Footnotes have never been this cool!

Check out – Footnotes.com, an interactive historical timeline. Type a term into the search engine to see what shows up or explore by historical era.

Words, all dressed-up

Check out Tagxedo, which turns words — famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters — into a visually stunning tag cloud.

Need to memorize something?

Check out Quizlet, a great FREE make-your own flashcard tool!

Fully-loaded Apps!

Beware of Teachers with Apps!  Zap! Pow! Bam!
Subscribe to this blog and get the word on the BEST pre-k -12 educational apps in town.

What time is it in Skypeville?

Skpe is the bomb!  Free, E-Z to use and sooo student friendly! 
2 great Skype resources here:
Time and Date - meeting planner and time zone converter – check it out!
Skype Educator Portal - mix and mingle with teachers all over the world!

List, list, oh list…

A super organized friend of mine told me about 43 Things, a website that asks folks what they want to do with their lives, mostly the things they want to learn.  The goal: to make a list, to get inspired, to share your progress with others. In the spirit of collaboration using Web 2.0 tools, I was thinking about what a school librarian’s version would include to inspire and engage teachers and students.
My list, SO FAR:

1. Create a Wiki Booklist (PB Wiki for Education) for summer reading.  Teachers could attach files with study guides and questions.  Reviews and video trailers could be linked to grab the readers’ attention.

2. Move “literature circles” to classroom blogs.  Blogs are tried and true forms of interaction which motivate students to think, read, write and share!  If you don’t have a blog feature on your school website, check out WordPress.

3. Podcast booktalks or book reviews via Bookwink,  Just One More Book or Voicethread.

4. Use Flickr to celebrate student art and activities or set up a student gallery.

5.  Do a survey and communicate with your learning community.  Embed a survey on your blog, wiki or web site.  Google has the most robust (and free) survey tool around!

OMG! What would you do if…

you met the Jonas Brothers!?*…NPR’s lead story today is “Take Our Survey: Are There too Many Surveys?”  Interesting overview of the science of surveys, how they impact human behavior, data crunching and truthfulness of respondents.   Surprisingly, I find that students love, love, love surveys!  Ah, their 15 minutes of fame!   If you click onto almost any kid/teenager website you will find a whole bunch of surveys ranging from single-questions about celebs, music, fashion, issues (Rhianna/Chris Brown) to longer surveys/quizzes about pop culture stuff.  It takes me back to my teen years when I used to hide quizzes from Tiger Beat and True Confessions magazines under my bed!  It was good to know I wasen’t such a dork!  Seeing the excitement of our students taking the Digital Native survey is neat.  I would definitely add this to my teacher’s toolbox and have students create their own as assessments or research & development of projects.  And… what would YOU do if you met the Jonas Brothers?

X grabs our attention!

X-games, X-Men, A/X – you know…all this pop culture stuff that uses “X” to shock us. Well, I recently stumbled upon Xtranormal, a website that invites the user to play, create and communicate.  Currently in beta, there are four different sets of characters that can be selected using a free account. (They look a little like those Playmobile people my kids used to play with), Once signed on, you begin to type the dialog. You can have a one character monologue or a two character dialog. In addition to typing the dialog, you can give the characters various expressions and actions, change camera angles, and add music.  Looks like fun for a language arts classroom or history project.

“If you can type, you can make movies.”  Go ahead, you know you want to try it!…

Road tested…

Sure, we’re all excited about these Web 2.0 tools, but we need the ones with the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,” already road tested for your classroom.  In short, we want the quick and dirty version of what new cool tool you’re using and why you love it.  Enter NJ Tech Teacher Musing, a neat blog I unearthed that gives us a coolWeb 2.0 tool and a short explanation (lesson plan, really) on how she used it with her class.  In this entry she discusses Chatzy for a unit on Internet Safety.  Scan through it for some good ideas and be sure to check out the comments that add to the conversation.  The blog is organized, clean, professional; go ahead and book mark it right now.

Respect yo!

Lest we think these Web 2.0 tools just “showed up” in our teacher’s toolbox one day, let’s give a shoutout to the tech gurus who packed the toolboxes AND remembered to also include the instruction manual.  I’m talking about people like Alan November, Tim Wilson (Savvy Technologist), wonderwoman Joyce Valenza, Will Richardson and numerous others.  These folks have sharpened the proverbial “technology saws” and shown us the awesome educational power of these Web 2.0 “Killer Apps.”  Who are your tech gurus?