Welcome Colleagues!! (Twister)

I shared the blog url with some colleagues last Friday (3/18/11), and asked them if they have any sites they would like to share. If you are one of my co-workers, WELCOME! Thanks for visiting! I believe it is through the collaborative process that this site can grow, and I look forward to hearing your feedback as well as adding any sites you may know about that I have missed.

So. For today's website. Many of the sites listed here are from other people's blogs or from my PLN on twitter (@slymrgn if you want to join me). In honor of that, today's site is called Twister. It is another of the classtools handy dandy templates. You can only have one tweet at a time, which really makes it nice to capture the essence of the person you are portraying. Oh...did I mention that Twister goes out and finds a picture of whomever you are tweeting from to make a customized background? Yep...it does! And...it's free!

How I would use it in the classroom: One way is to have students make a collection of them to decorate a bulletin board. I think that would be cool.

The tweet I made just for you! (OK...and for myself, too)

Math Interactive Whiteboard Resources

I don't teach math. That being said, if I did I would definitely find a use for this website:

Whiteboard Resources

It. Is. Awesome. I played on it for entirely too long, just messing around.

And...you know if it's on my blog, it's FREE! You also don't need to register - click and use, that's all you have to do. Well...and make sure it meets your objectives for the day.

Yep - check it out. If you use this resource, please leave a comment letting me know. I'd love to know how you use it in your classroom!

My Fake Wall - EDITED...NEW AND IMPROVED!!!

Edit: I love the idea of the fakewall. However, there is advertising on the site and it is very bulky to work with. So I have researched better options. Lucky for all of us, there are people out there that see the same shortcomings in the fakewall site and they have improved the usability by creating...FAKEBOOK!!

Here's what I like about Fakebook:
No ads (yay!)
when you enter a name, the site goes out to the WorldWideWeb and finds pictures for you! I think as teachers we have to take a look at the technology/tools we are using and make sure they are not impeding the educational objective of the assignment. Fakebook is such a user friendly site you can use it to get the details down (i.e., conversations, relationships, etc.) but you are not bogged down with the finer details (saving pictures to upload, etc.).

If you link back to the originating site (classtools) you will also find some other cool stuff. But I'm saving that for another day.
End Edit

There has been quite a bit of a buzz about the following site. I've been wanting to have students make a facebook page for a historical person for quite awhile now. The only thing holding me back was the lack of a site that would make it easier...enter My Fake Wall!

I had a Google doc template that would've done the job. With some tweaking. Major tweaking. With this site, however, students can just plug in the information and shazam! There's the wall. In case you just want to do something different, there are also some already made, such as this one for Ben Franklin.

Pros: um...free & easy! Also, you really have to know quite a bit about a person and the events they are associated with in order to write a fakebook wall. I also see this as being relevant and interesting to students. This would also be fun for book characters, IMHO.

Cons: You have to create an account, and in order to do so you have to have an email. I honestly don't think that's a problem for most students today, but I don't feel comfortable making it a required activity because of this factor. Not really a con in the sense I will just have a choice of assignments that will all meet the goals I have for this assignment...but still kind of a bummer.

So here is my practice wall...made in honor of my kitty, Mozilla (and just for the record, if I were to get another it's name would be the vastly superior Chrome...just sayin').

http://www.myfakewall.com/

National Archives

Interactive National Archives. Take a trip without leaving your seat! I'm not quite sure how I'd use this site yet, but the potential is there. In spades.

Math Warehouse

I have included this site just because I think Math Teachers are awesome!!

Cartoon Creator

Another comic strip creator. With this one, you can't see the cartoon before it's printed. That's a bummer. But it's a pretty cool site. I wasted entirely too much time on it. Ask to see my cartoons sometime!!

Symbaloo

Symbaloo is a place to save websites in a convenient "tile" type format. I like this in other ways than blogging - give a student a link to this site, they can then choose which tile will be most helpful for their project/assessment. There are also widgits to put in the center from which you can place an agenda, search engine, or many other options.

Comic Strip Creator

This site will allow you to make your own comic strip - full page one panel up to three panel.

Newspaper Clipper Generator

Use this site to make newspaper clippings, tomatoes talk, or ninjas spell!

Web 2.0 Tools

Annotated links to lots of Web 2.0 tools.

Are You Bored?

If it's your prep and you find yourself with nothing to do, (hehe...I crack myself up!) then check out this site. Words fail me. Just go. Now.

Printing Press

I LOVE having the students  make an artifact of their learning. I don't love having the lesson be more about how to format a document than the material they should be learning in the project. At this site, you can input information to make a newspaper, booklet, brochure, or flyer. Easy Peasy.

Timeline Generator

Here's another timeline generator. Not quite as fancy, but serviceable nonetheless!

Graphic Organizers

What's that? Did I hear you say you need a graphic organizer but can't find just the one you need? Um....here. All you thought you'd need and more.

Create a timeline

OK...there are lots of places to make timelines out there. This is one of my favorites.