DomoNation

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What it is: DomoNation is a free animation website that is powered by Go! Animate.  The site is very intuitive to use and makes impressive cartoon animations.  Students can create animations with backdrops, characters, dialogue, props, music, and special effects.  Students can create on scene or several to make up their animation.    The interface is very simple to learn, the drag and drop platform will be familiar to students.  To make their cartoon come to life, each character has a set of actions and emotions that can be added by clicking on the character and choosing from a drop down menu.  Special effects, such as weather occurrences or zooming, are simple to add to the project.  Animations can be saved for personal or public view on the DomoNation site. This is an impressive little web application that makes students the director of their very own movie.

How to integrate DomoNation into the classroom: Allow students to present their knowledge creatively using DomoNation instead of requiring the traditional report, diorama, or poster plastered with pictures and information.  Students can create an impressive alternative book report by creating an animated book talk, interviewing a character from the story, or re-creating an important scene in the story.  Students can display their knowledge about a historical figure by “interviewing” the historical person of interest or an eye-witness of a historical event.  DomoNation would be a great platform for creating public service announcements (how about the importance of hand washing with the H1N1 outbreak?) or short video commercials that persuade in a debate. Students can write a screen play and then transform it into an  animation. Animations are also a great way to illustrate vocabulary words and story problems in math.  In the foreign language classroom, students can create short cartoons practicing the new vocabulary they are learning.   The possibilities are endless!  Hold a DomoNation premier party day in your classroom so that students can watch each other’s finished animations and learn from their peers.

Tips: Direct your students to the Create page of DomoNation, some of the content created by other users may not be appropriate for your school.

Related Resources: Kerpoof, Shidonni, XtraNormal, DoInk

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using DomoNation in your classroom.

Reading Logs

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What it is: Reading Logs is a free website that makes reading, spelling, and vocabulary simplified.  Reading Logs is a great way to organize student reading, spelling, and vocabulary practice.  Learning material can be uploaded by teachers to be accessed by students online.  Once the material is online, students can use the electronic reading log, vocabulary card creator, and and use the listen and spell practice system.  Teachers can upload reading lists and reading goals for their class.  These can be weekly or monthly goals and can be set up to track the number of minutes or the number of books read.  Online competitions can be setup by the teacher (example: first student to read a certain number of minutes).  Teachers can quickly post a vocabulary list where students can look up words with the online dictionary and add definitions to the cards.  The cards can be studied online or downloaded as a pdf to print out.  With the listen and spell system, teachers can upload spelling lists for students to practice.  Students click on a button to listen to the spelling word and practice spelling it.  They receive immediate feedback from the program.  Reading Logs tracks students reading logs and updates teachers with progress.

How to integrate Reading Logs into the classroom: The Reading Logs website is a great place to organize your classroom.  It eliminates the need for paper spelling lists, vocabulary cards, and reading logs. Parents and students will appreciate the one stop shop for these common weekly tasks.  I am not normally a fan of reading logs, I think they can stress students out about reading unnecessarily (readicide!), but this online reading log works more as a motivator and goal setter for reading.  I like that the focus is not on the number of pages read but on what books that a student is reading.  This could encourage great conversation about reading between students who are reading similar books, or between the teacher and student.  The focus is on encouraging the love of reading and not on the task of reading.  The spelling practice center is great for vocabulary development, pronunciation, and self guided learning of spelling words.  The vocabulary card creator allows students to easily create vocabulary cards, look up words in the online dictionary, and practice the words.  I like this site for student and home connections and for the self guided learning and pacing.  The spelling portion of this site could be great for English language learners because they will hear the pronunciation of words and can look up the definitions within the program.

Tips: When you register for this free website, you will get some great printouts explaining the site to parents and students.

Related Resources: Spelling City, Shelfari, Book Adventure

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Reading Logs in your classroom.

Flight Day with Google Earth

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What it is: Every year the second grade students at CHC participate in Flight Day.  Each class ‘flies’ to a different country where they learn about the customs, architecture, and geographical landmarks of the country.  This year we spruced up flight day with Google Earth.  I created tours in Google Earth so that our students could virtually ‘fly’ from Denver International Airport to their destination (France, Germany, and Mexico).  Before landing in the destination country, we toured famous buildings, landmarks, and points of interest in the destination country.  Flight day begins with a re-arranging of the classroom.  Chairs are arranged in rows to simulate an airplane.  Desks surround the chairs and act as the airplane enclosure.  Students prepare for flight day by creating suitcases (that looks like the flag of the destination country) and passports for their travel.  Students have to go through security before they can board the plane.  There bags are searched and they have to take off their shoes and be wanded.  We have amazing parents who volunteer to act as the pilots of the plane and stewardesses on the flight.  The parents are great sports dressing the part and following a script we have written.  The Promethean boards displayed the Google Earth tour that I pre recorded for teachers.  Each flight leaves from our airport.  The features in Google Earth are incredible, using the 3D buildings option in Google Earth, students could actually see the white peaks of DIA as they waited on the tarmac.  The plane picks them up from a terminal and the flight begins.  Before flight day I had teachers create an itinerary of places they would like to see before the plane landed.   I based all tours on this itinerary.  Students flew to destinations in France such as the Eiffel Tower, Arch De Triumph, Notre Dame, Versailles, Saint Chappelle Cathedral, and the Louvre.  With the 3D buildings and Google Street view options selected, we were able to see each place in 3D and then see a real 360* panorama view of each stop.  During the flight, we provided students with in flight entertainment videos.  Our videos came from Discovery Streaming and the links were embedded right in Google Earth.  The videos were all related to the final destination country, we found some great videos of kids talking about what school is like in each country.  Students were also served an in flight meal.  Students traveling to France enjoyed a croissant, baguette with brie cheese, grapes, and sparkling lemonade.  Each meal came served in a little box topped with the flag of the destination country and a note that said “Thank you for flying Air France.”  When the flight ended, our Google Earth tour finished by landing at the airport of the destination country.  Students disembarked the plane and got their passports stamped.  Students then pretended to visit the local library and were read a story about the country.  The students who ‘traveled’ to Mexico were greeted by Spanish speakers and singers as they exited the plane (our 7th grade Spanish students came down to make the experience more authentic).  This was a very neat day for our students and is SO much better than reading about the countries they visited from a social studies text book.  Tomorrow students will create crafts of the country and sample some of the local cuisine.  They will watch some more clips from Discovery Streaming, learn a few phrases in new languages, and see some more pictures of the places they are visiting.  You can view our tour of France here:  France (To get the full effect make sure that you have turned on the 3D Buildings, Street view, Borders and Labels, and Terrain under Layers in Google Earth.)

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How to create a Google Earth Tour: Google Earth is a truly incredible tool.  If you aren’t using Google Earth in your classroom, you should be!  It is a free download here: Google Earth 5. To create a tour of your own:  Before you begin, come up with an itinerary of places you would like to visit.

1.  Open Google Earth (I worked in Google Earth 5) and create a new Folder under “Places” 2.  Under the Search type in your first destination. (Ours was DIA, our local airport).  You can search by business name, city, or specific address.  Google Earth will search for places that match your search criteria and drop place markers on the map.  When you find the place that you want to add, zoom in and click on the “add placemark button” (the yellow pushpin in the top menu).

3.  When you add a pushpin, the place will show up under your places folder as your first destination.  Continue searching and adding placemarks for each of the stops you would like to make on your journey.  You can add notes, links, etc. when you create a placemark.  Make sure that the view of the feature is exactly the way you would like students to view it when they play the tour.  In other words, if you want students to actually see the 3D model of the Eiffel tower, make sure that when you place your placemark you have zoomed into the map and adjusted the screen.

4.  Under “Layers” you can select the features you would like to show up on your map.  For our flight day I wanted students to be able to see the 3D buildings, Street View, Borders and Labels, and Terrain.  You can select as many or few layers as you would like.

5.  Finally you will play and record your tour.  To play the tour click on the video camera play button which is located directly under the Places panel.  This will automatically play your journey.  To record your tour, click on the “record” button which is located in the top menu button and looks like a video camera with a red record dot.  As I recorded, I would pause the play back of the tour and zoom in and around buildings and feature landmarks.  When you press play again, the tour continues.

6.  Play the tour for students.  When we played the tour for students we paused often so that we could talk about the different architecture and land features that we were seeing.  Pausing also gave us the opportunity to “fly” into the street view so that students could see what it would look like to actually stand on the street corner and look around.  Amazing is the only word that comes to mind!  (As a side note, the Louvre has an incredible 360* tour, be sure to check it out!)

Tips: Google Earth is preset to ‘fly’ quickly between destinations, because we wanted the students to feel like they were actually on a flight, and to get a feel for flying over the ocean to reach a destination I changed the Preferences in Google Earth.  I delayed the amount of time that it took to reach the destination and tweaked a few other settings to get the tour to run the way we needed it to.  The tours can be saved as a place and even emailed to other team teachers directly from Google Earth.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Google Earth in your classroom.

Storybird

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What it is: Storybird is a fun new collaborative storytelling website.  Storybird makes it easy to create and tell stories digitally.  Students and teachers can create stories together by combining imaginative artwork and text.  The final product can be printed, watched on screen, played with like a toy, or shared in an online library with the world.  “Storybird promotes imagination, literacy, and self-confidence.”  Creating, sharing, and reading Storybird stories is free.

How to integrate Storybird into the classroom: Storybird is an excellent way to get your students enthusiastically writing.  The imaginative artwork will have your students creating stories in no time.  Storybird stories are meant to be collaborative.  Students can work together in teams to create stories.  This type of learning through play reminds me of the “lets pretend” stories that students create on the playground.  Students will feed off of each others ideas, creating more creative stories and learning together.  Storybird is also a fantastic place to create a classroom story, each student can contribute pages to the story.  The final product can be easily shared with families and friends in the online library.  Storybird can be used by teachers to make ‘special’ stories for students.  They can include students as characters, emphasize classroom themes or curriculum, and be created for specific reading levels.  Encourage your students to create and share their stories on Storybird, open up your classroom computer during DEAR time for students to read stories their classmates have created.

Tips: Storybird is currently in an open Beta version.  Right now all features on Storybird are free.  Storybird plans to keep story creation, reading, and sharing as free features.  Premium (pay-for) features will be added.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Storybird  in your classroom.

Live Binders

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What it is: Live Binders is a website that allows you to view links like pages in a book instead of URLs on a page.  PDF’s and Word Documents can be combined with links within a binder.  Links and documents can be organized into tabs and subtabs.  Live Binders are easy to share from the Live Binder website, on desktops, or embedded on blogs or other websites.

How to integrate Live Binders into the classroom: Live Binders can be used as online digital portfolios for students.  Any Word or PDF documents that they create can be added to a binder along with any web content that they create.  The binders are easy to keep track of and share.  Each tab can represent a year in school and each subtab can represent a subject within the school year.  The Live Binder can easily be used from year to year creating a digital portfolio. Live Binders can be placed on desktops so that students don’t have to type in long URL’s to access a website.  Everything can be organized and easily updated in a Live Binder for students to access the web through.  This is a great time saver for the computer lab or classroom computers.   Create your own ‘textbooks’ for students to access as a Live Binder.  You can easily add content to it and students can access the materials from any Internet connected computer.  Create an assignment Live Binder with all worksheets and classroom materials.  Students can access any classroom materials from home, no more lost papers!  Students can create Live Binders to keep themselves organized as they complete research projects.  Students could turn in a final project as a Live Binder that includes all of their web research, notes, and final written work.  Live Binders would be a great way to go paperless at your school.  Create a binder with important school information, meeting notes, calendars, etc. for school staff to access.

Tips: I learned about Live Binders from @McTeach on Twitter, she uses Live Binders to keep recipes organized, thanks Karen!  Karen is one of my favorite educators to follow, she is always tweeting great edu tips and ideas!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Live Binders in your classroom.


Simply Box

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What it is: Simply Box appeals to my inner organization enthusiast.  Simply Box is a web tool that allows users to capture content from any web page and put it into a box.  I love the visual interface of Simply Box.  Inside a box is the collection of resources that you have collected from around the web.  You actually see the website (this is a huge deal for people who see a lot of websites each day),  I may not remember a website by its title or description but I will most certainly remember it by its picture.  Within a box you can rearrange websites by clicking and dragging them to a new place on the screen.    Boxes can further be organized into containers.  For example I may have a math website container with boxes inside such as virtual manipulatives, games, videos, etc.  Simply Box has a very user friendly interface that lets you drag and drop to organize containers, boxes, and materials.  Simply Box makes collaboration easy.  Send your Simply Box to another Simply Box user and each of you can comment and add to boxes.  A non-simply box user will be able to see all of the content but will not be able to add to it.

How to integrate Simply Box into the classroom: Simply Box is an outstanding way to keep the online classroom resources you find organized.  Share your boxes with colleagues and collaborate about resources you find and how they might be used in the classroom.  Use Simply Box to build guided lessons for students.  Collect all the resources (websites) they need to complete a project.  Create an Internet scavenger hunt for students to complete in a safe, more controlled online environment.  Students can also use Simply Box.  Students can work together on class projects, collecting research and other materials together.  Assign Simply Box as homework and include students in the creation of the next-day lesson.  Assign a topic, the student’s job is to find a few quality websites on the subject and add them to the class Simply Box.  The next day go through the students finds as a class to learn about the new topic.  As you continue learning about the topic, new finds can be added to the Simply Box.  When it comes time to complete a project or study for a test, all of the resources are gathered in one place for students.  You could essentially create your own ‘textbooks’ with the help of students.

Tips: Simply Box requires an Internet plugin to work.  If you need a tech admin to install a plugin on classroom computers or your work computer, get the request in so you can organize your school year from the start.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Simply Box in your classroom.

Nota


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What it is: Nota is an incredible online collaboration tool that allows students and teachers to collaborate almost instantaneously on a shared whiteboard space.  Instantly create and share any kind of document, presentations, notebooks, report, artwork, etc.. Nota makes any type of document and media work together seamlessly.  The Nota interface is extremelly intuitive, it is quick to learn and use.  Materials can be shared and edited simultaneously making it a truly incredible collaborative experience.  Materials can be uploaded or added from sites like Flickr, YouTube, Google Maps, Wikipedia, and more.  The Nota drawing tools work with any media or document in Nota.  Public or private notebooks can be created.  Collaborate with one or a hundred people on Nota and create as many pages as you want.  Finished work can be stored, printed, or embeded.  Best of all Nota is totally free!

How to integrate Nota into the classroom: Nota is the ultimate in online collaboration.  It reminds me a little bit of a glog but Nota goes way beyond Glogster in so many ways.  Nota can be used to complete group projects between students.  The instant collaborative abilities mean that students can see each group members contribution instantaneously.  Imagine using Nota to work on difficult math problems, create science diagrams, compare and contrast historical figures, create a character sketch of a character from a classroom novel, etc..  The possibilities are endless for collaborative learning.  Work on a common notebook for whole class projects where each student is responsible for a contribution to the Nota.  Make interactive whiteboards a truly interactive experience by combining with Nota.  Throughout teaching, have students add their new learning to a common Nota notebook.  At the end of teaching, use the interactive whiteboard to view the Nota and add any additional information and resources to it.  Print out or send the Nota to students as a study guide that they helped create.  Nota creates an impressive mashup of media and documents and allows users to collaborate and combine knowledge.  When students work together to construct knowledge, they end up with a greater, more complete understanding of material.

Tips: Nota works with any web browser making it ideal for the classroom setting where students may not have the same computing platforms or Internet browsers at home.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Nota in your classroom.

Pictogram Graph

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What it is: Most elementary math curricula include lessons on graphing with pictograms.  This online version of the Pictogram Graph lets teachers and students create and learn about pictogram graphs in an interactive environment.  The Pictogram Graph website makes it simple to add titles, descriptions, choose a picture and a color, choose what value each picture is worth, choose the number of rows/columns, and enter a value on the graph.

How to integrate Pictogram Graph into the classroom: This interactive website is a great way to teach graphing with pictures.  Use Pictogram Graph with an interactive whiteboard for whole class graphing.  This site would also make a great math center in the classroom.  Groups of students can visit the center and graph collected values.

Tips: In addition to the Pictogram Graph site, there is a link at the bottom of the page to a farm animal pictogram which changes the look of the webpage.  The farm animal pictogram would be ideal for the kindergarten and first grade classrooms.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Pictogram Graph in your classroom.

UDL Book Builder

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What it is: UDL Book Builder is a site where you can create your own interactive digital stories.  The books have built in coaches that can support diverse learning needs.  The coaches direct student learning even when students are working independently.  The digital books can include text, images, audio, glossary terms (that are linked within the story), and coaches that can provide hints, prompts, and modeling.  The published books can be viewed online, downloaded to a computer, saved to a CD, or shared with others in the UDL library.  Both teachers and students can use the UDL Book Builder to create interactive digital stories.

How to integrate UDL Book Builder into the classroom: Use the UDL Book Builder to create interactive stories for your students that meet their specific learning needs.  Include students and familiar locations in your stories to boost reading motivation.  Students love starring in their own stories.  As you are creating a book in the Book Builder, be sure to devleop the coaches within the book.  The coaches can offer reading hints, strategies, and model good reading.  Start a school library of teacher created digital books.  As the digital library is devleoped, be sure to note which reading skills are being emphasized so that other teachers can quickly sort through books that will match their students learning needs and interests.  Students can also create digital books from their writing.  The writing should be ready to publish (correct spelling, grammar, etc.).  These stories can easily be shared online with other students in class, in the school, and with pen pals.  UDL Book Builder would be a great tool for creating stories as a class using the interactive whiteboard.

Tips: The UDL Book Builder site has a great section with tips for authors and illustrators using the Builder.  These tips are helpful for any adults creating a book, but are also worth sharing with students using the tool.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using UDL Book Builder  in your classroom.