The topic I have been researching is digital storytelling.   I have been inspired by all the websites and videos of students' work.  I am looking forward to having a class set of computers.

The website that I recently explored is https://sites.google.com/site/21stcentteachinglearning/digital-storytelling/web-20-digital-storytelling-tools.  

The website Finding Dulcinea The Librarian of the Internet was a neat find for me http://www.findingdulcinea.com.  At the bottom of the first page is an index with links to any topic you could imagine.  I typed in "articles about Guam" just to see how complete the site was and multiple articles about Guam were presented.  I clicked on education in the index section and multiple articles about iPads in the classroom were made available.  There is a wealth of information for both teachers and students at this website.

My second find is a geo-narrative entitled "The Monster that Ate Canberra".   The story has 27 pages with text and illustrations.

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=113342234014914699171.00046a3d3085aaffb5a74&ll=-28.921631,139.833984&spn=36.481193,56.25&z=4&source=embed

This looks like a fun activity I could do with my 7^th grade students.  We could create a story that incorporates all the places that my students are from.

Learn out Loud.com

The website offers 10,000 free audio book downloads for 16 content areas, podcasts with poetry readings and a brief analysis of the poem, biography of authors, an audio/video section for kids and teens that includes audio books, and a BlogOutLoud site with posts about audio and video learning.

The following is a link to the Intro to Poetry podcasts:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/podcaststream/listen.php?url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/IntroToPoetry&all=1&title=25098

I can see using this website during a poetry unit.  Students can hear different readings of poetry and brief analysis of the poem.

Noodletools.com is a valuable tool for students learning to conduct research on the Internet.  The tool provides users with links to academic sites for their specific needs.  The following is a brief list of research needs that students may encounter and Noodletools can provide:

1.     I need to define my topic

2.     I need to find quality information

3.     I need to do research on a specific discipline

4.     I need facts

5.     I need opinions and perspectives

6.     I need a specific type of media

7.     I have special research requirements

8.     I am

·      A kid

·      An Internet novice

·      An Internet wizard

Diigo.com has four functions: highlighting text on the Internet, bookmarking sites with important text, annotating text with Sticky Note, and Sharing sites and annotated text with collaborators.

The Highlight function simply lets you mark selected text with color to indicate importance. You can select different highlight colors from the drop-down box to indicate different categories.

The Bookmark function lets you save the URL of the page and add notes, tags and descriptions with it. When you view the bookmark on Diigo, all the annotations (highlighted text and sticky notes) will appear below it.  This function will not save the whole article into Diigo, but only the URL.  You also have the option to cache a page. 

To cache a page is a way of taking a picture of it at that moment.  If the owner of the page changes or deletes the page you will still have the cached page exactly that way it appeared when you saved it in the Diigo database.  This is a really useful feature to teach students just learning to do research.  For graduate students, it is suggested that they upgrade to the Premium Plan for unlimited cache and highlights.

Diigo is free for unlimited bookmarks but is limited to 1000 highlights per year and 30 cached pages. A paid service of Basic ($20/yr) and Premium ($40/yr) is available for more unlimited and ad-free options.

Diigo gives you the option to keep your bookmarks and annotations private, and allows you to create a folder for bookmarks that you would like to read later.

The Sticky Note function will let you post a note anywhere in the article as a graphic reminder. You can add more information to an existing note.

The Share function lets you share the annotated link of the article to other collaborators.

Diigo is a tool for organizing and saving research material. Once you’re done with all the highlighting bookmarking and annotating, you can log into your Diigo account to view all saved information.  The pages are organized according to the categories and tags that you stipulated when you first saved it. 

Google Sites

The Internet tool I reviewed was Google sites.

The site I created with this tool is intended for use with my students in the future and can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/7creading/.  I was able to create instructions for a project that will be assigned during the third quarter.   I uploaded a Youtube video for one of Aesop’s fables that will serve as a sample for students.  I also linked a student’s public project on Prezi, and I uploaded a student’s project that I had on file.  Google Sites is rather easy to navigate and I plan to use it as a tool to provide examples for students’ reference.

There is so much more I need to add to the site.  There are tabs for a calendar, a reading list, and useful links that I would like to further develop.  

I have wanted to create a site for parents and student reference.  Now, I can develop this site for next year.