://www.kerpoof.com/

If you use word clouds in your instruction, or as a tool for students, Tagxedo deserves a look.  One of many services that turn text, webpages, articles, etc. into tag clouds, this tool ads a little style too.

From the site: Tagxedo turns words — famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters — into a visually stunning tag cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.

Check it out here: http://www.tagxedo.com/

Know of other tools for wordclouds?  Please list them in the comments on this post!

Students and authors, publishers, illustrators, and all of the possibilities that is held within that can now take advantage of the current devices that support the ePub standard.  Best of all, it can be done for free.

The ePubBud site is completely free and ad free.  The site looks very much like Youtube and shares similar functionality.  The tools provided allow you to search for existing works, create your own and download them to your device.  The organization will also accept childrens books that you mail to them, which they will then take and digitize.

This sites and ones like it are certainly tools to keep an eye on and use moving forward.

You can find it here: http://www.epubbud.com/

To blog or not to blog?  This is the question frequently asked in the context of teaching and learning.  I think we can all agree that blogging creates a great environment for students to publish and gain feedback on their work, among many other things relevant to learning.  A blogging platform also opens the door to the many competencies of 21st century learning.

One aspect that must be considered when opening this door to blogging and authoring is safety.  Who can see the postings?  Who can comment on the postings?  Are they moderated?  These are just some of the more common questions that get asked.  In this context, it may pay to take a look at KidBlog.org which does a nice job of addressing the features and functionality required for blogging, as well as many of the concerns.  It is also free.

Take a look at this resource here: http://kidblog.org/

This resource was created by Karl Fisch, an administrator at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, and does a very nice job of defining various web-based tools for use by students.  Karl put the site together to help students identify the type of tools they should use when working on projects, reminding them to think about purpose and audience.

Karl wrote this about the site;

“Basically I was trying to create a resource for students and staff that would help them think through the process for creating something digital. I wanted them to think about purpose and audience first, make a decision about whether this particular piece of work needs to be digital, and then give them some information about possible tools they might want to use.”

Karl is also the one who brought us the infamous “Shift Happens” video.

Certainly a great resource here:  http://sites.google.com/site/ahslearningecology/

Thank you to Janice Friedman from Uniondale for sharing this resource!

Published by Terry Freedman and individual contributors, this free eBook contains examples of classroom projects utilizing Web 2.0 technologies and the very many tools that exist.

It covers everything from wikis, blogs, to digital storytelling and podcasting.  Terry does a nice job of organizing the content, which has been included from educators around the world.

If you have teachers that are stuggling to find ways to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies into their classroom or need inspiration, definately point them here.

Link here.

Weblist is a new way to gather and organize content on the web. Create your list of URLs centered on a specific theme and they will be combined into one easy to navigate URL.  Once you have created your list you can save it as a smart bookmark or as a customizable home page.

Weblist is a free service and registration is optional. If you choose to register as a user your entire list will be saved under your account and you will be able to edit, delete and add to your lists.

Although the service is still in alpha, it is a great site to start taking advantage of and there are certainly many uses for both teachers and students in the classroom.

You can find it here: http://weblist.me/

Field trips, school events, class projects and anything else where photos and video is captured becomes suitable for shwup!  Sure, there are many sites and utilities that allow you to create slideshow and multimedia projects, but shwup is unique in that through “invites,” multiple people can all upload their media into a project album.  Instead of having to collect everyones images, the shwup services provides an easy way to consolidate everyone’s photos and video in a private, shared online album.

Give shwup a try here: http://www.shwup.com/

Those of you familiar with services such as Animoto and Stupeflix will enjoy this new video creation service from Flixtime.  As with the others, you can mix your videos, pictures and music together into a quick video that can be shared through a variety of services or downloaded to your local machine.

Certainly worth a look for those that want to provide their students another way to express their unique talents and incorporate some dynamic elements into their projects.

Flixtime can be found here: http://flixtime.com/

The Professor Garfield Foundation learning portal is a fun interactive online environment where children can safely explore, learn and creatively express themselves.

PGF offers fun, engaging and transforming educational content for school children between kindergarten and 8th grade. The educational content is upgraded continuously and presented in a popular culture entertainment format. All of the content has been reviewed by educational experts and tested in classroom settings.

You can find the Professor Garfield Foundation learning portal here: http://www.professorgarfield.org/pgf_home.html

Thanks to Trish Iannacone for sharing this great resource.

Those of you familiar with Prezi know it as a dynamic presentation tool that puts a creative spin on the powerpoint presentations we all know.

Due to an overwhelming request for “educator” accounts, the company has responded with an enhanced account just for teachers and students.  You can learn more and sign up here.

For Those of you not familiar with Prezi, I encourage you to take a look and experiment with the site here: http://prezi.com/.

Scribblar is an online interactive collaboration tool that functions very much in the same way as a dry erase board.   It is a built on a flash-based platform and primarily geared towards tutoring and web collaboration.  The service is free with an option for “Pro” accounts.  Some of the main features include:

• Multi-user
• Text and audio chat
• Freehand drawing tools
• Image and text tools
• “Asset” uploading
• Multiple access and rights levels

Click on the icon above to access a space that I created and give it a try!

Always a GREAT resource to share and learn, the K12OnlineConference is a completely FREE opportunity to learn from educators around the world.  If you are interested in innovative ways to use Web 2.0 tools and technologies then this is for you!  The theme for this years conference is “Bridging the Divide.”

Day 1 is today (December 7th).  Main page is here: http://k12onlineconference.org/ and one of the “fun-to-watch” videos is below!