Wednesday Web v.2

Google Search Options

2010-06-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

When we’ve got a question or need information quickly most of us turn to Google first. It’s quick, easy and (usually) reliable. There are some great features that Google has available beyond the basic search.

Don’t discount the regular features available on Google’s Search site. After putting in a term and clicking “search” your results page appears. Along the left side (or under the show/hide feature) there is the “Wonder Wheel” option. Selecting this will take your topic (in this example "baseball") and create a web with related terms like this:

If you click “Timeline” a searchable timeline of your topic appears.

http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/29542

This blog gives detailed information about Google Books, Google Blog Search, Google Scholar, and Google Patent Search.

Google Search Poster
http://springfieldlibrary.wikispaces.com/Google+Search+Options

This is an awesome Glog poster that was created with quick links to many of Google’s search options

Google Squared
I love Google Squared! This application takes the topic of your choice and places it in a matrix with various fields for easy comparison. You can add or delete columns and even start with a blank square. It is a great way for students to gain information that is meant to be compared. You can export the square or share it as well.

Google News Timeline
(from their site:) Google News Timeline is a web application that organizes search results chronologically. It allows users to view news and other data sources on a browsable, graphical timeline. Available data sources include recent and historical news, scanned newspapers and magazines, blog posts, sports scores, and information about various types of media, like music albums and movies.

This page will give you more information on how to use Google News Timeline.

Google Fast Flip
Google Fast Flip allows you to quickly “flip” through newspapers and magazine. There are general categories to choose from: popular, recent, controversial, and headlines. You can follow specific topics as well. An iphone app is available for mobile ‘fliping’.

More information on Google Flip

Google Alerts
Google can send you updates of their latest results based on your topic. You can select the topic and decide what type of information you want sent to you (news/blogs/discussions/etc) and how many results you would like, whether it’s as it happens, daily, or weekly.

Here’s a great Google for Teacher’s guide

This is a great slideshow that will give you more information on Google Tools for Schools

Google Tools for Schools

View more presentations from pollyalida.

More Google Options

Common Sense Media

2010-05-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

Normally the Wednesday Web provides resources for educators based around a central theme. There are multiple websites mentioned in one location. Today’s WW focuses on one website that stands out and is worthy of its own post.

Common Sense Media

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/

Common Sense Media is an organization dedicated to helping families and educators obtain trustworthy information and education around today’s media and technology. Founded in 2003 this non-partisan, non-profit organization strives to make sure parents are the primary influence in their kids’ lives; not the media.

Their website provides statistics, research, and recommendations within separate sections for parents and educators. Below is a general overview of what can be found on the website. Each review is based upon “child development principles” and has an “age” icon attached to the image so you can quickly see if it is age appropriate before investigating further.

Movies:

Common Sense Media has reviews broken down according to media type: movies, games, websites, TV, books, and music. Furthermore reviews can be arranged in subcategories by age. When looking at movies, they provide a review of each movie by a star system and age recommendation. There is a full review, as well as a way to filter the movie reviews: show movies rated ‘on’, show movies rated ‘iffy’, and show movies rated ‘off’. You can sort by genre, see recommended movie lists, or find movies by title.

Games:

This section is laid out just as the movie section is; with filters for age, recommendations by Common Sense, parents, and kids. There are reviews on all your major gaming systems: Wii, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo DS, etc.

Websites:

Online games are a big source of frustration for educators these days. CSM has great lists available to help navigate this sea of sites including social networking sites that are safe, homework helpers, and online game sites. Browse by website type for easier navigation including virtual worlds, gaming, video sites, and music to name a few.

TV:

I love their TV list! CSM recommends not only current shows such as Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, but includes throwback shows such as the West Wing and (believe it or not) Pee Wee Herman’s Playhouse!

Books and Music:

Like the other sections, there are multiple lists and genres to sort through. Since we are close to June there is a great section titled “Books to Share with Dads”.

Just as with the review section, this is an easy way to find out what Common Sense Media does and does not recommend. The nice part about this section is all media is on one page for review. As of this post there were 3,670 reviews for movies alone.

This section also contains cross references to the Educator’s section. There are numerous articles of interest, such as “Is 3D ok for kids?” There is a “Dilemma of the Week” feature as well as an area for Community Discussions.

Educators can sign up for free accounts with Common Sense Media. With these accounts comes a place for you to add your personal family information. While this information stays private, CSM will create recommendations for you based on the ages of your children. You can also sign up for weekly tip emails or monthly eNewsletters. You can also register your school. Resources are available here to conduct online training, give student and parent surveys and includes grade by grade guides to what media is like at this age, where children are developmentally at this grade level, media challenges at this grade level, and parent education topics. There are even research papers on a number of topics available.

Read the mission of Common Sense Media here. You can read biographies from the reviewers as well as the company leaders. Information about donating to CSM is available, as well as FAQs and job opportunities.

Literacy Websites

2010-05-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

Wednesday May 19th is Literacy Night at May Community Academy. I'll be presenting on literacy websites that can be used with students. Here's a sampling...
Abcya.com
Abcya has educational computer games for all subjects for students in grades k-5.

Starfall
A favorite of educators of primary students. Starfall is a site designed to help students learn to read or to improve if they are struggling with literacy. It is one of the best primary literacy sites out there!

Spelling City
Spelling City is a great resource for students, teachers, and parents. There are hundreds of spelling lists already created for students to practice with. The site includes games for preschool students, word game puzzles, and plenty of additional resources to utilize.

Tikatok
Tikatok is a place where students can write and illustrate their own stories. It is free to have an account (if you are 13 or older). If you want to publish your story you can order it in hardcover, paperback or eBook (pdf) format for an additional cost.

Skillswise
Skillswise is a website out of the UK that has tons of activities centered around literacy (and additional subjects). There are a large number of word games available as well as separate activities for grammar, spelling, reading, writing, listening, and vocabulary.

StoryPlace
StoryPlace is a children’s digital library available in English or Spanish. The site contains on-line stories, on-line activities, take home activities, and reading lists. It is geared toward preschool and early elementary students.

KS1 Bitesize
Another website out of the UK. There are interactive games on topics such as rhyming words, alphabetical order, synonyms, and more.

Words and Pictures
Compliments Bitesize games.

Alphabetical Order
Alphabetical Order is a super simple site where students get six words that need to be placed in alphabetical order.

Spin and Spell
This game can be played alone or with a partner. Very cute interface where students choose pictures to spell from categories such as clothes, food, animals, transportation and household objects. Meant for younger students.

Roy: Tale of a Singing Zebra
Meant for students just beginning to develop their reading skills, Roy’s site has interactive games where students can practice phonics, punctuation, phonics, and more.

Reader’s Theatre Scripts
Looking for some plays to read? Check out these sites!

http://www.readerstheatre.ecsd.net/
http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/index.html

Character Scrapbook
This is a fun site by Scholastic. Students can create scrapbook pages for a character by category. Students have to tell 10 things they know about the character, adjectives, challenges, etc.

Storyline Online
This site features stories read by actors. There are videos to accompany the stories as well as activities for each. There are approximately 25 stories to choose from. Make sure to click on “more stories” to see them all.

Book Adventure
This site is operated by Sylvan Learning. It contains access to over 7,000 titles so kids can create their own reading lists. There are teacher guides available as well as multiple choice quizzes for when students finish reading.

Inkless Tales
This site started out as a reading/writing site. Now it contains activities for all subject areas. One of the cool activities is the “make a word” activity where students can make smaller words out of a big word. There are also stories, poems, and additional games available.

Lanternfish
Designed for ESL students, this site contains Microsoft Word templates for various literacy activities. They can be downloaded and used in centers

Google Docs

2010-05-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

Google Docs is an outstanding web-based application. It is similar to Microsoft Office (docs/spreadsheets/presentations/drawings/and forms-including surveys). It is by far one of my favorite applications available to educators today. This Wednesday Web provides a list of resources to become familiar with Google Docs so you can see how it can be used in your classroom.

Advantages of Google Docs:

*It's free
*Documents are stored off-line (i.e. cloud computing) so you can access them anywhere
*Google Docs can be embedded into Blogs and Wikis. When you make changes to these documents they are automatically updated: no need to upload a new version
*Collaborate with colleagues on the same document at the same time as opposed to sending “versions” of work through email
*Upload any file to Google Docs
*Google Forms allows you to create a survey and send it for people to take. As each response comes in Google Docs creates instant charts and graphs of your data

YouTube site that has video on Google Docs. (There are 1, 130 videos tagged with “Google”)

Take a Tour to learn what you can do with Google Docs

Templates
Thousands of templates are available and ready for you to use. Some of the templates available for educators and students include survey templates, school calendars, vocabulary units, and research papers. You can sort the templates by type (spreadsheets, docs, etc.) or by category

Here’s a Google Docs online college course…

Google Docs Support Site is fantastic Google for Educators
Google for Educators has information regarding how Google Docs is used in classrooms. It also includes more tutorial information about the features of this application

24 Interesting Ways to use Google Docs in your classroom
http://www.ideastoinspire.co.uk/googledocs.htm

Creating and Using Google Forms

View more presentations from WCET.

Promoting Creativity and Collaboration in Your Classroom with Google Docs

View more presentations from scyuen.

National Poetry Month

2010-04-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

April is National Poetry Month. Hopefully many of you have been hitting poetry all year long. There is so much to explore within this genre! I rememeber even having my students recite math poems as well. For those of you that are looking for new resources or just getting started, check out the following.

The Writing Site (which will soon close due to lack of funding) has fantastic resources all compiled for you:

Poetry Resources
Technology Tips for Poetry
Poetry in the Classroom Featured Articles
Poetry Writing Activities and Prompts

Poets.Org
Poets.org has all your poetry needs!

Scholastic
Scholastic’s Poetry resources includes information from some of the more familiar poets used in elementary schools

Teachervision
National Poetry Month Podcasts

Quizlet
Quizlet contained 2,681 flashcard sets on poetry at the time of this post!

Last Year’s Wednesday Web Entry on Poetry

Earth Day 2010

2010-04-14T10:34:00.000-07:00

Earth day is April 22, 2010. This year is the 40th anniversary of this holiday, with many activities taking place the weekend before and the weekend after. Never too early to go green! Be sure to get your students involved!

Earth Day. Org
Earth Day's Homepage

Apples for the Teacher’s Earth Day

This site has some really nice resources for Earth Day, including background information, articles, and printable poems (this is poetry month, after all!)

Kaboose

Kaboose offers some nice projects to support Earth Day as well as offering games and ideas for going green at home. Check out the coffee ground fossils activity!

Earth Day Events in Chicago

Check out what’s happening around town!

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2765668/earth_day_2010chicago_events.html?cat=57

http://www.brookfieldzoo.org/czs/Brookfield/Events/Party-for-the-Planet-(2).aspx

http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/general/search_results.html?keyword=earth+day

Earth Day TV

Videos range from 2 minutes to one hour in length and are free to view. On the “In the Classroom” page there is a 2 minute video for primary students told by “Polly Bear” explaining what Earth Day is. There is also a documentary on how playgrounds and natural habitats are changing around the world and another about a school in Denver that went green.

Earth Hour 2010

2010-03-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

This Saturday March 27, 2010 at 8:30 P.M. the world will celebrate “Earth Hour”. During this short time millions of people around the world will turn off all of their lights for 1 hour to take a stand against climate change. Please show your support by joining in.

Official Earth Hour Website

Earth Hour Historical Timeline

Earth Hour FAQs

Earth Hour Kids
Clicking on the tiger will take you to lesson plans that are grade level specific for Earth Hour. There is also a link to a video on Earth Hour. Kids can play games and learn more about the cause as well.

Illinois Participates in Earth Hour

Climate Change Education

A Toolkit to Support Schools

Earth Hour Videos

The second video has a light switch. Click on the light switch as the video is playing- it will change the scene. Incredibly cool!!!

Last Year’s Wednesday Web Earth Hour Entry

Comic Life

2010-03-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

This week I attended a training session on Plasq’s Comic Life program. This is a super easy way for students (or teachers!) to create comics in their classrooms. Teachers can create comics to introduce a topic to students. Students can create comics to demonstrate knowledge of a concept, or even to introduce themselves! There are endless possibilities. May will receive Comic Life within the next month or so. At that time I’ll hold a professional development session on using Comic Life in your classroom. Until then, take a look at some of the great sites I’ve compiled to help you become familiar with the program.

Comic Life in Education This site offers a good background into how Comic Life can be used in your classroom. The “examples” tab offers a few templates to get you started

How to Use Comic Life in your ClassroomThis site is good for providing you with an overview of the program as well as showing the interface and what is available

Awesome site from a teacher in Arlington Heights with Links to sites that show comics in the classroom, examples, manuals and tutorials

ConnexionsThis site gives a short explanation of using Comic Life and provides some examples

An Awesome Comic Life Wiki: http://celia.wikispaces.com/Comic+Life

Some great school examples: http://comic-life.wikispaces.com/Schools

Here’s a Comic Rubric:
http://www.humblecomics.com/comicsedu/resources/rubric.doc

A pdf Comic Life Manual

Digital Research

2010-03-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

This week’s Wednesday Web is a summary of a blog posting by Elizabeth Helfant. She has done an excellent job of gathering the resources below as they relate to digital research. For descriptions of each website be sure to read her original article

http://www.guide2digitallearning.com/blog_elizabeth_helfant/digital_research

Brainstorming/Concept Maps

Bubbl.us

Xmind

Webspiration

Searching

Cuil

Clusty

Wolfram Alpha
I’ve mentioned this one for math in other WW blog posts

Note Taking

Quipit

Zoho Notebook

Citation Tools

Noodletools

Easybib

Ottobib

Illinois Education Technology Conference

2010-03-05T10:59:00.001-08:00

Last week I attended a technology workshop in St. Charles hosted by ICE. ICE stands for Illinois Computing Educators. Membership is open to all Illinois educators, not just technology teachers. The Chicago Public Schools Chapter is “ICE CAP”. The above link will provide you with more information on the organization.

This week’s Wednesday Web focuses on websites that stood out in the workshops I attended. Additionally, my notes are below. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions about any of them.

The Official ICE wiki. This has all the links from the conference and handouts.

Tutor.com
An on-line tutoring program. What made this site significant is that it offers free on-line tutoring services to any military families. If you happen to know of anyone in the military with kids, be sure to direct them to this site.

Skype in the Classroom

If anyone is interested in Skyping with another classroom please take a look at this site. I would be happy to help you get this going.

ShareTabs

Sharetabs is a great organization tool if you have multiple sites to share with someone. Enter the URLs of the sites you would like to share and press “Tabify”. Sharetabs takes all of the sites and creates a screenshot of each site on the homepage (with active links). It then goes on to open each page in its own separate tab for easy access. Weblists is a similar application

Wallwisher

Wallwisher is a notes site. You can create a wall in which your students can leave post its with images, links, or media. The Google Doc here shows some awesome ways to apply this in your classroom.

This is a Google Doc that shows 16 ways to use Wallwisher in your classroom

LiveBinders

LiveBinders is a site similar to Sharetabs and Weblist. You can create online “binders” which are websites that are grouped anyway you desire. They can even be embedded in blogs.

Google Apps

This was a great presentation about the practical use of Google Apps in the classroom. Take a look to get some ideas.

Learn NC

2010-02-11T10:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.learnnc.org/

This week for a graduate class assignment I had to research and evaluate students’ use of technology tools. During my research I came across Learn NC. Learn NC is part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Education. They have an excellent website that houses thousands of resources for the k-12 educator. Included in their site are lesson plans, best practices, learning materials, reference, field trips, multimedia, and the best of the web. I was so impressed with the site that I chose to make it part of the Wednesday Web. Below is a quick summary of what is available at each link.

Lesson Plans
While the focus of these lessons are the North Carolina state standards there are many that parallel our own. Search by grade, subject, or curriculum goal.

Best Practices
The best practices page will allow you to choose from a tag cloud. A tag cloud is simply a list of labels that were placed on each resources. Words that are larger than others contain more links.

Learning Materials
From their site: learning materials include text and multimedia on all areas of the curriculum. Students can use them independently or as part of an in-class lesson, and teachers can use them to supplement or replace a traditional textbook.

Reference
An educational reference dictionary. In some instances there are links or resources.

Field Trips
State specific to North Carolina, but the field trips link to lesson plans and resources that can be used in conjunction with the field trip. You may be able to find something relevant to your class.

Multimedia
Multimedia slide shows and links to various topics in a tag cloud. For example, find 90 different resources (images, maps, and video) on the Civil War.

Best of the Web
Over 3,000 websites in one location

Black History Month

2010-02-04T07:58:00.000-08:00

Teacher Vision

Teacher Vision has a wealth of resources including slideshows, quizzes, and all things black history month for all grade levels.

Education World

Education World has an awesome activity where students can create a calendar for the school year with African American facts for each day. Great group project- easy to turn into a wiki!

Bio-Poems

Here’s directions for writing a bio-poem. When I was a 4th grade teacher I would have my students type these up, take their picture, and create a classroom book of African American Poets.

African American Inventors
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/inventors/
http://inventors.about.com/od/blackinventors/a/black_inventors.htm
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/black.shtml

Virtual Field Trips

2010-01-27T10:11:00.000-08:00

Bring new experiences to your students without leaving your classroom!

Smithsonian National Zoo

The Smithsonian National Zoo features 21 different web cams, featuring all different animals. They also have a section at the top to help you if you are new to viewing web cams.

San Diego Zoo

Across the country at San Diego’s zoo there are web cams available for pandas, polar bears, elephants and apes. You can also access additional videos and podcasts.

Egyptian Pyramid Web Cam

Studying about Egypt? Check out the pyramid cam! Not much going on, but if you look at the archived images and movies I’m told there are some pretty sunsets.

Monterey Bay

Monterey Bay features seven aquatic cams.

Here’s a cool list of various other web cams http://its.leesummit.k12.mo.us/webcams.htm

Lesson Planet

Lesson Planet has 98 webcam lesson plans

eField Trips

eField Trips has 4 main components: a trip journal which is a worksheet you print out to help your students during the experience, the virtual visit itself, ask an expert, and live chat. They have a short video that will demonstrate for you how to access all of the components.

4-H Virtual Farm

Give your students a chance to see life on a farm!

History Wired

From their website: HistoryWired: A few of our favorite things is an experimental program through which you can take a virtual tour of selected objects from the vast collections of the National Museum of American History. Here you'll have an opportunity to look at hundreds of museum artifacts, most of which are not currently on exhibit.

Presentations Beyond Power Point

2010-01-23T17:15:00.000-08:00

Powerpoint is a great tool. It’s easy to use, allows for (some) individuality, and can be found on most computer desktops whether mac or pc. While most of the students I’ve seen work with Powerpoint do so with ease I tend to find that most of the presentations come out basically looking the same. Which gets boring. This week’s Wednesday Web features Web 2.0 applications that can be used in place of Powerpoint. Some of these have made their way onto various Wednesday Web posts already; hopefully you’ll begin to see how applicable they can be in your classroom, no matter what the subject is.
Coincidently, I’ve created a “kid-friendly” handout with brief explanations of each application for students. If you are interested, let me know.

Start with some brainstorming....

Bubbl.us

This on-line concept map is a great way to get students organized.

Brinkpad

BrinkPad is a web application that brings a desktop experience to the web. The application allows you to create presentations / slide shows / drawings with easy to use web delivered software. Haven’t used it yet with students so I’m not so sure about it, but it’s an option.

Glogster

A Glog is a kind of poster - fully designed by you! A Glog is a fancy creation from text, images, music and video. It can be embeded in blogs or wikis (or you can print it out). The education page has a free teacher’s guide that can be downloaded and has a ton of educational resources and tutorials. I’ve created glogs for workshops and embedded them into wikis before. I even know of a school that had their kids create “prevent cyberbullying” glogs and post them in a wiki.

Blabberize

Blabberize is one of my favorites. It’s simple and fun. You upload a picture, cut out the mouth of the person in the picture, then record your own voice to make the picture talk. You can create more than one and stitch them together to give the appearance of people talking to each other . I’ve created examples where a person gives a short autobiography of their life, and others where animals talk (the one I created was about a turkey persuading people not to eat him).

Animoto

Animoto generates video slideshows. Simple to use: upload images, select music, and “go”. Anyone can create a 30 second slideshow for free. If you would like to create anything longer you can pay $30 for unlimited use for a year or $3 per video. Educators can get a free “all access” pass for 6 months by applying, but it takes a few weeks for Animoto to get around to this. I’ve seen teachers have their students create book trailers for novels. You can add text slides but are limited to 30 characters total- this can be good, forcing the students to have to really plan out what text to display. Here's an example of one I did as a thank you for the recent notebook donation.

Xtranormal

This is a super cool site. I’ve seen it used, but haven’t tried it yet with students at my school. With Xtranormal you type in text, choose avatars and a movie becomes generated of the conversation.

Wordle

If you read the Wednesday Web you know I love Wordle. Wordle creates tag clouds of words. Students might choose to create a Wordle as a summary. If you complete a unit project where you are looking for a reflective wrap up of a unit, consider having the students generate Wordles then come up and have the other students infer what they were trying to get across.

Voicethread

From their website: A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate pages and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too. There is also an educator’s guide available at http://ed.voicethread.com/help/manuals/. Use this site to have students who work on collaborative projects give commentary on the project.

Tikatok

I'm still learning about Tikatok (and finding that their customer service is slow to respond to inquiries). Tikatok allows students to create books on-line. They can scan in their own drawings and type out the text. E-books (pdf files) can be purchased for $2.99 and soft and hardcover books can be purchased for additional fees.

My Plick

From their website: Myplick is a free service that lets you share, embed and discover presentations and slide shows online. You can upload your presentation documents in a variety of formats such as powerpoint, pdf, openoffice odp, etc. If you need to add narration or sound effect to your presentation, you can upload an audio file and have the option to synchronize the audio with your slides using our online easy-to-use sync tool. Once a presentation is made, you will have the choice to either publicly share with everyone or only share it within a small private group. You will also be able to find out how users are viewing your plick, for example, how much time people stayed on each slide. User feedbacks and statistics like this will help you to improve your presentation making skills. This might be good for those students who don’t want to give up Powerpoint just yet.

Photostory

Photostory 3 is a free download from Microsoft. With it you can create presentations with special effects, audio and commentary. For those of you with pcs, you also have Windows Movie Maker already installed on your systems. Here’s a great guide for Photostory: http://eduscapes.com/sessions/powerpoint/photostorydirections.pdf

For those of you who just can’t let go of Powerpoint, Annette Lamb has created some awesome resources called “Powerpoint sidekicks”. She’s got some great project ideas as well.

http://eduscapes.com/sessions/powerpoint/index.htm

Alternatives to YouTube

2010-01-13T12:06:00.000-08:00

As our students continue to become technologically savvy it is our job as educators to adapt to these new learning styles. The use of digital media, particularly video, is beginning to expand. Most of us are familiar with (and use) YouTube as one of our “primary” sources of video. While there can be some whacked out content on the site, it is also full of rich, educational material that many teachers feel is helpful to our students. YouTube, as of this post, is still a blocked site in the Chicago Public School system (as many of you have been rudely awakened by the CPS alarm when you visit a blocked site!). There have been discussions to “unblock” the site, or to set permissions for teachers to access it within the network. Until that happens we need to work around the system.

This week’s Wednesday Web will help you with that. The post lists alternatives to YouTube, in the form of file converters and alternative video sites. If you happen to know of a site not listed, please share!

Also, a little bit of YouTube trivia....
*YouTube was launched in December 2005
*Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim (the founders) are alumni of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
*They sold YouTube to Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock

Download Helper (for Firefox) (for Internet Explorer)

There are two versions of Download Helper that I am aware of. One is a Firefox extention, the other is for Internet Explorer. Both are equally cool. After downloading the software an icon sits on your taskbar or toolbar (which can be enabled or disabled easily). When you are outside of the CPS network and you find a YouTube video you would like to use, you can convert it with the click of a button (or in the case of I.E., an arrow). A menu will appear asking you if you want to convert the file.

Zamzar

Zamzar is another free online file converter in Beta (trial version). With its free account you can convert up to 100 MB files. Zamzar does the conversion and emails you a link to the new file extension.

YouTube Downloader

From their site: YouTube Downloader is software that allows you to download videos from YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and many others and convert them to other video formats. The program is easy to use, just specify the URL for the video you want to download and click the Ok button! It also allows you to convert downloaded videos for Ipod, Iphone, PSP, Cell Phone, Windows Media, XVid and MP3.

Kick YouTube

Quite clever, Kick YouTube can only be used outside the CPS network. Here’s how it works: locate a YouTube video to watch. When you do you will see a URL similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGoeLU0oKU8
In order to access the Kick YouTube file converter simply put the actual word “kick” in the URL address right before the word “youtube” like this:
http://kickyoutube.com/watch/?v=gGoeLU0oKU8 and hit “go” or enter. You will see your video with a bar along the top. Simply choose the file format you desire and press “go” at the end of the tool bar. Kick YouTube will also have a suggested list of additional videos along the right side.

KeepVid

This site contains a “bookmarklet” that you drag onto your toolbar. When you are watching a video you like and want to keep it you click on the “Keep it!” bookmarklet and the video will be downloaded as a .flv file (flash video files).

VidGrab

This video downloading site allows you to not only download videos, but to burn them to dvds as well. It also contains a link to a .flv player if you need one

Download YouTube Videos

Another one…this one not only contains a link to a .flv player, but has a file converter to convert it to a different file format should you desire to do so.

Format Factory

Format Factory contains links to additional file converters, some free downloads, some paid programs. I haven’t tested any of these, so before downloading anything I recommend you go to CNet and look them up…. http://www.cnet.com/

TeacherTube

Teachertube is a free media sharing site where teachers can post or grab videos for their students. Check it out, it contains videos appropriate for all grade levels. If you register Teachertube will send you an email alert when new content is posted.

SchoolTube

Schooltube is a free media sharing site, where many of the videos are created by students. Teachers can set up private “channels” to house their student videos, making them public or private.

Kideos

As its name implies, Kideos is a website that houses videos for kids, in this case to the age of 10. Each video is screened by their advisory board for content, so it is possible to have your students (or other young children) safely watch videos from this site. If you register (free) you can customize your list, as well as block any videos that come from YouTube.

Vimeo

Vimeo is a site that allows you space to upload videos that you’ve made (you cannot upload videos by others). You can also view other people’s collections. Think about having your students create short videos to teach something or show off!

Viddler

Viddler is yet another home to published videos. Upload and share your own, or view others.

Faculty Lesson Plan Blogs

2010-01-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

Here at May Community Academy we have some awesome blogging going on! Three of our teachers are blogging their lesson plans instead of using the standard lesson plan template. Benefits/goals of doing this:

1. to allow students to get a jump on what will be taught the following week
2. to receive website resources from me that students can then visit as refreshers or supplemental activities
3. to promote a sense of "classroom community and pride" as students, faculty, parents, and any other interested parties comment on the blogs
4. to become more digitally literate, enhancing students' & teachers' 21st century skills
5. to become a repository of "best practice" lessons, suggestions, and resources as teachers begin to share with each other
6. to showcase student work

I invite you to look through these 3 great examples, and consider trying this yourself! I'm sure all of the teachers would love to see comments about their work from someone other than me, so if you have a website, a lesson, or just want to say "nice job" please comment...and don't forget to comment on the Wednesday Web as well :)

Ms. Woods http://woods211.blogspot.com

Mr. Hetrick http://may202hetrickplans.blogspot.com

Mr. Wilson http://305science.blogspot.com/

Digital Storytelling

2009-12-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

About a week ago I lead the final session for my Chicago Foundation for Education Study Group, "The Web 2.0 Classroom". Our final topic was digital storytelling. Digital Storytelling projects can range from incredibly simplistic to overly extensive. Depends on the purpose, depends on the teacher. The following are exerpts from the resources I provided to my group. You can see the complete list of resources I presented to them at .

What is Digital Storytelling?

Using computer-based multimedia tools to tell a story

Multimedia features:

· Narration (recorded audio)

· Sound

· Still images (sometimes video)

· Text

· Short (most between 2-5 minutes long)

Possible Topics:

· Personal narrative (relationships, memorials, adventures, accomplishments, special places, hobbies, profession, recovery, love stories, discovery)

· PSA

· Point of View of an object

· Recall of historical events

· Book Trailer

How to Start:

1.(a)a topic you are already exploring (b) brainstorm- give them ideas- *there should be a theme

Ex: the things they carried…the things you carry

Ex: story told from the p.o.v. of an object

2. write about it

3. storyboard it

4. find resources for it

5. write your script

6. record your script

7. put it all together

8. show it off!

Resources:

Blabberize

Example #1

Example #2

Animoto

Glogster

Example using animoto and glog

My Plick

Plick Example

Voicethread

TV Products

Illinois Education Technology Conference

2009-11-25T12:27:00.000-08:00

During the week of November 16th I had a chance to attend the Illinois Educators Technology Conference in Springfield. This two day conference had sessions on all things technology. Many sessions were presented by classroom teachers or retired teachers sharing best practices. Below are some of the websites that stood out.
Also included are the notes that I took from the 9 sessions I attended. Have a look. If you have any questions about my chicken scratch notes, be sure to let me know.

IETC Ning

A “ning” is a social network. Basically, a place for members to collaborate together (similar to our District Wide and School Wide Areas within First Class). If you clicked on “Thursday Sessions” or “Friday Sessions” you would be taken to descriptions of the sessions. Many sessions have links to handouts or presentations. If you come across any topics or ideas that peak your interest and want to get more information on them let me know.

TagCrowd

TagCrowd is the same concept as Wordle. It is a visual way to represent any text. The difference between this application and Wordle begins with TagCrowd giving you html code to embed your word cloud into a blog/wiki/webpage, etc. It also allows you to select a website, upload a word text document, or put in your own text. You can also set a maximum amount of words to show. A cool application of word clouds that I heard about involved using Wordle to compare one of President Obama’s speeches with the New York Times’ news article about the speech. Putting both into Wordle allowed the students to quickly see which words Obama brought up multiple times and the same with the Times. It showed the students how the newspaper focused on specifics in the speech that Obama may have only mentioned once or twice…
Following is a TagCrowd word cloud that I generated using the opening paragraph to this week's blog:

created at TagCrowd.com

Creative Powerpoint Projects

Roberta Thomas had a great poster session, where she brought examples of creative powerpoint projects she’s completed with her 4th grade classroom. Click on the above link to see her slide show. The link here will take you to some of the powerpoint project templates.

42Explore

4 to Explore is a directory of websites to visit based on specific topics. There are more than 4 resources for just about all topics listed, but the name was catchy…..browse through the list and see if you find something relevant.

Blog and Wiki Experience: how does life impact learning?

I feel like I’ve beat the “blog/wiki” horse to death, but Danielle Brush Lewis has a great pdf on her site about ideas for blogs and wikis. Maybe this time one will stand out to you……

Truger TechTalk

Ann Truger keeps a wiki with tons of links to various web resources, such as “fun with digital images”, and “Fun with Google”. Some of her other areas aren’t active yet, however.

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine like Google. It is a “computational knowledge engine”. You can put in any mathematical question and it will not only give you the results but will in some instances give you steps as well. Put in a date or a name and see tons of information on it. Anyone who talked about this site raved about it! Check it out…

Finally…here’s a short video made by a second grader at the conference!

Find more videos like this on Illinois Education and Technology Conference

My notes.....

Veterans Day 2009

2009-11-04T08:19:00.000-08:00

This year Veterans Day falls on Wednesday November 11, 2009. Many students look at this as a nice break during the school week. Take it a step further and teach them the rationale behind this school holiday. Go even more indepth: create a "School Holidays" wiki where your students research different school holidays. Use the resources below to get started...

Teach-nology

Teach-nology has crafts, resources, vocabulary builders, and lesson plans to help you plan your activities for Veteran’s Day.

Education World

Lessons on Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day

Teacher Planet

Teacher Planet breaks down lessons and units by grade. They also have songs, poems, and word searches as well as a Veteran’s Day teaching guide

About.Com

About.com’s Veteran’s Day suggestions

Reach Every Child

Reach Every Child has some excellent resources. They have a link to activities that can be used to teach about Patriotism as well

Teacher Tube Video

A 6 minute video tribute to honor those who have served

Link to Additional Videos

This links to a TeacherTube video playlist of videos created for Veteran’s Day

Current Events

2009-10-28T09:21:00.000-07:00

The Week in Rap

The week in rap is an excellent short video segment that wraps up a week’s worth of news in a music video format. New raps are posted each Friday. Shout out to Mr. Wilson who had this site posted in his classroom blog.

The New York Times

The New York Times’ education blog contains a featured topic each week, lesson plans, a “this day in history” and “word of the day” segment. Student handouts and teacher planning sheets are included as well.

Time for Kids

There are two parts to this current event site. Explore the teacher’s site in the link above for lessons that are divided by grade levels. Many include worksheets, mini-lessons, and graphic organizers. If you visit the kid’s site http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/news you can read the cover stories on-line. It is available on the web without a subscription.

Newseum

Newseum is one of my favorite new sites. It provides not only current events but excellent examples of point of view. As of this post, there were 799 front pages from 76 countries. Students can see the front pages of newspapers from around the world. If anyone uses this site I would love to know how it goes.

Newsmap

Similar to Newseum, Newsmap provides a summary of current events around the world. On this site, however, small boxes with only the headlines appear, so students can quickly infer what the world is focusing on. Near the bottom right of the page you can see how to filter the news as well as the legend for the color coded boxes. Rolling the mouse over a headline will provide a pop up box that gives a summary of the headline as well as the publishing newspaper. Excellent visual.

News for You

Education World selects articles for you based on what they believe the students would be interested in reading. Clicking on each article gives you a full lesson plan with appropriate grade levels and suggestions to activities to use with your students.

Global Broadcast for Kids

Global Broadcast for Kids is a site designed by kids for kids. It contains short newscasts on current events, entertainment, book reviews and more.

Dogo News

Dogo, meaning “young” in Swahili, is a website with current events geared toward students ages 5-10. The passages are short, but seem to be geared more toward 8-10 year olds as opposed to younger students. Take a look and decide for yourself!

Kids Learn Out Loud

Kids Learn Out loud is a site full of podcasts and videos if your students are auditory learners.

Interactive Math Sites

2009-10-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

Math Resources for interactive white boards (ActivBoards/Smartboards)

This Kentucky School District put together a list of math resources for their teachers to use with their SmartBoards. While you can download a SmartBoard viewer to use the resources, you don’t need any software to use their interactive on-line math links. The list is correlated to Kentucky’s state standards but also gives you the grade level and a description of each site.

A Maths Dictionary

This site is an interactive math dictionary! It provides animations, definitions, examples, calculators, and more for over 600 mathematical terms. It’s a great resource to add to your list for your students.

Illuminations

Illuminations contains 104 on-line activities for your students to support math. They are separated by grade level for easy searching.

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

Interactive Activities

This site has over 100 interactive activities and meant for 3rd grade and up

The Math Playground

Tons of math games and logic games. Meant for kindergarten through seventh grade.

Money

An interactive money site

Teacher Tube

Teacher Tube doesn’t just provide videos- they also have Word documents. This site will give you access to Word files of Math Wars, Math Rummy, and a Living Bar Graph.

Halloween 2009

2009-10-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

Some quick websites for you centered around Halloween. Wanted to get them out early so you had a chance to look through them. Happy Haunting!

Halloween Printable Activities

Free Halloween Crafts

Check out this blog on suggestions for books for read alouds for younger students

This PDF file is a Reader's Theatre script for 6 students

Here's a video of the "Night of the Headless Horseman". Its 49 minutes long, and I haven't watched it yet, so check it out before showing to students

One from last year...this Teacher Tube video features a pumpkin carving itself!

Halloween Lesson Plans for all subjects

Wordle

2009-10-14T19:16:00.001-07:00

As many of you know I can't get enough of Wordle. It ranks right up there with my passion for Pandora. For those of you that don't know it, Wordle is a java applet (it runs off the Internet and cannot be saved to your hard drive)that generates "word clouds". Basically, a word cloud is a series of words you input that come out in an artistic layout.

Wordles can be saved to the public gallery, but my suggestion is that you create them and print them. If you would like to save them as a .jpeg file you will need to take a screen shot and save the image as a .jpeg from there.

I would also suggest keeping students out of the gallery. Wordle is not an educational program so its content is not monitored (although nothing inappropriate will ever be displayed on the home page). The FAQ section of the site is very helpful.

If you create Wordle or have ideas for how they can be used please comment!

Guess the Wordle

This is a fantastic site written by Jennifer Wagner. She has created Wordles centered around different topics, then posts them for people around the world to view. You can see along the right side of the screen that people from all over the world have logged in to take a guess. This site is amazing- definitely worth your time.

Guess the Wordle "How To" is also from Jen's site. It gives instructions, but even better provides a ton of lesson plan resources near the bottom of the page, as well as a slideshow.

Wordle Ideas

View more presentations from Jenuinetech.com.

Web 2.0 to What includes a section on Wordles that will give you some grade level examples in pdf format.

40 Interesting Ways to Use Wordle in your Classroom

Read this blog on using Wordle

Skype in the Classroom

2009-09-16T11:57:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. This year I am leading a Study Group for CFE entitled “The Web 2.0 Classroom”. During our opening session one of the members of the group was in New York. Instead of missing the content of the class we were able to “Skype” her in. She was able to take part in the class remotely through an audio/video link over the Internet. As a result of this experience one of the Study Group members has decided to try collaborating with a class remotely through Skype. So….this week’s Wednesday Web discusses using Skype in Education.

Skype is a software program that allows users to make audio and or video “phone calls” over the Internet. For free. It is not blocked by CPS.

Dummies.com offers reasons why Skype makes sense in education. Some of their suggestions include using Skype as a “homework helper” and to conduct read-alouds. It’s a very short, to the point article.

Tools for the Tek gives more of an explanation of what Skype is and how to get started with the software, as well as some technical issues you may encounter. It also discusses how to get involved with ePals (listed a little further down this page).

See me, Hear me: Skype in the Classroom is an example of how a high school teacher in Austin, Texas was able to Skype in an author for her class. She talks about how she conducted the session and how her students felt about it.

Annick’s Blog provides some additional resources, both video and text based, for teachers that are interested in learning more about Skype in Education.

50 Awesome Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom is a great place to start if you are giving this some thought, but aren’t exactly sure how you would use this service. Not all 50 suggestions are links to outside resources. Two of my favorites are #3 (7th graders collaborating with a museum) and #9 (using Skype to conduct interviews)

ePals offers teachers and students globally that are willing to collaborate. Sign up for a free account today!

Finally, here is a Google Search Page that lists videos for using Skype.

Feel free to post some of your own comments on Skype!

September 11th

2009-09-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

Friday marks the 8th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Use caution when presenting material to your students. Consider their age levels, maturity levels, and leave your politics at the door.

Teaching 9/11: the September 11th Education Program is an interdisciplinary unit that is cost-based, but has a free remembrance presentation and discussion questions if you sign up.

My Name is Osama

This lesson plan includes a story (and a worksheet) about an Iraqi immigrant boy. Excellent point of view lesson.

Write Letters to Commemorate 9-11

This lesson plan explains how students can use the friendly letter format to write letters to police, firemen, or military personnel.

Billy Bear 4 Kids is geared toward primary students. This site doesn’t have content that you can teach with, but has a printable blank flag. Consider having students write notes in the flag.

Poems After the Attack
About.com offers a poetry anthology based on September 11th poems. Great for figurative language and critical thinking skills.

Do You Remember? A picture slideshow set to a 9-11 song

Sept. 11th
A powerful video set to music with news coverage and actual video from that day embedded

FREE: Federal Resources for Educational Excellence contains links to Federal agencies and their materials

Beloit College Mindset List

2009-09-03T10:01:00.000-07:00

This week's Wednesday Web doesn't revolve around a specific teaching practice or skill, but rather deals with mindset. Each year Beloit College in Wisconsin develops and releases a "mindset of the entering college class." The purpose of the mindset list is to help professors get a feel for what the world is like for the incoming freshman, focusing not only on politics but also culture. The preface for the list says the intention is not to make you feel old, but it sure is a trip to read! Below are some of my favorites this year (you'll just have to look at the list to see what they are!): #4, #8, #10, #11, #14, #17, #31, #34, #44, #50, and #73 Click here to see the full Mindset List (FYI, you can also view every list they have put out since 1998).

Staying on the theme of mindsets, here is a great article that lists "50 Things Every 18-Year-Old Should Know" which has sound advice for everyone!

This links to an excellent PDF article on "Teaching the 21st Century Learner." Some of the interesting points I found when reading it:

1. A 21st Century learner tends to be a multi-tasker that uses sound and images to convey their message, and only uses text when they don't have access to something better.

2. The Internet is viewed as the universal source of information.

3. To them, computers aren't technology.

4. We process more information in a 24 hour period than the average person 500 years ago would process in a lifetime (and this article was copywritten in 2006!).

5. Education today must place less emphasis on the amount of material memorized, and more on making connections, thinking through issues, and solving problems.

Finally, below is the video that Mr. Lewis shared with us in a beginning inservice on a Vision of Today's k-12 Learner.

Writing Letters

2009-08-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

This week's Wednesday Web is in response to one of the teachers inquiring about writing resources. If you happen to know of any please add them to the comment section so I can add them to the website!

Auspost.com
This is a site from Australia. The “New Letter Writing” link will allow students to input text into text fields and generate the letter for them. It may be a good way for them to see the different parts of business and personal letters, or a nice way to introduce it for younger students. It also contains background explanations and sample letters to get students started. Also within this site is a link for older students that provides additional websites to visit http://www.auspost.com.au/EDP/0,1398,CH3150%257EMO19,00.html

Websites for Reading Writing Workshops: Writing Genres
Contains links to approximately 86 other websites to help with various writing projects.

Write Express
This site is trying to get you to buy their software, but they do have samples available online. Extensive samples for business letters: writing to give a company a compliment, to accept a job, complaint letters as well as many more. Also contains a link to write to congress.

About.com's Writing for ESL Students
This site is geared toward English Language Learners, but provides some helpful prompts for different parts of a business letter

About.com's Government Letter Page
About.com’s page on writing letters to government officials

May's Writing Page!
Our very own writing page! Tons of ideas for all grade levels regarding writing...

Technology @ May

2009-08-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. As you know May Community Academy is a Technology Magnet Cluster school within CPS. We strive to have a wide variety of technological resources available to help our students succeed. This week the Wednesday Web focuses on giving you some quick resources related to the technology in the building. It’s very possible that I’ve missed something. If I have please be sure to let me know. Remember, the goal of the Wednesday Web in blog format is to hear from you- what works/what doesn’t/what you would like to see more of, etc. I’d love to hear from you anytime. Email me at nmzumpano@cps.edu.

May Community Academy's Website
This year one of my goals is to revamp the website. This is a very time consuming process so I’m trying to schedule this into my day. Remember that the website contains hundreds of resources for teachers, parents, and students alike. If you have any recommendations for sites, or for the actual site itself please let me know. In the meantime, don’t forget to check it out when you are in need of lessons.

Turning Point Response Systems
We have one set of 32 response clickers in the building. Basically, you are creating an interactive PowerPoint. When you have multiple choice or true/false questions you can create them in a format that allows students to respond instantly, and then view the class responses as a whole. The website offers some self paced web and video tutorials. If you would like to try them out let me know. I can create the first PowerPoint for you to get you started.

AverMedia Digital Document Camera
We have 3 digital document cameras available for checkout. Digital document cameras are much more than an overhead on steroids. The website gives you ways to incorporate it into your classroom. Furthermore, I have two hard copies of potential lesson plans. If you want to check one out to get some ideas, please let me know.

Video Cameras in the Classroom
We also have 3 video cameras available for you to use as well. Consider recording your students speaking, and then as a class provide feedback. How about recording a science experiment and having the students explain how the scientific process was achieved. The website link offers some additional suggestions. Please note….the cameras take a few hours to charge. If you plan on checking one out, please give me 24 hours notice, or post to the resource calendar.

Wii Room
As I mentioned in the beginning of the year P.D., we have 3 Wii systems. Beyond the “virtual gym” aspect, if you know of any specific games you feel we should purchase or have suggestions as to how the room should be utilized, I’d love your suggestions.

Digital Cameras in the Classroom
There are digital cameras available for you to check out. The website here claims to have 1,001 uses for digital cameras in the classroom, but I haven’t checked it out yet. Again, 24 hour notice is appreciated. Don’t just limit yourself to our cameras, however. If you have your own and you are comfortable using it, consider purchasing a cheap SD card to house all of your school pictures.

Promethean ActivBoards and ActivVotes
Many of our primary classes house Promethean ActivBoards, and two more will be assigned to classrooms this year. We also have 2 sets of ActivVote systems, similar to the Response Clickers. Even if you don’t have an ActivBoard in your classroom, please consider visiting the Promethean Planet site. There are hundreds of flip charts available for free download, along with “themes” and “resource packs”. You may not be able to use them “interactively” but you can still use them. There is even a free “flipchart viewer” download page. Definitely worth a look!

Jeopardy Templates
We have a full blown Jeopardy set in the building. It can accommodate 4 teams of up to 6 players each. If you want to check it out (and need help setting it up) give me some notice- its time consuming! In the meantime, here are some Jeopardy/PowerPoint templates…

BrainPop
May has a subscription to BrainPop, which also includes BrainPop Jr. for younger students. Please email me if you need (or lost) the login information.

Explore Learning's Gizmos
We also subscribe to Explore Learning’s “Gizmos” which are interactive on-line science and math activities. Ms. Goyal (4th grade) is a wiz with the Gizmos so I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you asked her about them.

Atomic Learning
Soon we will have a yearly subscription to Atomic Learning. This site is a subscription-based tutorial site where you can watch short clips on virtually all types of computer software.

May's Blog
Don’t forget to post to our blog! If you would like me to post a question for your students (and everyone else) on the blog site, please let me know. If you need help setting up your own classroom blog and need some samples or instruction, see me for that too.

May's Wiki
May’s wiki from last year was mainly set up to house our involvement in Reach the World: Bike Africa and my Dell TechKnow computer program.

May's Twitter Page
My goal is to make our Twitter page an active one, especially with students and parents! I set it up for people to track our trip to Stanford. Please consider “following” us.

Internet Projects

2009-08-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Wednesday Web, blog style! :)

Each Wednesday I will post a list of resources. Please feel free to comment on any you find helpful/annoying, etc. My vision is to have a resource list that grows through your comments, as well as to get new ideas for future posts. Remember, the blog will contain easy access to past posts, including last year's lists.

The first two suggestions are links to articles about jumping right into technology in this "back to school" phase.

Back to School technology activities article by Education World

Back to School Technology Lessons. One featured is Wordle. I’ll be doing a workshop on Wordle at some point this year

The next section refers to websites that feature Internet Projects. Take a look and think about getting involved in a project! If you decide to do so and you need assistance, let me know....

Global Schoolhouse

This site is an “Internet Project Registry”. Search their database for projects currently in progress or future projects that you would like to take part in. You can even post a project of your own! Word on the street is that there are over 1,000 projects in the database to look through.

The Collaboratory

The Collaboratory is a site maintained by Northwestern University (although it is not limited to only Illinois educators). The good news is that the projects incorporate Illinois State Standards.

Jenuine Tech

This site has projects geared toward the pre k- 6th grade classrooms. The interface is very inviting. If you are interested click on the “projects” tab, then click on “past projects” to see some examples.

Topic Suggestions

2009-06-30T11:43:00.001-07:00

Last Year's Wednesday Web List

2009-06-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

Click on the "fruit machine" button to see all of last year's topics!

Click here for full screen version

Welcome to Wednesday Web!

2009-06-30T10:15:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! For those of you at May you'll recognize the Wednesday Web. For those of you that are new, each Wednesday I post a list of web resources centered around a theme. Last year the lists were dispersed through First Class. This year I'll be posting on Blogspot.

For a list of last year's topics, be sure to visit http://www.nicolezumpano.com and click on "Wednesday Web".

Feel free to comment on sites you've used or to add your own.

Thanks!