free – Page 5 – iLearn Technology

Online Audio Stories

February 24, 2010March 2, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3682 views

What it is: Online Audio Stories is an impressive collection of free audio stories online. The audio books are all free and downloadable. The online version of the story includes accompanying text for students to follow along with. The short stories will transport students on a fun adventure of listening to fairy tales and classics. The extensive collection includes stories by Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Brothers Grimm, Tales of Time, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Bronte, Aesop, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Joseph Jacobs, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Blake, Oscar Wilde, Louisa May Alcott, Hans Christian Andersen, William Shakespeare, and many more. The stories are read with excellent voice, inflection, and timing, making them a joy to listen to.

How to integrate Online Audio Stories into the classroom: These Online Audio Stories will transport your students to new magical worlds and adventures, they will allow struggling readers to enjoy stories that may be just out of reach otherwise. Online Audio Stories will help increase student vocabulary and improve listening comprehension skills. Students may not choose to pick up these classics in the library, but they will enjoy listening to the stories online. This is great exposure to the classics! If you have computers in your classroom, set them up as a reading/listening center that students can visit during silent reading time. Because the Online Audio Stories are free to download, these are also perfect for downloading to an iPod or MP3 player.

Tips: Let parents know about these free online stories, they make great bedtime stories, listening enjoyment for long car rides, or for a fun listening experience any time.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Online Audio Stories in your classroom.

Win a month subscription to Wiglington and Wenks contest!

February 9, 2010February 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely9 Comments5990 views

What it is: Wiglington and Wenks is a rich virtual world for kids that I wrote about a few weeks ago here. This virtual world brings together literature, history, and geography into one amazing learning experience for kids. Wiglington and Wenks is a place for students to explore, think, discover, and grow. I can’t say enough about this virtual world as a learning space, I wish every textbook company on the planet would move toward this type of model of presenting content and learning! While Wiglington and Wenks is free for everyone, they do offer memberships that give students access to extra features, special areas, and extra privileges. Wiglington and Wenks has provided 10 one month memberships for iLearn Technology readers! If you would like a free membership for your class or as a give-away to one of your students or children please leave a comment below. In your comment, tell us your favorite feature of Wiglington and Wenks. I will choose 10 winners randomly and send an email with instructions for redeeming your free membership.

How to integrate Wiglington and Wenks into the classroom: Wiglington and Wenks is based on a story book. Read these stories with your students or include them in your classroom library for reading. In this virtual world, students have the opportunity to travel to and explore real places. Students can learn about the Amazon, Madagascar, Singapore, the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef, the Great Pyramid, Chchen Itza, the Bermuda Triangle, the Great Wall of China, Big Ben, and more. As students travel through the worlds, they are presented with various quests and meet with famous historical figures. Right now students can interact with Gandhi, Charles Darwin, Genghis Khan, Beethoven, Buffalo Bill, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Neptune, and Chief Joseph. Many new characters are being released including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Cleopatra, Issac Newton John, Albert Einstein, Pocahontas, and Wilber and Orville Wright. Send your students on quests to learn more about each of these characters and places. Find more ideas for using Wiglington and Wenks in your classroom on my original post here.

Tips: Make sure that you use a valid email address in your comment so that I can contact you!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Wiglington and Wenks in your classroom.

Story Nory

January 12, 2010January 12, 2010Kelly Tenkely9 Comments3704 views

What it is: Story Nory is a collection of FREE audio books for kids. There is a mixture of new stories, fairy tales, and specially adapted myths and histories. A new audio story comes out each week (this has been true since November of 2005!). Search stories by newest additions, original stories, fairy tales, classic authors, educational, or junior stories. The stories can be subscribed to as a podcast in iTunes, through their iPhone/iPod touch app, via email, or RSS feed. Story Nory offers the text to accompany the audio so that kids can read along.

How to integrate Story Nory into the classroom: Story Nory would make an excellent addition to your reading/listening library. Listening to audio books can be a great way to help students improve comprehension skills, and to listen for different literary features (such a voice, timing, rhythm, annunciation, etc.). Set up a listening center on your classroom computers, an iPod or MP3 lab, or in a lab setting. Students can access stories that are of high interest to them at their level. Students can create book talks, or reviews of the stories to share with their peers. Set up a wiki where students can share their thoughts about the stories they listen to.

Tips: Encourage parents to sign up for the Story Nory emails so that they can share the story of the week with their kids.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Story Nory in your classroom.

Fantastic Flexible Foldables

October 25, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments4330 views

What it is: I love online activities that students can take part in, but because most of us don’t have the luxury of a 1 to 1 school setting, good old paper manipulatives are winners in the classroom. Fantastic Flexible Foldables is a collection of mini math books and games that you can print out and create with your students. You and your students can create a fraction mini-book, a factors and multiples mini-book, a fortune teller fractor game, a geometry tetraflexagon, an integer infinity square, Flippers (fraction, decimal, music), and lines trihexaflexagon. These foldables help your students to interact with and practice math concepts that can be difficult to grasp apart from manipulatives where they can see the problems worked out. The Flexible Foldables by Carol DeFreese are well thought out and have step by step picture instructions for folding and using these with your students. Carol has also generously provided blank foldable templates that you can download and use to create your own foldables.

How to integrate Fantastic Flexible Foldables into the classroom: These foldable templates really are fantastic. They are a wonderful addition to the math classroom. Even if you don’t focus on any of the skills that Carol has created foldables for, download her blank templates and create foldables that will help your students learn difficult math concepts. These foldables will help your students visulaize and interact with math in new ways. This is an incredible resource and even more incredible that it is free! Sometimes the best part of technology is the way it allows for the sharing of ideas and teaching methods… this site is proof of that!

Tips: Files on the Fantastic Foldables site are in pdf or .doc formats.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Fantastic Flexible Foldables in your classroom.

Free 1 year subscription to Smilebox (Teacher Box)

September 12, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2151 views

What it is: I first blogged about Smilebox September of 2008. Smilebox is offering a free 1 year subscription to educators! Smilebox is a fun, easy way to send photos, videos, and information to students and parents securely. Smilebox lets you create very impressive looking multimedia presentations quickly and easily. The free subscription (a $39.99 value) gives you unlimited access to more than 900 Smilebox designs and lets you choose from thousands of music options (or upload your own). Finished Smilebox creations can be emailed, blogged, printed, burned to a DVD, or saved as jpeg images.

How to integrate Smilebox (Teacher Box) into the classroom: Smilebox is a great way for you to communicate with parents. Smilebox is perfect for newsletters, overviews of teaching units, performance and field trip recaps, classroom activities, school memory books, and more. Smilebox will make you look like a superstar, the results are SO impressive!

Tips: Be sure to sign up for Smile Box (Teacher Box) today, space in this program is limited!

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

Virtual FETC ’09

August 23, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1749 views

What it is: It’s that time again, FETC is on its way! If you aren’t able to make it to the conference, you can still attend the conference virtually. Best of all this online educational event is 100% free! The conference is coming to you live Thursday, October 22, 2009. Attend informative virtual sessions from the conference, visit the Virtual Expo Hall and chat with live exhibitors, and preview and evaluate the latest hardware and software available today. Attend this online event to enjoy: “a dynamic exchange of best practices and tips for success, expert speakers sharing their views in an effective, interactive way, a virtual networking lounge to reconnect with colleagues and make new contacts, real-time access to other participants through instant messaging, technology product and service demonstration in the vitural exhibit hall, free content downloads and presentations to go, and much more!” You can attend as many sessions as you like when it is convenient for you. This means no travel expenses, no lines, no scheduling substitutes, no getting funding approved, no emptying your own pockets!

How to integrate Virtual FETC ’09 into the classroom: While you can’t integrate this conference into your classroom, the virtual conference will provide you access to great speakers who will inspire you with best practices and tips for success. You will come away from this conference with some great new ideas to implement in your classroom.

Tips: What are you waiting for? Sign up for the FETC ’09 Virtual conference today! See you all there 🙂

Leave a comment and tell us if you are attending Virtual FETC ’09.

NASA Images

June 17, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3019 views

What it is: NASA Images is a website where you can find amazing images of the universe, solar system, earth, aeronautics and astronauts. In addition to images, you will find video and audio collections in this easily searchable digital library. The site has a picture timeline of spaceflight, collections of images, audio, and video, and presentations created by users. The content on NASA images is not under copyright so it can be used without express permission. This means that you and your students can use the high quality images, HD video, and audio in slideshows, movies, classroom websites, blogs, and interactive whiteboard notebooks.

How to integrate NASA Images into the classroom: This is an incredible collection of resources. Students and teachers can use them to enhance any space unit. This site will excite students and build interest around space exploration, aeronautics, and astronomy. Create your own planetarium or journey through space and share with an interactive whiteboard or in a slide show presentation with a projector. Students could create a blog or wiki all about their ‘travels’ through space for other students and parents to view. NASA Images even offers the tools to build a presentation right on the site. Presentations can then be embedded on other websites, wikis, or blogs.

Tips: NASA Images is updated regularly, check back for the newest additions.

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

School Tool

May 6, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1579 views

What it is: School Tool is a collection of free administrative software for schools. This is a student information system that includes demographics, gradebook, attendance, calendaring and reporting for primary and secondary schools. It also provides a framework for building customized applications and configurations to meet the needs of your school.

How to integrate School Tool into the classroom: School Tool is an excellent alternative to expensive information systems. This open source solution is a great way to save some educational technology dollars to spend on additional hardware or infrastructure. If your school is looking at implementing a new comprehensive information system, definitely take a look at School Tool.

Tips: School Tool has documentation to help with installation and setup, an administrators handbook, a developers handbook, and a glossary of usage. These documents should have you up and running in no time!

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

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!!

May 4, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2232 views

What it is: This week (May 4-8) is teacher appreciation week. To show their appreciation, Learning A-Z is holding an open house to their fantastic collection of learning resources. This means that for one week you can access all online resources for free from Raz-Kids, Reading a-z, Science a-z, Writing a-z, Vocabulary a-z, and Reading Tutors. Raz Kids is a student centered website where students can listen to and read books online independently. Reading a-z is filled with thousands of printable and projectable resources including books, activity sheets, and assessments. Science a-z includes multilevel books, activity sheets, process activities and more. All are categorized by grade and topic. Writing a-z is a collection of resources to help teach basic writing skills. Vocabulary a-z is a website with a word bank of more than 8,000 words. The words are categorized by content area, functional, and resource. With this site teachers can build vocabulary lessons with activities for multiple exposures to words that leads to word mastery. Reading Tutors provides online resource packets for those tutoring kids in reading. It covers key reading areas from phonics to comprehension.

How to integrate Learning a-z into the classroom: The collection of resources accessible in Learning a-z is incredible. Take advantage of this teacher appreciation week freebie and start using Learning a-z materials in your classroom.

Tips: Sign up for a free pass during this open house week. Enjoy!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Learning a-z in your classroom.

My Award Maker

April 27, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2423 views

What it is: It is that time of year again, time for end of the year award ceremonies where we remind our students of how far they have come this year and celebrate their achievements. My Award Maker is a site I learned about from Kevin Jarrett’s blog NCS Tech. He found this site just in time for it to be useful for me so I thought I would pass it on so you could benefit as well! My Award Maker is a free, very easy to use award/certificate creator. Choose from one of hundreds of great awards, fill in the information that best fits your needs, and print. It couldn’t be easier and the results are fantastic! This is going to save me from going to Lakeshore or US Toy to hunt for awards for this year, they are as good if not better quality than those you can purchase.

How to integrate My Award Maker into the classroom: At my school, we have a formal end of the year award assembly where students are recogized and celebrated for their hard work throughout the year. This is the perfect place to find an award or certificate for any occasion. Don’t wait for a formal award ceremony, tell your students how proud you are of their achievements and effort year long with class awards and certificates.

Tips: My Award Maker has a special section of Tips and Tricks for making special occasions memorable. Check it out!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using My Award Maker in your classroom.