South Amherst Middle School Library

152 West Main Street Amherst, Ohio 44001

 

Technology 

Blogs | Creating a Web Site | Digital Cameras| Electronic Field Trips | Electronic Portfolios | E-Newsletter | Global Projects | Inspiration | Integrating Technology | Internet Tutorials | Keyboarding | Miscellaneous |Podcasting | Power Point | SMART Boards | Surveys |Technology Infusion |Using the Internet Safely | Videos | Web 2.0 | Webinar

 

Blogs

21 Publish hosts an unlimited number of blogs for you community members. You have instant use, no installation, central console to manage your members and it allows you to use your community homepage to connect members.

Talkr is a text-to-speech service popular with thousands of bloggers. LiveOnTheNet will soon be releasing a proprietary and highly innovative voice conferencing platform that features a revolutionary voice conferencing widget that requires no software client or downloads.

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Creating a Web Site

 
Building a School Web Site gives you simple basic information on building a school web site.
 
Cool Text is a free graphics generator for web pages and anywhere else you need an impressive logo without a lot of design work.  Simply choose what kind of image you would like.  Then fill out a form and you'll have your own custom image created on the fly.

FindIcons.com is an icon search engine helps you find free icons. We have the largest searchable free icons database in the world and both a sophisticated search filtering and result matching system make it possible for you to get an icon you need for every design task.

Iconfinder provides high quality icons for web designers and developers in an easy and efficient way. Search through 155,340 icons or browse 753 icon sets. After you find your graphic, you can choose the background color. If you choose the middle color, grey, your background will be transparent. No more annoying white backgrounds.

 
Jottit makes getting a website as easy as filling out a textbox.
 

Snip URL will take the ugly long URLs all over the web and snip them into a snipurl that is short, snippy, secure, memorable, and easy to share.

 
Make a short and memorable URL with Tiny, plus you can obtain the best traffic stats on people that clicked your tinylink.
 
Webmaster Resources offers links to online resources including multimedia, learning, tutorials, and free stuff.
 
Weebly is a web design and hosting system that lets you create a professional site quickly with unlimited pages and no file restrictions.

With Wix you can create your own website with ease. There’s no need to add even a single line of code. Built with a beautiful graphic drag and drop interface, the website builder was created to be as user friendly as possible while allowing for total creative freedom. Choose from thousands of professionally-designed web templates or create from scratch. The best way to learn how to make a website is to stare with a template then simply click and replace and customize. You won’t believe how easy it is if you want to create a site from scratch, it’s also simple to add items like titles, logos, clip art, photo galleries and more as you go. Publish in 1-step and your site is live online.

 

WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. It is free.

 

Digital Cameras - Photo Editors

Audio Boo is a mobile & web platform that effortlessly allows you to record and upload audio for your friends, family or the rest of the world to hear.
Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. It has two main goals : to help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them and to enable new ways of organizing photos and video .
Foto Flexer is the world’s most advanced online image editor. Create dazzling photo effects for free in your browser .

Juxio was created to allow people to easily create elegant, large-format posters for display at events such as birthdays, anniversaries and graduations. During Beta, we've added templates to simplify the poster-making process and to provide smaller formats for personal framing and gift-giving. Educators in particular have found Juxio's simple, linear, organized way to tell stories a useful tool for the classroom.

The goal of Photo Peach is to help you tell better stories online using photos. PhotoPeach allows you to create a rich slideshow in seconds to engage your friends or family. They also support background music, captions, and comments so you can elaborate on your story further.

Pixlr is a free online photo editor. Edit, adjust and filter your images. There is no registration so you can jump right in.

Sumo Paint lets you release your inner artist and put Pablo Picasso to shame with the finest painter software online!

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Electronic Field Trips

 
Experience an incredible online field trip without ever leaving your school through Ball State University Electronic Field Trips.

Mapwing makes it easy to build, share, and explore virtual tours. Use Mapwing to turn your digital photos into virtual tours that include interactive maps, images, and comments. Then, share your virtual tours with friends, clients, or the entire world. Begin creating your own virtual tours for Free

 
The virtual field trips here at Tramline were developed with the goal of making the best use of the web in the classroom. These annotated trips take students to some of the best web sites on each trip subject. We have a Trailhead (Intro) and Teacher's Resource that set the stage for most of our trips. The Tour Maker field trips format makes learning fun, and makes using the Internet in the classroom simple, efficient and focused. You will find virtual field trips on science, literature, social studies, and other topics

The Utah Education Network has produced an incredible site with the Virtual Field Trips. It is for educators to use with students. Organized by subject this mammoth resource has a great selection of websites that are organized into virtual field trips in the classroom.

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Electronic Portfolios

 

Digital Storytelling is the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling. Digital stories derive their power by weaving images, music, narrative and voice together, thereby giving deep dimension and vivid color to characters, situations, experiences, and insights. Tell your story now digitally.

Projeqt takes that idea of collating and displaying the content you find online one step farther by introducing your own content to your display. Using Projeqt you can mix content from the web with your own content to create visual stories about your favorite things. Projeqt allows you to create a visual story by linking together images, videos, and text. The content you link together can be material that you upload or material that you have found on the web.

Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art – and share your creations on the web. As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

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E-Newsletters

Big Deal Book newsletter is free to educators and includes grants and other funding opportunities, free and inexpensive resources and much more.
Edtech Review technology magazine is available online for anyone to read. It has many helpful articles.
From Now On Educational Technology Journal site is the work of Jamie McKenzie. You will find many articles about technology and education located here.
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Global Projects

Global SchoolNet Collaborative Learning Center offers tools, resources for online collaboration, tutorials, and project lists.
Through the Operation Ruby Throat Project students are asked to observe the hummingbird and share information with peers across North and Central America.
Jennifer Wagner, creator of ProjectsByJen, has been succesfully encouraging teachers since 1999 to use online projects in their PreK-6 classrooms. Using various ideas, Jennifer will help you understand how online projects will help you make the most of your time in a variety of ways.
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Inspiration/Kidspiration

Inspiration® is the essential visual thinking and learning tool students rely on to plan, research and complete projects successfully. With the integrated Diagram and Outline Views, learners create graphic organizers and expand topics into writing.
Created for K-5 learners, Kidspiration® develops thinking, literacy and numerical skills using proven visual learning principles.
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Integrating Technology into the Classroom

The lesson plans that you will find at Best Practices of Technology Integration in Michigan have been written by practicing teachers and have been "kid tested" to work in the classroom. They are examples of how technology can be used as a valuable tool in your classroom.

Freeplay Music provides royalty-free downloads of background music of "educational, non-commercial use."
Filamentality shows teachers how to create web-based learning activities.

FormSite.com has helped people build professional online html forms and web surveys. We have over 100 pre-built forms that you can customize for registrations, reservations, secure orders, customer surveys and payment collection.

The International Society for Technology in Education standards for students, teachers, and administrators help to measure proficiency and set aspirational goals for the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to succeed in today’s Digital Age. 
Surf Report from EBC offers classroom web resources as well as suggestions for web-based projects that you can do with your students.
At Teacher Resources from the Tuscon Unified School District you will find great technology activities, lessons and ideas using Power Point, Excel, Word, and Publisher.
Evaluating Internet Resources from Teacher Tap helps students sort out what information is good and what isn't on the web.
Tech Learning offers tips on how to integrate technology into the classroom.
Teaching with the Internet shows us that new literacy methods are especially important to the effective use of content area information on the Internet. They allow us to identify important questions, navigate complex information networks to locate appropriate information, critically evaluate that information, synthesize it to address those questions, and then communicate the answers to others. These five functions help define the new literacies that your students need to be successful with the Internet and other information and communication technologies.

VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Users can doodle while commenting, use multiple identities, and pick which comments are shown through moderation. VoiceThreads can even be embedded to show and receive comments on other websites and exported to MP3 players or DVDs to play as archival movies.

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Internet Tutorials

Excel Viewlet and Guide contains about 125 interactive Web "min-movies" for teaching yourself and others how to create a spreadsheet. Templates are also given.
Find Sounds allows you to search the web for sound clips that can be downloaded for free.
Kathy Schrock's Digital Gadgets page offers information on all kinds of technology and how to use them in the classroom.
On-line Excel Tutorials contain modules and links for explaining Microsoft Excel.

Sponsored by the Western Australia Department of Education and Training, Resourcing the Curriculum explains what pathfinders are, how to create one, templates, and exemplary pathfinders.
From Education World comes Techtorials Archive. It contains links to tutorials for all kinds of technology including Excel, Word, blogs, computer maintenance, email, mail merge, Power Point, web design, professional curriculum and development, and much more.
Tech Trekers for teachers includes sites from early elementary to high school, free stuff for teachers, history, math, and science sites, simulation sites, scavenger hunts, thematic units, virtual field trips, web quests, Power Point ideas, rubrics, and web page tools.  Check it out!

Create an original Web Quest assignment by filling out this simple Web-based form at Web Quest Generator.   Print out the finished assignment when you are finished.
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Keyboarding

 

The award-winning online typing competition, TypeRacer, allows students to race each-other by typing quotes from books, movies, and songs. It is the first multiplayer typing game on the web .

TypingWeb is a free online typing tutor and keyboarding tutorial for typists of all ages. All skill levels will benefit from TypingWeb's free keyboarding lessons.

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Miscellaneous

Free Technology for Teachers offers free resources and lesson plans for teaching with technology.

The Internet Society (ISOC) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education and policy. We are dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world.

There are good services on the web that will turn PDFs into books and booklets and some services that will even allow you to create embeddable booklets online, yet few are quite as simple to use as Simple Booklet. Simple Booklet is a new service offering free online booklet creation and publishing. To create a book using Simple Booklet just sign-up for a free account and click create. Select the layout template that suits your needs. To add content click anywhere on the blank canvas and a menu of options will appear. You can add text, images, audio files, videos, and links to each page of your booklet. Each page of your Simple Booklet can have multiple elements on it. To include videos you can upload your own files or select from a variety of providers including SchoolTube, TeacherTube, YouTube, and others. To add audio to your pages you can upload your own files or again select from the online hosts Last.fm, Sound Cloud, or Mix Cloud. When you're done building pages in your Simple Booklet you can share it online by embedding it into a webpage or you can share the unique link generated for your booklet.

Tagxedo turns words -- famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters -- into a visually stunning tag cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.

The Teq site is full of resources, lesson plans, Smart Board templates with lessons, and a technology education blog.
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Podcasting

 
LearnOutLoud.com is your one-stop destination for audio and video learning .
Browse over 20,000 educational audio books , MP3 downloads , podcasts , and videos.
 
Podcasting has enabled students and teachers from all over the world to learning from audio and video programs on desktop computers, laptops, iPods, netbooks, and other devices. Hundreds of free educational programs are available online. Here are some examples from Podcasting:: Grammar Girls Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, English Idioms and Slang, Storynory: Free Audio Stories for Kids, MathGrad: Everyday Mathematics Explained, and First Amendment Minute.
 
Podbean is a Podcast Publishing and Social Subscribing site. This is an ultra simple podcast publishing solution and publishing your own podcast is fast, easy and free.

Vocaroo is a free service that allows users to create audio recordings without the need to install any software. You don't even have to create an account to use Vocaroo. All you need to provide is a microphone. To create a recording just go to Vocaroo.com, click record, grant Vocaroo access to your mic, and start talking. After completing your recording, Vocaroo gives you the choice to publish it or to scrap it and try again. Besides the ability to record without installing software Vocaroo offers the option to embed the recording anywhere, Vocaroo provides the embed code for you. You can also download your recording. Vocaroo is an easy, free service that teachers and students can use to create audio recordings for use in slide shows or in blogs and websites.

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Power Point

 

GCF LearnFree.org offers the computer and technology training you need for life – absolutely free! Whether you’re new to the computer, returning for review, or want to use technology to enhance your skills, GCFLearnFree.org has something for you.

 
Power Point in the Classroom offers tutorials to get you started in Power Point presentations for your classroom: creating slides, adding sound, adding images, and more.
 
Power Point Tutorials from Internet for the Classroom offers several excellent tutoriasl..
Presentation Magazine offers help with presentations, speeches and power points.

Prezi moves beyond Power Point. It is creative presentation. You can work with infinite spaces with no ties to sequence of slides and is very easy to use. It is excellent for showing relation and context, just like on a map. Finally, Prezi allows you to have open ended discussions with audience and add comments live.

SlideShare is the best way to share presentations, documents and professional videos. Get a free account to upload and share.

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SMART Boards

Dabbleboard is an online collaboration application that’s centered around the whiteboard. With a new type of drawing interface that's actually easy and fun to use, Dabbleboard gets out of your way and just lets you draw. Finally the whiteboard enters the digital age!

Scribblar offers simple, effective online collaboration with a multi-user whiteboard, live audio, image collaboration, text-chat and more.

Scrib Link is your online whiteboard.

 
SMART Technologies offers this first searchable database of lesson activities for interactive whiteboards.
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Surveys

AnswerGarden is a new minimalistic feedback tool. Use it as a tool for online brainstorming or embed it on your website or blog as a poll or guestbook.

Formsite is an HTML form builder. Their drag and drop editor, combined with over 40 question types, enables you to easily create almost any type of form or survey. Once you begin collecting results, they provide the functionality to email, analyze, share, and download your data .

 

MyStudiyo offers a rich free solution to create online quizzes in minutes. You can embed a great looking quiz widget in any website or blog without programming.

 

Polldaddy is robust survey software that feeds the data you collect into powerful reporting systems to help you make the most informed decisions you can.
 

Poll Everywhere replaces expensive proprietary audience response hardware with standard web technology. It's the easiest way to gather live responses in any venue: conferences, presentations, classrooms, radio, television, print — anywhere. It can help you to raise money by letting people pledge via text messaging.

 

Response O Matic has an easy-to-use Form Wizard that lets you choose which kind of input fields you want to add to your form. Simply choose the kind of field you want and type in a label for your field. You can even specify whether your field should be a required field or not. Keep adding as many fields as you like! After you've added all your fields, simply save your form and let Response-o-matic automatically generate the HTML code for you. Simply copy and paste the HTML code into your webpage and upload it to your server. Your form is ready to use!

 

Survey Monkey is a free online survey software & questionnaire tool. You can create and publish online surveys in minutes, and view results graphically and in real time.

 
Wiffiti publishes real time messages to screens in thousands of locations from jumbotrons to jukeboxes, bars to bowling alleys and cafes to colleges. You can interact with Wiffiti from your mobile phone or the web.

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Technology Infusion

 

Classtools.net provides free, customizable flash templates to embed into blogs, wikis and websites. There is no signup, no passwords, and nocharge.

Computer Lab Favorites contains all the quick, compelling one-session activities you need to incorporate interactive learning and technology into your curriculum. Each activity requires no prep and can be completed in 15-30 minutes .

Glogster EDU is the leading global education platform for the creative expression of knowledge and skills in the classroom and beyond.  They empower educators and students with the technology to create GLOGS - online multimedia posters - with text, photos, videos, graphics, sounds, drawings, data attachments and more.

 
Internet 4 Classrooms helps teachers use the internet effectively
At kitZu , you will find a collection of free, educational, copyright-friendly media resources. Students and teachers around the world can access pre-made collections, or "kits," of various digital assets - still images, background music, narratives, video and text. Each kit is built around a common theme, or curricular topic . A digital kit is meant to provide students with the building blocks necessary to build video and multimedia projects that tell a story and demonstrate learning. A kit can be made up of: photos, illustrations, animations, video clips, audio clips and documents.
 

Screencast-O-Matic is the original online screen recorder for creating screen capture video recordings (aka screencasts) with free hosting all from your browser with no install! It includes step by step screen shots.

 
Tammy's Technology Tips for Teachers will help you find fantastic ideas for technology integration.

Twiddla is a web-based meeting playground. Not only is it a fun way to swap ideas about a website or image, it’s incredibly useful as well and it’s free.

Voki is a free service that allows you to create personalized speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile, and in email messages.

Vuvox is a dynamic media creation suite that enables everyone to easily turn their photos, videos, text and audio clips into interactive stories. A collage can be published, embedded, and syndicated into any website, blog or social networking site

Use Yodio to add your stories to your photos or presentations, and share these narrated photos with your friends and colleagues.

Zoto is a place where you can upload and share media online quickly and easily.

 

Using the Internet Safely

 
Childnet International’s mission is to work in partnership with others around the world to help make the Internet a great and safe place for children
 
Cyber Smart! Curriculum is a free K-8 curriculum empowering students to use the internet safely, responsibly and effectively.

GetNetWise is a public service brought to you by Internet industry corporations and public interest organizations to help ensure that Internet users have safe, constructive, and educational or entertaining online experiences.

Vidoes

ABC News Videos include all different facets of news including personal opinions and adver­tisement
 

American Memory: Motion Pictures contains a collection of audio, video, and photos, etc. that “document the American experience.” The collec­tions of the Library of Congress serve as a public resource on the history of American culture.

Anneberg Learner contains streaming videos on all subject areas; you must register for an account to view materials and you may only stream videos, not download them but they are all free.
The Archaeology Channel provides streaming video to explore cultural heritage and archaeology.

This site is the BBC’s worldwide link to news, video, and audio in 33 different languages. News for each includes major headlines, weather, and radio shows.

‘Best Tech Videos’ is a user driven social content website dedicated to finding the best educational videos for developers, designers, managers and other people in IT.

CBS’s News Video home includes links to most CBS news shows, includes all different facets of news in­cluding personal opinions and advertisements.

 
The CNN Video Almanac provides video resources for significant U.S. and world events in the 80’s and 90’s.
 
C-SPAN American Writers II explores American history through the lives and works of American writers who have influenced the course of our nation
The C-Span Video Library is a digital archive of C - SPAN video.

Ease History has historical videos and photographs, and includes historical events, campaign ads, core values, and much more!

Euronews, the European news channel, includes all different facets of news including personal opinions and advertise­ments. It also includes news in different languages.

The films at Explore profile issues facing the environment, education, human rights, public health, philosophy, animal welfare, spirituality, and disabilities. The lesson plans accompanying Explore’s films are written for use in the K – 12 classroom and are connected to grade level national standards.

Fox network's news and video, includes all different facets of news including personal opinions and adver­tisements.

Graspr is an online video community that offers high quality instructional content on a wide range of topics. Our mission is to make the world a smarter place by bringing together people who possess different kinds of expertise, and helping them share what they know with others. We want to make knowledge more accessible, and thus empower users to explore new interests, cultivate new skills, and become even more proficient in the subjects they know well.

 
The History Channel contains a large collection of excellent videos.

Msnbc.com is a leader in breaking news, video and original journalism. Stay current with daily news updates in health, entertainment.

 

At the NASA Multimedia Archive you can watch, download or share the latest NASA videos, including launches and landings, mission operations, science updates and animations.

 

NASA Television (NTV) is a resource designed to provide real-time coverage of Agency activities and missions as well as providing resource video to the news. It also has multimedia resources for earth-space science; provides resources for research and presentation on projects and additional resources to understand course content.

 
View hundreds of free videos from National Geographic, featuring animal videos , weather videos , nature videos , world music videos and other popular areas.
 

 

PBS Newshour provides analysis, background reports and news updates with Jim Lehrer putting the day's news in context.
 
At PBS Video you can watch award-winning national programming and locally produced shows. Catch up on the episodes you may have missed and watch your favorite, full-length shows .
The Prelinger Collection contains free movies, films, and videos of all genres; classic features and shorts, Mosaics, Middle East News, and more.
SitePoint has gathered up over 30 of the best resources online for audio, video, images and more for finding just the perfect Creative Commons licensed item for use in your next project.
 

Teacher Tube is an online community for sharing instructional videos.

Watch free Documentaries Online at Top Documentary Films. The site includes annotated links to online documentaries on a wide variety of topics, including September 11, biographies, the supernatural, sports, technology, conspiracies, wildlife, and more.

The Travel Film Archive is a collection of hundreds of travel films recorded between 1900 and 1970. The films were originally recorded to promote various places around the world as tourist destinations. In the archives you will find films about US National Parks, cities across the globe, and cultural events from around the world. The films are a mix of color and black & white footage. The earliest footage is silent while the later footage is narrated. You can view the films on The Travel Film Archive site or on The Travel Film Archive YouTube channel.

 

Watch Know offers videos for kids to learn from. It was developed by a consortium including Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger.

 

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Web 2.0

 

Ajax Projects is your guide to the read/write web 2.0 internet that allows users to manipulate, share and create content.

 
Bib Me is a web-based bibliography tool with a streamlined automated interface to create a properly formatted bibliography.
Classroom 2.0 is a free, community-supported social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and Social Media in education.
 

Go2Web20 helps you find all online tools and applications on one page. You can obtain a short description, compare, read reviews, and see what people are saying about each one on the web.

 
Find all kinds of neat tools from Google for Educators to help you in the classroom including tips posters.
 

HandBrake is an open source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows.

Listio is a community directory of web 2.0 applications, tools and services.

 

Media Converter allows you to convert your audio and video files from your hard disk, by url/stream (http,ftp,mms,rtsp) or directly from websites like Facebook or Youtube.

Pageflakes is a personalized desktop that allows users to set up their favorite Internet applications.
 
With Sitemark you can save, organize, share and discover your favorite websites. You instantly get a thumbnail preview of your favorite websites and you can save your favorite websites and share them with your friends. In addition you can access your favorite websites from anywhere at any time, view your favorite websites in 4 different ways and import your favorites/bookmarks from any browser.
 

Technorati provides real-time search for user-generated media (including weblogs) by tag or keyword. It also provides popularity indexes.

Webinar

Vyew is a web-conferencing service that allows users to host live conferences and work collaboratively on content.

Updated: November 15, 2011