YouTube allows organizations to create channels. This then then allows people to subscribe to channels (RSS) so when new things are posted you get notified. As more and more video content goes digital, and hardware devices are created to allow you to connect this content to your flat panels, a la Apple TV, understanding how channels work could be a useful tool!
One example is the Oregon State University channel. Here you can find everything from time lapse photography of Earth from the International Space Station to horses on treadmills.
This site provides commercial resources that can be purchased to help teach mathematics concepts. However, they do have some free tools that can be used to help teach the concepts of fractions. These might be useful when you get to the concept of fractions.
Scribus is an OpenSource (free) desktop publishing application that comes in versions for Macintosh, Windows and Linux. It has professional level output capabilities CMYK color, seperations, Spot Colors, ICC color management and can be used to export to PDF.
“Crocodoc takes your PDFs, Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations, and lets you view and mark them up online. Documents can be shared with others, who can collaboratively highlight or strikeout text, add notes and comments, and make revisions. All files are stored securely on our servers, and can be password protected and encrypted for maximum security.”
“Turn your students into historians with primary-source based activities that develop historical thinking skills. Activities are ready to use in your classroom. Or alter an existing activity to fit your unique needs. Exchange primary source documents and modify activity instructions. Log in to borrow from an even larger selection from fellow educators.”
What is the mindset of the college student graduating in 2013? Check out this resource to see where they’re coming from…or any other year for that matter starting with the graduating class of 2002.
“The mission of the Skype an Author Network is to provide K-12 teachers and librarians with a way to connect authors, books, and young readers through virtual visits.
Wouldn’t it be great to invite authors into your classroom or library to video chat with students before, during, and/or after reading their books? We are growing a list of authors who want to make that connection with you via Skype. Visit our Skype Overview page to learn more about Skype.”
There are a multitude of free web site creation tools available. Add this one to your list. It is a site that uses a wizard to help you create a Flash based web site, no programming required.
This site is a great resource for addressing issues around developing positive characteristics. The site uses current news and related information to showcase generic values that we all aspire to…at least I hope we all do
This is a game someone created by mashing the resources at Flickr (photo sharing site) with the tags that people add to their images. I can’t help but think in terms of building vocabulary in students, ELLs maybe, …this idea could borrowed and used to create an analog version, or a version that is less random in nature.
This site provides a link to new free stock video, images, and audio files weekly on their front page. They also provide royalty free media files that can be purchased and downloaded. This could be a useful site to visit weekly for the freebies and to begin adding to your media file collections.
Some real gems here that could be used to support your history/social studies content! Have a gander at the collection of essays (link at the top left of the magnumphotos web site page, labeled “Essays”).
Many of you are probably using Twitter to follow and learn from other people with your same interests. You may occasionally see a response from some of these individuals that is checking to see if your Twitter account is an actual individual interested in what they have to share or a spammer. Just like email, Twitter has it’s collection of Spammers too. If you are using Twitter quite a bit, you may want to take a look at this service.
Scratch is a program that helps students develop logic, math, and thinking skills through computer programming. It has many pre-designed commands and functions. BYOB is an add-on that provides students with more flexibility to design their own command, functions, routines when they are developing/learning in Scratch.
