Alternative+Education+Social+Studies

1. [|Cusomized Goole Search] After our first meeting I created an assignment dealing with American southwest demographics and wildlife. I set it up so when the students were doing their research they were only able to look at reliable sources that dealt with the American Southwest.

2. [|Wordle] A Wordle makes a beautiful word cloud, in case you didnt know. This isn't something that I have used directly into my class yet but do plan on it in the future as part of my made from scratch website I am building for college. The wordle will feature all different genres of music but my plan is to have each word be a link to a history of that genre.

3. [|Jing Screen Cast] This is a great tool I have used for when I know I have a sub. Especially helpful If they dont know how to use the Promethean Board. You can do a little screen cast to show them how to show video or something from [|United Streaming]. You can even give mini lessons in your own voice to make your students more comfortable.

4. [|Ruby on Rails] This is beyond me still too but it is the HTML coding tool we use in my college class to create a website from scratch. Using this I am creating a website for a music appreciation class that will have everything from assignment logs to videos, blogs, discussion boards and login information. I also use the software [|Komodo Edit] and [|Filezilla] to manipulate the code and bring in information. I hope to share this with everyone when I am done and have a due date in late June

5. [|Balsamiq] This is a site where you can go to make a basic "mock-up" of how yo want your website to look like before you get in with the code and get busy.

6. [|Prezi] A different take on Powerpoint is fun for the students!! A student even created his senior exit project using this program.

7. [|Weebly] I am looking to create one of these easy and neat websites to have for my class as a possible alternative to parentweb.

Although working with the students in the lab has been limited due to various factors I am hoping to implement much of what I have learned more and more next year with a fresh start. As a tip for others, be sure you play around with the technology before you present it to your class. Although with some students you can present something to them and let them run with it but in many classes when you go in blindly you will lose your students and can embarrass yourself when you hit glitches..