Friday, November 25, 2011

Lots of Online Drawing Sites, Great for Art Teachers

Just a quick share of a blog from Richard Byrne where he groups 11 great online drawing and artistic sites. If you teach art, like art, or like to draw or mess around online with art, this is a great blog to bookmark and to come to often to try the different recommended sites. I have tried some and enjoyed my time with them. Even my own little kids have tried them and liked them. Not sure if they would all be good for art class or even if they would work for art class, but it would not hurt to try. Give them a try and see what you think and thank you Richard Byrne and your Free Technology for Teachers!

TimeSearch is Fun....and Good for Education?

I always like knowing what happened in certain key years like the year I was born or the years by children were born. TimeSearch is a great site to do just that. You put in the year and the site spits out about everything you want to know about events that went on during that year. You can pick as many or as few categories as you want. You can even do more research on certain events when they pop up. You can also search for topics and see what and when things pop up. Lots of fun and maybe good for education if students are looking up key years or doing a timeline of sorts. And maybe just good if you want to look up a key year yourself. Have fun!

Site for Health and Wellness Teachers

For any teachers out there who teach a Health class or Wellness Class, or even a Life Skills or PE course, this site could be of help. The site is called Kids Health in the Classroom. Tons of resources and information when it comes to any aspects of health including diseases, drugs and alcohol, growth, and nutrition. Plus a lot more. I only explored it a little, but some of it looked pretty good and it was all very easy to find and categorized by grade level. Have fun!

Monday, November 21, 2011

A New Way to Write and Publish Your Developing Book Online

Maybe for our Literacy teachers or for any other teachers, but a new site allows our students and maybe even our staff to write their books online, chapter by chapter. The site is called Pandamian and it is pretty neat! You can publish as you go and get feedback. You can get people hooked on your book and notify them when your next chapter is done. For us locally, maybe this is a place where our literacy students can write their drafts and papers and see how you can break something up into chapters or pieces. And in the end, students could sell their E-book or get it published? Who know? Lots of options. Have fun!

Useful Charts Has Some Cool Stuff!

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo and his Websites of the Day Blog, I have found the site Useful Charts. And the site is just that....Useful Charts. Lots of cool charts for a teacher to either study and help with their lessons, print and use somehow in class, or order laminated versions. Many of the charts have copywrite protection, but the information is still great. You might even have students add to the charts or make up their own charts using some of the ideas you get from the charts on this site. And the charts are also divided by subject so you can find the ones you need easier.


New Sticky Note Site is Really Cool!

I have my students using WallWisher right now to do a project about themselves by posting sticky notes with information about their life, their culture, etc. Wallwisher hasn't always worked the best, so I might look for a different site next year. Sites like Wallwisher are also good for organizing information, timeline for projects, and any sort of time or task management. As a teacher, you could also have students make a historical timeline, a bulletin board online about a certain topic or person, or even a board based on what they learned from a book they read. Lots of options! Well, those options now have a new possible site: Linoit! I played around with this site before registering and really loved it. Very easy to post sticky notes. You can also post videos from Youtube and pictures from your own files (something WallWisher does not allow) It also has a calendar function so if you are using it for task management, you can assign dates to each note. Very cool site! You might give it a try as a site to manage your own life, your projects, your team meetings, or a student project. Have fun!



Saturday, November 12, 2011

Another Great Chrome Extension: Dictionary!

I know many of you may not use Chrome, but I am sure this extension or a similar extension is available in Firefox and maybe even Explorer. I downloaded it and it now appears up in the corner of my screen when I am on the internet. If I get to a word that I do not know, I just highlight the word and click on the dictionary and I get all sorts of definitions and even the verbal pronounciation in some cases. I love this web extension and would love to see it on every student computer so that they could learn words as they read them on the screen. It goes great with my "text to speech" Chrome extension as well! Thanks to Richard Byrne and his Free Technology for Teachers blog for helping me find out about this extension! Please click on his blog link to find out how to download this web extension.

Literature Map Shows Students Possible Authors/Books They Would Like

Thanks to Richard Byrne and his Free Technology for Teachers, here is an interesting idea in the area of books, authors, literacy, and our students. If our students like reading and want to read more books similar to what they have read or by authors similar to the authors they have been reading, they could use Literature Map. If a student puts an author name into this site, this site will spit out a map with dozens of other authors' names and based on the distance from the student's author, this determines how similar their writing style and material is. I tried the site out and was able to find 5-10 authors who wrote similar books to Stephen King. And I did all of that in under 1 minute! Cool stuff! Might be a site to pass along to students this year.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Artsonia, a Chance to Showcase Our Artwork!

Another quick website for our Exploratory classes, this time it is art. Thanks to Richard Byrne and his blogsite Free Technology for Teachers, he has alerted me of a chance for our students to showcase their art online to the public. Our 8th graders are blogging and showcasing their writing, now there is a chance to showcase their artistic talent. Not only that, after publishing their artwork, they could order a variety of gifts (t-shirts, mugs, etc.) with their artwork displayed on them. Very cool! This might also be a way to view other student artwork and review and communicate as well. Give it a try!

Richard Byrne's Artsonia Blog entry...click here!

Free Printable Music Sheets

Just a quick link for our music teachers....using this link, you can print your own blank music sheets. You can even add treble cleffs, base cleffs, adjust the time, and much more. I don't know a lot about music or what is available out there, but this site seemed pretty neat. I hope it helps some music teachers our there!

Free and Printable Sound sheets click here!