I came across this really cool site recently. It allows you to select a storybook and either have it read to you, read it yourself, or best of all- customize it!
That was my favorite feature. After you select a book, you can select the personalize button and it will ask for the name of the main characters.
Have you ever tried to get a group of students (or teachers, or maybe just your mother-in-law) to correctly enter a rather long URL without missing a single character? Or have you ever wanted to share a cool link on a social network like Twitter or Plurk but your link takes up your character quota? That’s where shortening really helps! No, not the Crisco kind…
Probably most of you reading this have already heard of TinyURL, but we are surprised as we give presentations at the number of educators who have never heard of or used a URL shortening service. TinyURL isn’t the only one (for a more comprehensive list, look at this article) but it’s one that is simple and not blocked by most web filters.
It’s simple- just paste in the real URL, then click the MakeTinyURL button. The newly generated URL will never expire! Here, try it below…
So just think…
Turn your browser into a teleprompter, just like the ones used in television studios everywhere! Why? How about when you are recording a script or narration for that next slideshow? Or maybe you are recording instructions for your students to post on your website. Whatever the case, this is a pretty cool little utility- not to mention what it does for student reading fluency!
This is so simple to use! Just type or paste text into the box, choose among the few options and let it go! Here are some options Continue reading
Captivate. Camtasia. CamStudio. Jing. And many more. There are lots of these babies hanging around waiting to be downloaded and installed. Ranging in price from free (CamStudio) to way more than I can afford (Captivate), these handy utilities allow you to record, annotate, and, in some cases, narrate the actions on your computer screen. But none of them do it quite like ScreenToaster.
This website allows you to record on screen events, annotate the actions, and upload to the web. The resulting video can be linked to or embedded like this one. There is absolutely nothing to install! Log in to the site, record your actions (uses a Java applet), narrate if desired, then publish it! They host your file so you can embed it immediately in blogs, wikis, or other websites. Here’s one recording of me showing my wife how to edit her library catalog page:
I chose not to narrate with my voice- besides, what wife wants to listen to their husband any more than necessary, right? But here are some things Continue reading
www.squareleaf.net
I am a list maker. It seems like the only way I can remember anything is to write it on a small piece of paper and carry it around with me until I complete that task. However, this system isn’t as flawless as I would like. I lose notes, I leave them on my desk at work or at home, I drop them into the bottomless pit known as my purse, and occasionally I have no idea what I wrote, what it looked like, and where I was when I wrote it!
This is where Squareleaf comes in. Squareleaf.net is a virtual sticky note creator that is always online. I used to use a sticky note application that resided on my computer, but that was limited by me being at the same place as my computer. I like having access to my notes at any computer, anywhere!
It’s very simple to use, you register for a login (it’s free!), and then create notes in any size or formation. You can change the color of the note to make groups or to indicate urgency, or delete when you are finished.
Squareleaf doesn’t change the amount of tasks I have to do, but it might make me a little more organized….
Well, now, isn’t that an interesting concept- get messages sent to the email account of your choice without giving out that email address. Will it cut out all that spam? Probably not. But will it allow others to send you messages (and yes, even attachments) while protecting your email address. Keep in mind that if you are in public education, your email address is probably subject to Open Records inquiries and so it’s a moot point. But perhaps it’s something useful.
You register at the site then can send users to your contact page via a link or embed your contact form like I’ve done here (and yes, this is a working form- if you feel like dropping me a note, fill it out… but be nice!):
OK, this one hardly qualifies as a Web 2.0 tool in the sense of a usable web application, but I just couldn’t resist. Seinfeld is one of my favorite sitcoms of all time- and that may explain why I like this site so much!
Here at this cool little site, people tell their story (whatever story they have to share) in one sentence. So many of them are so hilarious I laugh out loud and start filling in the rest of the story in my mind…
Some are serious. Many are thought provoking. And some Continue reading
Talking avatars are a really great way to get your students’ attention really quickly. A Voki can be created by a teacher to introduce material or to give directions, or better yet, created by a student to share information. Students can let their Voki give a character description, a science vocabulary word, or the reasoning behind a math solution. There’s no limit to what a Voki can do!
Click the play button to hear my Voki! Continue reading
http://rubistar.4teachers.org
Grading student projects can be a time consuming and difficult job. I often had around 150 students, and I gave big projects four or five times a semester. That’s a lot of grading. I found that I tended to get easier on my grading as the evening wore on… maybe my standards would slide a bit after I saw the quality of the projects! I always gave the students a score sheet so they would have a way to know the way it would be graded. I called it a rubric, but it was really just a score sheet. If a certain criteria was worth 10 points, and the student’s project had issues, I would subjectively give them 7 or 8. If it had a lot of problems, maybe a 4 or 5. That’s not really a rubric.
A rubric specifies levels of performance expected for several levels of quality in order to earn a set amount of points. For example, if spelling and grammar are specified, the student would know exactly what is expected to earn a perfect score.
At Digital Goonies, we use Google Docs a lot to organize our book outlines, our workshop proposals, calendars, and a whole lot more! I can’t image how we got along before we started using Google Docs. Recently I needed a template for a spreadsheet that I was setting up, and decided to see if there was something available already that would keep me from recreating the wheel. I browsed through the template area of Google Docs.
Wow! There are so many templates there from financial spreadsheets to presentation templates to calendars. Continue reading
