What a Great Resource! Check out Best Free Online Applications and Services!

I discovered this Web 2.0 site that was published by Gizmo's Freeware.  http://www.techsupportalert.com  It is a wonderful resource for educator!  Over thirty pages of online free applications are discussed and listed under categories for easy reference.  Some of the categories included range from multimedia, educational, games, programming, image and view, etc.  With these online applications and services, there is no need to download and install them on your computer.  Simply open up your browser and access them online.  How easy is that!  They are all there for your use.  Click on the related link or icon and begin using them immediately.  Have fun exploring!

Learning Games Online

My bet is that you have students that enjoy games online.  Sometimes it can be a challenge monitoring which sites are educationally sound for student use.  Spree Learning Games provides a comprehensive list of games designed for curriculum use all on one site.  The games are appropriate for k-12 students and can be searched easily by subject, grade, and age.  http://www.spreelearninggames.net

Read and Write Gold 8.1 Text to speech software

There are now new features and enhancements for Read and Write Gold 8.1.  The program now supports Windows Vista.  There is a screenshot reader that allows you to select any part of the screen to be read aloud.  The 8.1 edition also has scanning enhancements that provides scanning from a digital camera.  The Study Skills Toolbar is now integrated within the main toolbar and you can extract highlighted text from Internet Explorer and MS Word.  Finally, you can copy your settings on Read and Write Gold to a USB drive and copy them onto another computer making the program so much more versatile. 

Photobucket is sooooo great!

I have been experimenting with Flickr and have found the slow speed of uploading photos to be quite annoying.  I visited a post that compared photo sharing tools called Top Ten Reviews and read about Photobucket.  I decided to give it a try and was amazed at how much quicker and easier it was to upload and edit my photos.  Check out my site on Photobucket and let me know what you think.  My Photobucket site under kadair123

School Year Challenge with Web 2.0 Technology!

Rita Mortenson has a great site that challenges educators and students to explore Web 2.0 technology for 30 days.  Each day a new Web 2.0 tool is introduced and information is shared about the use of the tool in the classroom.  I love the layout and format for introducing tools for her students to explore.  Check it out and have fun with your students too!http://rita_mortenson_DEN Web 2.0 School Year Challenge

Thoughts about Bookshare

As a special educator, I work with many students that have learning disabilities that impact their reading ability.  At the high school level, students reading at a 4th grade reading level for example can struggle to keep up with all of the reading assignments necessary to complete for academic achievement.  Fortunately, Bookshare is there to support individuals with print disabilities.  It provides free access to thousands of books in digital format.  Combine Bookshare's capabilities with a program called Kurzweil 3000 and you are ready to provide students with the tools to become more independent readers. Follow Bookshare on their new blog and keep up to date on all that Bookshare has to offer at http://blog.bookshare.org/.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog.  I am an educator in Vermont and I am interested in beginning a blog for my students and colleagues to use as a forum for discussion and exploration of current Web 2.0 tools to use in the classroom and beyond.  My hope is to educate my students about some of the great tools and to have them begin using some of them in their classwork.  Since I am new to several of the programs myself, I will be learning right along side of them.  I'm very excited to get started and hope to have several resources for my class to explore when school begins in September.  Let the fun begin!