MACUL Conference Tidbits 2009
Here are some wonderful new sites for you that we got at the MACUL conference this past week. Please check them out.
WEBSITES - Free and easy to make
www.weebly.com, www.schoolrack.com
CLASSROOM VIDEOS - Please preview all videos before showing
www.teachertube.com, www.youtube.com
BLOGGING IN THE CLASSROOM
www.epals.com www.wordpress.com www.edublogs.com
www.eblogger.com www.pageflakes.com www.bloglines.com
PODCASTING IN THE CLASSROOM
We saw a lot of great uses for this podcasting idea. One of the sites even allows for live podcasting. Something as simple as lecturing to your students and having yourself also on your screen can just increase that engagement for the students that much more. They also used it when student were doing group projects that they needed to present. The students would record their presentation and show it to the class. Very cool ideas.
www.podbean.com, www.gcast.com, www.gabcast.com, www.podmatic.com, www.audacity.com
BOOKMARKING - Bookmarks you can reach from any computer!
www.google.com(go to their bookmarks section), www.del.cio.us.com , www.foxmarks.com, www.diigo.com
TIMELINE GENERATORS - Great for social studies, interactive with text, video, and sounds. www.mnemograph.com ,
www.timetoast.com
Creating MTV style videos - with drag and drop with song and pictures:
www.animoto.com This is similiar to powerpoint presentation but 1000% better! There is a fee if you want a clip over three minutes however but the fee is very minimal and you can then keep the video you made. I think it was $3 for a 12 minute video.
COMIC STRIPS
www.comiccreator.com
Survey Creators
www.polldaddy.com, www.freeonlinesurvey.com, www.polleverywhere.com, www.surveymonkey.com
I have personally tried surveymonkey and it is great! Again, there is a fee if you want to poll more than 100 people I think. Under 100 is free.
SOCIAL NETWORK - PRIVATE - Like Facebook but just for your class.
Students can chat, blog, get assignments, etc. Wonderful site.
www.ning.com
PHOTO EDITOR - Like Photoshop Elements
This online photo editor is free. There are some premium options of course but you don’t need them to get done what you usually want to do to your photos like red eye, crop, color correct, etc. There are even creative buttons to do crazy things to your photos that kids love playing with.
www.picnik.com