4 more (free) websites to create cool student projects online

Fodey
Fodey is very useful a website that allows you to write your own newspaper story and headline. The site also allows you to change the name of the newspaper as well as the publishing date which makes it a perfect tool for social studies projects. Once the story is completed you can download it to your computer or use a screen capture tool to save the image. While this is a perfect tool for history projects, this website is great for any subject area.

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Newspaper Generator
This newspaper generator by Homemade Gifts Made Easy is very similar to Fodey but it has several features that make it more a powerful tool. First, it allows you to add a picture to your story which helps to make the finished product more interesting to students. Second, there seems to be no limit to how much text you can write. The finished product can be saved as a pdf by right clicking on the image. However, the story you write will be accompanied by several "nonsense" stories that come with the site.

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Paste to Grid

This website (currently in beta) allows you to easily create a photo collage which can be used on a website or as part of a student project. Choose one of the 14 grids and then add pictures and the final product can be saved to your computer as a jpg file. This tool can be used along with the Newspaper Generator above by Homemade Gifts Made Easy to create a nice newspaper project. 

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Brother Creative Center
This powerful site by Brother allows you to generate posters, newsletters (mailers), calendars and brochures. Each type of document comes with a collection of dynamic templates which a simple to edit. Projects can be saved for later editing and then be printed or saved to your computer when they are done. This site is a great online alternative to Microsoft Publisher and it is free to use.

10 Websites for Foreign Language Learning

1- Memrise 

Memrise is an education website that will help you learn languages, history, science, math, geography, arts, and literature. Their methods are scientifically based and their lessons are interactive and fun. Teachers will be able to use Memrise to help reinforce curriculum and parents will love Memrise because they can use it  at home to help their child review and to support their learning. Memrise also allows members to create their own courses. The site offers such a wide variety of courses and lessons and it is free to join. Anyone who values learning will find Memrise to be a handy educational support tool.

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2- Lingt Classroom

Lingt Classroom is a free website that serves as an extension of your classroom. You create an online assignment by using text, audio,video, and images. The student complete the assignment and you can review theri assignments and respond with feedback. Lingt allows you to use spoken dialogues, dictations, oral exams, and reading practice and students can listen to the lesson as often as they need.

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3- Wordsteps

Wordsteps offers a free online dictionary for learning a language. Just select the language you are learning as well as your native language and the site gives you hundreds of words that are sorted by categories such as numbers, foods, and actions to name a few. By clicking the speaker symbol, you can hear the word being spoken in the language you are learning. Wordsteps has online courses but these do require a fee. This site could be very handy to new students of a language.

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4- Airpano

With Airpano, language students can see 360 degree views of cities and landmarks from all over the globe. See beautiful panoramas from North America to Europe and beyond. The side bar has a list of their most recent additions and if you are looking for a specific sites, use their search bar or scroll to the bottom of the page. Airpano's beautiful images make a nice companion when learning about another nation.

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5- Duolingo

Duolingo is a site that offers lessons for learners of English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese. Students learn by taking a series of rapid-fire quizzes, which tests your speaking, listening, and writing skills. If you achieve a high score you can unlock further lessons. Duolingo also has a social feature which allows you to compare your progress with your friends' via Facebook.The gaming and social aspecst of Duolingo make it a highly engaging site.

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6- BBC Languages
BBC Languages is a site that helps promote learning a language with a variety of resources. The site offers free online courses in 40 languages including French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Chinese. There is a guide to languages section, a video section, and even an area for children. BBC Languages is a great site for anyone trying to learn a new language.

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7- Language Guide

Language Guide provides several resources to help a new language student learn a new language. You start by choosing the language and then select either vocabulary or grammar. Choose the vocabulary section and you'll get to hear and practice common words and phrases in that language. The grammar section helps the learner with conjugations of words and how they are used in sentences.

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8- Visuals for Foreign Language Instruction 

Visuals for Foreign Language Instruction contains hundreds of illustrations that teachers can use to assist in the learning of objects, people, places, and the vocabulary. You search by using their search bar or you can browse their collection of images and once you find an image you simply print from your browser. The site is free to use and come to you from the University of Pittsburgh's Visuals for Developing Communication Skills in Foreign Language Classes project.

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 9- Imendi

Imendi is another terrific website that helps students learn basic vocabulary by using simple game mechanics where you pair meanings in selected languages.Start by choosing the language you want to learn then select a lesson. After the lesson is complete you can see how well you did. Repeat the lesson of move on, you have the control. Imendi is a simple to use tool for language students. 

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 10- Hello World

Hello World is a site that helps students to learn a new language with a wide range of resources. The site has games, songs, worksheets, and a dictionary, all designed to make learning a language less of a chore. Some of the resources require a paid subscription but there many free resources as well.

 

Huge Collection of Free Government Resources for Education

In honor of Washington D.C.'s sequestration fiasco, I decided to share the federal government's entire collection of education resources. Animations, primary documents, photograph collections, videos, maps, articles, and the lists goes on and on. If you have never visited this incredible collection of educational resources for all subjects and grade levels, then you really have been missing out. For all that our government does wrong, their collection of FREE educational tools and materials is quite extensive and very useful. Head on over to this web portal ASAP, before they are threatened the incompetence (my opinion) of our leaders.

All My Favs - Your favorite websites all on one page

There are many ways for you to keep all your favorite websites in one location but there is none quite like  All My Favs. This free website turns your bookmarks into your home page by allowing you to store all your favorite sites onto one all encompassing, visually impressive, web page. Creating your page is simple to do and when you are done you can share your page with others. All My Favs is a handy site that provides quick and easy access your favorite websites plus the sharing feature makes it a useful tool for anyone who wants to share resources with colleagues,friends and family.

Cool Web Finds

As the teachers in my building can attest, I have been regularly sharing many of the websites that I have recently discovered. In order to simplify matters for anyone who has enjoyed the sites I have shared, I have decided to start using this blog as the new and permanent way to share my discoveries. So without further delay, here is my latest edition of "cool web finds."

We have all had moments where we feel down on humanity or even worse, down on ourselves. Reading the stories at Helpingothers.org will help restore your faith in humanity and perhaps inspire you to "pay it forward."

If you are looking for a website to make you smile go to Waveatthebus and see a real life dad wave goodbye to his son's bus while wearing a different costume each day. 

At Retronaut you can view  memories, pictures, advertisements, and videos from your life or even your grandparents childhood. This site is a great place to reminisce and social studies teachers could  certainly use this site in their instruction at some point.

Speaking of memories, Moment.Me is a place where people can share their pictures and videos from weddings, parties, concerts, or other special days. 

At a site called tackk, users can make amazing online posters using pictures, text and video. Check out their samples page to see some of the possibilities. This site could be used for invitations, advertisements, or school projects.

Finally, I am a sucker for strange and unusual gifts. With the holidays just around the corner why not check out Greenhead. This is a site that offers the latest in unusual gift possibilities with items for just about any taste.

Website hoarding

I have a confession. I am a website hoarder. I am addicted to finding new and useful websites but the problem is that I don't have time to explore them all so I store them in my Evernote account to view at a future date. As of this post, I have 659 "notes", which includes some infographics and blog posts but the majority are websites that I intend to use someday. The purpose of this post isn't for therapy reason but to explain how easy it is to find great websites.

I began my website hoarding addiction with Delicious. I would search the "favorited" websites of other users and was amazed at how easy it was to locate websites that interested me. The next tool I discovered was Stumble Upon. I would spend hours "stumbling" the web and I came across many amazing pictures, blogs, and websites. One site I "stumbled on" was Make Use Of which features a "Daily Cool websites" section. I subscribed to this feature and began to get  recommendation sent to my email. Later, a coworker of mine introduced me to Diigo Education which I have subscribed to and I get excellent resources shared by other educators.

Along the way I have discovered a wide array of blogs such as Richard Byrne's Free Technology for Teachers, and Larry Ferlazzo's Website of the Day to name just two. Occasionally, I will get time to seriously browse some web sites but for the most part my collections keeps growing. My latest source for website collecting has been Twitter. Now all the websites I used to visit are sending their discoveries to me  via Twitter. It makes being a website hoarder so much easier.

I don't recommend anyone become a website collector like me but if you are interested in finding new resources on the web don't bother with Google. Try one of the sites I recommended above and you be amazed at how much great stuff is out there.