Posted on February 18, 2013 by eduhowto
Every year as my class begin to create their online blogs they always want some type of unique avatar to represent themselves. After a long talk about he dangers of an online presence and why not to use their real name, birthday and image of themselves, I point them to the following safe list of avatar creators. These sites are all free avatar creators. This list also represents the most popular avatar creators among my students. If you have another that is popular with your students and is free please drop me a line and let me know.
- DoppelMe – Free Dynamic Avatars Create simple cartoon characters to represent ou as your avatar.
- Create Avatar – South Park Studios Create a South Park Avatar to represent you.
- Marvel Create Your Own Superhero | Make Avatars with Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Thing, Wolverine, and more Marvel Characters | Marvel.com Simple and easy to create superhero avatar creator.
- Toy story toy creator Create your own Toy Story avatar.
- M&M’S® Become an M&M’S® Character: Home Create your own personalized M&M avatar.
- Raster Boy Avatar Creator Easy to create full body cartoon Avatar.
- FaceYourManga.com | Shake Yourself! Another simple cartoon creator.
- Lego Avatar Creator Easy Avatar creator that creates Lego Avatars.
- Makewee Wii Avatar Creator just like the the Wii console.
- Clay Yourself! | Hotels.com Create a claymation avatar.
- HeroMachine 2.5, Superhero Generator, Create Your Own Hero – UGO.com Super Hero Avatar creator.
- avatarizeyourself.com Create an Avatar movie Avatar. Upload your own picture and then turn yourself blue.
- Wimp Yourself Diary of a wimpy kid avatars.
- Portrait Illustration Maker : Free Illustration Generater! Simple to use avatar cartoon character creator. Has many different options and styles.
- Voki Home This site allows you to create animated and speaking avatars. You can post a link to these speaking avatars on to your website. They can not however be downloaded.
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: avatars, Edtech, online tools, teaching, technology | 3 Comments »
Posted on October 15, 2012 by eduhowto
As the year progresses and my students begin to look for new ideas for projects they begin to see the value of not only sound effects but sound tracks. Music is a powerful element in a movie. Which leads them to begin using music in
Iconic microphone image based on the design of the RCA Type 77-A microphone (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
their videos. This ends up causing some copyright issues. But finding sites and collections of audio files that are safe for school projects and without violating copyright laws can be a bit difficult. Below is a list of sites that me and my students have compiled over the years that provides students with almost all types of audio files that they would need to create most types of video projects or podcasts. All of these sites do provide free audio files however there are files that are for sale as well so students should be aware of this before they randomly start looking and downloading files.
- soundzabound – Royalty Free Music for SchoolsThey state the following on their website “the ONLY royalty free music library which meets all the licensing and technology requirements needed for education!” You do need to create an account. There are a great selection of sound tracks with many different genres.
- freeSFX.co.uk – Download Free Sound Effects List of many different mp3 sound effects from nature and man made. Worth a look for sound effects for movies.
- Royalty Free Sound Effects (FX) Library for Download Great collection of sounds and simple to search
- Free Music Archive Great collection of music that can be used for school projects and podcasts safely and FREE.
- Free Sound Clips | SoundBible.com Another great collection of sounds and music that is royalty free and safe for podcasts and school projects.
- Free Stock Music for Educational Use The name says it all great for sound tracks for movies.
- Free and legal music downloads – Jamendo
- freesound :: home page One of the biggest collections of sound effects and music on the web. Great site to start with to find sound effects.
- Freeplay Music, Broadcast Production Music Library, Free and Mp3 Music Downloads, See Usage Terms. Good site for sound track music for videos.
- Mp3Skip.com – Free MP3 Downloads Another good site for video music.
- film music | mobygratis.com Really good music for films.
- Danosongs.com Free music site for videos.
Here are some past posts on Audio resources that might also be helpful.
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: classroom projects, Educational Technology, Free Music Archive, Jamendo, K through 12, Music, online environment, online resources teachers, Podcast, Royalty Free Music, Royalty-free, Sound effect, Sound recording and reproduction, successful teaching, teaching resources, technology in classroom, webtools | 4 Comments »
Posted on September 27, 2012 by eduhowto
Well is that time of year again where
students start to create
projects. As always I spend time talking about copy-write
laws and what is and is not acceptable use of others material. This always leads to a lot of frustration on the part of students as they look for music and
audio files to add to their movies,
podcasts and radio plays and other assorted multimedia projects. To help my students I have over that past years bookmarked many different sites for students to use in creating their own music and audio files. There are many different options out there for students to use. The following four however seem to be the ones that my students have used over and over again. They like the simplicity and they all provide just enough instruction and materials to make it easy for students to create their own audio files. But the two best things about these four sites are that they are free and online.
One word of warning!! Have students create these files as the last thing that they do for their projects! They enjoy making music and can spend hours on these sites.
- Creaza This is a free audio editor that is great for making podcasts, sound tracks and other audio projects. It has a simple to use interface that is typical for this type of application. Like most audio editors Creaza allows you to add files along the timeline and over multiple channels. You can also record sound and add it to your project. This is a free application but does require that you create an account.
- beatlab Allows you to simply create your own background music and short music clips for videos and podcasts. This is a simple to use site that can be a lot of fun.
- Musicshake This another free site that allows you to create sound tracks and audio tracks. This site is great for making podcasts, sound tracks and other audio projects. It has a simple timeline interface like other audio editors that allows you to have multiple channels. This site also works connects well with YouTube and Facebook. It is worth a look.
- FileLab Web Applications This site allows you to edit audio and share them on the web. This is a free site and quite simple to use. Can only be used on a Windows machine. Again another typical audio editor.
Filed under: Educational Technology, Resources | Tagged: Audio engineering, Audio file format, Creaza, Digital audio editor, Facebook, Podcast, Windows, YouTube | 1 Comment »
Posted on September 6, 2012 by eduhowto
This year I have put together a list for my students of five sites that they might find helpful in their classes. These sites are ones that over the past few years my students have routinely used. I do not necessarily think that they are all great but there is something about them that students seem to like and have proven to be helpful in their studies.
InstaGrok: This is a great search engine that shows how facts and concepts are related. This is a great visual tool to teach kids about how searches are conducted on the web.
Fact Monster: This site allows students to find information quickly and keeps them on one site so that they do not get lost in a variety of links looking for information.
Images
Pics4Learning: Great website for students to use to find images for projects and other assignments. Teachers can use and feel safe that all images found on this website are appropriate for school.
Writing Tools
Wordsmyth: is and easy to use dictionary that provides definition pronunciation and alternative words for students to use.
Bibme: Is a great free citation and bibliography maker. It is simple easy to use and auto
Image via CrunchBase
fills in a lot of details for the students.
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: Classroom, Edtech, education, Educational Technology, Student, Teacher, Tools, Twitter | Leave a comment »
Posted on August 28, 2012 by eduhowto
With the overwhelming amount edtechtools that can be found on the web, this is the first post in a series to highlight some that I
Classroom (Photo credit: James F Clay)
have found useful in the classroom and are FREE!!
The focus of this post are some TEACHER Tools that I have found useful to use with my students.
- Dropbox: This storage site has proved to be an extremely useful to store and access my files anywhere on any computer. Also the addon of DropitTo.me has been useful for my student to turn in their work. This is a must look at for all teachers!
- Classroom Timers:
Classroom timers have become a staple in my class and are an excellent way to keep students on task. This website provides a list of different types of timers and all are free to use. online-stopwatch.com
- Duplichecker: This is a great plagiarism checker and will also check attached files. This is a free site and a great resource. I also have a list here of other plagiarism checkers.
- Testmoz: As they state on their website, ” Testmoz is a test generator that sports 4 question types, automatic grading, a really simple interface and detailed reports.” Have used this many times and found it to be very useful.
- QuizSnack: Is an easy way to create polls and surveys and post them to a variety of different websites.
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: Classroom, E-learning, Edtech, education, Educators, Plagiarism, Student, Tools | Leave a comment »
Posted on August 21, 2012 by eduhowto
Well it is that time of year again and I can already hear the school bell ringing. Like many teachers I am hitting the web and my classroom resource creating and organizing lessons. As I peruse the web looking for ideas and resources I can feel my stress level rise as I see hundreds of ideas and resources to use in my classroom.
The problem is the web has so many great ideas that it can be overwhelming. Just today I came across two great posts one from edudemic.com titled “50 Educational Technology Tools Every Teacher Should Know About” and Getting Smarts “50 Essential Edtech Tools By Category” each had 50 different tools or resources. This just added to my stress and frustration about what to do in my classroom. I quickly realized that I need to have a specific goal in mind so that I can focus on one or two aspects of Edtech in my classroom. So over the next two weeks I will be posting about 4 or 5 really good tested Edtech tools to use in the classroom. Each post will focus on a specific content area with Common Core in mind. My hope is to help myself get organized and maybe help someone else out in the process.
GAME ON! as the 2012-2013 school Year starts!
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: Classroom, Common Core, Edtech, education, Educational Technology, K through 12, Teacher, technology | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 2, 2012 by eduhowto
Tallinn, view (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One of the great things that I have enjoyed about blogging is communicating with people all over the world. Recently, I had a message from a reader Valeria from Tallinn, Estonia who brought to my attention a great website called myHistro. This is a great site that combines maps, timelines, images, video and puts it all together in a presentation format. This is a great tool to teach students about a sequence of events like battles and other historical events. Click the link below for an example of a basic myHistro presentation on the battles of the Civil War.
Click here to see a good basic example of a myHistro presentation.
This is a great tool to be used in the classroom. Check it out at www.myHistro.com and thanks again to Valeria for bringing it to my attention.
Click here to read about other great timeline tools.
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: Akademy, classroom ideas, classroom projects, Educational Technology, Educators, Estonia, History, K through 12, KDE, lesson plans, online environment, online resources teachers, Skype, successful teaching, Tallinn, teaching resources, technology in classroom, United States, Web Tool, webtools, Wi-Fi | Leave a comment »
Posted on June 25, 2012 by eduhowto
education (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)
While I normality like to post my ideas and thoughts on education and technology. Occasionally, however I come across a post that is just so outstanding and on the mark that I feel it is just too good not to pass on to my readers. “Ten Videos Every Educator Should Watch (and Reflect on)” was written last February and while I have written about and discussed many of the videos contained in this post I really like the fact that they are all placed together for teachers to look at and think about. This is the time of year when many teachers have the time to look at and think about new ideas and teaching strategies. So I encourage any teachers looking to expand their teaching techniques, philosophies and teaching strategies to look through these outstanding videos and reflect on them.
Click here to read Ammar Merhibi’s “Ten Videos Every Educator Should Watch (and Reflect on)”
And Ammar thanks for taking the time to put this post together. To read more from Ammar Merhibi check out his blog “Eductechnalogy”
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: classroom ideas, education, Educational Technology, Educators, K through 12, lesson plan, online resources teachers, Professional development, Student, successful teaching, Teacher, teaching resources, technology in classroom, United States | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 15, 2012 by eduhowto
Spark Student Interest with Time Search
Time Search is a great resource that I came across near the end of this past school year. It is a great research tool to assist students looking for information about many different topics in a history course. The timeline approach is one students always seem to appreciate and often captivates their attention. The way that the information is displayed and linked together seemed to really interest students. I found my students often discovered topics that intrigued them and really seemed to captivate their attention. Many of the students who used this began asking me questions about a variety of history topics that we were not covering in class. This lead to a few of my students research and studying different events in history in addition to the topics covered in class. Anytime I find a resource that has this effect on students it is one I bookmark and use in future classes. If you teach history you need to have a look at this site along with their parent site History World. Check them out with the links below.
Click here to check out Time Search.
Click her to check out History World.
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: Academic term, classroom projects, Colleges and Universities, Des Moines Area Community College, education, Educational Technology, Educators, History, K through 12, lesson plans, Montreal, online environment, online resources teachers, Personal and Class Pages, Student, successful teaching, teaching resources, technology in classroom, Web Tool, webtools | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 14, 2012 by eduhowto
picture of an e-learning classroom (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As my regular readers know I am always looking for new technologies to try out in my classroom. But the task of finding new technologies can at times be overwhelming. The amount of apps and programs out there is daunting at best. Often times it takes hours to find something that I think will work and feel is worth giving a try in my classroom. This past weekend however, I was catching up on some of my educational blogs that I read and I came across a post by Audrey Watters who might have found a great starting point.
Audrey Watters writes a blog called “Hack Education” and she wrote about a site called “EdShelf“. This is a site that lists hundreds of educational tools to use in the classroom. The best description is the one they use on their website that describes their website as,
“… a directory of websites, mobile apps, and desktop software that are rated & reviewed by educators, for educators. We decrease the friction of using and procuring effective technology into the classroom.”
As I reviewed the site I found it to exactly that. This is a great starting point for anyone looking to add some technology to their classroom. The reviews and ideas that can be found on this site are quite valuable and will significantly reduce the amount of time teachers spend searching for new tools and ideas. I highly recommend this site to educators looking to add something new to their class.
Check it out here.
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: classroom ideas, classroom projects, Educational Technology, K through 12, online resources teachers, successful teaching, teaching resources, technology, technology in classroom, webtools | 3 Comments »