“Fast Five” for December 2010
Wow! The next time we will do this, it will be 2011. Now that sounds futuristic. Tool #2: Museum Box Tool #3: The Google eBook Store Tool #4: GoAnimate4Schools GoAnimate, which used to be a paid site, is now available for free to educators. Each teacher can sign up for as many as 100 accounts for students to use to create short animations and scenes. This is a great site to support digital storytelling, with a twist. Tool #5: ActivExpressions
Tool #1: Scholastic’s “The Stacks”
http://www.scholastic.com/kids/stacks/index.asp
Scholastic’s answer to an online book club may be “The Stacks”. It’s a great place for tweens to come together and discuss books they may be reading while also finding interactive activities and resources. Although it’s full of very educational items, there are a lot of ads that can sometimes appear to be internal links.
http://museumbox.e2bn.org/
If you had only a small box in which to save just a few items that could be used to tell the story of your life, what would you choose? Museum Box allows students to create a digital collection of images, videos, text, and weblinks to tell a story.
http://books.google.com/ebooks
Do you have an iPad? iPhone? Droid Phone? Nook? Doesn’t matter! Now there’s the Google eBook store where you can either buy eBooks or download free ones. Using the interactive website it’s also easy to read them straight from your computer. Considering all but the “Kindle” can support this new format, it’s only a matter of time before Google gives all the other eBook vendors a run for their money.
http://www.goanimate4schools.com
Get your students animated about learning, with animation!
Not an online tool, but… a great way to assess students during instruction if you’re already using Promethean equipment or ActivInspire software. Today we will use the ActivExpressions to vote on the four tools above, and share ideas on how to use the Livescribe “Smartpens” with students.
