Sites that Caught My Eye Today 08/24/2008
Spanish to English Dictionary | Translation | Translator
Website w/ translations
Safe Kids Chat Rooms - Fun Games for Girls and Boys - Action Adventure Games for Kids - KidsCom.com
Another "safe" world -- has anyone tested this one? It has a lot of seals and awards.
Reminders: Get and set reminders via Twitter
How to get and set reminders on twitter using the user "timer."
To Do Managers: Remember the Milk with Twitter
Tips from Life hacker on how to use Remember the MIlk with Twitter. If I don't renew Jott, I may have to just brush up on the twitter interface for RTM.
This site was founded by one of the cofounders of the original Powerschool. It lets you play multiple things and mash up a presentation. This looks like it has fascinating applications.
Glubble is a firefox plug in to allow you to sort of monitor/ filter what they view online without having to pay for a filter. Yes, it is a filter, but for elementary aged children, I think it could be a good idea. Would love to hear a review from a reader.
the Best Buy Teach Awards are a great grant for technology intensive classrooms in the US. The applications must be submitted by October, 12, 2008.
School Solutions Standards Toolbox: State Standards and Teacher Tools
Free Standards Toolbox for State Standards and also a lot of teacher tools. This may be something for those who are working with standards. It is free!
ZoeyBot - An Educational Website for Kids
A new website for kids that uses search and also some filtering. Another website to take a look at for kids. Not sure about the revenue model - will have to look.
Webon -- Free website hosting, free website templates, free web publishing
Another place to make websites in an easy way. This has no ads on your website, a must for educators. Anyone test this one?
Another new website to help students study. It says that it helps students get organize and overcome procrastination! MIght be worth the trial to learn their tricks! ;-) They have a 14 day trial.
Sends email and cell phone reminders and "blocks distractions" (Not sure how.)Student Technology Assessments Are Now Simple. Finally. | SimpleAssessment
Free unlimited Assessments from Simple Assessment. I may have to test this since hte testing service I used to use went out of business! ;-)
K-12 Open Minds Conference | Open Source. Open Technology. Open Content. Open Minds.
K12 open minds conference about open source software and its use in education to be held in Indianapolis in late September. Great opportunity.
When Google Owns You | chrisbrogan.com
Oh, what a disturbing message. What if Google held our gmails for ransom? How much would you pay? Would it be right? This is the case with all of the things we have.
Recent changes at Jott and Twitter should make us think! In fact, I couldn't even blog about it if it happened to me!Website which will send you free books and asks the school and library professionals to rate the children's books. This is a great opportunity for those who are strapped for cash.
Mobile Apps: Free Alternatives to Replace Jott's Functions
A reader named Liesl send in this great article from LifeHacker about the alternatives to Jott. Actually, after reading this, there really isn't an alternative to Jott without a lot of elbow grease. I may be coughing up the $3.95 a month. I just really use it.
However, I'm going to email them. I NEED A FAMILY PLAN! I have my children using Jott on their cell phones but they use it very infrequently. I should be able to have some sort of family plan for our situation.New World Notes: Generation Why: Is The Second Life Experience Fundamentally Gen X-Centric?
Discussion of why Generation X is inundating Second Life and why Gen Y is so underrepresented.
I will say that my students LOVE Second Life, but you also have to remember that I teach students who, for the most part, grew up playing outside and have engaged in free play all of their lives. Perhaps this is also a function of the presence of free play in the lives of children. How many Gen Y kids truly had free play as part of their childhood? We've sort of structured and organized everything for them in many cases.A place where students can create things and share their inventions. I have an invent this project coming up and am going to look at the tools here.
Another new tool for building websites - synthasite. Have any of you used this new tool?
Road to Teaching: A Community for Student Teachers
New website set to share information between preservice teachers.
Interested to see this software. Hope to get a copy and see how it works with my students.
I have no doubt that moving content to mobile devices is going to be an incredibly useful thing to be able to do in the coming years. Do it now or do it later?
How about 1:1 cell phone schools instead of laptops.PTA launches back to school webcasts for parents
National PTA (the parents organization for public school parents in the US) has launched a webcast to communicate with parents.
Not sure where the podcast is, but it is probably linked here. It looks like a video. (It would be great to also rip the audio off and link as a podcast too, I think parents would find it useful.)
One thing this does do is legitimize the webcast for parents. You can say "Look parents, PTA is webcasting, it must not be evil." For the use of this tool, I applaud PTA.
I haven't listened to the webcast yet. Hope they turn it into to a podcast as my screentime is limited, but listen to things as I wash dishes and cook dinner (a nightly happening.)Macworld | Picking the perfect camcorder - Page 1
Article on picking the best camcorder for a Mac. Thought it was worth sharing.
I'm proud of Beth Kanter and her recent work at Gnomedex in showing people the power of social media to help important causes. It was all over twitter this weekend. Way to go Beth!
Organizations that organize these tools also ignore potential donations.TheUniversityReview.com - University and College Reviews and Rankings
A website for students to rate and research their colleges.
Assistive Technology Collection - Movies
Atomic learning has an assistive technology collection that they have just rolled out.
Classtell — class websites for teachers
Fifteen year old programmer, Kasra Kyanzadeh, from Canada, emailed me to tell her about this website. This is another one to review. I hope that you'll share if you've used this site and what you think.
With so many easy options, we should all be able to find something that suits our needs (and/or our filter.) This one costs $20 CAD a year but you can have a 90 day free trial.From Leann Lacy - some cool materials to use with children for safety and other educational games.
Some students have started this to promote environmentally sound actions. This is run by students and I saw a little profanity on the home page.
The Weather Channel® - Forecast Earth Summit
Students interested in environmental issues, the forecast earth summit is open for applications. Twenty students will be flown to Washington DC, December 5-7. This is sponsored by the weather Channel.
Do you know a student who would be a good eco ambassador?Website of a group of people collecting funny school stories for a book.
Parent Leadership in Education
New blogger talking about parent leadership in education. Another emerging person talking about parents in addition to my friend Vicky Hennigan at www.remarkableparents.com
We need more parent edubloggers!Free Atomic Tutorial on Office 2008
Great way to test the waters w/ this tool. Free Office 2008 tutorial through September 10th, 2008, pass this along to teachers.
Jennifer Eubank's Class Blog. She is in Taylor County (just spent some time there) and is really on fire! She used a google form this week.
There are so many great ways to use these tools and NO ONE has the monopoly. (No, not me either!) It is so important to keep looking at what teachers are doing and share what we think works and doesn't. I expect great things out of Jennifer!Missing Child Alerts on Twitter | Remarkable Parents
Article by Vicky Hennigan - an up and comer in the parent edublogger category about the use of twitter for missing children alerts. Don't know a lot about how this would work but think that perhaps there are applications for having public twitterboards for such things.
Susan Silverman knows how to do elementary projects -- Her fall project is the Online Autumn Revival and includes Kindergarten, 1st grade and 2nd grade classes. This is a great one.
Project that is connecting students and teachers of Spanish from around the World. There is still time!
School Gate - Times Online - WBLG: The Ten Best Blogs about Education
London Times article on their picks for education blogs.
Inspiring story about a teacher who took back her school from crime.
