Digital Sandbox
What’s a digital sandbox?
A sandbox is a safe place to experiment, play, and learn as you figure out what works for you and what doesn’t.
A digital sandbox is a place where you can do this with various digital tools to figure out what might or might not work in your classroom.
Sites also shared on a wiki here.
My Favs:
1. Diigo – Social Bookmarking, lists & more (plus it has a back door to Delicious)
2. Twitter- Great tool to build a professional learning network
3. Firefox- My browser of choice – use w/ IE Tab, Zoom Toolbar, Smart Bookmarks Toolbar, Embedded Objects Toolbar
4. Open Office – Cheap way to have a basic version of Office on any machine
5. EtherPad- Multiple authors can work on the same document simultaneously – example http://etherpad.com/DigitalSandbox
6. Picasa- Basic image organization and editing
7. Audacity- Audio recording
8. iTunes – Music organization, weekly freebies, iTunesU (check out Continuity of Learning), Podcasts
9. Ning- Imagine self-contained Facebook accounts on lots of different topics. Try: Classroom 2.0, Fireside Learning,
10. Pandora Radio – Online radio station you create
General interest to explore
WallWisher – Think of it as an electronic sticky note wall.
Task: Navigate to the Digital Sandbox WallWisher and share what you’d like to gain from today.
- Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009 (Add to list for 2010 here)
- Web 2.0 Resources for Teachers
- FreeTech4Teachers
- Free Educational Software and Games
- Free and Open Source Resources (my list)
Online whiteboards…
- Flockdraw – Online whiteboard Try this one
- Scribblar- Like Flockdraw, but many, many more options Try this board
Speaking of illustrations and image editing…
- Wordle – Cool tool for visualization of concepts Yearbook cover
- Sumo Paint – Online Painting Application
- Think Draw – Collage drawing tool online
- PhotoFunia- Transform your images - totally Tami
- LunaPic- Online Photo Editor w/transformation
- Picnik- Online image editing
- PicLits – Online Inspired Picture Writing
- Picasa- Free, cross-platform, image sorting, editing, and sharing
- Paint.net – Great substitute application for Photoshop
- ArtRage- If you have an IWB, you need this
Touch Tools – If you have a touchscreen, Smartboard, or other IWB, these tools are worth exploring
Engaging Online
- thisissand- Sandpainting online (C for Colors, E to Erase, arrow keys to navigate, click/touch to pour)
- Mrs. P – Storytelling – remember Mimi from the Drew Cary Show?
- Winged Sandals – Mythology
- CSI Web Adventures – Science games
- Nobel Prize Games – Games related to literature, science, and more
- FreeRice Vocabulary challenge that feeds the hungry
- FreePoverty World knowledge challenge that provides water to the needy
- Physics Games – Very addictive
Classroom Tools…
- TimeGlider – Timeline creation See example
- Screencast-o-Matic – Online tool for screen recording
- eThemes/eMints – Hot lists for tons of topics
- CalmCounter – Visualize classroom noise level
- Super Teacher Tools – Make interactive classroom games and activities
- MapMaker- Make elementary maps
- ScribbleMaps- Google maps you can write on, save, and share
- 4Teachers- Rubrics, checklists, quizzes & more
- SweetSearch – Kind of like Nettrekker, only free. All resources are evaluated for student use. Also browseable.
Productivity
- Convert PDF to Word -
- Easy Define – Online – Define lists of words quickly
- Tools for Search – Great wiki w/specialized search tools
- Wolfram Alfa – Try entering a math problem and see what happens; see examples page
More Interactives and Student Tools
- Scratch- Intro programming
- Timelines- Create, share, explore
- Toy Theater – Dozens of fun, engaging interactives for exploring
- Edheads- Science and math explorations
- Comic Strip Generator – You add the words to the images
- Sketchup- Google 3D drawing tool
- GoogleEarth- Map, explore, interact with the world
Content Areas & More (These are on a separate wikispace page)
- MathLinks
- ScienceLinks
- EnglishLanguageArtsLinks
- SocialStudiesLinks
- LanguageLinks
- Elementary
- Interactive
- TouchScreen
- InteractiveWhiteBoardTools
- Software
Before you go…
WallWisher
Task: Navigate to the Digital Sandbox WallWisherand share your favorite sites from today.
Future Me – Write letters to yourself in the future (at least 30 days)
Task: Write yourself an email about a goal you have for the this conference.
