ISTE 2011 opening

Shelfari

What it is: Shelfari is a virtual bookshelf that you create to show off books that you have read and recommend. It is a Web 2.0 site that allows you to connect with students, other teachers, and parents around books. Shelfari is a great way to discover new titles, discuss books, start an online book club, and show others what you are reading. You can show off your Shelfari bookshelf on your blog, classroom website, or other social networking site of choice. Really cool!

How to integrate Shelfari into the classroom: As summer break approaches, we teachers start thinking about how far we have come during the school year with our students. We also dread that they will be on their own for the summer and may or may not be reading. Shelfari would be an excellent resource to create today and introduce your students and parents to before summer break. Build a bookshelf of age-appropriate reading for your students. Post the bookshelf on your classroom website and encourage students to continue reading with you over the summer. Because Shelfari allows for you to create online book clubs and discussions, students can keep their reading and comprehension skills in tip top shape with you! Shelfari is also an excellent resource for parents who may feel overwhelmed when they enter a library with their child. They often aren’t sure of their child’s reading level and age-appropriate books. With Shelfari, they can visit your shelf before the trip to the library for some great suggestions. Shelfari is also ideal throughout the school year as a place for you and your students to connect over reading…reading is so much more fun when you have someone to share and discuss what you are reading with! Students can create their own bookshelves to show off what they are reading. Teacher to teacher book clubs on Shelfari are also a lot of fun! Connect with other staff members over books that you are reading (they can be school related or not.) Maybe in place of the traditional book report, students start a discussion on Shelfari about their reading. Where have you been all my life Shelfari?

Tips: Use Shelfari in conjunction with Book Adventure for some real reading fun!

From "I Learn Technology"

Until next time ~ Danita

That Math Quiz

Great math site:

ThatQuiz for Teachers is a free testing service for teachers to use with their classes. Multiple choice tests and math tests can be administered to students using this website. All grades are immediately reported to the students. Teachers receive complete record keeping of test results, including all grades and wrong answers.

Fiery Flash Timer

Fiery Ideas flash timer

This handy site lets you easily create a countdown timer, with different selections for background music. Great for tests and quizzes with one exception … it’s so neat it’s a little too distracting!

The first time you use it, kids are liable to just watch IT instead of working on their activity! (The balloon grows and grows until it hits the pin and then there’s a thunderous explosion!)

From NCS-Tech blog

Until next time ~ Danita

GrammarMan Comics

Grammarman, a comic by Brian Boyd, a teacher in Thailand.

These delightfully produced strips are fun AND educational.

You can read the comics, listen to them, or watch them as a YouTube movie. Each one contains errors to be discovered and some are pretty tricky!

This is definitely an upper middle-school activity. The comics are funny and effective! Kids will proofread them voraciously!

http://grammarmancomic.com/comicsgman.html

The site is loaded with lots of other free resources including links to related sites and even a blackline master template for your students to try creating their own Grammarman strip on paper.

From NCS-Tech blog

Until next time ~ Danita

SpellingCity

SpellingCity.com makes practicing for spelling tests fun.

To get started, you should:

1. Tell your students about this site as the best way to practice for their tests.

2. Print out spelling games with your lists such as UnScramble & WordSearch.

3. Save your spelling lists on the site so they are ready for your students to practice with. To save your lists, you start by registering (which is totally free) above.

4. Put a link on your classroom's or school's website so this site is easily accessible to your students.

Until next time ~ Danita

Physics Life

Explore the physics all around you with this animated cartoon street. Great program for beginners and advanced. Covers physics and other science concepts.

Physics Life

Until next time ~ Danita

Our Stories

Welcome to Our Stories

The Our Stories™ project helps people share the stories of their lives, no matter where they live or how their stories unfold. We're providing resources to create and share personal stories from all over the world, starting with children in developing countries who are using One Laptop per Child (OLPC) computers or those who are working with UNICEF radio producers to record and share interviews. Children are asked to record the stories of elders, family members, and friends. You can listen to our growing collection of global voices on this site, which includes stories from Brazil's Museum of the Person and stories from Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, and Pakistan (through UNICEF). Soon, stories from other countries will also be available for listening here. And in the future, we'll make it possible for people of all ages around the world to add their content to the Our Stories site.

Feel free to explore our site, listen to stories, and learn about the world through the voices of others. You may even be inspired to capture the stories of your own friends and family. Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours?

Listen. Learn. Live.

Until next time ~ Danita

Tourist Remover

Remove moving objects such as tourists or passing cars from your photos. Take multiple photos from the same scene and the «Tourist Remover» blends them into a composite photo without any interfering elements.

The «Tourist Remover» is part of the Online Photo Manager snapmania. snapmania helps you organize, share and archive your photos online. Create webalbums, photoblogs, e-cards, photobooks and much more.

Yes, that's right. Full functionality and 100 MB of online storage for free. Paid upgrades offering more space and better protection from data loss are available. Sign up for free now.

Tourist Remover

Until next time ~ Danita

Create free online quizzes

Classmarker is a free online quiz maker

Create online quizzes free

ClassMarker is a free, easy to use, online quiz maker that marks your tests and quizzes for you.

You simply create your quizzes and your learners or business clients take them online.

• Link directly to quizzes from your website or emails
• Randomise quiz questions
• Have quiz results emailed to you and saved in ClassMarker
• Create multiple choice, true false, free text, short answer, fill in the blank and punctuation quizzes
• Add your own images to quizzes

About ClassMarker - Your online quiz maker >>

“Join the thousands of people that use ClassMarker for their online quizzes and exams.”

Until next time ~ Danita

definr - incredibly fast dictionary

Enter your word and receive a lightning fast definition.

Definr

Until next time ~ Danita

Clip Art

Free clipart for students & teachers!

34,000 pieces of free clipart and growing every month

Welcome to quality educational clipart. Every item comes with a choice of image size and format as well as complete source information for proper citations in school projects. No advertisement-filled pages with pop-up windows or inappropriate links here. A friendly license allows teachers and students to use up to 50 items in a single, non-commercial project without further permission.

Two ways to get started:

1. Search Database to find item online.

2. Visit the Site Map to view all categories and sub-categories of clipart available.

Clipart categories recently added or expanded:

Clocks	Counting	Currency	Fractions	Geometric Patterns	Geometric Shapes
Geometric Solids	Geometry	Math Tools	Probability	Thermometers	Trigonometry

You might also be interested in:

• Presentations ETC—a collection of over 20,000 backgrounds for presentations and webpages
• Florida Photos—thousands of new and old photographs from around the state
• Maps ETC—thousands of maps covering all regions of the world
• FCIT Homepage—your starting point for dozens of great educational resources

Until next time ~ Danita

Round Corners of any picture

Online tool for making rounded corners for any image.

Roundpic

Until next time ~ Danita

Free Camtasia

From Around the Corner - Miguel Guhlin:

Thanks to Leonard at Mobile Learning blog for this tip on the free Camtasia 3.1.3 offer...

TechSmith, the makers of Camtasia Studio (one of the best screen recording and video editing tools around) are offering the full version of Version 3.1.3 for free download. This is a terrific tool for all educators to create resources as well as for learners to create their own digital stories and videos - so get it while it's hot. :)

• Download Camtasia 3.1.
• Get the serial # for Camtasia 3.1.3

Great to share with your teachers!

Until next time ~ Danita

Mr. Ferlazzo

Larry Ferlazzo has one of the best resource websites I've ever seen. He specializes in ESL lessons, but I have found lessons for all the disciplines there.

Mr. Ferlazzo

Until next time ~
Danita

Geography Game

Great new geography game that can be loaded onto a wiki. Try your luck!

travelpod


Until next time ~ Danita

VoiceThread

Looking for an easy way to get your students interested in doing projects? VoiceThread is your answer!

What's a VoiceThread?

A VoiceThread is an online media album that allows people to make comments, either audio or text, and share them with anyone they wish. A VoiceThread allows an entire group's story to be told and collected in one place.

Check out this voicethread I made with a 6th grade language arts class. The students had made collages of their book reports. I took pictures of the collages and then the students recorded their book reviews.

http://voicethread.com/share/16917

Until next time ~ Danita

SmartBoard Lessons

100's of SmartBoard and Interwrite lessons

Until next time ~ Danita

First post

Hello all! Welcome to Integrating Middle School Technology.

This is my first post on my new blog. Jane Twigg at East Lee suggested I start a new blog on the Web 2.0 websites I find. So, I am taking her up on her idea.

On this blog I will add the websites I come across during my many hours of surfing. Hopefully, I can add at least one site a week.

My other educational technology blog, Random Ramblings, can be found:
http://danitarussell.edublogs.org

Thanks for joining me! If you happen to find a site that you would like to share, please email it to me.

Danitarussell@gmail.com

Until next time ~ Danita

Flickr