GROUP+A+Web+Tools

**[|TeacherTube]**
 * **Description:** T eacherTube is the classroom teacher's resource for video sharing based on the popular website, YouTube. TeacherTube is generated mostly by educators to teach students and fellow teachers. Videos aren't the only resources available for viewing and interacting with for the educational industry on this read/write site. You will also find audio, documents, photos, groups, and blogs. These resources, along with others, are designed to aid teacher training. Educators often have easier access to TeacherTube from school computers over the heavily filtered YouTube.


 * **Educational Examples/Potential Uses:** This online community for sharing instructional videos is a safe site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill. There are thousands of videos categorized into sub topics for easy reference such as elementary, secondary, and teacher tutorials. Quick pieces of instruction can be shown to students, this same selection can be viewed as often as needed to differentiate for individual student needs. Students have the potential to share in the social aspect of video sharing as well through TeacherTube thereby engaging students with these video responses. According to TeacherTube, community members can
 * upload, tag, and share videos worldwide.
 * upload support files to attach educational activities, assessments, lesson plans, notes, and other file formats to your video.
 * browse hundreds of videos uploaded by community members.
 * find, join, and create video groups to connect with people who have similar interests.
 * customize the experience by subscribing to member videos, saving favorites, and creating playlists.
 * integrate TeacherTube videos on Web sites using video embeds or application programming interfaces.
 * make videos public or private; users can elect to broadcast their videos publicly or share them privately with those they invite.
 * **How To Get Started:** This service is free for everyone. The site can appear overwhelming at first. Using the search box will help to navigate and narrow down your choices to view on a topic.

> > [|**Gotta Keep Reading**] > > [|**Commoncraft "In Plain English" videos**] > > [|**Simply Fractions Teacher Rap**] > > [|**Why Let Our Students Blog**] > > <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">[|**How to Make a Mummy**] =<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Twitter<span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%;">**[|​]** =
 * <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**TeacherTube Examples:** Check out the following TeacherTube videos:
 * <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Description:** Twitter is an online tool that allows anyone, anywhere, to find out what is going on in the world right now. Its purpose is for people to be able to follow as many people, or few people, as they want and their moment by moment happenings. Twitter is simple to use and allows for an open exchange of information around the world...it makes the world smaller. Although you may think Twitter is similar to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, Twitter only limits you to "tweet" 140 characters or less, making what it is you want to say short, simple, clear, and to the point.


 * <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Educational Examples/Potential Uses:** I use Twitter to follow the authors that my students are reading. I have not yet incorporated this into the classroom, but rather am trialing how to use Twitter in this way and what I might be able to do with it and kids. Another idea, for possibly a high school business or economics class, is that of supply and demand. This winter, ABC's morning show, GMA, shared how Twitter was being used as additional income for stay-at-home moms, and for those that wanted a little extra cash. Twitter is based on how many people you can get to follow you. If you follow a product or business, and you can get others to follow you while you are following them, you can earn money. [|Working from Home]Talk about jobs that are being created that we cannot even imagine!


 * <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Getting Started:** If you are interested in opening a Twitter account...it's free. Go to the link above, and join. Once you have joined, the options of people that you can follow are endless, as long as they have a Twitter account as well.

=<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">[|Jing] =
 * <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Description:** Jing captures a screenshot that you can add captions, highlights, or arrows to. Once you have captured the shot, you can record your voice to share information with the viewer, but you will only be able to do this in increments of five minutes, so if you are using this as a think aloud for students and your think aloud is more than five minutes, you will want to break it down into smaller segments. The last thing jing allows you to do, is to upload it and share it with others using screencast.com.


 * <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Educational Examples/Potential Uses:** The link below is an example of a screencast that was done by a teacher within our building to help teachers create a blog.[|Creating a Blog] I have also used Jing to create a think aloud for my students to demonstrate the rules for highlighting. I found an article related to the topic I wanted to share, and using jing software, I captured the article on the screen. From there I was able to record my voice and read the article aloud to my students, think through the highlighting process as I was reading, and highlight as I went. I was also able to post a sticky note to the side of the screen which showed my research topic and question. Remember...you only have five minutes per segment. [|Rules of Highlighting]


 * <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Getting Started:** If you are interested in using Jing in your classroom, go to jing.com. Basic jing is free and allows you to create great think alouds, etc. for your students. When you are finished, remember to share it via screencast.com. You will know you have downloaded jing to your computer, because an orange looking sun will always appear on your desktop somewhere along the outer edge.

=<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">[|Glogster] =
 * <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Description:** Glogster is an educational tool that allows learners to create visual posters online. Unlike traditional posters that require glue, paper, markers, etc., glogster allows students to share and publish their learning, in poster format, using images, text, and audio.


 * <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Educational Examples/Potential Uses:** If you have not done so already, you will notice many student examples on the homepage when you click on the link above. There are also many tutorials and reasons for using glogster edu. I will be introducing glogster next week to my students as they will be creating presentations to be published and shared as a culminating end to their research unit. Students will be asked to use images, text, and audio to create a poster that expresses what they have learned through their research about technology. The attached examples are from the reading teacher that I collaborate with. She used glogster for students to create posters about the books they were reading . <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">[|Glogster Examples]


 * <span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Getting started:** Click on the link above and it will take you to glogsteredu. Again, as most of the other tools shared, basic glogster is free and you are able to join by opening your own account.