28 Tech Tools to Bring out the Story in History

December 3, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments9873 views

Below is an article I wrote for theapple.com. For the full article complete with links, please visit the original article.

Kelly Tenkely | TheApple

When I was in school, I dreaded history. I found it completely uninteresting, dry, irrelevant, and quite frankly…boring. This was unusual for me. Normally, I really enjoyed school. Creative writing, language arts, science, and even math were fun. History was unbearable.

I can count on one hand the things I remember learning in history. I learned that in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue, that there was once a thing called slavery and it was abolished (I saw Roots in school at least 5 times), that there have been several wars and battles, and I remember my freshman history teacher breaking out in “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” (though I can’t say why). For me history was a lot of dates, strange names, places, and events presented as points on a line. The goal of history was to memorize all of these facts and dates, recite them on a test, and repeat the process the following week. Sadly, that was about it. It wasn’t until adulthood, and my introduction to the History Channel, that I realized that history is interesting. History became engaging when it was presented as a story. It really isn’t about all of the dates, places, and facts. History is about people. History is about story. Students need more than the loosely connected events, people, and dates that fill history textbooks. They need narrative. Textbook writers are boring, history is not. In high school I vividly remember reading a first person account of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the horrors of nuclear war. Why does this account stay with me? Because it wasn’t about the dates. It was about the emotions, the aftermath, the effects on human life.

How can we engage our students with history? How can we help them make personal connections to the events of the past?

Access to history has expanded, students today have learning opportunities that have never been possible before. Today students have the ability to view and read historical documents first hand, ‘interact’ with historical characters, and observe the events of the past through the eyes of the children who lived it. Thanks to technology, students can be truly engaged in the stories of history.

Primary resources are the actual documents, artifacts, and writings from history. These resources give students an up-close view of life in the past.

Primary Resources:

1. The World Digital Library is a collection of primary materials from around the world. Students can explore artifacts that will help them to better understand other cultures. This incredible collection of resources brings museums from around the world into your classroom for your students to explore.

2. Awesome Stories is a collection of primary source materials separated by category. Primary sources include images, videos, narration, slideshows, artifacts, manuscripts, and documents. Awesome Stories is essentially an interactive textbook. With the interactive textbook model, students are able to delve deeper into topics that interest them.

3. Picturing America takes hold of the notion that a picture is worth a thousand words and applies it to teaching American history. The National Endowment for the Humanities is providing classrooms and libraries with American art masterpieces. Bringing our Nation’s artistic heritage into the classroom provides students with unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country. The program is free for schools and libraries, providing them with 40 high quality, poster-sized masterpieces, a teacher resource book, and the program website. Picturing America brings history into the classroom, helping students create authentic connections to the past.

4. Primary Access is a web-based tool that offers students and teachers simple access to digital images and materials that provides them the opportunity to create personal narratives. The idea behind the site is that if students are offered primary source documents, they develop better historical thinking skills. Students use Primary Access to create digital historical narrative movies that help add to meaningful learning experiences. The digital movie is 1-3 minutes in length and can contain images, text, movies, and student recorded narration. Students have a place to write, research, narrate, view, and search within Primary Access.

5. Library of Congress on Flickr is a photostream of historical images on Flickr. These incredible photographs will bring history to life for your students. Many of the photographs have no copyright restrictions which makes it a great place for students to find images for projects that they are working on. These are also great images to use in your classroom presentations, and as printouts for bulletin boards.

Videos have the unique ability to make students feel as if they are witnesses to history.

Historical Videos:

6. The History Channel has a wealth of resources to teach history in the classroom. From online historical videos, to a daily dose of history with “This Day in History”, the History Channel brings history to life.

7. American History in Video has more than 5,000 free, digital, on-demand videos in its collection. The videos allow students to analyze historical events, look at events over time through commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries. These videos will make students feel as if they were a part of history.

8. Watch Know is another educational video site. All videos are offered digitally for free. Watch Know brings together the best education videos online into one convenient-to-search, safe site. Students can interact and think critically about the videos by rating them and leaving comments. There are more than 2,500 history related videos on Watch Know.

There are many websites that let students interact with history. Whether they are playing a game or exploring a virtual world, these websites help students understand history in new ways.

Interacting with History:

9. Secret Builders Students ages 6-14 can live and play among fictional and historical characters in this virtual world. Students interact with characters such as Shakespeare, Galileo, Motzart, Oliver Twist, Plato, Van Gough, and Amelia Earhart. Students take quests, publish artwork and writings, play games, enter contests, and participate in a virtual economy and social life. Students are given all the tools needed to build out the virtual world with their own ideas, activities and actions. This virtual world has the added benefit of allowing students to interact with historical figures in ways that are meaningful to them.

10. Scholastic has an email sign up where teachers and students can receive fictional emails from historical figures. These emails are written as letters from children who live in the past. Get email letters from a young girl traveling on the Mayflower and a young Native American boy. This is a fantastic way to give your class a glimpse of history through the eyes of two school-age children.

11. Scholastic’s “Our America” takes students on a journey through American history from the Colonial period to World War II. Students learn about major events in the American story by reading journal entries from the people who lived them. Students can complete their own journal entries about what they have learned. Activities accompany each time period such as arts and crafts from that time period or designing a period home interior.

12. The Oregon Trail game is one of the memories I should have listed above. I remember playing Oregon Trail in small groups on our classroom computer in fifth grade. Through the game we learned about the hardships of being a wagon leader, how to build a team, and purchase supplies that would help us make the journey from Independence, Missouri to Oregon by way of the covered wagon circa 1848. This role playing game helps students connect to events of the past through play.

13. BBC Primary History has an extensive collection of activities, short readings, and a kids point of view on the Ancient Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Anglo Saxons, World War II, and Victorian Britain. Students can explore interactive timelines, stories, primary source images, and much more. Students gain a sense of what life was like during each time period.

14. Picturing the Thirties is a virtual web activity from the Smithsonian. This virtual museum exhibit teaches students about the 1930’s through eight exhibitions. Students will get an up close look at the Great Depression, the New Deal, the country, industry, labor, city, leisure, and the American people in the 1930’s. The virtual museum is full of primary sources such as photographs, newsreels, and artist memorabilia. Virtual video museum guides explain each exhibit to students.

15. The Secret in the Cellar is an interactive web comic that is based on an actual forensic case of a 17th century person that was recently discovered. Through graphics, photos, and activities, students begin to unravel a mystery of historical and scientific importance. Students learn how to analyze artifacts, and examine the skeleton to determine a cause of death. As students act as historians, they will gain a wealth of information about Colonial life in America.

16. Kids Past is a history website created for kids that covers topics including: prehistoric humans, the rise of civilization, Middle Eastern civilization, the Ancient Greeks, Romans, African civilizations, civilizations of India, civilizations of China, Byzantine empire, the Slavs, Islam, medieval Europe, Asia in the middle ages, ancient Americans, the Renaissance, the Reformation, exploration and expansion, Asia following the middle ages, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution. All reading on Kids Past is kid friendly and age appropriate. There are several history games based on the reading. Students can also find historical quotes and songs about history that they can listen to online.

17. Historical Tweets- Students can follow history on Twitter. With Historical Tweets, history’s most amazing men and women can be more fully understood 140 characters at a time. These historical tweets can act as motivation for students to learn more about historical events. 140 characters is just enough to leave your students wanting to learn more.

Static timelines are a thing of the past, today’s timelines are interactive, informative, and fun to explore.

Interactive Timelines:

18. Franklin’s Interactive Timeline is an engaging look into the life of Benjamin Franklin. Students can play, listen, watch, observe, and have fun learning about Benjamin Franklin’s legacy. Students can explore Franklin’s life through themes such as Franklin’s character, Franklin as printer, at home, doing good, and on the world stage. This site breaks Franklin’s life down into manageable pieces for students and provides a well rounded view of Franklin.

19. Capzles is an interactive timeline creator. Students can add photos, video, audio and text to their timeline. Themes, colors, backgrounds, and background music can be added to the timeline making it unique and personalized. Capzles brings the timeline to life and allows students to add story to the dates.

20. Dipity makes it simple for your students to create and share interactive timelines. Students can embed YouTube videos, Twitter, RSS feeds, Blogger, Flickr, Picasa, Last FM, and more right into their timelines. Dipity makes timelines relevant and fun for students. Best of all, students are creating and viewing timelines in “their language” of Digital Native.

21. Time Tube is the perfect website for your YouTube addicted students. Students can type in a historical event and Time Tube will create a timeline of related videos. Students will be able to explore historical events through related videos.

Research papers leave much to be desired in the history classroom. There are ways for students to show what they know in history without the dreaded research report.

Creating with History:

22. Domonation is an animation website where students can create cartoon animations with characters, dialogue, props, music, and special effects. Instead of presenting knowledge about history through the traditional report, diorama, or poster, students can create a cartoon of an interview with a historical figure or an eye-witness account of a historical event.

23. Xtranormal is a site where students can create and direct their own animated movies. Students can recreate historical events, or create cartoons about a historical figure. Hold a historical movie day to showcase all of the animations that students have created.

24. The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults is a site put together by the National Archives. Students can create their own digital content mashups using primary resources. Students are able to search photographs, documents, and other records collecting them to create a digital poster or movie. Students can also create a Pathway Challenge. In a challenge, students create a series of clues that show relationships between photographs, documents, and other records. Other students can attempt to solve these challenges. This is an incredible way for students to interact with history.

25. Creaza is a suite of web-based creativity tools. There are four tools in the Creaza toolbox that will help your students organize knowledge and tell stories in new creative ways. Students can arrange events in history with Mindomo the mind mapping tool. Using Cartoonist, students can create comic strips and digital narratives about historical events or characters. Movie Editor makes it possible for students to create movies with thematic universes, video, images, and sound clips. Movie Editor can import historical film clips, sound clips, and images to tell a story. Audio editor is the final tool in Creaza’s creative suite. Students can splice together their own newscasts or radio commercials that display their knowledge of any historical event.

26. Animoto for Education is a site where students can create compelling and impressive digital content quickly and easily. Teachers can use Animoto to teach complex concepts in history. Students can showcase their understanding of history through pictures, music, and text.

27. Blogging- Assign each of your students a historical character to play. They can research and learn about the time period, events, and people. Students can then blog as if they were the historical character. Other students can read and comment on the historical posts.

28. Museum Box is a website based on the work of Thomas Clarkson who collected items in a box to help him in his argument for the abolition of slavery. Students can use the Museum Box website to collect information and arguments in a virtual box of their own. They can collect items to provide a description or add to an argument of a historical event, place, or time period. Students can add images, text, sounds, videos, and external links to help them form their own virtual museum. The finished box can be shared with other students, saved, or printed. Students can view and comment on boxes created by other students. This is a fun medium for students to learn and collect information about a historical event, person, or time period.

History shouldn’t be dry, boring, or irrelevant to students. Technology makes it possible for students to interact with history in new and interesting ways. Use these resources to take your students beyond facts and help them to realize the stories that make up their past.

14 Online Interactive Advent Calendars

November 30, 2010November 30, 2010Kelly Tenkely11 Comments17495 views

It is December again, which means the beginning of Advent. Advent calendars are a fun way to reveal information and “surprises” for your students to look forward to each day in December leading up to Christmas. This year I thought I would make an advent calendar of my own using Wix. I created a Web 2.0 advent calendar by choosing 25 of my favorite web 2.0 tools for the classroom. Each day you can check out a new one. (I’ll let you in on a secret, you can cheat and look at them all by clicking on the bird to get back to the calendar page…shh don’t tell anyone!) You and your students can create your own custom advent calendar like I did using Wix. Students can create an advent calendar of pictures of their school work, trivia for their parents, special audio notes, or anything they are learning. To create your own Wix advent calendar, choose a template, add shapes to the template to create your calendar pieces, add 25 pages to the site, add links to those pages. You could also create an advent calendar of your own using Glogster. Create a customized advent calendar for your students with fun surprises, quotes, video clips, sound bites, etc. It can be related to the learning they are doing in your classroom, suggestions of books to read, or reveal special rewards like extra computer time, time playing a favorite game, time for reading, etc. Be creative!

Woodlands Jr has a great online advent calendar every year that tests students knowledge about Christmas around the world. The Woodlands Jr. 2010 advent calendar is now up and ready for viewing! This is a fun way for students to test their knowledge and learn about the ways that Christmas is celebrated all around the world. As an extension, plot the places around the world that they are learning about on a world map.

BBC Radio has a fabulous Bach advent calendar. Each day your students can listen to a story about Bach or music.

The National Museum of Liverpool has an advent calendar that reveals a piece of art from the museum each day.

The Dirt Dirt advent calendar is purely fun, each day click on a number and an animation will be added to the tree.

For those of us who are app inclined, you can download a free app for your iDevice every day from Appvent Calendar.

Below you will find my interactive advent calendar finds from last year. You are bound to find one that is a perfect fit for your class!

What it is: It is December! This means the beginning of Advent along with the anticipation and excitement that it brings. The Internet is full of interactive advent calendars that you can use in your classroom to teach about how the Christmas season is celebrated all around the world. These advent calendars reveal fun facts, interactive activities, and stories.

Santa’s House Advent Calendar– This advent calendar tells a fun story. Each day reveals another secret about what goes on inside Santa’s home on the 24 days leading up to Christmas. In each picture, there is a little mouse hiding. When students click on his ears, he jumps out.

Christmas Around the World Advent Calendar– Each day students click on the date to reveal a fun fact about how countries around the world celebrate Christmas. The facts are accompanied by great illustrations and pictures. This site shows up very small inside my Internet browser (Firefox). To remedy this problem, click on “view” in your menu bar and choose “zoom”. You may need to zoom in several times.

Christmas Mice Advent Calendar– This calendar tells the story about a mouse family who celebrates Christmas. Each day a little more of the story is revealed. Each picture includes some animation.

Santa’s Advent Calendar– On this advent calendar, each day reveals a new song or activity for students to complete. There are some fun Christmas themed mysteries to solve, stories to read, and activities to work through.

French Carols Advent Calendar– This is a French advent calendar. Each day contains a new French Christmas carol sung by children. This advent calendar would be a fun one to include in a study of Christmas around the world.

Christmas Around the World Advent Calendar Quiz– This advent calendar tests students knowledge about how other cultures celebrate Christmas. Each day students are asked a question and given hints to help them answer. When the answer is revealed, students can click on links to learn more about the Christmas celebrations in that country. This site also includes great activities and teaching resources for Christmas.

Christmas Advent Calendar– Follow the adventures of Zac the elf as he tries to find a Christmas present for Santa. Each day a little more of the story is revealed.

Christmas Activity Advent Calendar– This advent calendar has fun little games and activities to play each day. The games and activities are quick and easy to complete, building mouse and keyboard skills. This advent calendar would be a good one for the classroom computers as a center activity.

How to integrate Interactive Advent Calendars into the classroom: The season of Advent is always filled with eagerness and expectancy. Build some of that anticipation into your school day by allowing students to unlock a new secret on the advent calendar each day. Use these advent calendars with the whole class on an interactive whiteboard or projector, or set them up as a quick center activity that students can visit. Use the advent calendars that reveal a story to practice looking for foreshadowing clues, using context clues to guess what will happen next, or as story starters for students own stories. The Christmas around the world advent calendars are wonderful for teaching students some of the history of Christmas and the way that other cultures celebrate the familiar holiday.

Tips: Each of these advent calendars has some fun goodies and hidden surprises, find the one that best fits your classroom needs.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Interactive Advent Calendars in your classroom.

Skype Classroom Directory- Global Collaboration #glolab

November 17, 2010Kelly Tenkely7 Comments2234 views

What it is: Skype is an incredible tool. It is a free download that allows you to video chat with anyone in the world (who also has Skype downloaded) for free. Teachers have been using Skype in the classroom for years now to connect to other classrooms, to connect with experts, and even to introduce their students to favorite authors (Skype an author). There is a new tool coming for education, a Skype classroom directory. This directory will connect teachers and help them to use Skype to enrich students’ educational experiences. The directory will be launching in December (English only) but you can pre-register for it now. Once you sign up with your Skype account, you will be able to search for other teachers and classes by searching by subject or region.

How to integrate Skype Classroom Directory into your curriculum: Skype Classroom Directory will be a leap forward in connecting teachers and classrooms around the world. Use Skype to connect your students to others around the world who are learning similar content, for a debate, for an inquiry unit, to teach and learn from each other, to connect with experts, for a global virtual book club, or just to bring some cultural richness into your classroom.

Tips: Yesterday the topic of the first #edchat (a chat on Twitter) was global collaboration. Skype is an excellent way to collaborate globally. The Skype directory will be an enormous help in connecting teachers on global projects, right now there isn’t a great way for teachers to connect purposefully for global projects. As it stands, you send out a tweet request for help and wait for someone to answer. Yesterday on #edchat I proposed that we come up with a Twitter hash tag to use when we are talking about global collaboration tools or opportunities. Anyone looking for someone to connect with can just search the hash tag #glolab. If you are looking for teachers to collaborate use and search the #glolab hash tag to connect.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Skype in your classroom!

Collaborize Classroom-free for the 2010/2011 school year if you sign up before November 15!

November 8, 2010November 8, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments2954 views

What it is: Collaborize Classroom is an online learning platform developed for classroom discussion and engagement. Collaborize lets students and teacher collaborate in online discussions. It can be used for meaningful conversations related to classroom curriculum, to ask and answer questions, to collaborate on projects, to vote on ideas/issues, and more. Teachers can continue valuable discussions, facilitate online learning groups, encourage the sharing of resources, and provide students with space to engage in collaborative learning. Collaborize is easy to set up and navigate for both teachers and students. Questions can be posted easily including multiple choices, yes/no, vote or suggest, and forum. After the questions have been answered, the results of the discussion can be published on a results page. Collaborize has great teacher features. Add attachments to any question including photos, videos, and documents. Send a message to students using the built-in messaging system. Participation reports track each student’s activity on the site including number of logins, votes, comments, and replies. Activity reports can be sent to your email daily for review. Set up a watch list to follow a discussion more closely. Collaborize has fantastic supporting materials including lesson plans, helpful tutorials, and research articles. If you sign up for Collaborize before November 15, 2010, the product is being offered at no-cost (read FREE) for the 2010-2011 school year! In partnership with Democrasoft, The Kids in Need Foundation made this free year possible…take advantage of it before the 15th!

How to integrate Collaborize into your curriculum: Collaboraize is an awesome tool to facilitate discussions in (and out of) the classroom. The format of Collaborize makes it flexible enough to use in any classroom and in a way that works for you. Use Collaborize to facilitate discussions and literature circles, plan a science lab or experiment to be conducted in class, practice second languages with online dialog, post current events for students to reflect on, work with classrooms around the world to discuss and debate any topic, pose a math word problem and ask students to discuss the different ways the problem could be approached. Collaborize is a wonderful tool for student discussion and collaboration, but the teacher tools are what make it such a perfect fit for the classroom setting. It is easy to sign up, get your free year today!

Tips: Collaborize has really helpful resources for teachers. Learn about the do’s and don’ts of student forums, the art of asking questions, lesson and activity ideas, rethinking your role in the classroom and much more. Even if you don’t sign up for Collaborize, I recommend spending some time checking out these free documents, they have great tips that can be applied to a variety of web collaboration tools.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Collaborize in your classroom!

12 Tools for Blended Learning- The Apple

November 5, 2010Kelly Tenkely8 Comments4204 views

A year ago I wrote this article for The Apple, it just got published yesterday 🙂 I have a few tools I would add to this list. The first is Wiggio, you can read more about it here. The second is Vyew, you can read more about it here. Since the article was written a year ago, some of the tools are no longer available or have changed a little bit. Drop.io just got bought out by Facebook and the service has been discontinued so that is no longer an option.

Read the original 12 Tools for Blended Learning article here. If you are unfamiliar with The Apple, they are a social network platform for teachers that is connected to Monster.com. The apple shares educational news stories, education articles on every topic, forums, collaborative areas, educational job postings, lesson plans, resources, and more. Definitely worth checking out!

Kelly Tenkely | TheApple.com

With H1N1 lurking in our schools and the possibility of pandemic illness, there has never been a better occasion for blended learning. Blended learning occurs when schools and classrooms mix traditional face-to-face teaching, with online instruction and interaction. Aside from the flu, there are other great reasons to create an e-learning environment for your classroom.

Natural disasters, weather, school closings, long term student illness, struggling learners, English language learners, and students who are entering your classroom mid-way through the school year would all benefit from a blended learning environment. This type of e-learning brings a continuity to learning that is not otherwise possible.

Additionally, a blended learning classroom prepares students for a future that is largely virtual. Students are able to go back and review lessons and learning at their own pace. Students who may lack support at home from parents or family members will have access to on demand learning. Parents will gain a better understanding of what is happening in the classroom and, as a result, will be more equipped to assist their child’s learning. Blending your classroom can save you time and energy by making your classroom more effective and efficient.

Making the transition to a blended learning classroom doesn’t have to happen overnight. Post teaching and learning materials online a little at a time, systematically increasing your offerings. This makes the progression for students, teachers, and parents seamless. Begin by providing instructional materials that were used throughout the school day online. Gradually add extra options such as online collaboration, assignments, grading, and lesson materials. Should your school need to go completely virtual due to school closure, the groundwork will have been laid to make it possible.

There are several free programs that help make e-Learning possible, choose the one that best meets your classroom and school needs.

1. Edu 2.0 http://edu20.org

Benefits: Edu 2.0 is a complete e-Learning solution. It is completely free to use with no hidden costs or advertising. Classes can be taught public (open to the world) or private (specific to the students in your classroom). A comprehensive gradebook is provided complete with weighting, statistics, and graphs. Online quizzes can be created that include a variety of question types. Messaging is built in and has the option of email integration. Within Edu 2.0 students and teachers can create public or private blogs and wikis.

Students have the ability to network with other students and teachers in your school. Each user has a personalized homepage with a to-do list where students and teachers can easily track to-do items. Since Edu 2.0 is web hosted, it can be accessed from any browser, there is no download or install required. It is easy to create and share lesson plans. Assignments are equally easy to give, track, and grade online. Online debates are hosted to spark discussion and encourage critical thinking. Threaded discussion forums have email and RSS integration. Edu 2.0 has a great privacy policy, it was clearly designed with schools in mind. An integrated calendar displays upcoming events, lessons, and assignments that are due. The site is intuitive and a relatively quick learn. The resource section of the site contains 15,000+ community contributed resources and lesson plans to use. Built in rubric builders make it easy to quickly and consistently score projects online.

Attendance gets tracked and teachers can optionally award points for consistent online attendance. The built in chat feature allows for real time group discussions. Create custom news feeds for classes with the built inRSS reader. Each student can create and keep an online portfolio of their best work. The site is multi lingual and available in 10+ languages. If you have a student user who has their language set differently from yours, all messages are automatically translated through Google Translate. Transcripts of all student grades are available and pull directly from the built-in gradebook. Conduct surveys from within Edu 2.0 and collect results. Multimedia can be added to any lesson including audio, video, photos, and slide shows. The format for building lessons is very simple to use, if you use a word processor you can use Edu 2.0.

Drawbacks: Edu 2.0 may be difficult for students younger than third or fourth grade to navigate independently. Younger students would require some adult assistance.

2. Hot Chalk http://hotchalk.com

Benefits: Hot Chalk’s free learning management system generates daily teacher and student activities while providing a safe and secure online environment where teachers, students, and parents can interact. Hot chalk offers a grade book, online lesson creation, automatically graded quizzes, and an extensive library of digital content. Search Hot Chalks large database of pre-made lessons or create your own. Students can complete and turn in assignments online in one easy stop. Teachers can comment directly on student assignments. The digital content in Hot Chalk’s library is aligned with standardized curriculums and comes from sources such as Globetrekker, National Geographic, PBS, VEA, and more. Hot Chalk is easy to learn and use for both students and teachers.

Drawbacks: Hot Chalk doesn’t contain as many built in options as some of the other e-learning solutions. This is not an all-in-one solution if you are looking for collaborative projects, blogs, wikis or more complex quizzes and tests. Hot Chalk does not advertise to students during the school hours, however the site is advertisement driven to keep it free.

3. Moodle http://moodle.org

Benefits: Moodle is an open source course management system that provides a virtual learning environment. Moodle is made up of action modules that include forms, wikis, databases, etc. that allow a teacher to build richly collaborative communities of learning around a subject matter. It can be used to deliver content to students and assess learning through assignments and quizzes. Moodle is a robust system and has nearly endless options for customization and implementation. It is comprehensive in its offering of gradebooks, collaborative tools, lesson building abilities, and assessment. Teachers have the option to fully conduct online courses, or simply augment face-to-face class time. Moodle works on all computing platforms including Mac, PC, and Linux. Moodle has extensive documentation and knowledge communities to learn from.

Drawbacks: Moodle is an open source software that has to be downloaded and installed on a web server. It is not as intuitive as Edu 2.0 or Hot Chalk. Moodle would be difficult for younger students to navigate and understand.

4. Think Quest http://think.com

Benefits: Oracle’s Think Quest is an online environment where students can learn, work together, and manage an online presence in a safe environment. Teachers can assign learning projects for students to work on collaboratively. Other teachers can easily be invited to participate in the online learning projects. Each teacher and student has their own pages where they can create an online presence using text, pictures, multimedia, votes, debates, messaging, and brainstorming. These pages are simple enough for even very young students to create and contribute to, and offer a great introduction to blogging. Think Quest has a library of 7,000+ ready made projects created by teachers from around the world. Think Quest was created for students in k-12 and has no advertising. It is password protected and teacher monitored. Teachers can set up their class to be private so that students can only view other pages of students in their class or public to see what other students from around the world are doing. Think Quest promotes critical thinking, teamwork, communication, creativity, the use of technology, and self-direction. This is a nice option for elementary schools or primary students. It is browser based making it accessible to anyone with an Internet connected computer.

Drawbacks: ThinkQuest is limited in its offerings as a virtual school. There are limits set on file sizes of multimedia that can be used on student pages. There is no built in gradebook and no central location for students to submit work.

The above e-Learning solutions can be supplemented with additional opportunities for one-on-one interaction between teachers and students. Record the live class activities, lessons, and tutorials for on demand learning.

5. Skype- www.skype.com

Benefits: Skype is an excellent way for teachers to connect with students over the Internet. Skype provides a free platform for chatting, audio or video messaging, and screen sharing. Skype sessions can be recorded and saved for future reference. A Skype session would be an excellent way to connect with students to deliver teaching, read a story together, or discuss learning.

Drawbacks: Skype does require a download and students must register with a username and password to use Skype. Skype is not a closed network, this means that students could use Skype to communicate with people outside the classroom.

6. Pal Bee- www.palbee.com

Benefits: Pal Bee is a free online service where you can set up meetings in real time to collaborate online. Pal Bee offers video and audio abilities and provides a virtual whiteboard where students can share ideas. Sessions can be recorded and stored online with Pal Bee.

Drawbacks: Pal Bee limits meetings to 9 people at a time so you may have to split your class into sections.

7. UStream- www.ustream.com

Benefits: Ustream allows you to stream video live. Create a UStream channel for your classroom and stream your lessons live. Students can tune in to view teaching and ask questions or add input via text chat within the UStream channel. You can record your live boradcast for future viewing.

Drawbacks: If you don’t direct your students directly to your UStream channel, they will see feature highlight videos created by other users. These are not necessarily education friendly.

8. Wall Wisher- www.wallwisher.com

Benefits: Wall Wisher is a fantastic little web application that provides a virtual bulletin board of sorts. Teachers can pose questions or ideas for students to answer or think about. Students are sent the unique wall URL and can leave virtual sticky notes answering the question. Students do not have to login to use Wall Wisher, a simple double click allows them to add any thoughts they need to the wall. The platform is very simple to use but provides the opportunity for discussion and collaboration between students.

Drawbacks: Each sticky note is limited to 160 characters making in depth answers difficult on this site.

9. Screen Toaster- www.screentoaster.com

Benefits: Screen Toaster is a browser based screen recording tool that allows teachers to create detailed screencast instructions in minutes. This free to use application can take a video of anything that is on your computer screen. Audio can be included (or not) for any screencast. The screencast video is given a uniqueURL that can be embedded on a webpage or blog or sent to students via email. This is a great way for teaching students how to use e-Learning tools or any online assignments.

Drawbacks: This site requires a robust Internet connection for video creation.

File sharing websites make it easy for your students to access large files, word documents, or pdfs. They are also an effortless way for students to turn in assignments.

10. Drop.io http://drop.io

Benefits: Drop.io makes it easy to put anything (pictures, audio, or documents) in an online environment where it can be accessed by others to collaborate and share. The documents can be accessed from the web, email, fax, or as an embedded widget. In just two clicks users are able to create personal sharing points, upload content via web, email, MMS, phone and fax. Each ‘drop’ is non-searchable and non-networked, does not require an account and can be password protected and set to expire after a period of time. This makes it very convenient for teachers and students to exchange files and documents online.

Drawbacks: Although Drop.io offers a free account, some of the functionality of a premium paid account would be useful in the classroom.

11. Google Docs- http://google.com/docs

Benefits: Google Docs is an online document, spreadsheet, presentation, and form creation tool. Google Docs are all stored online and can be easily shared with other Google Doc users for collaboration or to turn in an assignment. The layout of Google Docs is very intuitive and closely resembles office suites that students would be familiar with. Google Docs is a free online office suite.

Drawbacks: None

12. Zoho- http://zoho.com

Benefits: Zoho offers a complete range of free online productivity and collaboration applications. These include email, word processor, spreadsheets, slide shows, document management folders, wiki, note taker, online organizer, group chats, web conferencing, database, project collaboration, and a repository to share documents with other users. All Zoho applications work together seamlessly. This is an excellent alternative to software based office suites. Students and teachers can create and share documents online easily.

Drawbacks: None

Even if you never have a need to take your classroom or school into a completely virtual environment, blended learning will allow your students self guided learning opportunities where they can build communication and collaboration skills. These free tools will organize your classroom in new ways and provide learning that extends beyond the confines of the classroom.

34 Free Productivity Tools That Will Help You Eliminate Expensive Software

November 4, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3536 views

Today I am sharing a guest post that I wrote for Inspired Classroom: 34 Free Productivity Tools That Will Help You Eliminate Expensive Software. These are my favorite free productivity tools to use in the classroom. Here is the first paragraph, hopefully it will convince you to go take a look at the full article 🙂

Software can be an expensive burden for schools to carry year after year. This expense can result in a decreased use of technology because schools can’t purchase the tools that make the technology worthwhile. Lack of budget doesn’t have to stop you in your tracks. There are thousands of free technology resources and online tools that will keep your students learning even without a large software budget. Below are a few of my favorite free online productivity tools that offer excellent alternatives to their expensive software counterparts.

To view the rest of the article click here.

Wiggio: Group Collaboration made easy

October 28, 2010Kelly Tenkely23 Comments6248 views

What it is: Yesterday as I was scanning through my Twitter stream when I came across this tweet from my friend @jasonshmidt123: “Holy buckets of love, this is cool! RT @plugusin: Checking out Wiggio: http://wiggio.com/ for collaborating.” Now, any time buckets of love are involved I am intrigued- I had to check it out. I must say, Wiggio is a way cool tool for collaboration. Wiggio is a completely free online toolkit that makes it easy to work and coordinate with groups. Wiggio is SO very simple to use and has a very straight forward interface that makes it easy for even those who are low-tech. Wiggio lets you share and manage files, manage a group calendar, poll your group, post links, set up conference calls (including voice, webcam, shared whiteboard space, and screen sharing), chat online, send out mass text messages, and send voice or email messages to the entire group. Wiggio has a lot of features that remind me of Google Groups but some additional features that truly make it a “holy buckets of love” experience. Everything is in one place, handy and easy to use!

How to integrate Wiggio into your curriculum: I can see a lot of possibilities of Wiggio in the classroom. Use it to create a class group with student families each year. Keep families up to date with the latest happenings in your classroom, volunteer opportunities, and class projects that will need some parent support. Share all important documents, videos, and resources that you use in your classroom for easy access from home. (I can’t tell you how many, “I’ve lost the permission slip could you please send a new one?” I get in a year!). Keep all those documents in your Wiggio group file and parents will never have to worry about lost paperwork again. Live meeting opportunities mean that you can hold a virtual parent university where you catch parents up on the new math/reading/science/writing curriculum. Teach your parents everything from reading strategies to use at home to working through math problems together. Parents would love a little support in this area! Offer virtual conference opportunities for parents who are unable to make it for a live conference due to long-term illness, job travel, or in multiple parent homes.

Use Wiggio to create student groups where you keep students up to date with classroom happenings and resources. Offer your students a study hour where they can meet with you virtually for a little extra support or mentoring. Remind your students of upcoming assignments by creating to-do’s. Collect digital assignments using Wiggio files.

Students can create study groups of their own for collaborative projects. As they work together they can meet virtually, share resources and links, and create a schedule to keep themselves on task.

Working with a class outside of your school? Maybe in another state or country? Wiggio is the perfect platform for connecting them, they can work together with shared space and chat live from your classroom.

Wiggio can be used with teaching staff to keep teaching teams organized and give them a place to share resources, ideas, and share a common calendar of events.

Have ambitious parents? They can use Wiggio to collaborate and work with other parents for fundraiser events, coordinating volunteers, and special days.

I am currently using Vyew as my virtual classroom meeting space but Wiggio offers so much more functionality all in one place, I think for the next round of virtual class I will be making the switch! To quote Jason again, “Holy buckets of love, this is cool!”

Tips: Wiggio has a demo area where you can play with all of the features yourself without registering or creating an account. Note to all web 2.0 companies…this is a really nice feature, I wish you all would do it 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Wiggio in your classroom!

Stories of Learning: Christopher Columbus Creates 21st Century Explorers

October 27, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2635 views

Yesterday, Silvia Tolisano of Langwitches Blog (The Magic of Learning) shared an incredible story of learning. After reading through her post I asked if I could share the story here and she graciously agreed. Siliva and the fifth grade teacher she worked with did an incredible job of letting her students take charge of their learning. It has been so successful that her students want to continue learning and connecting their knowledge about Christopher Columbus. I love that Silvia’s story of learning begins with a glimpse of what the planning for the learning looked like. Silvia lets us peek inside the intentional planning and organizing of the learning. Using an iPad and the iThoughtsHD app, Silvia and the fifth grade teacher planned a unit on Christopher Columbus that went beyond the textbook and exposed them to authentic research, multiple perspectives, and the opportunity to come up with their own conclusions about the “hero” status of Christopher Columbus in the United States. The results are truly incredible. You can read this awesome story of learning at my blog Stories of Learning or directly from Silvia’s blog.

Symbaloo EDU and Weblist: Sharing the web with students

October 26, 2010Kelly Tenkely26 Comments5601 views

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What it is: Sharing the web with students can be a challenge. Websites can often have urls that feel unending, students can copy down a url incorrectly, students type with different speeds, or characters show up in the address that they are unfamiliar with. Complicated urls can single-handedly convince teachers to ditch a wonderful web resource for something easier to manage…like a worksheet. Sharing websites with your students doesn’t have to be a challenge. Symbaloo EDU and Weblist are two of my favorite ways to quickly and easily share websites with students.

Symbaloo EDU is fabulous because it was created with educators in mind. Symbaloo lets you gather all of your favorite online tools and sites into a webmix about the topics you teach. Symbaloo web mixes can be published and shared with colleagues, students, and parents. Symbaloo can be used by students or teachers to create a personal learning environment. With Symbaloo folders can be created that contain sites and resources that are related. Symbaloo can be used year-long, just continue adding sites and resources for your students throughout the year. Everything that you have used all year-long will be in one easy place for students to access.

Weblist lets you pull together and organize content on the web. Create a list of urls centered on a theme and it is combined into one easy to navigate url. The list can be saved as a bookmark or a homepage. What I like about Weblist is the visual aspect. Each website is saved as a snapshot of that website with the website name and a description below. The visual organization is perfect for younger students who may not be able to navigate links designated by text.

How to integrate Symbaloo EDU and Weblist into your curriculum: Symbaloo can be used by students to create their own “textbooks”. As students search the web for resources based on subjects or inquiry questions, they can save what they find and create a virtual e-book of sorts. Symbaloo can also be used by students to organize all of their online work in one place. Students can add links to the slide shows, documents, videos, images, etc. that they create online. Symbaloo becomes an e-portfolio. Teachers can also use Symbaloo to create a customized “textbook” for their students complete with articles, maps, video, images, and interactive content.

Weblist is great for quickly sharing a collection of sites with students. Weblists are fast and easy to create (you don’t even have to login or register first!). Weblists are perfect for sharing a collection of sites in a computer lab setting or with colleagues. The visual interface of Weblist is perfect for students. Students can easily travel from one site to another because the web page is embedded in the Weblist, the url never changes.

Want to get really crazy? Combine Symbaloo and Weblist. Create folders for your students on Symbaloo so that there is one central url to go to. Have Symbaloo link to your various Weblists. This combines the great organization and collaboration aspect of Symbaloo with the awesome visual interface of Weblist. It is a powerhouse of learning for your students created by you. Cool!

Tips: Don’t forget that both Symbaloo and Weblist make for a great way to share online resources with your colleagues!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Symbaloo EDU and Weblist in your classroom!

Juxio: Online Visual Creation Tool

October 25, 2010October 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely10 Comments4907 views

What it is: Juxio is a new visual way to create and communicate. The web application lets students take their own images (or images from Flickr, FaceBook, or Picasa) and add them to an image stream or panel. Text descriptions can be added to the stream to describe the images. Streams are where text and images get placed. Streams expand in width as elements are added. A Jux (Juxio creation) can be expanded vertically by adding additional streams. This is useful for organizing content into categories or for comparison. Each stream can have its own header to add meaning or depth to a Jux creation. Events are used to visually segment streams. For example, students might have an animal stream of pictures that is segmented into the events “mammals” and “reptiles”. After students create a Jux, they can save it as a PDF file, print it, or share it online via email, Facebook, Twitter, or url.

How to integrate Juxio into your curriculum: Juxio is a fantastic online tool to use for online visual creation. Students can mash-up text and photos to create their own Jux that can be used to organize information or display understanding. Use Juxio for animal classification, vocabulary, historical time lines, changes over time, to tell a linear story, or display any information in an organized fashion. Take pictures of a science experiment for students to turn into a Jux, they can start at the beginning of the experiment adding captions to each picture. Text boxes can be added for students to type in their hypothesis at the beginning of the experiment and to add a concluding statement at the end. Take pictures of a school field trip and create a Juxio to tell the story of what happened on the field trip. A Jux can be created individually by students in a computer lab setting, or by a whole class using an interactive whiteboard. Class Juxio’s can be created to display new learning, each student contributing to one Jux. The finished product can be printed and saved in the classroom with the URL sent home so students can access the learning from anywhere. Use Juxio in place of a traditional Friday newsletter. Take pictures of students throughout the week, add captions explaining what learning happened during the week and add a stream for upcoming events and reminders. Anytime you add student pictures to a newsletter, the chance that a parent takes the time to read it goes way up!

Tips: Juxio requires an email address for sign up. In addition, students must be 13 or older to obtain their own account. If you teach younger students, create a class account where you are the owner. Students can create a Jux using the class account and save it with their name in the title.

Juxio offers the option to purchase the finished Jux as a poster. Prices are very reasonable and can be used for customized classroom decoration. Cool!

If your school has access to an iPod Touch or iPad lab, Juxio can be downloaded directly to the device as an application.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Juxio in your classroom!