This collection of 10 interesting photos can be used to stimulate students in a variety of ways. For instance, in small groups they can be asked to produce a story based around any 5 of the pictures, in any order, which can then be presented to the class (with the pictures in a multimedia presentation). This is useful to get students working together as a group, using a short time to apply some pressure.
Download the file.
Storybird is a site that allows you to create short, visual stories that you can share on the web. This is a great tool for encouraging creativity through digital storytelling.
Jamendo is a fantastic source for music that students can legally use in their own creative works. Shared under Creative Commons licenses, the site offers a whole range of sounds, much of which is very professional in its composition, performance and production.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/
SurveyMonkey is a free, easy-to-use, online survey tool. Teachers can use this to get feedback from students and parents. Students can use this to obtain raw data for projects. Use this lesson plan to incorporate SurveyMonkey (or any similar too) into a lesson on the collection, analysis and presentation of data.
http://www.lovelycharts.com/
Lovely Charts makes it easy to produce high quality charts and diagrams online. Useful for prototyping websites through wire framing and site maps.
http://sites.google.com/
A tool allowing anyone to build a website in an easy; flexible manner. Integrates well with content from Google/YouTube; but not other sites.
http://wikipedia.org/
A giant; world-wide collaborative encyclopedia . Often criticised because anyone can edit it; but most people miss the point that this is what makes it so great. Shunned as a tool for student research, it does in fact make an excellent starting point, with articles that are usually up-to-date, well researched, accurate and comprehensive. It also provides a great vehicle for students to practice skills of information literacy. Students can be asked to consider questions such as “What is the truth?”, “What is a reliable source?”, “Should we trust what we read?”, “How can we use references to decide if a source is reliable?”. Further, by having students contribute to Wikipedia, they can learn to appreciate their own knowledge, learn to work with others, and value being part of something bigger. I believe there is a nobility behind the Wikipedia concept that many people simply fail to see.
As all of the content on Wikipedia is licensed under a Creative Commons license, it is a great source for text and images that students can edit in the course of their learning and teachers can edit in the course of their teaching. As once example, there are many high quality maps on Wikipedia, which can be freely edited and incorporated into teaching resources.
http://wikispaces.com/
A wiki building tool; available free for educators and students. Excellent for embeding content from other sites. Wikis provide a great platform for teachers and students to work together in the construction, presentation, analysis and dissemination of knowledge.
http://mindmeister.com/
Mind Meister allows users to develop and share mind maps online. Great for brain storming, visualisation, revision, collaboration and description, mind maps are a great tool to promote higher order thinking.
http://getdropbox.com/
Dropbox creates a folder on your computer, which is continuously synchronised with a personal, secure space on the web. The system gives you 2GB of online storage for free, and you can purchase more as required. This is a great way to share files online, either to the public in general, or to a selected audience. The desktop integration makes it extremely quick to use, and the fact that it works on all three major operating systems (Linux, Mac, Windows) means it can be used by all.
If you have ever found it impossible to email a large attachment, Dropbox provides a great solution.
http://storybird.com/