North Forest Pines Elementary Media Center

Here are some websites to explore. 
They will help you incorporate more technology tools into your lessons.
 All of these websites are simple and very user friendly.

Jan. 9, 2012
Aviary
This is a creative tool allowing students and teachers to design visual images.

Jan. 2, 2012
Apples 4 the Teachers
A great resource for teachers seeking primary grade activities and grades. it also has a worksheet generator.

Aniboom
This software allows students and teachers to create an animated program.

Dec.19,2011
ThinkBinder
This tool allows students to study together while being located in different places.

4teacher 
This site helps teachers intregrate technology into their classroom instruction. 


Dec 12, 2011
Instructional Technology
It is a source that offers teachers effective ways for teachers to incorporate technology into the classroom.  Wonderful smartboard lessons.  this site is kept updated.

Swankshore
This program allows you to send files up to 1GBin size.  If you need to send pictures files or multimedia presentations that e-mail can not handle then this program may help you.

Dec. 5, 2011
Prezi   This is a zooming presentation tool.  It is very easy to use. There is a free educators account . A prezi can be saved to a flash drive to be used for presentation in case the network access is not available. 
Ahead  This is a similar presentation tool like Prezi.

Nov. 28, 2011
Live Binder  Organize your resources and place them in a live binder.  Log onto this site and search for some amazing binders that other eductors have created.  Search by topics such as - Education - Daily Five .  This is a great example of information available to help you plan lessons.
BlockPoster  Create any size poster from any size image.  Download an image to your computer and tell the program how many 8 X 11 sheets or sections you would like to use.  Great if you do not have access to a poster maker or want a poster in full color.

Nov. 21, 2011
Newsmap You can see all the stories in major parts of the world.  Stories covered in several countries are given size priority.
Kidsblog  Designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want their students to blog. It is a safe site which allows the teacher to maintain control over the blog. it is free and simple to use.

Nov. 14, 2011
Voki  this site allows students to create an avatar to use for on-line presentations. Students can then record or type their report into this software and their avatar will do the talking for them.  Check out "Dewey"s Book Review" to see an example of our very own library mascot talking about his favorite book.
Text2Speech  is a free online software program which will allow you to type in some text, choose a voice and create an MP3 file to be added to an online avatar.

Nov. 7 2011
Wordle  Create word clouds.  You can change the color, font and layouts. The greater the number of times a word appears in your text the larger the word appears in the Wordle. Great tool for language arts.
Tagxedo  This site is similar to Wordle but it takes the use of words to another level. Students can type in a text assignment.  Students can then upload a simple picture or drawing to support their written text. Taxedo then takes the written words and converts them into a picture.  Talk about visualizing your words! ( Check out this Wake Forest Rolesville HS mascot done in Tagxedo. The text is the school motto. You may have to down load silverlight to your computer to view it.  It is a microsoft program - free )
    http://www.tagxedo.com/artful/3f1d089828d54424 

October 31, 2011
SketchFu  Draw a picture. When the picture loads you see all the penstrokes.
Jeopardy Lab This site generates templates quickly.

October 24, 2011
Flipsnack  This site converts a PDF document into a cool flash page flipping presentation.  Students can create a text and picture for a subject or letter of the alphabet.  Pages can be scanned into the computer files as PDF file amd downloaded into this program to create an online book.  A similar program is Calemeo.
Animoto This site is wonderful to use to create short online summaries of book trailers.  30 second videos are free.  There is an education account teachers can sign into. This site encourages the higher level summary skills.   This sites has an extensive library of photos and music selections available to use to create videos. .  Additional photos and music may be added. 
 

October 17, 2011

 Flockdraw  This site allows you to log in and draw your ideas on a whiteboard.  You do not have to register. Flock draw assigns you a link code.  Others students may then log into the same Flockdraw screen with the initial code and add their ideas to the same whiteboard.  Students can be at different computers ( and in different rooms)  but work on the same math problems at the same time. It is a great tool to encourage and explore the idea of on-line collaboration .  There is some advertising on this site.
Cut My Pic This is a free software tool that lets you quickly re-size, rotate, crop and add a shadow to your pictures.Once you have the picture the way you want you may save it to your computer or e-mail it to a friend.  The best part about this software is the absence of advertisements.