Tech Forum Conference

Last week I attended the Tech Forum in Itasca. It's always a good conference and of course I found some interesting sites to pass on.
Google justs keeps growing. There is so much there that I'm amazed every time I look at it. If you click on "more" and then "even more", Google moreyou will be led to many more services that Google provides. Some are software items and others relate to improving your search. Go to labs to see what Google is working on now. They're not quite finished but available to try.

More on Google
Google Lit Google Lit creates maps that link the site in student literature using Google maps to identify the places.
Sign up for a Gmail account and you get 2 gigs storage on the web and free space for a web page.Gmail

Here's a video called "The Machine is using Us". Cool. Video
You Tube is all the rage with students but there is also Teacher Tube with videos teachers can use in the classroom. Teacher Tube
The BBC is offering videos on different subjects and some are just clips that you can put in your own videos.BBC Motion Gallery


Here's a site to make logos and small graphics. I made the "robbie" logo there. It's easy to use and download to your computer. Cool Text

Prongo is a site for K-8 that's lot of fun and educational. Look at the quizzes and brain teasers. You can also create your own online quizzes for students. Kids like the games too. Prongo

Search Engines

I discovered some new search engines and they are pretty cool. There are four that I want to tell you about.

Search Mash is run by Google and uses the same engine but the format is different. I looked for Illinois birds. I got the same results that I got in Google but there were links to images, blogs, wikis and videos on the same page. The related videos were from YouTube. One was a pheasant chasing a boy around a zoo. Not relevent but cute. This is a good way to search for information because there is so much available on the first try.
SearchMash

MsDewey is really unusual. This search engine is run by Microsoft. It features an attractive young woman who ask you to pose a question. She waits. She pouts. She writes on a tablet. The results are good and come up within her window. This is really unusual as far as search engines go.
MsDewey

All the Web is run by Yahoo. It can show you results as you type. It was fast.
AlltheWeb

AskX is a recent version of Ask which was formerly Ask Jeeves. Results are in the center of the page. On the left there are suggestions to narrow or broaden your search.
AskX

Back to Work

I haven't been very good about updating my blog since spring break. Now it's time or past time, to get back to work. I've got some new sites for you to look at and I hope they will prove to be very useful in your classroom and at home.

This site is just for fun. The technology is interesting and I think it should be viewed just for that alone. You can build a 3d representation of yourself and then save it, use it on a website or just print it out. There are plenty of free choices and you don't have to become a member of the site. It's like MySpace and I'm certainly not encouraging you to use that. Just click on the get start button.
3d Pictures

Here's a site to watch or download public domain movies. There's also some books and audible books. I looked at "The House on Haunted Hill" and "The Day the Sky Exploded". If you have a laptop you can download the movies to watch later. There's music too.
Public domain Movies and Music

The landmark site is a wonderful source of all kinds of information for various classroom subject areas. I don't think this is for Primary but if you check out the different subject areas you'll be amazed at what's here. It is not a beautiful site and can be intimidating but click on the different subject areas and you'll be impressed.
Landmark

Here's a site for teachers. Lots of teacher tools. Adjustable hangman games, worksheets, vocabulary builders and quotes of the day.
Super Kids

ICE Conference

Approximately 10 days ago I attended the Illinois Technology Conference sponsered by Illinois Technology Educators. I came back with some great information for teachers. Here are some interesting sites that I discovered. I hope they help you.

Atomic Learning is a great place to get tutorials on all types of software for Mac and PC. There are also lesson plans. Look at the lesson accelerators. All tutorials are in Quicktime. I have used this site many times when I'm having trouble using a program. I have also used some of these tutorials with students. They are very helpful. Here's a temporary membership for the rest of the month. USERNAME=iltce07 PASSWORD=atomic
atomiclearning

I found an outstanding site for creating certificates, trading cards or adding frames to photos. This can be a handy tool if you have photos of your students and want to create something special. Check out the motivator and the movie poster. You upload a picture(not hard) add what you want the poster to say, then when it's created save it to your desktop by right clicking (save to desktop) and print it out!
Flickr toys

Have you ever needed a particular picture for a project or student? Try Pics 4 Learning. It's a library of usable pictures royalty free and searchable by subject. This was created by educators.
pics4learning

Another great site for managing classrooms online is Moodle. You can create tests, review written work, manage classroom grades in other words completely manage your class on the computer. Look into it.
Moodle

Classroom Tools

This week's websites are all about useful tools that you and you students can use. They are all free and I think you will find them very useful. Please sign my guest book and let me know what you think. I have lots more teacher tool sites and will add them next week.

The first one is a site that creates graphs. You can choose a graph style and text. There's also a tutorial on the site if you or your students find it confusing. I know that students find graphs a challenge. Maybe this will help.
Create a Graph

Here's a puzzlemaker site that you can use to create any kind of puzzle. Very easy.
Puzzlemaker

This is a comic creator. It's really fun and you could use it as a great story starter.
comic creator

This site is for math teachers. There are flash cards, games and work sheets.
A+Math

Chompchomp is for teaching grammar. There are drills and worksheets and a dictionary. Not for primary.
Grammar

New sites

I hope all of you enjoyed my first attempt at blogging. I have a new site that's great for English teachers. This site was recommended by my friend Linda Tassone who is the learning center director at East Prairie. It looks very good and well organized for finding those "extras" for your lessons.
English Teacher Site


Google has many tools on its site that are useful for teachers. If you have never seen Google Earth it's time to take a look. It's terrific. Here's a tutorial.
Google Earth Tutorial

Another web site that I think is very good is Tammy's Technology Tips. She has a simple format and encourages teachers to incorporate technology into their lessons. It's good for all grade levels.
Tammy's Tech Tips