Pearltree - Ben's Guide to US Government - great resource for K12

Pearltrees is a great, free site I wrote about in January that lets you organize web content in a visual pattern. There is a Chrome browser extension that makes it easy to add sites to your tree. Trees can be shared and even worked on collaboratively.

A member of my PLN (sorry, can't remember who now and I forgot to make a note of it) just shared a great Pearltree: "Ben's Guide to the U.S. Government for Kids."

The resources are sorted by grades: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 and there is a page about Ben and a Parent and Educator section. Each section has information, links and resources about the US Government. This is a great resource for anyone teaching, or learning, about the US Government and how it works. 

Here's the main page for 9-12:

This is a great example of how a tool like Pearltrees can be used to create educational resources for students (or even have students create them as a project)

Guest Post - Using Pinterest in the Classroom

 

This Guest Post is by Samantha Peters, who runs theeducationupdate.com and enjoys writing about new ways for teachers can use Pinterest and other social media platforms to enhance learning in the classroom.

Pinterest is the newest member to arrive on to the social media scene, and it has taken social media users by storm – quickly becoming one of the most popular social media platforms today. However, this site is not solely to be seen by educators as yet another classroom distraction. Pinterest can actually be highly beneficial for a number of reasons:

Lesson Supplements
Students learn in a wide variety of ways, and many learn best when the lesson is interactive. When covering certain topics, whether it be World History or Trigonometry, use Pinterest to post lesson supplements. If you find articles, stories, or YouTube videos that will help students further grasp lessons, Pin them to that lesson's Board so that they have access to tools that will help them supplement their education.

Current Events
Several large news and information sites, including the Wall Street Journal and National Geographic, are members of Pinterest, and have active boards. Simply by choosing to follow them, you can keep your class easily up to date on the most recent breaking stories and finds. These stories can then be used to prompt further classroom discussions or debates, and even lead in to larger projects.
If you are teaching higher level courses, such as those for college students, you can post Pins and have students comment below to create an online discussion board.

Project Ideas
If your students are struggling with project ideas, Pinterest is a great place to go. Create a board on Pinterest exclusively for classroom projects with several Pins of different project ideas. Your students will be able to actually see previous projects, and get a better understanding of what you are looking for and what they can do to create a successful project.

Accountability
If you are wondering whether or not students are staying on top of their individual or group projects, don't ask for the generic written report. Instead, have each group create a Pinterest account and then post research that they have found, as well as any pictures and project ideas, to their Boards so that you can actually watch their progress, offer criticism when necessary, and make sure that they are using credible sources.

The aforementioned are just a few of the numerous ways an educator, whether they teach 8th grade at a Los Angeles junior high or 19th Century History at a Miami community college, can use Pinterest to further engage their students in the classroom. The highly iconic nature of the site sets it aside from other social media platforms, and makes it a pleasure for students to use. So if you are looking for another way to refocus your students, consider bringing Pinterest into the classroom.

Related:

Project Based Learning Resources for Educators 

Social Media in Education - connect, share, learn, communicate and more

Popplet - online presentation, mindmapping, and bulletin board

MindMeister - online mind mapping and brain storming

Spicynodes - visualize and organize information and resources

Bubbl.us - online brainstorming for free

Thoughtboxes - organize everything you do - great resource for education

Mindomo - brainstorming and mindmapping software

Wolfram announces Wolfram Education Portal

Wolfram, the makers of Wolfram Alpha, the computational search engine, and Mathematica, announced yesterday the launch of the Wolfram Education Portal. The portal will have dynamic teaching and learning tools, organized by course, such as dynamic textbook, lesson plans, interactive demonstrations, widgets and more.

It is in Beta at this time, but anyone can sign up for a free account and access the materials.

Materials are available for Algebra and Calculus and Pre-Calculus are coming soon. Future features include forums, problem generators, web based apps, and personalized content. The problem generators will allow students to work on problems online and it will change the difficulty and type of question based on the previous answers.

The interactive textbook was developed in collaboration with the CK-12 Foundation which produces free K-12 materials and e-textbooks. I've used many of the CK-12 materials and they are very good.

The interactive textbook has Wolfram|Alpha widgets and links and interactive demonstrations from Mathematica.

This is a great resource for math teachers and any teacher or parent looking to help a student with math (or brush up on their own math skills).

Take a look: Wolfram Education Portal


Source: Wolfram Blog announcement of Wolfram Education

Zeodia - transform images into dynamic stories

Zeodia is a site that allows you to take pictures and add time, location and content together to create a video that can tell a story about the picture.

It's free and easy to use. You can add transitions and zoom effects to the photos and add sound.

This is another tool that students and teachers can use for storytelling and creating projects. It might be fun for students to use it to share what they did on vacation, things about their family, or to create a project on a topic for class.



Related:

PhotoPeach - easily create and share photo slideshows

Qwiki - search results as a multimedia presentation

projeqt - an artful way to create and tell stories

projeqt - an artful way to create and tell stories

Projeqt is a very interesting site. It allows you to create real-time stories. You can insert live tweets and feeds, interactive maps, audio, video and more. The stories can also be multi-layered, allowing you to create stories inside stories or go deeper into certain parts. 

It works online, so it doesn't matter what device or OS you are using. 

It's also very easy to use. You can embed videos from YouTube or Vimeo, include RSS feeds from your blog, include your Tweets, post pictures from Flickr, and more. 

Projeqt is a great way for teachers or students to tell stories. It can be used for student projects, or even for multimedia lessons. This would be really good for current events, as the content would change with time. 

I've been using it a little this past week and am just starting to really explore how to use it. 

Animoto - create awesome video slideshows

Animoto is one of those sites that I have heard about and used for a while, but never wrote about. So here goes.

Animoto is a very cool site that allows you to create video slideshows. The free version does have a limit of 30 second videos but the Plus plan is only $5 per month and has full length videos. There are more expensive plans that include more functionality also.

You select images and musics and video clips and then Animoto organizes them into a video slideshow. You can also share your slideshows through a variety of social media sites and there are some nice design backgrounds to choose from.

UPDATE: there is a free Animoto Plus account for educators. It removes the 30 second limit you get on a normal free account and allows you to create student accounts. See it at http://animoto.com/education 

Glogster - multimedia tool that's great for educators and students

Glogster is a very cool site that allows users to create interactive posters called Glogs. I had learned about this a long time ago, but never had the chance to use it or try it out until this week. The free version is limited (50 students), but is still very useful. You could assign groups to work on a Glog together and extend the amount of students using it. The premium versions are not that expensive, with Premium School costing $2 per student per year for an unlimited number of students.

A Glog is very cool - it's an easy to use interface that uses drag and drop to create an interactive multimedia "poster" containing text, audio, video, images, graphics, links, drawings, data and animations. In other words, it's a very cool interactive multimedia creation that is easy to use.

Here's an example Glog from their site:   (http://leonidas75.edu.glogster.com/science4unit1plantreproduction/)



Teachers can create Glogs about different topics in their classroom as a learning tool and students can use Glogs as a way to present what they have learned.

It's private and safe and teachers manage the accounts.

The site has examples of Glogs and a great help section. Jennifer Dorman also created a great website about Glogster and Glogs.

Try it out this summer!

Qwiki - search results as a multimedia presentation

Qwiki is a pretty cool site I learned about this past March at TeachMeetNJ. Qwicki works differently than regular search. Instead of coming back with links, it creates a multimedia presentation for your search term.

The result is a story, told with images, text, and audio about the subject you searched for. If you search for the term again, it will create a new story. There is a "film strip" on the bottom so you can skip ahead to other images.

You can sign up for free and save your Qwiki's for later viewing. You can also view other Qwiki's from other people on the site.

A Qwiki about Mount Rushmore starts out with a Google Map (which zooms in automatically) of where it is, describes what it is, shows pictures of it, talks about the history of it and who's on it, the size, scope of work, and more.

This is a nice way to create presentations and do research on topics. The format is interesting and can be used by both teachers and students. It's fun and creative. 

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Edheads - online projects

Edheads is a great web site that has online projects for students to do. These projects help students explore and learn about a variety of topics.

Some of the projects include - design a cell phone, virtual knee surgery, simple machines, and more.

I found it fun also! Try it out yourself and you will find that it is a nice resource to use in your classroom. The crash scene project was fun and is great for a physics class.