Big Huge Labs

Big Huge Labs will allow you to do "Fun Stuff with Your Photos." There are many areas to explore. You can make a magazine cover, motivation posters, CD Covers, trading cards and so much more. This tool is great to support literature circles or content area information. It provides students with opportunities that allow them to share what they understand in a creative way. Students can use a digital camera to capture images to support what they are learning. Student's will be motivated to make trading cards for the states of matter or a magazine about the main character of a novel. Take a look and think outside the box for ways to use this site. Any ideas you wish to share, leave us a comment below.

Tap to Talk Gives Non-Speaking Students a Voice

I had the pleasure of working with a non-speaking student and her teachers this month. We spent a morning, exploring the "Tap to Talk" app, giving this young girl a voice. She enjoyed this free application on the iPad and had a chance to communicate, "I need to go to the bathroom," "Juice please," "I'm tired," and much more.

An experience I'll never forget. Best of all. . .

we've created an opportunity for her to share

her voice.

For more information: visit, http://www.taptotalk.com/

Create Videos You'll Love!

Using animoto, create videos you and your students will love! In three easy steps, you'll have a professional video in minutes. From Ecosystems to World Cultures. . . your possibilities are boundless!

What about pictures, backgrounds, and music? It's all provided for you.

Enjoy my sample video entitled: Species In Need.



Then, sign up for a free account: http://www.animoto.com/. Looking forward to seeing your creations!

EduTecher- Great Links for Teachers

EduTecher is an online resource full of links to some of the most valuable webtools for instruction. More importantly, they provide tips on how the tools support what you teach.

To get started, browse by subject, and start enjoying what they have to offer. Know of a tool they've missed? Just send them an email and their happy to add it to the list!

Have a smart phone? Visit the app store and grab this free app! For more information, visit: http://edutech.org/

Word Sift

Try Word Sift for an interactive, engaging way to introduce and help your students grasp content related words or challenging vocabulary.

Word Sift is an interactive word cloud generator. Simply copy and paste your desired text into the text box, and a word cloud will be created for you. Then the fun begins! Each word becomes a link to images, videos, definitions, antonyms, and synonyms. The words are automatically sorted alphabetically for you, but you can also sort them from rare to common and common to rare. Here is the word cloud I got when I pasted the text from the Advanced Biology curriculum map, BIO.9a

When I clicked on the word organism, here are some Google images that were found.

AND, here is what came up in the visual Thesaurus!

Project Learning: Making it Meaningful

It's been a great year of technology integrated projects on every level. Teachers and students alike have been thrilled to have both the tools and support. Please enjoy the following video, Anatomy of a Project:"Kinetic Conundrum," where 8th grade students in Portland, Maine came together to produce art pieces using experiences in Art, History, Language Arts, Engineering, and Technology.

Have a fabulous summer!


video credits: http://www.edutopia.org/maine-project-learning-integrated-kinetic-art-video

OPEN Educational Resources

Learning Is Sharing!

OER is a global Open Education Community serving education leaders K-12 and beyond. This free resource is divided into OER Materials and the OER Community. Browse the OER Materials to find video lectures, simulations, or teaching and learning strategies. In addition, there are several Open Textbooks under the Recommended Resources section.

Visit the OER Community and you'll find OER Community Topics (How & Why of OER, Intellectual Property, Technology, Open Source) and OER Community Types (Tools & Technology, Discussion Forums, Blogs & Wikis) for building connections and sharing resources across the globe.

To learn more and join, visit: http://www.oercommons.org/

Explore and Enjoy!