Touring Ms. Brenner’s Mind

Trailfire has a new firefox extension!!  http://trailfire.com/

This allows teachers to set up a tour of the webpages they want students to view–complete with a pop up box which provides space for comments!  It’s like you’re looking over their shoulder pointing at stuff the whole time!

Twine

Somewhat like delicious and other social networking sites, this one (as the name suggests!) ties them all together!    haha!  Really nothing new just using tags more efficiently (and stealing the tags from the original sites so you don’t type them all in) it is searchable and effective even if you don’t use it to bookmark but just want to find sites that others have!

http://www.twine.com/home

bubbl.us

A free mind map sort of program–super easy to use and pretty!

Mind42.com

Another mind map application–but this one allows collaboration!

In his blog post, http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-it-okay-to-be-technologically.html,

In his blog post, which you can find here,

I also have to appreciate this link:

http://www.virtual-bubblewrap.com/popnow.shtml

on a stressful day!  It lets you take out your aggression on the deserving bubblewrap! 

I know what you’re thinking…summer = mai tai’s and lounge chairs, right?  Not so fast! It also means a lot more time to check out all of the cool Web 2.0 tools that have been developed throughout the school year while we were so busy planning, grading and meeting we didn’t know that people were out there making tools to make those very activities easier!

I’ve used a few this year for assessments:

www.xtimeline.com a javascript timeline that allows multiple editors. My class created a timeline of written work that facilitated the development of American Female Identity.

and student projects:

www.voicethread.com a really easy way for students to put pictures and text together–turned out to be a fun way for them to do their Writing Metaphor Assignment where they answered the question:  “My writing process is like ________________”  (My favorites include a lawnmower and an ant farm!)

and even had a great one suggested to me by a student:

www.engrade.com which is a free and easy gradebook that can be viewed (securely using a password) by students and parents to check on grades/missing work!

But I am bound and determined to add much more to this list!  Keep checking back!