en+web2+tool+review

The following are Web 2.0 tools that I can envision using in my classroom- they will help me and my students to better organize, communicate, gather information, express ourselves, and many other things!

1) Blogspot: Having a daily blog will allow me to share information well with students, parents and my co-workers. This would probably tend to be more of a one-way communication with information about class standards, expectations etc. permanently embedded in the blog while I'll probably add other stuff daily about assignments coming up, projects due, etc. I've never actually had a blog, but, I love the idea of it and was impressed with how Ben uses his:

[|ben's class blog]

2) Blabberize: oh what fun this one is! Basically, you can upload pictures, voices or sounds and put it together as talking heads. It is a little touchy to figure out and requires a little trial and error, but, for those kids (i would say 4th grade and up) who have some social difficulty and may need some tools to express themselves, or to realize someone else's feelings or their point of view, this would be a cool tool! This is my little 5 month old son speaking for the first time!

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3) Morguefile: This is a very helpful site of many public domain images along with images that creative people submit for use by the public. Kind of an open forum for photos and creativity. This would be a great place to direct students to when they are searching for images that may create copyright worries.

[|morguefile.com]

4) Building Language for Literacy: This is part of scholastic's website that has a neat choose your own adventure program that also has audio and lots of extras that can really engage a child to make learning the building blocks for reading interesting and fun. Also, the entire scholastic website appears to be teacher friendly with lesson plans and worksheets etc. It appears that a child in 2nd or 3nd grade could navigate the literacy portion of the site with some help.

[|building language for literacy]

5) Center on Congress: This website that is hosted by Indiana University has some excellent interactive games for kids in pursuing learning about how Congress works. I liked that it also has a section about the perception of government, which will help spur thinking for students into perspective and may show them how sometimes public perception and hype are not reality.This could be used by elementary students and up- struggling readers may have a difficult time.

[|learn about congress]

6) Jeopardy! Love this site. You can easily design jeopardy games of your choosing or use games that are already created. Easily used by elementary students and up, designed by upper elementary- which would also make a great learning tool.

[|Jeopardy labs]

7) Google Lit Trips: Of course as an English Major who works in a bookstore and is excited about teaching reading, I am excited about google lit trips. For some reason, using them presented a problem on my PC where i was unable to unzip zip files. However, the one's that i did get to work provide such an incredible experience that brings literature to kids of any age who are reading, that i had to list this as a tool that I am excited to use someday.

[|google lit trips]

8) __Natural Readers__ This website has a free text to speech ap and can translate several languages. Looks to be easy to use and would be very helpful for certain students with special needs.

[|natural readers]

9) __Library of Congress Teacher Page:__ This website is incredible with lesson plans and teacher development tools that are online along with tons and tons of archived photos, first hand accounts of history and historical documents. Looks easy to navigate- probably best suited for middle elementary grades and able.

[|library of congress]

10) __NASA__ This website features lots of useful materials for teachers and for science and space loving students, it will be a bonanza!

[|nasa for teachers]

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