PBS Learning Media 14,000+ k-12 resources!

What it is: PBS Learning Media is a fabulous collection of 14,000+ resources that are separated by subject area.  The collection reminds me a lot of the popular Discovery Streaming with one big difference- the resources on PBS Learning Media are free to use!  Resources can be searched by grade level, media type (document, image, interactive or video), language (English, French, Spanish) and accessibility (caption, full mouse control, display, transcript).  Resources include great descriptions of the resource, the grade level appropriateness and the ability to add the resource to your favorites.  PBS Learning Media is a great stop for high quality resources that will meet the learning needs of your students.  Many of the resources have associated support materials for both students and teachers.

How to integrate PBS Learning Media into the classroom: The resources in PBS Learning Media are wonderful for all grade levels.  The site is easy to search and “favorite” so that the resources you need for your classroom are always at your finger tips.  PBS Learning Media is a great place to find videos that enrich learning in the classroom, can be used for anticipatory sets to introduce a concept or to illustrate a difficult concept.  The interactive resources are the high-quality games you find on the PBS and PBS Kids websites.  Some of the games are appropriate for an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer and played with the whole class, while others work well in a computer lab or computer center activity.

PBS Learning Media would make a good media center on classroom computers for students to explore areas of interest in learning, research and make connections in learning.

Tips: If you don’t already have a PBS account, register for a free account to gain access to more than 5 resources at a time. 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using PBS Learning Media  your classroom!

Pegby: Online Collaborative Peg Board/Organizational tool

What it is: Pegby is a neat online organizational tool that has fantastic customization features.  With Pegby, students (and teachers) can share boards enabling them to collaborate with friends, family, coworkers and classmates.  Pegby is organized by a series of columns, students can decide on the number and organization of columns.  Columns can be easily expanded and collapsed so students can focus on exactly the columns they need at any given moment.  Students (and teachers) can add cards to each column.  The cards look just like a 3×5 note card and can include a title, content, tags, attachments, a due date and color coding.  Note cards can be dragged from one column to the next, shared with others or added to a stack of cards.  Students can filter all of their cards by tags to find exactly the cards they are looking for when they need them!  Pegby lets you have multiple boards so you can organize life to your heart’s content.  A Pegby board can be downloaded as a .yaml file (not familiar with that file extension, it is a unix executable file.)

How to integrate Pegby into the classroom: Pegby is one of those tools that I get totally geeked out about.  I love the 3×5 note card look, the columns, the tagging, the associated calendar dates.  A recipe for edu-love I tell ya!  Pegby is a great tool for organizing your teacher self this year.  Add ideas for the school year, tasks, lesson plans, to-do items, etc. to your board as cards.  Create columns that make sense to you and organize to your heart’s content!  Want one better?  Share your board with colleagues so that you are all on the same page and can share lessons/resources/task responsibilities.

Older students can keep their school year organized by adding assignments, tasks, uploading work, taking/keeping notes and sharing their board with Pegby.  As students work on and complete tasks, they can move items from one column to the next.  Those unit tests won’t be a problem because they can tag pertinent information and easily study and review tagged information.

Pegby would also be a great tool for organizing research projects (even collaborative research projects).  Students can decide how they want to organize their research and notes, tag information and attach documents.  All of the research is in one place and tagged for easy reference when it comes time to compile the research.  Pegby could be a useful tool for students attending college classes online.

Does your school use standards to keep track of learning?  Why not create columns of Standards headings, and associate each standard with a note card?  Students can upload any files or work associated with the standard.  OR instead of making each column a standard heading, columns can be associated with mastery level of the standard.  As a student moves through levels of mastery, they can move that standard card from one column to the next making stacks out of the standard subject.  Students can keep track of their own learning, share their “Standards” board with teachers and parents.

Is your class collaborating with other classrooms? Create a collaboration board where all involved classes can organize a project together.

For younger students, create a class Pegby that can be accessed on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer.  The Pegby can be added to and organized as a whole class.  Make Pegby updater one of your classroom jobs that happens first thing every morning.  Each student will have the chance to be in control of the board throughout the year and all students will benefit from observing and helping organize the day.  (Something we don’t model enough for kids in my humble opinion!)

Tips: Pegby does require a verified email account for access!

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

Google Me Business Card

What it is: Google Me Business Card is a free template download from Ji Lee.   The template is a PDF file of a blank Google Search query; enter any name, subject or topic and print out your own customized Google Me Business Card.

How to integrate Google Me Business Cards into your curriculum: These business cards could be used in the classroom during a discussion of digital footprints.  Students can create their own Google Me cards to act as a reminder that what they do online has staying power.  (This is an important reminder for teachers too!)  The cards could also be used as a fun way to assign research topics; enter the topic in the search box and let students draw a card to find out what their assignment is.

Tips: To add your own text: In Acrobat Professional, open the PDF and go to Forms, Form Tools, Text field.  Now you can add a text field to enter your own text.

In Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign, place the card on a new document and type your text with the text tool.

Take a screen shot of the image and import it into a word document program (Pages is my Word Document program of choice) Add a text box over the search box and enter your text.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the Google Me Business Card in your classroom!

JASON Science: Eco Defenders


What it is: Eco Defenders is another excellent Filament Games simulation/interactive.  In this game, students design “alien” invasive species and set it loose on an imaginary ecosystem.  Students must use their knowledge of ecosystems, adaptations, and competition to design a simulation of an invasive species.  Students find out that when an invading species occupies the same ecological niche as native species, they can cause problems for the ecosystem.  The game allows for a lot of customization and decisions for students as they choose one of three ecosystems and then design their own alien.  As students go through the simulation, JASON host researcher, Russell Cuhel, will ask questions about how invasive species invade an ecosystem giving students the chance to be the expert.  Before students play the game, ask them to click on the “Learn More” link where they will receive a tutorial for the game and some background information about invasive species.  Students can learn about different kinds of invasive species that exist in our world.


How to integrate Eco Defenders into the classroom: In the Eco Defenders game/simulation, your students will: design their own invasive creature, watch their creature as it interacts in the ecosystem and competes over resources with native creatures, and analyze the interactions among the organisms in the ecosystem.  Students will select a creature to target in the ecosystem they have chosen and then design a species that will compete in the same ecological niche.  Students will design and then run a simulation to test their invader.  Afterward, they will discuss what happened with the virtual host scientist, go over the results, and analyze the data.  The great thing about this game/simulation is that no two students will have the exact same results.  Eco Defenders is best in a computer lab setting where each student can play individually.  After students have experimented and run through the simulation, come together as a class and discuss what students observed.  What made their invader successful?  What would they change for the next time?  As students learn more about ecosystems, eco niches, and invaders throughout the unit, have them run through the simulation again and see if they come up with different results.  If you can’t manage access to a 1 to 1 computer setting, play the game as a class using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer.  The class should discuss each decision, weighing the pros and cons, before making a move.  As the students work through the simulation, talk about what they are observing and what tweaks might change the outcome of their simulation.

Tips: JASON Science is worth a look.  The tag-line of JASON Science is “Education through Exploration”.  I couldn’t agree more!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Eco Defenders in your classroom.

Edistorm

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What it is: The name Edistorm is a mash-up of the name Thomas Edison and brainstorm, it is inspired by Edison’s idea factories.  Edistorm is an incredible brainstorming and collaboration tool that, on the surface, reminds me of Wallwisher.  Edistorm has some additional features and abilities that make it very useful in the classroom.  Just like Wallwisher, you brainstorm and collaborate using virtual sticky notes.  Edistorm gives you a place to organize ideas in a real-time interactive wall.  Virtual sticky notes can teach have their own color and can be organized in vertical or horizontal groupings.  Edistorms can be created independently or with others in a collaborative effort.  Edistorm features an idea bot that works at the bottom of the screen offering suggested ideas based on what students add to the sticky notes in the work space.  There are a variety of bots including a rhyming bot, thesaurus, and related words. Public and solo Edistorms are free to create, premium accounts are available for  private Edistorms.  

How to integrate Edistorm into the classroom: Edistorm offers an exceptional opportunity for students to brainstorm, collaborate, and group ideas.  Students can use Edistorm to brainstorm ideas for writing, research, for grouping ideas, and collaborating on group projects. Create an Edistorm for your students and ask them to group like ideas, sort, and expand on thoughts.  This could be done for any historical event, literature, science concept, and even phonics.  Students could practice spelling by typing out their spelling words along with a sentence or synonyms on sticky notes.  Then, they can group words by spelling pattern or common phoneme blends.  Create an Edistorm of sticky notes with English words and sticky notes with a foreign language word on them.  Students can work together to group words with their meanings.   In math, create Edistorms with word problems on one color of sticky note and answers on another set of sticky notes.  Students can work to create groups of problems and their solutions.  Edistorm can be used for whole class activities using an interactive whiteboard, the class can brainstorm together and collect ideas or use the grouping feature in an activity created by the teacher or students.

Tips: Edistorm requires an email address for sign up.  If you teach younger students, you may want to create classroom Edistorm sessions that you have control over.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Edistorm in your classroom.

Kerpoof: Update

kerpoof

What it is: Kerpoof is one of my favorite creation tools for elementary students, it allows them to draw, create pictures, cards, books, and even movies.  My original post about Kerpoof can be found here. Kerpoof has added some new features that make it worthy of another post.  Students can now save their pictures, cards, stories and drawings locally (on their computers).  On each canvas is a JPEG icon that will allow any picture to be saved to the computer locally.  They are working on making it possible to download the movies locally soon.   Kerpoof also introduced info bubbles.  In the Make a Picture object library, students can drag out a picture onto the canvas.  Now there is a new question mark button that shows up on an object.  When students click on the question mark, a little bubble of information pops up.  Students will gain all kinds of information from these little fact bubbles.  They can learn everything from: who wrote Treasure Island, to learning the national animal of Australia.


How to integrate Kerpoof into the classroom: Kerpoof is an outstanding creativity program for the classroom.  With there education accounts and these new features, it is even more useful in the classroom setting.  Now that students can save their pictures created on Kerpoof locally, they can use their Kerpoof creations in new ways.  Upload the saved JPEG to the class website, blog, or wiki, or add illustrations to a word processing program.

Use the new information bubbles to start a Kerpoof scavenger hunt.  Ask students specific questions ahead of time or instruct students to research broader topics like “dinosaurs” or “Mexico”.  After students have found answers to their assigned questions, they can do more in-depth research using library or Internet resources.  After research is completed, students can come back to Kerpoof to create a picture, story, essay, or movie including information that they learned.


Tips: Be sure to check out Kerpoof’s lesson plans, they have just added a new lesson called “Programming Wizards” designed to teach students about how computers work and how to build, design, and test a program.  Very cool.


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

eyePlorer

 

 

What it is:  eyePlorer is a really cool site that allows students “explore and process knowledge.”  Student type in a word or words to research.  eyePlorer pulls information from Wikipedia and puts it into a color wheel of information.  When students hover over the different areas of the color wheel, they get a sentence or two about their subject.  There is a notebook where students can drag and drop facts that they want to remember.  Students can drag facts to the notebook and rearrange them as they need to.  Students can click the “i” button under the search box to get a quick summary of their topic, click on the “+” button to add search parameters, and click on the paper button to go to a Google search.  The idea behind eyePlorer is to improve the way “users interact with knowledge and information online.”  The goal is to provide innovative, interactive, visual methods for working with and discovering facts and information.  I think the result is pretty amazing and perfect for the educational setting!

How to integrate eyePlorer into the classroom: This is a truly unique way for students to research and explore new information.  Students quickly get a visual guide to their inquiry and can drag and drop what they are learning into a notebook.  This is a fantastic tool for research projects but would also be amazing for use with an interactive whiteboard.  As students are learning about a new concept, they can type the subject into the search and as a class decide which information they want to save in the notebook for later.  What a great introduction to any new material.   This site will definitely help wet students appetite for learning!  Make sure to bookmark this site on the classroom computers as a classroom research center.

 

Tips:  eyePlorer was created in Germany so the home page information is all in German, once you start a search you can choose to search in German or English.  When I searched “shiba inu” it automatically searched in English for me.

 

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

cl1p

 

What it is:  cl1p is a great little web tool that you and your students are going to love.  cl1p lets you copy and paste between computers in three easy steps making it simple to share things between home and school or when working with a partner.  The first step is to create a url that starts out with http://cl1p.net.  Then click “Show me my cl1p” and you can add images, text, and even upload files that can be saved for 8 days and viewed on any other computer straight from the web browser.  Think of cl1p as a web based clipboard where you are copying and pasting from one computer to another.

How to integrate cl1p into the classroom:  If you work in a computer lab, library, or anywhere there is a computer, I’m sure that you have heard the words “I forgot my flash drive” or “can I print this out, I don’t have time to read it now?”  cl1p is a handy little tool that can be used from any web browser where students can quickly copy and paste text, images, or url’s  and access them easily later from another web browser.  This is handy for getting a lot of information from the school computer to the home computer without having to remember to bring home the flash drive and bring it back the next day.  It perfect for students doing research as a group, each group member can add content and access all research from a shared point at their cl1p url from any web browser.  This is also a great site for teachers to send things between the home and school computer and making it easily accessible to colleagues.

 

Tips:  The only downfall of cl1p?  Your url is only good for 7 days, so for long-term research projects or those times when you don’t intend to use the information right away, this isn’t the best tool to use.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using cl1p in your classroom.

Wikipedia School

 

What it is:  Wikipedia is often the first place students head when faced with a research project.  While Wikipedia can be an excellent resource, content can be vandalized and is not always student appropriate.  Wikipedia School is a free, hand checked, non-commercial selection from Wikipedia.  It has about 5500 articles and is the volume of a twenty volume encyclopedia.  It will fit on a DVD and can be downloaded for free thanks to the SOS Children’s Villages website.  Topics were chosen that would be of interest to students and in accordance with the UK National Curriculum (but are appropriate for any English speaking country).  

 

How to integrate Wikipedia School into the classroom:  Wikipedia School is a nice alternative to using the Wikipedia website in a school environment.  The ability to download Wikipedia School to DVD means that it can be used on computers that don’t have Internet access.  Students can search freely and you will have the peace of mind knowing that with Wikipedia School, students won’t stumble on inappropriate content.  Subjects for search include: art, business studies, citizenship, countries, design and technology, every day life, geography, history, information technology, language and literature, mathematics, music, people, portals, religion, and science.  There is an outstanding selection of articles and pictures for each subject!

 

Tips:  Wikipedia School can be accessed online or offline when downloaded.

 

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

Webspiration

 

What it is: You have most likely heard about the popular visual thinking software called Inspiration (or Kidspiration).  Webspiration is a new online version of the visual thinking outlining and organizing.  Webspiration has many of the same features as Inspiration but is free to use and allows for collaborative visual thinking.  Webspiration is perfect for planning, organizing research, and completing projects successfully from beginning to end.  Brainstorming and outlining tools help students organize thoughts for papers and research projects.  Collaboration on Webspiration documents is simple and allows for same document contributing, posting, comments, and viewing changes.  Concept maps and diagrams are created easily with Webspiration.  Visual diagrams and graphic organizers, such as those created with Webspiration, help students retain information.  

 

How to integrate Webspiration into the classroom:    Webspiration is a great tool for the classroom.  Teach elementary age students how to visually organize information using concept maps, venn diagrams, and KWL charts.  Basic outlining skills can also be taught in the elementary classroom using Webspiration.  As students get older, Webspiration helps them take control of and organize their own learning.  Teachers can create concept maps and invite students to collaborate and help fill in information.  These online graphic organizers are wonderful for students, they contribute to filling it in and can access it from any Internet connected computer, iPod, or phone to study from later.

 

Tips:   Webspiration is currently in beta, if you notice any glitches or have ideas for additional features let Webspiration know!

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