TCEA Conference

I spent two days in Austin at the TCEA conference. I attended some interesting presentations while I was there. Since I just got back and have to plan for tomorrow's classes, I don't have time to explain everything I learned while I was there, but I do want to go ahead and post some websites that I heard about at some of my sessions. I thought this would be an easy way to store the information and that my grant team members might benefit from these ideas, as well.

I will post more that I learned soon.

Cool Websites/Tools I'd Heard of Before:
http://www.jingproject.com/- Jing easily captures screen shots and you can add comments to them

http://wallwisher.com/- On Wallwisher students can leave digital sticky notes and even add video or pictures; all the comments could appear on the ActivBoard all at once

http://www.wordle.net/- Wordle is where students can copy and paste text and it will pull out the most commonly used words and make a word cloud. (This could be cool for students to use when looking at persuasive speeches in order to focus on the word choice.)

http://animoto.com/- I'm sure most people have heard of Animoto, but what I liked about the example I saw was how it was used. They showed an example of a teacher using a video he made to introduce himself on the first day of school and to introduce his classroom rules. That's a much more interesting way to start off the school year than with a traditional packet and letter.

http://www.glogster.com/- Glogster is a way for students to create online posters. This has many possibilities.

http://www.imaginationcubed.com/ Share ideas by drawing on GE's multi-user online whiteboard.

Cool Ideas That Were New to Me:
http://museumbox.e2bn.org/-great way to present research; This site provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box.

http://blabberize.com/- Blabberize can make any of your pictures talk. You could use it in a presentation and students could use it, as well.

http://www.google.com/squared- Google Squared takes a category and creates a starter 'square' of information, automatically fetching and organizing facts from across the web.

http://www.jamstudio.com/Studio/index.htm- Jam Studio creates music beats for free.

http://www.myavatareditor.com/- My Avatar Editor lets students create avatars like the ones on Wii. These can be used instead of pictures for profile page on Ning or a blog, or can be used in other writing assignments and projects.

http://sketch.odopod.com/#featured -Odo Sketch is a more advanced online drawing site.

http://classtools.net/ Classtools.net allows you to create free educational games, activities and diagrams in a Flash! Host them on your own blog, website or intranet! The presenter shared one called the Random Name Picker that seemed like it had multiple possibilities. I have not looked at everything else that is offered yet, but the site seems full of options.

http://storybird.com/tour/- Storybird is a collaborative story-telling site. The art on the site inspires the stories.