Tuesday Tech Talk #20

Welcome to the Tuesday Tech Talk, bringing you some of the best web sites I’ve looked at recently, that you can really use! Great sites for this week include:

Book Wink
BookWink introduces books to students through video book talks.  Book Wink archives can be searched by grade, subject, author, or title.  New book talks are added each month.

Once your students become familiar with the book talk format you could have them create their own using the computer’s built-in iSight cameras, or even just on Garage Band.  What a great alternative to the traditional book report!

My Award Maker
As the end of the year approaches (around 25 days, but who’s counting?), you’re probably starting to think about celebrating your students’ achievements.  My Award Maker is a free, easy to use site with multiple options for cute, creative award certificates that you can print out.

You could even incorporate this site into your language arts curriculum.  Ask students to use the blank certificate templates to create an award for a character in a story they are reading.  They can glue the certificate on a large sheet of construction paper and add a paragraph on writing paper telling why the character is deserving of that award.

SimpleScience
Simple Science is a great collection of science music videos in the same general format as School House Rock. Videos are available for a variety of concepts in Earth, Physical, and Life Science areas.

Looking for a science extension activity for some of your students? Why not have them create their own “music video?”  Lyrics can be recorded in Garage Band and easily imported into iMovie, with still images added.

Teacher Led Interactive Whiteboard
This is a great collection of online tools and games intended for use on the SmartBoard, and covering most grade levels. The majority of the material is math, but map skills and language arts are also included.  FYI, this site is out of the UK so spelling activities will use British spellings.

If you like these sites post a comment and share your thoughts with other teachers.  What did your students like about the sites?  How do you think they helped you and/or your students?