So Many Tools, So Little Time!

Web 2.0: Cool Tools for Schools is a very extensive list of Web 2 tools and applications. One thing I like about it is that it's alphabetical, so you can quickly find something if you know the name of it. There are hundreds of links here, to all kinds of tools. There's also a category list, which is helpful if you don't know the name of a site or if you know what kind of tool you need.

This wiki could be a black hole for time, though. There are so many tools on this wiki, that you could spend days clicking on links and exploring them!

Have a piece of Timetoast

Thanks again to Free Tech For Teachers, I found a really neat timeline maker, called Timetoast. Timetoast allows you to add detailed descriptions of events, graphics and links. Just think of the possibilities! In art, create a timeline of the evolution of modern art with pictures of the major artists or works and links to museums where the work resides. In literature, follow the travels of a character and include a Google Earth virtual tour. So many possibilities!

Give Timetoast a try. It's free.

You could be the next Gary Larson!

Back in the Dark Ages, when I was in junior high, we were required to take a drawing class. Okay, we were drawing on cave walls, and my art didn't survive the millenia. One of my biggest frustrations was that I CAN"T DRAW. I distinctly remember a cartooning assignment where the best I could produce was stick figures while some of my classmates were able to produce drawings that actually looked like something.

So, where was Pixton when I needed it? Pixton is a website that allows you to create completely customizable comics and they actually look like what they are supposed to be. For my art class, this would have been perfect!

Pixton would great in a cartooning class, but because it supports 10 languages, it would also be a terrific tool for language teachers, as well.

One word of caution: I would be very careful about just letting kids surf this site. There are several artists doing cartoons about suicide and death. I haven't looked, but there are likely some other topics being done that might not be classroom friendly, too.

Find your WILD side

A quick post today. I've been researching all kinds of Web 2.0 tools and toys in preparation for a session I am teaching at Lakeside School. I was checking through one of several resources that have loads of good links to Web2 applications and came across Build Your Own Wild Self from the New York Zoo. This fun, interactive site allows you to create a whole new you from body type to hair, eyes, wings, snouts, tails, everything you ever wanted for your new you!

This would be a fantastically engaging way to teach body part vocabulary in a foreign language class. You can also use it to teach the vocabulary of colors, texture, and even animal names. One of our Spanish teachers can't wait to use it.

Word clouds and such

I love my listservs! I get so many good ideas from the communities of educators that are members of such servs as WWWEDU and Net-Gold. Today's gem comes from WWWEDU.

One of the things we'll be talking about at Camp is tag clouds. Tags are key words that you can apply to items posted on many Web2 applications like de.licio.us or Flikr, or even this blog. The tags make searching for a specific item easier. Tag clouds are a graphic way of looking at the tags of an item, and they are set up so that the most frequently used tags are larger than the lesser used ones. Wordle is an application that allows you to cut and paste your own text or the text of a blog or even a de.licio.us user's tags and create your own tag, or word, clouds. You can then save the picture to the gallery, or print it. Here's the cloud I made using the text of the first three posts to this blog. What makes this tool more useful, I think, than TagCrowd, is that you have three different options for the source of the cloud and you can customize it by changing the orientation, altering the shape and changing the color scheme.

Big deal. So I can make pretty pictures out of the text of my blog. What's educational about that? Well, something like this would make a great introductory scaffolding activity for reading. Let's say that you teach Earth Science and you have a new chapter you want the students to read. Type the text of the introductory section into Wordle, create your cloud, and show it to the kids. The largest words are going to be the ones the students will need to make sure that they understand. But, the activity also highlights the major vocabulary for the entire section. Better yet, have the students make their own word clouds.

Or, you're working on writing a paper with your class. Have the students cut and paste the text of their paper into Wordle and they can see for themselves if they are over using a term, or under utilizing a specific term that is important to their theme.

A great tool for ELL students as well as students who struggle with reading and writing!

A Word About The Title

My goal for this blog is to share ideas, resources and the occasional musing about education. There are plenty of other education/technology blogs out there, so why does the world need one more? Well, my hope is that when the folks at Northwest see what one of their own does with blogging, they will want to think about how they can use blogging and all the other Web 2.0 tools out there in their classrooms. Further, I hope that, once in a while when I go off the deep end and immerse myself in something new, some of my friends will be there with me! Hence, the title: many of the Northwest folks have already witnessed my willingness to jump in. Maybe I can get them to jump, too.

Or, as Sir Ken Robinson said, recently, "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you never come up with anything original." To see the entirety of his comments about how education is killing the creativity of the human mind, click here.