Digital Taxonomy

http://www.usi.edu/distance/bdt.htm

This pyramid takes the Bloom's Taxonomy and matches it with Digital and Web 2.0 Technologies - most of which are free!  If you're looking for something to use as a product in your classroom, this gives some great suggestions.  Disclaimer - some of them are blocked by iBoss.  As always, how you use a tool determines it's effectiveness and level of thinking, but this definitely gives some suggestions.  Try a few out - see what you think!

Some of my favorites...
Glogster EDU
Create A Graph
Prezi

Storybird

www.storybird.com
 
Storybird is an interactive website that lets kids (or adults!) create their own digital storybook.  Once you create an account, all you have to do is choose a theme, drag in the pictures you like, and add text.  Adding pages is simple - all you do is click a button at the bottom.  The pictures are fantastic!  Also, once you have created a storybird book, you can publish it online (publicly or privately) for free OR you can have a copy printed and sent to you for a pretty reasonable fee.  Once Storybirds are published, they become part of your digital classroom library!

See a few...
The Way to Yonder
My Favorite Food
Help Me Learn The Alphabet

NCTM Illuminations

http://illuminations.nctm.org/

NCTM has a great website full of activities, lessons, and interactive manipulatives.  They are broken up by grade bands (K-2 and 3-5), as well as strand.  You can search for a specific lesson or activity using their search engine.  One of the best parts is called Dynamic Paper.  Starting with a blank page, you can add shapes, grid paper, number lines, pattern blocks, etc. until you have the perfect page!  They are super easy to design and print, and take some of the work out of creating a math worksheet/practice page.

doPDF - Creating a PDF

http://www.dopdf.com/

Here's an easy, free way to create PDFs! PDFs are simply files that can't be edited. Why is that helpful? Well, if you put your class newsletter on your teacher website (hint, hint...) you don't want parents to be able to change it! So post it as a PDF. If you need to email a parent, but are concerned about the wording of your email being changed (yes, this happens), type up your parent letter, save it as a PDF, then email it as an attachment. Want to print something but when you open it up the fonts look all crazy? Save it as a PDF and the fonts come with it.

Ok...so how do I use this thing?

1. When you are finished working with your Word document, Excel sheet, website, etc., go to File -> Print.
2. At the top of the print window, change the printer to doPDF.
3. Click Print
4. Tell the computer where you would like to save the PDF (My Docs, flash drive, H drive, etc.) and click Save
5. Check the box that says "Embed Fonts"
6. Click OK

You're done!!! Congrats on creating a PDF!

Storyline Online

http://www.storylineonline.net/

Storylineonline.net is a collection of popular children's books read aloud by members of the Screen Actor's Guild. There is a wide variety of stories and the actors do a great job of telling the story!


Read a few. . .
Stellaluna