Photo Booth/ Seenly

What it is: If you are lucky enough to have a newer Mac in your classroom, you are familiar with Photo Booth. Photo Booth is reminiscent of its name sake, it allows students to take pictures with the built-in iSight camera. If you have a pre-Photo Booth Mac or a PC you can now use a free Browser application called Seenly. Seenly lets students take pictures of themselves (even applying different effects like sepia tone or x-ray). Seenly can be used on older Mac’s or PC’s. The only requirement is a web cam. These are coming way down in price, $15-$25.

How to integrate Photo Booth or Seenly into the classroom: Photo Booth and Seenly can be used for a multitude of projects throughout the school year. My favorite project for using Photo Booth/Seenly is for character education development. I create a “How are you feeling today?” grid in Pages or Word and save as a template. Students take pictures of themselves displaying the different emotions and drag and drop onto the template. When they are finished we print them out and create a class book of emotions. This is a wonderful way to teach students empathy. Photo Booth/Seenly can also be used at the beginning of the year for a getting-to-know you project. Create a bulletin board with student pictures. Students could use Photo Booth/Seenly to star in their own stories. Teachers, take pictures of students throughout the year as you podcast students reading. The photos with the podcasts make an excellent end of the year gift for students and parents as they can see and hear students growth throughout the year. Create a classroom “dictionary” where students create definitions for themselves along with their pictures. When teaching action verbs, have students take pictures of themselves actually doing an action verb. You will find a hundred and one uses that you never expected when you bring a web cam into the classroom and pair it with Photo Booth/Seenly!

Tips: See the image below for an example of the “How are you feeling today?” templates I created in Pages. One template was created for kindergarten through second grades and the second template was created for third through fifth grades.

Play Music

What it is: Play Music is a site where students can explore and interact with music. Students can visit Carnegie Hall for listening adventures, take a seat in the orchestra and listen to and learn about the different sections and sounds of the orchestra, try writing their own music, learn about the symphony, “meet” a concert master, “meet” an instrument builder and composer, and “meet” young composers.

How to integrate Play Music into the classroom: Play Music is an excellent way to introduce students to the Orchestra or Symphony. This is a great site for encouraging a love of music. Use this site as a research tool. Students can learn about different instruments in the orchestra. A lesson that I love to use with this site is to assign each student an instrument to study. Students then make baseball type trading cards in a word document that has a picture of the instrument, the name, and a description of the instrument. Students can print out a few pages of their baseball cards (6 cards should fit on one document). Students then trade their Orchestra cards and when the project is finished, they have a complete orchestra.

Tips: To complete the baseball card idea above, create a template in Word or Pages for the students. This way each students cards will turn out with the same dimensions. To save a document as a template, goto the “file” menu and click on “Save as template” option.

Weebly

What it is: Weebly is a place to create free websites and blogs. Weebly makes it extremely easy to create a website or a blog because of its drag and drop interface, ready made designs, ability to customize content simply, and the drag and drop approach to organizing pages. These websites are easy to create and have great looking, professional results.

How to integrate Weebly into the classroom: Teachers, use Weebly to create a class website. Here your students can explore topics that you are studying in class, view any assignments that are due, see class pictures, read newsletters, and find content related links. A class website can become the hub for any classroom. Post all current information on your class site, pictures of field trips you have taken, add links to websites you are using in class, other 2.0 resources that you are using such as mind maps, update your classroom blog, etc.  This is a great way to boost classroom-home communication.   Weebly makes it so easy to quickly create and update pages, it is the perfect platform for classroom webpages.

Tips: Weebly has a great live demo where you can try the site out before signing up for a free account.

Interactives

What it is: Interactives is a truly amazing website for teachers and students. Interactives provides educators and students with strategies, content, and activities that can enhance and improve students’ skills in a variety of curricular areas including math, literature and language, science, history, and the arts. The site has great webquest/interactive activities on a variety of subjects for first through twelfth grades. These activities are extremely well done. The spelling bee activity is really the only activity appropriate for first grade but I found that many of the activities that were rated for middle and high school students, would be appropriate for elementary students as well. I cannot say enough about this site, it is a truly amazing site for teachers and students!

How to integrate Interactives into the classroom: Interactives has a variety of interactive activities for the subjects listed above. These would be great to use as an introduction to a new unit, or as a learning activity or field trip in a unit. The Interactives could be completed as a whole class (using a projector), in groups (center style in the one or two computer classroom), or individually (in the computer lab setting). Any of these options would be time well spent for your students! Each Interactive presents the student with information about the unit and follows with interactive activities such as building a roller coaster, collecting rocks, or tracing the growth of the United States.

Tips: Sign up for the learner.org newsletter for some great teaching tips and ideas.

Kidz Online

What it is: Kidz Online is a digital production and distribution organization with online learning. Kidz Online is the leading provider of training videos for students and teachers. Each of the 12 technology subjects is explored through five channels. The variety of formats draws students from a wide range of skill levels and interests. The teach IT section has videos that target viewers who are interested in hands on learning. A host guides students step by step through the concepts and tools behind each tech topic. Animations and screen demos aid in understanding. The KTK Live! uses sketch comedy to introduce the potential of technology. Streaming Features is an online career resource and shows students what kind of jobs are available in the field of technology. Gurl Tech emphasizes the importance females have in technology. Technology in Action is the final channel, it allows anyone to submit their work online, showcasing their learning to fellow students.

How to integrate Kidz Online into the classroom: Kidz Online is an amazing resource for teachers who are lagging in their technology skills or simply don’t have the time to teach technology skills. Students can learn at their own pace using the online instructional videos. Videos can be downloaded or streamed online. Students can learn about a topic or program that interests them or all students can watch and learn from the same videos. The videos are very well done and user friendly. Kidz online is the perfect tool to teach students self-directed learning skills. Challenge students to become the class “expert” in one of the programs featured on Kidz Online and let them teach each other. This site will excite your students about the possibility of technology in the classroom and in the future. Students can also create their own video tutorials and post for other students. Have older students create video tutorials of programs that younger students use.

Tips: Make sure to click on the “Lesson Plans” page for some great lesson plan ideas and teacher resources. While you are there, click on the Teacher’s Tool Kit for free resources including: instructional web videos, step-by-step tutorials, technology integrated core-curriculum lesson plans and streaming videos on various topics like girls and technology (gURL Tech) and career exploration (Streaming Futures). This is an amazing resource!