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It seems that every time I turn around Google has added yet another tool to help educators. Ok – I know they aren’t JUST for educators, but dang! They sure are useful!

I have been taking an e-class through my education department and have learned about Google sites. Now – I’ve had a wiki for a few years that I’ve used with my classes and homebound students. I think the Google sites are much easier and more intuitive to use for beginners; but they also have enough ‘bling’ for a more advanced user’s wants.

Several uses that have been listed on my class’s discussion board for Google sites outside of student use with projects included professional collaboration. Administrative schedules could be posted. Announcements could quickly be uploaded and updated. Documents via google docs could be updated in real time thus saving multiple versions of a document floating around in email-world.

On-line, real-time collaboration between rooms, schools, and countries just keeps getting easier and easier. What are you waiting for?

Which country lets you visit both cities of Edinborough and Glasgow? Where can you see stalactites?

Remember these questions from the wonderful folks over at BrainQuest? Those  marvelous flip books which kept thousands of us entertained on the road and we now are trying to get our own children interested in learning various tidbits in the hopes of landing a Jeopardy slot someday.

Now, even better, these books are available for free over at Scribd! Scribd is a free place provided by Google to allow us to jot something down and publish it. In a nutshell it is “largest social publishing company in the world — the website where more than 60 million people each month discover and share original writings and documents.” (See here)

You can browse for items to read and even save them to a “reading list”.

I think this would also be a great activity for Smart Boards and allowing the students to take charge of the activity.

So – do you know which has the most gravity: a supernova, a white dwarf, or a black hole?

Wow – here I was – taking a quick break from writing lesson plans for the week – just foolin’ and toolin’ around and look at what I stumbled across….Newtools!

Click on the “click here” button to see new possibilities. My thoughts for this in my classroom would be to use this when kids need a break from the usual routine, when things are getting stale, on early out days and class periods are short, and so on. Once you see how it works, you could also make your own options with your own curriculum and choices for how/what type activities and let kids draw from a hat. Then give them 20 or so minutes to get set, do whatever researching they need to do, practice, and then have them hit the stage! This would be lots of fun and the kids may not even realize they are learning as well as doing a little teaching.

I’ve posted before here about my love of Voice Thread and I just received an email from them touting even MORE to make Voice Thread better! If you’d like to read even more about Voicethread – check out their blog.

They’ve added the New York Library’s Digital Library with over 700,000 historical images that can be used in the Threads. VT has also improved its Flickr search and import capabilities along with adding Learning Modules which allow you to set options giving other’s permission to copy and use your VoiceThreads.

These changes and updates are awesome! What a great way to start a new school year with an old friend who has some fresh features?

Come see the quick (FREE) wordle I created with the tweets that were generated during this mornings presentation by Ted McCain at the Special Education Teacher Leader Academy in Charleston, WV.

This tools is great to use in so many ways in the classroom – and extremely easy. Check out the gallery for some more inspiration.

Here’s how I did this – all the tweets had the hash mark and tag of #SETLA somewhere in the tweet message. This was agreed upon at the beginning of the conference so we could easily search them out later on. Then I went to the twitter homepage and searched for #SETLA and had returned all the tweets with that tag. I cut and pasted them into Word.

The way that Wordle works is returning a graphic with the most commonly used words in the chosen text with different sizes and colors. I didn’t want the usernames of the tweeters to show up so I used the “find and replace” feature in word for each username and replaced it with an empty space. Then I highlighted, copied and pasted it into the Wordle website and clicked on “GO”. If I liked the created graphic, I could publish it or print it. If I didn’t like it I could change some of the colors and options as well as click ‘randomize’ for a completely different look. If a couple of particular words showed up that I didn’t want, I went back to the Word document and again, used find and replace to delete that undesired word. Copy and paste again back into Wordle.

Like it? Publish it!

If you would like to play a game that an online teacher has created with various Wordles, go over to Guess The Wordle.

When telling a story, words can convey so much. However, when you can tell a story using words, pictures, music, and your own voice – the power of the message becomes exponentially greater. Even those unenthusiastic writers may show a glimmer of interest when presented with this program as a medium to create a project.

Photo Story 3 is a free download for Windows XP and greater computers. It is a program that is very easy to learn and show others how to create their own digital movies, narrate them, set them to music tracks, and publish them for others to view. Students can create their own videos for just about any topic you can think of. Turn them loose with a couple of digital cameras and see what they can come up with. Don’t have any digital cameras? Use Flickr to search for photographs relating to the topic and have students use those.

Here are directions on how to download music to Photo Story 3 from a CD as well as general Photo Story directions. (The directions on downloading music were created by Melissa Given.)

There are some ideas and websites listed below for inspiration.

The following activities are just a few samples from TeachersInTouch.
* Learn how to create a farewell, end-of-year video file that will be remembered long after the streamers are cleaned up and the DJ has gone home. Using still images and text, you can create a video file complete with music and narration using Microsoft Photo Story.

* What I should have done in the holidays – Students always write a recount of what they did in their holidays. Here is a way to make their recount dynamic and more meaningful. Using Photo Story 3, students narrate their
recounts making their everyday recount come to life in visual and audio multimedia.

* In this activity, students create a Photo Story video file using still images, text, narration and sound files to advertise and promote sun safety. Throughout this lesson, students will gain an understanding and appreciation of their home climate and its affect on skin.

* Waltzing Matilda – In this activity, students are asked to analyse the meaning behind a well known song or quote. Students create a visual audio story using Microsoft Photo Story and synchronize it with a PowerPoint presentation detailing the song lyrics along with their own interpretation.

Websites with examples:

Digitalcamerasined – a wiki with resources on using digital photography in general in the classroom along with Photo Story 3. Lots of great ideas!

ReadWriteThink - Here is a website that has a lesson plan and activities using Photo Story 3 and/or Movie Maker from the ReadWriteThink site.

Ok – that’s obvious – my favorite things also happen to include the song from Sound of Music.

I also love chocolate, soft cotton t-shirts, cuddling with my kids, holding hands with my husband, and learning new things. Over the last year or so there has been an explosion of web 2.0 tools to learn about. On twitter, there was a question about what were my favorite ones that I just couldn’t live without. So, after humming for a little while about doorbells, and sleighbells and schneitzel with noodles.…here are my favorites:

1. Google Earth has to be one of the best tools out there that I can think of. There are so many ways this application can be utilized for just about any class and learner. There are also many, many resources out there showing you the golden brick road to best useage of Google Earth.

• Google Earth 101 for Educators – Teacher Hacks

• Google Earth Lessons

• Google Lit Trips

2. VoiceThread is probably going to be on a lot of people’s lists – also for its flexibility across many curriculums and forums. I already blogged about this site here.

3. My third pick (this list not in any particular order, just someone had to be third…) would have to be Primary Source Learning. This site is set up in conjunction with the Library of Congress (which by the way is debuting a new resource of its own very soon here.) Anyway, Primary Source Learning is a site that shows teachers how to integrate primary historical documents into their classroom for everyday lessons. It strives to teach students connections between then, now, and the future. Lessons are there along with whatever printables are needed as well as field test reports from real live teachers who have used these lessons in their classrooms. Lessons also have links to how to differentiate the content, processes and products for each experience. What an amazing resource!

So – there you go – my favorite three…..for today. Who knows what’ll come along tomorrow?

Thanks to a link from Cool Cat Teacher – I’ve been exploring a wiki dedicated to Dr. Marzano’s Classroom Instruction that Works.

My school system is one that a few years ago adopted this resource and every teacher was provided a copy of his Handbook for Classroom Instruction that Works. We all participated in several days of in-service as well as on-going staff development sessions through-out the year.
Dr. Marzano has now put together a wiki designed as a portal for Web 2.0 resources which specifically target one or more of his instructional strategies. These strategies, as outlined in his books and the wiki are:

1) Identifying Similarities & Differences

2) Summarizing and note taking

3) Reinforcing effort and providing recognition

4) Homework and practice

5) Representaing knowledge

6) Learning groups

7) Setting objectives and providing feedback

Generating and testing hypotheses

9) Cues, questions, and advance organizers

On the wiki page labeled, web 2.0 tools, there is a marvelous chart where all the tools and resources that have been added to the site are arranged and then check-marked as to which strategy they address. Many of these tools are ones that several of us already use, but sometimes it’s nice to have verification that what we may already be doing is on the right track according to The Power That Be. Be that as it may, there are quite a few new items that I will be seriously checking out.

This site is obviously new and a work in progress. You don’t have to join it to utilize the resources, but if you wish to add something you use then you need to sign up to join the wiki. Check back with it often to see what new!

This is a site in progress but here are its first efforts to have some great applications for almost any classroom in today’s world. The link on the left side under Find what works for English Language Learners takes you to some techniques and information that you can use not only for ELL/ESL students, but students with reading difficulties or low achievement/motivation students. These activities and suggestions can be used across the grade levels and curriculum with just a little bit of thought and planning.

This site also has a subscription link so you can be notified when they make updates to this site. I am looking forward to added content for cognition & learning as well as for math & science.

It is incumbent upon us to keep current with best practices so that not only will we reach the goals set for us by the Federal Government, but so that we can also do what’s right by our students.

[slideshare id=286905&doc=technology-driven-differentiated-instruction-1204295745836703-2&w=425]

Differentiated instruction is the best way to ensure students of all levels are reached. Differentiation of process, content, and product allows for great flexibility on the part of the teacher to exercise their creativity. Students are given choices with their learning and how they demonstrate mastery of the material. One of the greatest gifts we can give our students is the ability to choose and learn how to make good decisions on the part of their education.

The above slide show (be sure to come over to the blog site if your reader stripped the slide show) was created by CoolCatTeacher for one of her presentations at a convention. This slide show shows how technology can seamlessly differentiate for us according to Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. She has done a fantastic job with this presentation.