Multimedia

Multimedia Resources

1. Smartboard Resources
   1. Excellent resources for all subjects for grades 6-8 (link) and 10-12 (link)
   2. Check out the Smarboard Exchange where teachers share resources (link)
   3. Wiki containing directory of resources (link)
   4. More Smartboard resources (link)
   5. Special search engines just for Smartboard notebooks (link1) (link2)
   6. Top Diigo users with the most Smartboard tags (link1) (link2) (link3)
2. Create a free professional looking online book (link) only costs money if you have them printed
   1. See sample (link)
   2. Free images and sounds (links)
3. Virtual Fieldtrip
   1. Students can "visit" important places without actually travelling to them. Virtual fieldtrips use a combination of text, audio, video, and 3D simulations to make the trip more interesting than simply reading about the faraway place. Here are two lists of sample virtual fieldtrips (list1, list2).
   2. Students create their own virtual fieldtrip as a project. They need images and historically accurate information. The virtual fieldtrip could be used by subsequent classes or younger grades to provide additional authenticity.
      1. Create a ficticous place based on histocially accurate information and have students design the structures, maps, images and descriptive information.
4. Probability
   1. Use a programming tool to test the probabilities of a games of change like poker or roulette.
      1. Use a programming langauge to program a popular game to run continuously and determine the best strategy. One example would be find the best strategy to win the game of Monopoly.
5. Concept Maps
   1. Provide a visual and flexible way to sketch complex or interrelated concepts
   2. Excellent tool to add relevancy to simpler topics if the map is added to in future grades
6. Voicethread.com
   1. Students create a brief instructional video
   2. Collect observations from a science experiment
   3. Collect opinions about a historical event or leader
   4. Collect opinions about a political cartoon
   5. Collect different potential endings to the same story
   6. Have students comment on a visual prompt using a foreign language
      1. Have students leave comments for a school in another state or country
   7. Here is a list of other creative ways to use Voicethread in the classroom (link)
7. Images
   1. Gigapan.org
      1. Very high resolution photographs for virtual field trips or science.
   2. Give these beautiful images (link) of major cities at night and ask your students to identify them
   3. Potential art project is to show the kids only one half of a picture and have them draw the other half.
      1. Here is an example (link)
8. Google Map & Google Earth
   1. Create a virtual field trip to one or more places and embed relevant videos and images.
   2. Trace the life of a famous person
      1. Plot the lives of two different people and determine to what extent geography influenced their lives
   3. Trace the locations visited by a season of CBS's Amazing Race
      1. or make up your own thematic race
   4. Students create a virtual autobiography of important events and places in their lives
   5. Students create a virtual tour of places they have visited
   6. Teachers have created virtual roadtrips to mirror famous sites in literature. They use Google Earth and with images at major sites (link)
   7. Award winning teacher projects for Google Earth (link) and a contest to build resources for Rome (link)
9. Audio/Video
   1. Use Skype (link) to speak with an expert or students in another state or country
      1. See Skype for Dummies for ideas (link)
      2. Skype with an author to discuss his/her book (link)
      3. Great list of 50 ways to use Skype (link)
      4. See list of other Skype ideas (link)
      5. Find other teachers for a Skype (don't forget to add yourself to the directory)
         1. Skype in the classroom wiki (link)
         2. Skype in Schools wiki (link)
         3. Skype for Educators (link)
         4. The Mixxer is a free database of teacher loking for foreign language partners (link)
   2. Here are 75 ways to use Youtube in your class (link)
   3. Have students listen or watch audio or video from a radio station or tv channel from a foreign country
   4. Have students read a newspaper or magazine from a foreign country
   5. Have students view one of the millions of webcams (link) from around the world and describe what they see in a foerign language
   6. Have students explore a very interesting website and have them describe what they see in a foreign labguage. An example is the NASA satellite of Earth at night (link)
   7. Have the students listen to a popular song and translate the words
      1. work with a class in another region or country to discuss the meaning
      2. could lead to cultural discussion if exact translation is not possible (why?)
   8. Sample video websites include:
      1. Animoto.com
      2. Shwup.com
      3. Mixbook.com
      4. Xtranormal.com
      5. The Hero Factory (link)
      6. BigHugeLabs.com has lots of cool photo tools and uses photos from Flickr.com. Bookr.com also uses photos from Flickr.com
   9. Visit the iTunes music store for free podcasts for download
      1. other websites for podcasts
         1. PodcastAlley
         2. Podcastpickle
         3. LeanoutLoud
   10. Write and perform a song about a concept in math or history. The possibilities are endless.
       1. See this website for a rap about the U.S. Constitution (link)
   11. Publish your own podcast
       1. role-play
       2. real interviews
       3. mock historical interviews
       4. foreign language exercises
       5. field trip preview/reflection
       6. Go and watch an archived video/screencam of an online presentation at Classroom2.0 (link)
10. Cell Phone
    1. text directions to students who don't usually follow them
    2. text questions to students and have them respond as a homemade Interactive Response System