Ed Tech Ideas

I’m always stumbling upon great finds on the web that have educational uses, so I thought I’d begin a reoccurring post highlighting these resources that I find to be worth mentioning. So each week, I plan on scanning through my Diigo and selecting the top few “paragons” that I feel teachers might dig. These will be posted on Thursdays at approximately 5:30 pm p.s.t. (but don’t hold me to this).
(Paragon, btw, means “outstanding example” – don’t feel bad, I had to look it up too).

• Google Reader – Not new, I’m aware of this, but being this is my first P.O.W. post, I thought I’d start with my main tool that I begin with each morning. Currently I subscribe to 30+ EdTech Blogs, 5 Tech Trends Blogs, 6 General Ed Blogs, 4 News Feeds, The Daily Show Videos (which I never get around to watching) and NPR’s World Story of the Day. I find feed readers to be so useful as it takes out the searching and opening up of multiple sites. All my news and information that I’m interested in comes to me in one place.
• Active Science – Brought to my attention by Richard Byrne this site has 15 different scientific modules, each with interactive games and activities. Great for use with IWB.
• MindOmo – This was brought to my attention by Giselda Santos via Twitter. MindOmo is a mind-mapping tool that allows you to add and organize ideas, thoughts, work, websites, lists, etc. I see this useful on a personal level (as in having a visual storage-house for websites that I frequent) and educationally with students. If you want to see a great example of one, click here.
• Kerpoof – Susan Sedro showed me Kerpoof a couple of years ago, but I just recently re-visited it and they have made some nice changes. Kerpoof is an online comic-creator which allows students to create comic scenes and stories, as well as animated movies, cards, drawings, doodles and pictures.  Educators are able to sign up for a class account which allows an entire class to login simultaneously using the assigned nickname and password created by the teacher. There are no adds or inappropriate content and the art work is fun and lively.  Finished products may be saved, printed, or emailed.  Great site for story creating!