Ideas & Perspectives
Kids Today
- Digital Youth - Who are we teaching? Four videos explore this essential question.
- The Networked Student - A video by Dr. Wendy Drexler
- No Future Left Behind - Created as the Keynote for Net Generation Education Project, Suffern Middle School students spoke candidly about education and their futures.
- A Vision of Students Today - A short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Professor Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.
- My PLE (Personal Learning Environment) - One student describes her PLE and why she likes it. This is more than a student talking, it's an example of a student learning experience that's been transformed by digital tools.
- The Power of Youth Voice: What Kids Learn When They Create with Digital Media - A webinar sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, he National Writing project, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. This forum, entitled "The Power of Youth Voice," brought together experts in digital media and learning to share their research and experiences using digital media in and outside of the classroom.
- Are Kids Different Because of Digital Media?
- That's Not Cool dot com - Sponsored and co-created by the Family Violence Prevention Fund, the Office on Violence Against Women and the Ad Council, the site is designed to address new and complicated problems between teens who are dating or hooking up—problems like constant and controlling texting, pressuring for nude pictures, and breaking into someone's e-mail or social networking page.
Schools and Schooling: What's Now, What's Next?
- The Ecology of New Media - You Tube and the Politics of Authenticity. A presentation by Cultural Anthropologist, Michael Wesch, at the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum at Jazz at Lincoln Center. A thought-provoking presentation about media, action, and identity.
- Looking Ahead - Two videos explore what's necessary for educational change to occur.
- Are Schools Killing Creativity?- Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.
- Teachers and Other Learners
- 21st Century Literacy - A wiki of the International School Bangkok's comprehensive vision of the school's vision and implementation of 21st century learning across the curriculum, grades PK-12.
- Playing to Learn? - Children love to learn, but at some point they lose that and become adults that don't like formal learning. Let's explore why "play" has gotten such a bad rap and figure out how to get it back in education.
To the top
Tools for Collaboration
To the top
Tools for Building Community
- Youth Voices
- Edmodo: Social networking for education in a secure learning environment.
- GROU.PS - http://GROU.PS GROU.PS is a do-it-yourself social networking platform that allows people to form interactive communities around a shared interest or affiliation. An alternative to Ning?
- Webs.com - Create your own website; Used online; free
- A wide-ranging discussion of the pros and cons of websites for class use - EC Ning
- Netiquette - The form and content of internet communications, or, how to be a good digital citizen.
To the top
Tools for Teaching Literature & Writing
(Also, see Specific Tools, below.)
Writing
simple. you’ll see one word at the top of the following screen.
you have sixty seconds to write about it.
click ‘go’ and the page will load with the cursor in place.
don’t think. just write.
- The Digital Narrative: Finding Your Story with Digital Media by Martin Jorgensen - Discover new ways to teach storytelling; explore dozens of free tools to build your stories; find other websites dedicated to telling stories with new media.
Reading & Literature
Additional Curriculum Resources
- Teaching with Ted Talks - Initiated by Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D., this wiki contains recordings of original TED talks, with references, resources, and activities about the topic and/or speaker to spark further discourse, exploration, reflection, and action.
To the top
Tools for Teaching Media Literacy
Media Literacy
To the top
Specific Tools for Thinking & Creating
General Resources
- Educational Origami - Matching ICT tools to traditional classroom practice & Bloom's Taxonomy.
- Joyce Valenza's - Amazing Compilation
- More Resources - Lists of Web resources for educators.
- Digitally Speaking - The purpose of Nationally Board Certified teacher Bill Ferriter's wiki is to introduce a few of these tools to users---and to include practical examples of how educators can make digital dialogue a real part of their classroom instruction. The wiki also contains audio clips from Bill's presentations and comments from students.
- Quickstart Guide to iMovie - The 4-page guide contains everything you need to know to get started and to publish your first video using iMovie.
- How to Create a Safe Password - A short video by Animated Explanations
Specific Tools
This collection of web 2.0 tools began with a conversation with 8th grade students, about what school would look like if all of the rules we currently had were disbanded. They were no longer bound by walls, schedules, age restrictions or standardized tests. No technology was outlawed.... Here are the tools they think we ought to consider using.
(Thanks to Drew Buddie and his wiki, Indispensible ICT Tools for Teachers, for the format & many of the resources listed below.)
- Animoto - make a simple slideshow from still images; Used online, Free
- Animoto for education - Apply to Animoto for a free, all-access pass for use in the classroom
- Animoto advice - A collection of tips and pieces of advice for teachers from respected ed tech blogger, Steven Anderson
- Hello Animoto - Andrew Marcinek's discussion, with examples, on the Classroom 2.0 Ning
- Teaching with Animoto - English Companion Ning (EC Ning) discussion
- Use Animoto with Read 180 - ECNing; applicable to any program or activity
- Examples
- Audacity - open source software for recording and editing sounds. Downloadable app; Free
- Bubbl.us - tool for brainstorming; Used online; Free
- Comic Life - make your own comic; Downloadable app
- Drop.io - share files online; Used online; Free
- Dropbox - store your files online & access anywhere; Downloadable app & Used online; Free (2GB)
- Flickr - photosharing site; Used online; Free
- Glogster Edu - interactive poster maker; Used online; Free (N.B. Be sure you're on the .edu version!)
- Goodreads - create book groups & share books you're reading; Used online; Free
- Jing - Capture your screen & add voice; store your videos online; Used online; Free. Pro option offers ability to save in more formats, etc.
- Ning - build your own social community; Used online; Free?
- OneWord - see description above, in Writing Tools
- Podcasting - In 2009, the Ontario Teachers Foundation sponsored a digital "summer camp" for teachers. This comprehensive wiki page can get you and your class started with this exciting activity.
- Screenjelly - record your screen activity with your voice; Used online; Free
- Skitch - a Mac OS X application that allows you to take a picture of the entire screen or selected areas of the screen. It also allows you to post those images on the web through the Skitch site; Free.
- Skype - Talk with people anywhere in the world; Used online; FREE!
- TED Talks - repository of inspirational & life-affirming videos; Used online; Free
- TokBox - Free video chat and video messaging; Used online; Free
- VoiceThread - collaborative, multimedia slide show; Used online; Free/Minimal fee
- Wallwisher -
- Wordle - create word pictures from text files; Used online; Free
- Zoho - tools for productivity & collaboration. Includes word processing, spread sheets, much more; Used online; Free
- Zotero - collect, manage & cite your research sources; Downloadable app; Free
To the top
Tools for Personal PD
- Podcasts and Video for Ongoing Learning
- Classroom 2.0 Live
- K-12 Online Conference - Annual free online conference.
- Teachers Teaching Teachers - Free weekly podcast offering a multiplicity of tools & tips.
- Developing a PLN (Personal Learning Network)
- English Companion Ning An online community of English teachers, comprising blogs, discussion forums, and much more. Collaborate, share resources, commiserate, give & get support.
- English 2.0: A Webstitute for Teaching & Learning in a Digital age - A free online conference hosted by the EC Ning in the summer of 2010, the 2 recorded keynote addresses and 6 mini-sessions, with the related discussion forums, will remain on the the Ning for on-demand access.
- Free Tech for Teachers A blog by Richard Byrne about, well, free tech for teachers. Reviews, advice, descriptions of how teachers use the tech.
- What should I read? - A few suggestions.
- Social Media Reading List - The idea for this page is to build a 'best of the web' reading / watching list for school leadership regarding using social media for school advancement. Rather than talk about how great social media is we're using social media to build this reading list.
- A 21st Century Professional Development Proposal: a Personal Learning Network + specific web tools = a true 21st century teacher.
To the top
Tools for Downloading & Converting Videos
- Two options for downloading YouTube videos to use in school:
- Click on the little icon for DownloadHelper at the upper left corner of every video.
- Download the Firefox extension, called DownloadHelper. This enables you to download video from many other sites.
|
- File Converters
- Format Factory - Format Factory is multifunctional media converter (Windows); Download; Free
- WinFF - File converter (Windows & Ubuntu); Download; Free
- Other Tools
- Password Safe - Store passwords, user names, and other security information. Developed by the computer scientist who (literally) wrote the book on Web security. Download; Free.
NCTE Statements & Standards for Teaching with Digital Tools
You are welcome to copy and share this page - but please include the source reference below.