Alleviating Zoo Guilt – Zoo Borns

ZooBorns contains photos of all different types of baby animals from zoos and aquariums all over the world. The pictures are priceless and the captions are very informative, e.g., an adorable baby owl is described as being very capable of attacking humans. How preciously dangerous! What a great way to prepare for a trip to the zoo, research life cycles and share a respect for captive animals.

DoGo News

Oh yeah! All the news that’s fit to be read by children! The editors of this site include children and adults. One of the editors is a 14-year-old whose claim to fame is his great duct tape ties! This would be a nice safe homepage for your classroom desk top. I’ll be asking my student of the day to choose their favorite “news” story to report on. This could be a great idea generator for writing and research. These may not be the current headlines, but they are definitely news.

Voicethread

A demonstration of Voicethread is here.
An example of Voicethread to discuss digital storytelling.
Finally, here’s an example from some French children about some English limericks they have created.
There are plenty of examples all over the internet using this great tool in the classroom. I can think of plenty more!
LATE BREAKING NEWS: Tonight Jason in Denver e-mailed with an update on , what else, his voicethread. Let’s explore his Daddy Duty story together!

Tag Galaxy to Search Flickr

Need a fabulous way to collect pictures for a presentation? Want to get your students revved up about a new topic? Try Tag Galaxy You put in a tag and photos start building to a giant planet. If your tag is very general, say “animals”, surrounding your giant planet, will be smaller planets such as “zoo”, “pets” etc. to refine the search. By clicking on your planet, you can make it spin around to view more photos or click on a photo and it will enlarge and may give further information. Try this. It’s super-cool!

Animoto

Another tool for making simple videos, long or short. This is a link to one I made in honor of my first car, a ’73 Fiat. It was pea green and not much to look at. When you hit a pothole, the windows fell open and the radio station changed, but I loved it. Unfortunately, I have no pictures so I had to pick and choose through flicker and add some stock images from Animoto. This video is nothing to write home about, but it gives you the idea: My First Car

Teachers’ Domain

Teachers’ Domain provides free resources from PBS. There are podcasts, videos, and lessons all sorted by grade level and topic.

Flickrstorm and Digital Storytelling

In preparation for a discussion of digital storytelling, I’ve put together a little video using One True Media and Flickrstorm. Flickrstorm is new to me, but I’m thrilled to find it. How simple and easy to find, collect and download photos on a particular subject. I can think of many classroom uses for this and I know my students will find even more.

My Montage 6/11/09