Educlipper.net

One of the blogs I subscribe to, NeverEndingSearch, mentioned this new clipboard curation service, just recently released. Here's the link: http://educlipper.net/.  It's a free digital clipboard service made specifically for educators.  Teachers (or students) can clip anything and save it on a digital clipboard.   It's a way to capture and share all types of educational content.  You can clip articles, videos, website links, slideshows, images, and lesson plans.  It's more organized and efficient that bookmarking lots of sites on your computer and saving articles in a bunch of different folders.  Clipboards can be organized by topic, saved privately, or shared publicly on social network sites. It's school-friendly and students can create their own clipboards too.  Here is a brief video (1:40) from the educlipper site that explains the product: http://player.vimeo.com/video/43565309.  This tool would make it easy to digitally organize curriculum units with a various types of electronic components in one place.  All the pieces to a project or assignment could be saved (and displayed to students) in one place.  And, because it's saved on this site, it's available anywhere.  To create your free account, simply register with a username, email address, and create a blog page.

Creativity Tools: GoAnimate!

GoAnimate is a Web 2.0 tool  which allows you to make cartoon videos using your own instructional input.  The website is http://www.goanimate.com.  You can create a free account that will allow you free access to many (but not all) pre made scenes and characters.  You simply type in the text (information/content) you want them to say.  It is an easy to use, fun and engaging way to present any type of information or content. (Especially useful when the information might be dry or difficult to concentrate on!)  The video creation steps are very simple and clear. You can insert information from any type of brief lecture (up to ten lines of dialog), create your video, embed in a wiki, blog, or other site and show it to your students.  Disadvantages are that some of the pre-made scenes and characters are not available unless you subscribe and pay for more access to the tool.  The voices do sound a little strange - like canned computer voices.  There is a companion site, www.goanimate4schools.com which a teacher or school can purchase but there is a fee and credit card payment or purchase order required.  This school site would enable teachers to set up classroom accounts, allow students to create their own videos within a class but also give them some control.  But, I imagine that any student could also set up their own individual, free account as an option for completing and sharing a project and using the limited, free portion of the site.

 Giraffe and Zebra talk about intellectual property is a brief GoAnimate cartoon I created about intellectual property.  (Hopefully this link will work!)  Enjoy.

Librarian Blogs

Who knew?  There are so many great librarian blogs out there!  Here are two that I know I will follow that deal with two different aspects of my job.

Joyce Valenza - New Ending Search

http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch

Joyce Valenza is a nationally recognized school library media specialist who is in the forefront of all things technology and the profession.  She's been recognized throughout the library world for her school web site, wiki, blogs, her work on information literacy and curriculum and more.  Her blog will be a great way to keep up to date on the newest in the field.  For instance, her blog includes an announcement I had been waiting for from the summer ALA (American Library Association convention) announcing this year's 25 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning, chosen by the American Association of School Librarians.   Here's the direct link: http://www.ala.org/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/bestlist/bestwebsitestop25 .   I have found some amazing sites since they began this annual listing a couple of years ago and have passed them on to the faculty at my high school and included some of them on my library web pages.

YA Books and More  http://naomibates.blogspot.com

I'm always looking for ways to encourage reading and sharing.  This is a young adult book review blog.  I've been wanting to incorporate student review blogs as a way to promote word-of-mouth student-to-student recommendations that would be a way for students to find outside reading titles or as a way for my student book club to share titles and talk about books.  Teacher's in ELA could establish a blog of student reviews of outside reading or of other types of reading in the classroom to promote "discussion."  I think this might be a way for students who are reluctant to speak to share their views and opinions.