Friday, April 23, 2010

Amazing Sites for Students

The technology coordindators group here in Indiana (HECC) share so many great ideas and programs that they find and use with students in schools, I want to share some of the latest suggestions for using other tools to create book reports or other types of reports.

Here's a video I created from Extra Normal. It uses Lego like figures that can be animated to move and speak your script. The director (you) selects the camera angles, movements, actors' voices and body movements based on your script. You can create online or download a version to your computer. Files can be saved for IPhone, YouTube, Twitter, or as I have here in AVI mode.

Other sites to check out include Alice. It is a free software program that teaches computer programming while creating movies and simple video games. It comes in Windows, Linux, and Mac flavors with different sites for middle and high school. It is from the folks at CarnegieMellon. Click on the site to view the promotional video.
"Scratch from MIT Media Lab is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web. " It is also free.
I will have more next week. Enjoy!

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Back into the Saddle

I had left this blog for our teachers when we opened our new website through SchoolWires in January of 2008. However, I realize that this is still a great way just to write short articles that my teachers, staff, and families may want to read. So I am going to start it up again. I hope that you all will find the information valuable.

I want to reach out and remind all of you about a great article from the folks at Edutopia on what Google has to offer for teachers. Here's just some quick points and then at the end is the link to the entire article. If you don't subscribe to that newsletter for updates on technology in education and just education ideas in general, you need to add it to the list of must READS!

  • Google for Educators -- the place to start looking at what Google has to offer.
  • Google Docs -- an online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor that allows you to create, store and collaborate online.
  • Google Maps, Google Earth -- use these in your mapping curriculum
  • Google Images -- find the pictures you and your students need
  • Google Book Search -- search for books online; if in public domain, even read them electronically; make and keep a list of all the books you have read or want to read; find them in the closest library; and check out the reviews or read tables of contents.
  • Picasa -- try out photo editing online
  • Google Sketchup -- create 3D designs
  • Google Groups -- create online discussions
  • Blogger -- one of my favorite tools
  • Google Sites -- so very interesting; have students create research pages

I know that I am going to check out the Book search, Sites, and Groups. Here's the link to the article in Edutopia. Give it a read! Google for Educators: The Best Features for Busy Teachers