Technology Training Wheels

Have you ever wondered how to do something powerful in Google? This site give you easy, step by step, video tutorials on how use some special features in Google.
http://techtrainingwheels.com/

FinalFolder - online storage with email integration.

FinalFolder –An online storage service lets you upload files then share the link for your friends to access. FinalFolder allows you to email files to your FinalFolder account for a seamless backup. Here is the link: https://finalfolder.com/

FlixTime

Many of you have used Animoto to create videos. Here is another product with similar features. It does allow for FREE 60 second video creation. http://flixtime.com/

SLEEDO - Donate Rice

Many of you are familiar with Free Rice the site which donates rice to the poor in the world for each correct answer to a vocabulary question. This site donates rice for each time you preform a search using it.

http://www.sleedo.com/

Poster Street

This post is credited to Free Technology for Teachers Blog.

Poster Street - Free Posters for Your Classroom
from Free Technology for Teachers by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne)
Poster Street comes to us from the same people behind Certificate Street. Poster Street is a collection of free posters for classroom and office display. The collection is organized into seven categories. The categories of most interest to educators are Teachers, Kids, and Teens. All of the posters can be downloaded for free from Poster Street.

Try Easy Poster Printer to print the posters from Poster Street in large sizes.

Applications for Education
If you're looking for an inexpensive way to decorate or redecorate your classroom, Poster Street's posters just might be what you need.

Keep in mind that at WWSD you will need administrative rights to download the software for "Easy Poster Printer" to work. Poster Street itself should be no problem.

Virsona

A great way to have student role play a character from a novel, or a historical personality. The interface allow student to chat (no that isn't a bad word) with other characters. Here is what Virsonas site tells us:
Bring life and excitement to the classroom teaching with historical Virsonas. Let students learn and explore with many of the same interactive tools they use at home.

Our Educational Solutions include:
Historical Characters
Fictional Characters
Public Figures
Pre-packaged Bundles
Custom Virsonas
All Virsonas are designed and tested by a team of professionals and are suitable for use in a classroom environment. We provide sample classroom plans with ways to implement Virsonas into your lesson plans as well as first account experiences by fellow teachers.
http://www.teachwithvirsona.com/edulogin.aspx
Create a free account and classroom setup. It contains ample security features.

Draw.to

This easy to use program allows you to draw and then share. One especially nice feature provides an embed code so you can embed into a blog or wiki. The site also provides you with a URL to your drawing. http://draw.to/new

RCampus - Online Course Creator

RCampus is a free, web-based, platform for creating and conducting courses online. Using RCampus teachers can create a course, collect students' assignments, and maintain a gradebook. RCampus provides all of the tools you would expect to find in an online course management system. Through RCampus you can post assignments, host discussion forums, post videos, post images, post links, collect assignments, and manage a gradebook. Here is the link: http://www.rcampus.com/

Embed Your Documents in Websites

With this easy to use application you can embed most types of documents into your blog, wiki, or other website. It creates an embed code for your document. Those of you using it at school please remember that it involves an upload of your document. Your document needs to be in its original form. If you created in 07 your upload needs to be in that format. To get the embed code you will need to sign in with a Google Account, Twitter, Open ID, Yahoo, AOL, or Word Press ID. See me if you have any questions.

http://embedit.in/

Video Tutorials for Office 07

Let's face it, if we haven't been using a particular program in Office for a while we forget how to manipulate some of its features. This site has short tutorials on using Microsoft Office as well as other commonly used programs. To use the Office 07 tutorials choose Windows from the left side of your screen and choose Microsoft Office 2007. I encourage you to explore other tutorials on the site as well. http://www.woopid.com/channels.php

High School Reform

Take 2-3 minutes to read this article. It may be the future of education. http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/02/2650461/fresno-tech.html

A Brave New World Wide Web

A very challenging video from YouTube on Teaching in the 21st Century by David Truss.
You can also view on Blip.tv. http://blip.tv/file/1262079/

Historical Thinking Matters

I have included this site even though it is not for all area of the curriculum. It is social studies based but includes aspects of English and Science. Students complete work on a task, do research, and send their finished work to the teacher via e-mail directly from the site. (No need for a student to use an e-mail account.) I am hopeful that this site will expand to include other subject matter areas. It is FREE and very powerful. (The introductory video will not play within the constraints of our network. The tech department is working on a fix. http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/ *** UPDATE*** the video should now play at school. Thanks- Tech folks. ****

Wolfram Alpha for Educators

If you haven't given Wolfram Alpha a test drive you might want to give it a try. If you have been using this powerful search feature you might like to visit the teacher resources available at: http://www.wolframalpha.com/educators/ Lots of great resources for upper level mathematics, science, and social studies.

Tagxedo

For those of you using "wordle" here is another option. Enter some text, copy some text, or choose a webpage - Tagxedo will create a word picture of your text. Great way to show important words in text since repeated words are enlarged. You will need to have Microsoft Silverlight (free) installed. Check it out. http://www.tagxedo.com

Whiteboard Blog

Here is an nice blog devoted to interactive whiteboards. It includes tips and trick for Smart and Promethean as well as resources. http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/
Why not set up a RSS feed for this blog. Let me know if you need some help.

Shmoop Teacher Resources

Literature - Poetry - US History - Civics - Biography - Music - AP Exams - and lots of teacher resources makes this a must stop for Social Studies and English Teachers.
Check out this new site given the honor of Best of the Internet by PC Magazine. http://www.shmoop.com/

Filesanywhere

I am very impressed with this site. There are various versions available. The FREE version is quite impressive. After creating an account you can upload files (25MB max. per file), share groups or individual files by e-mail, create a dropbox for students to post document for your viewing. Student do not need to have an account to upload to your drop box or to view your shared documents. So easy to use. The great news is that with so many upload not working at school - this one works. Here is the link: http://www.filesanywhere.com/
*****UPDATE**** For those of you using an I-Phone, Filesanywhere as announced a I-Phone App so you can view your files on your phone.

8 Wonders of the Solar System

Artist Ron Miller takes us on a journey to eight of the most
breathtaking views that await explorers of our solar system.
The scale of these natural wonders dwarfs anything Earth has to offer.
What might we see and feel if we could travel to these distant domains?
By interpreting data from probes such as NASA's Cassini, which is now
exploring the Saturnian system, and MESSENGER, which goes into orbit
around Mercury in March 2011, the artist's eye allows us an early visit
to these unforgettable locales. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=8-wonders

Thanks to Storyjumper via Twitter for this site.

Real Player SP

The latest version of Real Player SP has two very nice features: 1. You can trim flv formatted videos. 2. You can convert to many formats right from the player. If you would like the new player contact me or anyone in the tech department and ask for latest version of Real Player SP (FREE).

Tagul

For those of you using

Wordle

here is another word cloud creator. It does allow for your finished project to have links. It is like supercharging Wordle!

http://tagul.com/