Podcasting in the Classroom

For teachers:



SMART Resources



iPads in Schools

Free and Open Source Text Books




Create MP3s from Text at

http://vozme.com/index.php?lang=en


natural1_r2_c2.jpg
www.naturalreaders.com


Natural Reader is a free text-to-speech engine that will read websites or any other digitized text. Students may also type within the program and have their work read back to them. There is a free version and a paid version. The handout discusses the free version.


http://www.learner.org/interactives/
"Interactives" provides educators and students with strategies, content, and activities that can enhance and improve students' skills in a variety of curricular areas.

Wow! This one is very cool, lots of great content on here, very cool interactive activities to engage students. This would be a great way to keep one or two students busy if you need to work 1:1 with another.



http://www.tagxedo.com/ or you may prefer http://www.wordle.net/ or http://www.wordsift.com/

Create amazing word clouds which can be saved in a variety of formats and used as a visual support for any type of lesson. This is a beta site so get in on it while it's still free!

Paste in your text and the words that show up most often appear largest. This tool can be used to analyze text and discuss why certain key terms appear more often, etc. Tagxedo allows you to save as jped, Wordle requires that you do a screen shot.

ironytag.jpg
Word Cloud "Irony"
Screen_shot_2011-06-09_at_5.31.33_PM.png
http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm if your computer was designed during the ice age, try this simpler version for word clouds which can be saved as jpegs and pasted into a document.
MyCloud.jpeg
abcya.com



http://topicmarks.com

This is a beta site which is currently free to join, so hurry to check it out before it's too late! Basically, it summarizes information automatically, while also generating a list of key words, facts, etc. Enter your text by pasting, uploading, or entering a URL. You will be impressed, I guarantee it!


http://www.spiderscribe.net/

For visual learners Spider Scribe could be a great way to organize information. Students can upload pictures about a subject then organize them into a sequence or pattern that explains a concept or event.

Lucid Chart Graphic Organizer - register for a free account by following the link!

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

Many of the ideas I have tried so far came from reading this blog. Check it out and enter more ideas as you find them useful.



http://www.sweetsearch.com/

This is a search engine which is specifically designed for k-12 academic use. I like it because it only yields information and sources which are appropriate and relevant for students. There are several sub-sites including one for people with limited reading ability, for biographies, social studies, and one for teachers organized by subject and academic level. Check it out!


Prezi.com - create zooming presentations that go way beyond slides!