Teacher Tuesday: Xtranormal Text to Movie Website

I found out about this site while reading a blog on educational technology that I read often, The Penguins's Slide.

"Xtranormal is a site where you can create your own mini movies using pre-made 3D characters and sets. When creating a movie, you can control camera angles, actor expressions and movements, and background sounds and music. Have your students re-create a scene from history or a book they just read. You can sign up for a free account and have your students work from that to save their work and progress OR you can download the desktop software called State."

I had my son take it for a test drive to see if a 13 year old could make a movie without any help, and sure enough, he did.

Then I took it for a test drive, too, and this is what I created:

Family Fun Friday: Zooburst

This week I had a chance to try my hand at some new technology online at ZooBurst. ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that is designed to let anyone easily create their own customized 3D pop-up books. Using ZooBurst, storytellers of any age can create their own rich worlds in which their stories can come to life.

ZooBurst books are completely web-based and can be experienced using nothing more than your browser outfitted with the Adobe Flash plug-in. Books can be inspected from any angle from with a 3D space, and rotating around a book is as easy as dragging and dropping your mouse. In addition, the author of a book can choose to make items "clickable," allowing you to learn more about individual characters within a story. You can choose to experience a ZooBurst book in a number of ways, including in Augmented Reality. If you have a webcam installed on your computer simply click on the 'Augmented Reality' button at the top of the screen and watch as the book appears in the palm of your hand!

It is a lot of fun and a great way to share a story with your kids, by creating it together...

Here's the story I created:

SweetSearch

Sweet Search is an educational search engine where all the website that it suggests has been evaluated by a research department for educational content. A simple way to help reduce extraneous search results, especially helpful with students doing their first online research assignments.

They also have:

SweetSearch for School Librarians for content that helps students use the Web effectively. 

SweetSites for teachers and students, organized by subject and academic level.

SweetSearch Biographies for profiles of 1,000+ significant people.

SweetSearch Social Studies for our best social studies content.

And a great article on Ten Steps to Better Web Research.

 

Teacher Tuesday: Starfall

This week, I'd like to feature a web site I read about on the Free Technology For Teachers Blog called "Starfall.com: Interactive Reading and Games." Starfall offers free online activities to help young students learn to read. Starfall covers everything from learning the alphabet to learning how to pronounce words. One of the best features of Starfall is in the "I'm Reading" section of the website. In the "I'm Reading" section students read short stories set in a variety of contexts. As students are reading, if they get stuck on the pronunciation of a word, they can click on any word in the story to hear it pronounced. This same concept applies to other activities offered by Starfall.

Check out this great blog at: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/05/starfall-interactive-reading-lessons.html.

Let me know what you think!

Family Fun Friday: Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs!!! My boys love learning about dinosaurs and I have found a great site to help make that learning fun: KidsDinos.com

With KidsDinos.com, Find out which dinosaur was the largest, which was the smallest, which had the most horns, the longest neck, or which ate the most food.   Dinosaurs ruled the earth for hundreds of millions of years. Than suddenly they disappeared. Where did they go?   Want to memorize dinosaurs? This fun and interactive tool will give you an easy headstart. Create a list of dinosaurs you want to study. Review them frequently until mastery is achieved.   Games, activities, and other fun and educational tools. Learning about ancient life should be fun.

Teacher Tuesday: Kidblog

I know from experience, that getting students to write can sometimes be difficult, but here is a website I found that may offer a possible solution.

Kidblog.org, I love it!

Kidblog.org is designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each student with their own, unique blog. Kidblog's simple, yet powerful tools allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community. Teachers maintain complete control over student blogs.

Application: Check out how this 4th grade teacher uses kidblogger in his classroom:

"Josh Bennett recently posted an article about using Kidblog with his 4th grade students. He talks about how blogs motivate students to publish their writing for an authentic purpose for a real audience.  He discusses his development of a blogging rubric utilizing elements from the 6 Traits of Writing.
Check out his succinct article for a nice taste of how student blogging can be en effective pedagogical tool in your classroom."

Try it out in your classroom and let me know what you think.