Here are two very short videos that really do a great job of highlighting the dangers of students posting personal “stuff” on the internet.

After watching, think about how you could use these videos in class with your students.  What types of questions could you ask them to stimulate conversation & reflection?

Many educators across the country and around the world used today’s Presidential Inauguration of Barak Obama as a teachable moment.  But just because the inauguration itself is over, that doesn’t mean the teaching opportunities attached to it have expired as well.

Here are a couple of quick ideas for how to use free, online tools to talk with your students about the Inauguration of January 20th, 2009 as well as Obama’s impending presidency:

• Create a Word Cloud.
  • Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Obama’s “Inaugural Speech” Word Cloud
http://www.wordle.net/

Barak Obama’s Complete Inaugural Speech

Alexander’s Inaugural Poem Word Cloud

http://www.wordle.net/

Elizabeth Alexander’s Poem for Barak Obama’s Presidential Inauguration

• Create/Add to a Voicethread
  • What’s a VoiceThread Anyway?

I just can’t say it enough, so I’ll say it again now- EVERYONE learns through stories. That’s why digital storytelling is such a powerful learning/teaching tool! With that in mind, I found out today about an exciting new way that digital storytelling is being used in education.

I received a message this morning from a classroom 2.0 colleague:

I was wondering if you, your educator contacts or students would be interested in participating in a nationwide Vocab Video Contest @ MIT university. We’d really like to get more students involved from NJ! You can view contest details at BrainyFlix.com. Thanks!

So I checked out the contest details & it looks like a really fun and DO-ABLE digital storytelling project.  Here are the basic contest rules:

• Make a video about any SAT/ACT vocabulary word of your choosing from this list. On that list, they show you how many videos have been submitted for each word. You are encouraged to choose one without any videos submissions.

• 1 video for 1 word, but you can make as many videos as you want.

• Anyone can enter the competition! Just remember that part of the prize money has to go to a U.S. high school or middle school of your choosing.

• All voting will happen at BrainyFlix.com, so make sure your video includes the following text: “Vote for this video at www.BrainyFlix.com/xxxxx”. And substitute the “xxxxx” with your vocab word.

• Important contest dates:
  • Video submission opens: 1/1/2009
  • Video submission ends: 3/16/2009
  • Voting opens: 3/23/2009
  • Voting ends: 4/5/2009
  • Winners announced: 4/13/2009

The Word List is rich and organized alphabetically ( I had a hard time remembering what some of the words mean )  Here’s an example video that the contest coordinators, a group of MIT alumni, created:

If SAT vocabulary prep is part of your curriculum, I strongly encourage you to give thsi contest a shot eith your students.  Let’s do our part to get NJ well-represented!  Good Luck & remember to share your videos with us

Sorry about the title of this post, but I’ve always been a sucker for a good pun

I decided to forgo sending out my usual Holiday Card this year, and instead, created a “Year in Review” music video of my son, Connor (6).  I used an AWESOME web 2.0 tool called Animoto.

Animoto is an online digital storytelling tool that’s been taking the world by storm.  Basically, you give them your photos & they give you a music video.  Anyone can register for a standard, FREE account, which gives you the ability to make an unlimited amount of videos, each up to 30 seconds long.  But, as an educator, you can sign up for an all-access account, which allows you unlimited video length for you and all of your students!  Take just minutes to create a video. Bring your lessons to life. Post/embed videos elsewhere or download them for in-class presentations!  The possibilities are endless…

I could go on and on with examples of how Animoto can help you help your students gain valuable 21st Century Skills, but since a picture tells a thousand words, a video must tell at least ten thousand, right?

Animoto is such an easy tool to use, I’m not even going to bother walking you through the steps. I promise, you will have more fun learning how to use it on your own (it is SOOOO easy!). For more information on how to get Animoto for Education accounts for you and your students, Click Here. Enjoy,  and don’t forget to share you projects with the rest of us

Happy Storytelling and Happy New Year to You & Your Loved Ones!

Together We Have Earth-Saving Powers is a contest that Liberty Science Center and ParentGuide have created to make every child an eco superhero! Children ages 12 and under can submit drawings, paintings or photographs showing their “Earth-Saving Powers” such as recycling, taking mass transit and reminding friends and family to use canvas shopping bags. First prize is a class field trip to Liberty Science Center for up to 40 people. Second prize is a Super-Powers party at the Center. Every child receives a prize for entering – a free visit to Liberty Science Center! Entries must be received by December 19, 2008.

Find out about more details and entry rules

The goal of this blog is to introduce you to various technology tools that you can use with you students- most of which will be free and web-based. I think the following YouTube video is a great introduction to the constantly evolving face of the the Internet. It’s a classic that I encourage you to share with others.

I’m looking forward to an exciting year of collaboration and inspiration- Here we go! (Are You Ready?)