Classroom Excitement! Web 2.0 review.

This week I was able to search for and play with different tools that are available on Web 2.0.  Web 2.0 is filled with cool things that can be used in the classroom.  I looked through the seemingly endless suggestions on the webpage called cool tools for schools  http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/  There were so many interactive sites and fun things for the classroom it was almost impossible to break it down to just three.

            Under the heading music tools, I liked the application called SongSmith. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/songsmith/  This is a free music editing tool by Microsoft.  I love music and I think that this is a powerful learning tool.  What I liked about this application is that you only need a microphone on your computer and a song in your heart.  If you have limited music knowledge, it will help you sound like a professional.  All you do is sing into your mic and it creates background music for you.  Choose whether you want it to be rock, country or classical, to name a few, and it will create chords to fill in your song.  It helps teach the basics of chords and how they are used in a song.  It is also great because it will cater to multiple students at once.  You can each lay down your track and then it puts them all together with background music for a song.  If your students have a good understanding of music, it offers a higher level of song creation.  In a video on the website with testimonials, one teacher said it was nice because students can work together in groups and collaborate.  It is like having a teacher’s aide for each group.  Some students are less shy working with the computer than in a classroom full of students as they experiment and play with their music.  I really like this because it is free and set up very well for classroom use. 

            The next interactive web page that I loved was found under creativity tools.  It was called class tools. http://www.classtools.net/  Wow!  It was amazing and filled with many useful tools for the classroom!  It is a history teacher’s dream.  There were many sites that you could go to and create things to enrich your classroom.  ‘Fakebook’ was a site for teachers to create a historical Facebook-like page of famous people in history.  It was so fun and something that students would really find interesting and informative at the same time.  Also there was the ‘Twister’ app which creates fake tweets from historical figures.  ‘SMS Generator’ will create a chat conversation between historical figures. I love ‘Postit’ which was a labeling tool used to post your own image and students then use post it notes to label or break down the picture.  Another great interactive piece was called ‘Lights out’.  Again, all you do is upload your own picture which is then blacked out. Students use a match as their virtual light to discover things on the page, all with the click of a mouse.  It features several random name pickers; one like a slot machine and another like the big wheel on the Price is Right.  Timeline creators, fillable fish bone diagrams, venn diagram templates and countdown timers are a few of the other many amazing interactive tools that are perfect and quick to use in the classroom.  Great site! I highly recommend it to all teachers. 

            Writing is an important part of student life.  Students need to be able to create stories and share their ideas creatively.  I loved several of the applications found under writing tools.  I am working in a grade 4 classroom right now for my practicum and I felt that all of these would be very useful and create a lot of interest in writing for my students. Toondoo http://www.toondoo.com/ is a really cool site to make comic strips.  You can use the stock images or upload your own images which I thought was a really fun added bonus to really get to personalize your characters.  It is free but very limited.  What I mean by that is you can only create 10 strips under each registered name.  A teacher wouldn’t be able to do her whole class; each student would have to create their own user name.  I think it would be really fun to create and show my skills by creating my own comic strip.  I also liked Bitstrips, http://www.bitstrips.com/ where you can create your own personal emoji and create comic pictures.  It is also very user friendly.  It is free and doesn’t limit the number of pictures you can make.   One more cool site for younger students that I loved was Zooburst http://www.zooburst.com/  It is a digital storytelling tool that creates 3D popup books.  They are simple but very fun to look at.  You can have 10 free books or pay $50 a year for unlimited use.  It is interactive and an interesting way to get children to write their own story and a rewarding way to see it come to life.

My comic strip from Toondoo.  I made it in a couple of minutes

Sample of my emoji from bitstrip

            There is one last site that I thought was really useful as a teacher and for students. It was Ookaboo http://ookaboo.com/o/pictures/.  This is an image search tool that I never knew about.  I always use Google images and you usually have to cite them when using them in a paper, presentation or website.  These images are copyrighted.  Ookaboo is a free image site; all images are free to use on blogs, presentations and websites.  They are organized according to precise concepts and are easy to use.  You can upload your own image to share if you want. 

            I love learning about all the many options and things available for the classroom.  I could have spent days researching these sites.  The classroom is a place that I want to be able to use as much technology as I can.  Technology is the new language that students need to know to make them a productive citizen.  Many of these sites I looked at will enrich the classroom and engage the student.