21 Things 4 Students

21 Things 4 Students is an educational website that focuses on educating students for the 21 century classroom. Each topic contains examples, resources and activities to help further develop those 21st century tech skills that some of them are in desperate need of.  The topics are wide ranging and the lessons are well designed with opportunities for assessment.

Topics: Staying Organized, Web Presence, Digital Citizenship, Be Legal and Fair, Productivity Suite, Project Collaboration, Digital Video, Information Literacy, Personal Networks, Self-Directed Learning, Online Learning, Interactive Tools, e-Commerce, Career Prep, Troubleshooting, Visual Organizers, Powerful Presentations, VAI-Casting, Virtual Programming, Data Quest, and Mobile Computing.

Free resources to help you tackle spelling and grammar in the classroom.

Spelling

Vocabulary/Spelling City  is a free, interactive educational website that enables students of all ages and learning differences to practice their spelling and vocabulary words.

Knoword is a word game that focuses on teaching and advocating proper spelling habits.  This is an activity that students could spend 5-10 minutes doing in a lesson or you could set it for homework. A downside is that currently there is no way to check if students have completed the activity.

Visuwords is an online graphic dictionary. It lets you look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. It produces diagrams reminiscent of a neural net to help students learn how words associate.

Grammar

Grammar Girl is a website that has podcasts on grammar. They are styled as short helpful tips. Hint: why not get students to create their own podcasts?

Grammarbook.com is a website contains free grammar tools such as rules, commonly confused words and grammar and punctuation videos.

Vocabulary

My Vocabulary - is a free resource that helps students master vocabulary. There are free interactive puzzles focusing on using latin/greek roots, thematic puzzles on a variety of subject areas and word lists.

18 Years in Rap

Flocabulary is all about hip-hop in the classroom. They are well known for their weekly news in rap.  As a tribute the graduating classes of 2011 they have released a video summarizing the last 18 years.

If you are interested in their work they do have resources/units available on their website including some free resources.

Free Online Professional Development

There are great online professional development courses out there on the web for teachers with initiative who want to further develop or learn new skills.

I’ve listed a few of my favourite sites/courses below.

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Teacher Challenge - this is a free blog that is all about 'connecting teachers through professional learning.'  The great thing about it is that it is free.   The PD sessions are focused on supporting students and teachers in the use of web  2.0 technologies.   These PD sessions are called Teacher Challenges.  These are free 30 day professional development challenges where participants are stepped through weekly tasks that increase their skills while working together as part of a global community.  They are currently doing one on Free Web Tools for the classroom. Their upcoming professional courses will cover:

• 30 days to a whole new PLN
• 30 days to use the best of the web’s free resources
• 30 days to ensuring privacy and student safety on the web
• 30 days to increased parent involvement

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Think Tutorial is a  site providing over a 1000  free, easy to follow tutorials on a variety of web services, software, and mobile applications.

 

 Think Tutorial could be an excellent resource to send to friends and colleagues who aren't as proficient with technology as you are. The next time you're about to create a software tutorial for the faculty at your school, check Think Tutorial first and you could possibly save yourself from trying to reinvent the wheel. Along the same lines, you may want to check out Learn It In 5 for some good web services tutorials designed for use by teachers.

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Annerberg Learner contains educational video programs with printed materials and focuses on professional development for American Teachers.  The majority of the resources can be accessed for free. Click here to view resources on teaching Literature and Language Arts

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Panhandle Area Educational Consortium has made a variety of U.S Teacher workshops. Click here to view resources on teaching Literature and Language Arts.

 

 

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5 Free Resources that you can use when making films!

 

JellyCam – Free Stop Motion Movie Generator is a website that contains free software that students students can make stop motion films using photo’s or a webcam.  This program is free and easy to use, however it does require Adobe Air which is free to install. Click here to watch a demo.

Animoto is a site that allows you to turn photos and music into video slideshows.

Go!Animate is a site that provides free and easy to use tools that students can use to create their own animations.

Flipbook is a free site that lets you create flipbook style animations.

Cool Tools For Schools – Videos – want to find even more free tools? Check out the Cool Tools for Schools page on videos.

The Ruby Skye Project–Interactive narrative storytelling

So just what are interactive narratives? Simply put, interactive narratives are stories that involve the participation of the reader. I really enjoy teaching this genre as the stories are engaging, and I love how they create an environment that fosters interaction, discussion, and learning.

It’s exciting to see that interactive narratives are becoming more accessible for teachers.  A great example is the Ruby Sky Project.  This web based comedy series is about Ruby, a 15 year old girl who is determined to solve all the mysteries she sees going in her city. With her sharp senses, determination and a healthy dose of curiosity she sharpens her detective skills with the help of her side kick and friend.

The videos are of a high quality, the storyline is engaging and it fosters constant interaction with the viewer.  There are lots of teaching resources from storyboards, blog posts by the director and behind the scene footage.
Check out the first episode below!

Free Instructional Videos for students, parents and you

What do you do when a student is away and they miss your key lessons on essay writing? Or when you revise a particular grammar rule? Sure a worksheet is easy, but how do you insure understanding? Or that they do it?

Instructional or tutorial video’s are the key.

WatchKnow is a free site that was created by the same creator of Wikipedia. It’s a vast collection of all the best free educational videos from a variety of sites like TeacherTube, Google Videos, National Geographic etc.  Not only are they indexed in an easy to find manner, there are over 20,000 videos on a variety of subjects.

So next time students have a test or need to revise a certain skill, you can link them to tutorial videos to help them brush up on their skills.

Some other handy sites are:

Grammar Girl: is a great website that has short and simple podcasts on grammar. They are styled as short helpful tips.

Grammarbook: contains helpful rules, real-world examples and fun quizzes.

Sense-Lang: is an online touch typing program. It includes free typing games, key board tutorials and the ability to add a class and set homework tasks.