WallWisher- The Place to Post

WallWisher is a virtual interactive bulletin board! Try it out. Post your comments to my wall. See how you could effectively integrate this into your classroom instead of using large sheets of poster paper to:
*brainstorm or debate topics
*collaborate and add research facts
*sort and group wall content into categories
*vocabulary development- post a bunch of words and have students define them or *write sentences
*collaborate with another class


You can use an existing email address to log on so you do not need to create a new account for this tool.

Tagxedo- Tag Clouds

New from the creator of Wordle! Here is a great new application that uses words to create tag clouds. Similar to Wordle- since it is from the creator of Wordle, it is no wonder why! Check out the beta version of Tagxedo!

Zoho

Zoho is a suite of productivity tools that is absolutely amazing. It is basically open source for word processor, spreadsheets, PowerPoint (presentations), wikis, project management, online meetings, and more. The one that caught my eye was Zoho Polls. You can create quick, easy polls for your students to fill out and then see the results! Check it out.
This is a suite of applications that every educator should check out and tell their students about. Students will be able to afford these productivity tools- they are free!

Exploratree - Exploratree by FutureLab

• Exploratree - Exploratree by FutureLab

  A way to format your thinking electronically! Really. This website allows you to create graphic organizers such as flow charts, diagrams, hierarchal templates, etc... You can add your text, images or shapes to the content maps and then print them out. Try out ExploraTree!

  tags: visualization, web2.0, collaboration, brainstorming, mindmap

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

WolframAlpha

Your students may have already discovered WolframAlpha much to your chagrin if you are a teacher that asks basic inquiry based queries. I certainly hope my son doesn't find it anytime soon to do his Math homework!
However, think of the possibilities of using this dynamic algorithm-based site. Sure, if a student enters an Algebra equation into the search engine, it will solve the problem. But this is a very robust engine. The latest I just read is it will provide data for the Oscars. For example, if you enter "Ocsar nominees" you will receive historical data for the Oscars. If you narrow your search by a year such as Oscar nominees for 1980, then you will receive analytical data of all the Oscar nominees for that year.
Check out WolframAlpha and teach your students how to use this effective tool to gather and then compare the data they harvest. Bump up the lesson on Bloom's taxonomy. Don't just put the answer; analyze, compare, and then ask students to process the information. Then WolframAlpha is a useful tool rather than a homework 'helper'.

100 Useful Tools for Special Needs Students & Educators

What a great list of resources for Special Education Teachers! This site has adaptive technologies from virtual keyboarding, a camera controlled mouse, text to speech, magnification applications to web browsers for the differently-abled students. The way this site is organized and the annotations make it ideal for educators to navigate quickly. The Zac browser I have mentioned in this blog before is listed as well as many other great resources. Check it out.

Big Huge Labs Web Site

Every month I do a local television spot called Focus on the Internet in our technology show titled, TechFocus. This month, I showcased a website from John Watson, from Flickr called BigHugeLabs.com. If you have not had the pleasure of purusing this site, what a treat you have in stored. Watch the video on our TechFocus site called Big Huge Labs