Resources

 [|Folding Stories]

This is a really cool website that allows you to create stories collaboratively. You can sign in and read the stories the others have started and then you can add on to it. When it's done you can look back and see how the story turned out. I think that this would be a great website for students because it allows for so much creativity and freedom. I think that younger students could do it, but it would be great for older students as well. Of course content may or may not be an issue but this just seemed like an interest way to use technology and literacy.

[|Biography Trading Cards]

This is a brief article describing a project that an elementary teacher completed with her students. She had them create trading cards to teach them how to write a biography. It was a hit, and students loved writing about different people and uploading real or illustrated pictures of the person.

[|KidBlogs]

Alright everybody, I am sure you are tired of hearing of new resources to use in your classroom but this one actually works in the classroom and it gives the students the idea of a blog instead of more of a presentation tool (glogster). We are going to use this student and teacher friendly blogging website in order to incorporate the use of blogs in the classroom. This is a great interactive website that is very easy to navigate and understand.

[|Using technology to Write a Biography] This is a website that has a technology tool that helps students prepare to write a biography. It is a tool that organizes their information before they start writing. It is a great interactive tool that helps students with this often boring and mundane task. I think that this helps teachers encourage students to write their own autobiography.

[|Education World] This is an article that discusses the importance of blogging in the classroom. It talks about making learning authentic and meaningful. It talks about how students work better when they have an actual audience. The importance of working on a blog is to encourage students to write more often and more authentically.

[|Fun ways to teach Biographies] this is a great website for teaching biographies. I searched resources on Google in order to think of fun ways to teach biographies and I found this one. I think that this is great to work with the second graders. It incorporates fun ways to learn about the concept of biography. I think that several of these can be incorporated into the Blogging that we are doing in the classroom.

[|Glogster] This is a great interactive website that puts a new spin on Blogging. It is a way to incorporate a fun and creative presentation tool. We are using this tool to work with our second graders and talking from this experience the students are loving it. It is one of the only Blogging tool that we could find that worked with the restrictions at our school.  **100 ways to use Social Media in the classroom:** [] This is an awesome resource for different ways to use social media in the classroom. It gives 100 ways to use social media for a variety of subjects. Some of these ideas include following a famous people such as Obama if students are doing projects on government, making Facebook pages for book characters, using Google Earth and Twitter for geopgraphy, and much more. Almost every idea also has a link that you can click on to see an example of the social media tool in action. This would be a great resource for ideas!!

[] This is a great blogging website for students and teachers. We learned the hard way that Blogger was blocked in the classroom so we turned to this resource. It compares to the other blogging websites but it has more security options for students and teachers. It has online support for teachers if they are having any problems. It is a free resource which is a lot to say when I was looking for other type of blogs that are friendly for both teachers and students. This website blocks other blogs as well as any adult content. It will keep all the students and teachers safe when blogging.
 * Edublogs**

[|http://mashable.com/2010/09/29/social-media-in-school/] This is a great resource that talks about aspects of social media and why you should use it in the classroom. This article has a few resources that can help students stay engaged in the classroom. It talks about different educator friendly blogs such as Edublogs and Kidblog. One of the main purposes of this website is to help teachers understand that social media is not the enemy, it is an ally to education and should be incorporated into the classroom.
 * Using Social Media in the Classroom**

[] This is an example of the impact that social media can have. This is an article that shows how protesters are using social media such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to organize their protests. **Children’s Storybooks Online**
 * Social Media in the News**

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This is a great website to promote literacy in the classroom because it has an extensive library of illustrated children’s literature online. One of the great aspects of this website is that it has different categories for different ages. It is self explanatory so that students can navigate the website themselves. It also has some other activities for children such as riddles, coloring books, jigsaw puzzles and games. It is a great website to promote literacy in their classroom as well as the community.


 * Starfall**

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This website is a great way to incorporate technology in the classroom. It is a very interactive website that is very child friendly. I have seen Kindergarteners use this website and love it. They are able to work on this website independently and it promotes literacy through interactive activities. It has a lot of different levels to help students learn basic literacy skills to more difficult literacy skills. One of the best aspects of this website is that it allows teachers to differentiate instruction and activities. Many of the activities involve different holidays and seasons of the year. I found this website very helpful to promote literacy because it is easy to use and a free resource for teachers, students and parents.


 * Introducing Podcasts into the classroom**

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This is the scholastic website that helps students understand the concept of a Podcast. It has a student friendly explanation of a Podcast and then it has 10 different resources following it to use in the classroom. It has the link to the podcast, the description of the lesson and how it can be used in the classroom. I found this resource helpful because we are going to introduce the whole project to the second graders next week and we needed a resource to help the students better understand the concept of the Podcast. Another great aspect of this website is that all the resources are completely free. The great thing about this resource is that it has different subjects that can be used in the classroom which is very helpful.


 * Using Social Media in the Classroom**

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This article is about using social media in the classroom in the Tampa area. Many teachers and schools are opposed to the idea of using social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter in the classrooms. Most of this is for fear of having contacts with the wrong people which could be dangerous. There were some problems with teachers using Facebook in Hillsborough County; there were some inappropriate relationships so to speak. Hillsburough County has come up with a solution for this problem. They have come up with a tool where you must be invited to join the group; you may only speak to people who are supposed to be in the network. Also, parents can see the entire conversation that reveals the student teacher relationships. This allows for social networking to be a part of the classroom as it has many benefits, but without the dangers that can come along with it.

  