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"Fresh and New Friday"
I’ve used a site called wetxt to send text messages to parents from my computer. I also like the look of Class Parrot, which is designed more for educators. Remind101 looks like another great way for teachers to send text message reminders and updates to students and/or parents.
Remind101 is easy, free, and safe. Teachers never see students’ or parents’ cell phone numbers and vice versa. They simply join the service by sending a text message. The teacher uses a computer to send texts, but a computer is not needed for parents or teachers.
Communication is critical. And text messaging is a great way to keep people informed and up-to-date. Remind101 could be a very valuable service for teachers.
I discovered SlideSix recently via Free Technology for Teachers in a post dated December of 2010. So, it’s not exactly a “new” site, but it is new to us, so that counts!
SlideSix looks like a great way to take slideshows that you’ve already created using PowerPoint, OpenOffice, Keynote, or Google Docs and easily enhance them by adding audio and video. This essentially turns them into something that’s more like a movie and a “plain old” slideshow.
I think SlideSix could be a great way to quickly and easily have students create digital stories. Start with the text in your presentation, upload to SlideSix, add audio OR video narration, and voila! You’ve got a great digital story. SlideSix could also come in handy for those looking to flip their classrooms.
So check out SlideSix today and see if it’s something that might be useful in your classroom. And if you think so, or you’re already using it, let us know!
Fresh and New Friday, our weekly look at tools and sites that are useful and new (to us), wouldn’t be possible without our personal learning network (PLN). If it wasn’t for twitter and our trusty RSS Reader, we might not learn about anything new. Ever. I shudder at that thought. This week’s fresh and new site, PasteVid, came to me via David Kapuler and his excellent blog.
PasteVid is a simple way to record your computer screen. So simple, in fact, that all you need to do is click one button. You don’t even need to register. PasteVid does offer the option of creating a free account so that your videos can be stored online. Or you can pay for a premium account, which offers even more.
Screen recordings, or “screencasts” as I’ve heard them called, are valuable and versatile tools. I make them often to demonstrate to students (and blog readers) how to complete tasks for projects we’re working on. I also really like the idea of having students create their own screencasts to demonstrate their learning. PasteVid looks like it could easily be used for either.
Check out PasteVid and let us know what you think!
I learned about Photo Pin recently on Larry Ferlazzo’s amazing blog and I’ve already used it in my classroom. You see, I’m a stickler for “fair use.” I really stress with my students the importance of citing digital sources, giving credit, and only using images for which you have permission to do so. And I try to live up to that standard when I blog, too.
Photo Pin makes this incredibly easy to do. Just search for an image and download the size you want. Photo Pin even provides a link and even HTML code for you to copy and paste so that you’ve cited your image source.
Photo Pin has very quickly earned a place with FlickrCC among my favorite sites for finding images.
I read about Qwiki for the first time last year on the great blog Free Technology for Teachers. But I never got around to exploring it. Richard Byrne, the Free Tech author, tweeted about it again the other day and I was inspired to take a look. Um…it’s pretty cool. And something you should definitely explore.
Qwiki is allows you to access information in a completely new way–through stories and images. You simply type in a person, place or thing and you’ll find Qwikis, collections of fantastic images and hyperlinked text. Here’s an example:
View Detroit and over 3,000,000 other topics on Qwiki.
I think Qwiki will spark curiosity in students and provides a great way for them to learn about new things. They also have a free iPad app! Give this new (to us) site a try and let us know what you think!
We’ve been looking back over 2011 here at the Engaging Educators blog this week. For Fresh and New Friday today we’d like to do the same. As you may know, Fresh and New Friday is our weekly series featuring a site or resource that’s new to us. We’ve discovered and used some great new tools this year. Here are links to five of our favorite posts in one of our favorite series, Fresh and New Friday:
–Brainstorm and Vote with Tricider
–Build Math Skills with TenMarks
–Create Digital Posters with Juxio
–Popplet (our first ever Fresh and New Friday!)
–Get Kids Writing with KidBlog
–Shorten Multiple URLs with fur.ly
–Instant Feedback with AnswerGarden
–Awesome screenshots with…Awesome Screenshot
–Edit, Draw, and Create with Sumo Paint
These were quite popular with readers. Hope you enjoy them, too. Did you discover a site that was fresh and new to you in 2011? If so, leave us a comment and share it with the world!
The site Tales of Things is new to us and it looks pretty intriguing. Tales of Things allows you to connect objects (or, more accurately, pictures of objects) to a “tale” of their origin, history, or anything else that tells the object’s “story.” Tales of Things then generates a QR Code that, when scanned, opens the object’s story.
I could see this as a great way for students to practice writing and digital story telling. The QR codes would add some excitement, too. I could also see it as an option for classes looking to connect across state and national borders, as well. You could swap Tales with a partner class.
I think Tales of Things definitely has potential. Give it a try and let us know what you think.
Welcome once again to Fresh and New Friday, our weekly look at a site that’s new (to us) and that we think has valuable education uses. This week we take a look at SpiderScribe, a tool for collaborative online mindmapping and brainstorming that’s pretty awesome.
We learned of SpiderScribe earlier this year from Richard Byrne’s award winning blog. I finally got around to exploring it this week after responding to a tweet looking for mindmapping suggestions. I guess that doesn’t exactly make it “new,” per se, but it’s new to me. And it looks good.
SpiderScribe goes beyond your typical mindmapping app by integrating not just text, but also documents, images, maps, events, and more. SpiderScribe allows you to create private or public maps, which can be shared via link, email or embed code. This makes it useful for collaborating with others. And, like so many great tools (and all the ones we recommend to educators), it’s free! On top of that, it’s very easy to use.
Here’s one I put together in just a few minutes:
Here’s a link to the map: http://www.spiderscribe.net/app/?092a3293e7f3f670bcc0ad7917492780
Definitely could see SpiderScribe being useful as a stand alone tool for students or during collaborative projects. And it’s so easy to use, you could even teach younger kids how to use it.
Give it a shot and let us know what you think. And if you like this post, be sure to subscribe to our blog so you never miss another one!
When collaborating across time zones, like we like to do in our classrooms, having a toolkit of useful web applications is important. There are many ways to collaborate and create content–Google Docs, Voicethread, and wikis come to mind. But there are other tools out there that can be beneficial. One example is the brainstorming and voting site All Our Ideas.
Billing itself as “a suggestion box for the digital age,” All Our Ideas easily allows users to come up with answers to a shared question, and then decide together on the best choice. Here’s an example…
Let’s say you had a group of four students, each in a different country. They have to decide what format to use to document their learning during their collaborative project: wiki, podcast, etc. Each member can use All Our Ideas to brainstorm as many ideas as possible. Then, group members can cast a vote to decide which one to pick.
It’s pretty simple, and it’s free. I think there are surely far more benefits to using this site. Students could definitely benefit from All Our Ideas. So check it out today!
They say there’s more than one way to skin a cat. This is also true of URL shorteners apparently. There are scads of them and while I usually stick to bit.ly for its customization features and goo.gl and Hootsuite’s built in shortener, I still am on the lookout for sites that are putting a twist on the whole shortening thing.
I learned about one such site from the folks at Make Use Of, an incredibly useful blog. It’s called LNK.by and it shortens your links, but gives them meaning. Your shortened link tells the person what they can expect to do with it. LNK.by automatically detects the type of media available at that URL and assigns a shortened address accordingly. Audio links are shortened to a variation of LSTN.in, videos to WCH.it, photos to SEEE.it, and text to READ.im.
Kind of nifty. Definitely a fresh and new take on the crowded URL shortening concept. Give LNK.by a try and let us know what you think. And be sure to subscribe to our blog if you haven’t already!
Have a great weekend!
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