Awesome+Widget+of+the+Week+2009

›2010: There is a new page for new and exciting widgets and websites for the new school.  Click here to redirect

 Here is a page devoted to all those awesome widgets/websites you may have not seen before:

 __Term Four 2009__  Week 9:  Aviary Audio Editor  http://aviary.com/tools/myna#  The area of aviary is possibly the closet thing to Garageband out there at the moment. The best thing about all this is that its a free web based program that really works! The program comes complete with its own loops and pieces to import into you creation. Then in quick steps you can save, mixdown and then import the song as an MP3.  Here's mine:media type="file" key="First Go.mp3" width="240" height="20"

  You'll see the the 'interface' is very similar and its all about the drag and drop feature that Garageband has. This program is all about getting on and spending time experimenting with it and how it could be used in your classroom

 Week 8:  Aviary  @http://aviary.com  This new website is a fantastic all encompassing creative space. Aviary includes BETA versions of image, mixer, and colour editors. All separate programmes that take plenty of time to explore individually.  The music editor we will look at next week, is possibly the web's answer to Garageband. Which is very exciting. Get one of your students to work these programmes instead of the old individual xmas contract! <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Week 7: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Imagination Cubed <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> @http://www.imaginationcubed.com/ <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Yes, this is blatant mass-corporation funded nonsense! (made by GE who also make nuclear weapons, irony?) But its quite a cool concept, worth exploring in your classroom. A collaborative ideas and drawing board really, for you to sketch, write, plan etc and share it with others, who can then add to it and so on. Worth a go! <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Week 6: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Watch, Know <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> A great website resource that is a must to have saved in your 'favourites' or 'bookmarks' menu. A first port of call for any educational web clip streamed on you tube or other online sites. This website sources all educationally friendly clips, categorises them and even has an age group specific filter to really target your class needs. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> @http://www.watchknow.org/

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<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Week 5: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Virtual Dice, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Great for numeracy, great for literacy, great for anything you can think of! <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Click here <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> If you click on 'customize your die' you can put letters, numbers on each face. Genius. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Week 4: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Lego Digital Designer <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">This is an outstanding piece of software that is free to download and well worth it! <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Click here to go to:Lego Digital Designer. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Once again, not a widget but a great tool for your class computer. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Here's a you tube clip to show the potential... <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> media type="custom" key="4757677"

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Week 3: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Penguins <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> media type="custom" key="4598090"

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> These have no educational value whatsoever but they are Penguins and who doesn't like penguins? Exactly! <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Click on the icon (abowman) in the top left of the penguin widget and create your own penguin widget.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Week 2: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> [|Kerpoof] <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Kerpoof studio is a Disney sponsored website that will appeal to junior school students especially. Users can create comic pages, cards, stories, doodles and even short movie clips. Just sign up a class user name and let the students go for it if they have some spare time, need another outlet to present, or to share with each other. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Click here to see an example of a movie:[|Click me!]

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> Week 1: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> [|Confusing Words] <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> It doesnt look like much but this website will solve all your grammatical explanation frustrations...students ask you why its affect and not effect? Check the website and answer it in seconds!

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> __Term Three 2009__ <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Week 1: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> There are loads of powerpoint resource share sites on the web. This is just one of them but the idea can be applied to many sites such as [|Authorstream], [|Scribd], [|Slideshare], [|SlideRocket] Have the students create some non-fiction pieces on 'good old powerpoint' and then upload the slideshows and/or embed them in your wiki! Awesome! Or publish a story and upload them for the world to see...not just you.

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Week 2: Shelfari 2.0

You can now embed your Shelfari bookshelf into your wiki. Just click on the 'Blogger widget' which seems to work fine! Follow the steps through to get the code. See below. media type="custom" key="4157735"

Week 3: [|Physics games] A whole bevvy of different online, physics based games for students to play. The great thing is you can embed a game you find particulalry relevant into your wiki or blog. This game is one of around 100 different games! media type="custom" key="4201361"

Week 4: This isn't an embeddable widget but an excellent website nonetheless. Watch all your favourite actors and actresses reading themed books with illustrations in easy to download movie clips. As part of their association with the Screen Actors' Guild, these fine folk put on hold their busy schedules to take time out for the children with access to reasonably high speed internet...some excellent choice and resources to go with it!

Week 5: [|Sketchcast]

A great way to draw online tutorials or anything really...have fun with it! media type="custom" key="4548590"

Week 6: [| Odosketch] A really fun way to get your students drawing online. A variety of brush strokes and media available. Have fun! media type="custom" key="4305759"

Week 7: [|Build Your Wild Self]

Heres an example of what you can do. Great way to have a bit of fun with different animals. Could be perfect for creativity when combined with students' writing.

Week 8: []

Send your students here for their research in inquiry, homework...use it yourself for annoying questions that bug you all day, or to sound like a fountain of knowledge. If you type in the question into the search bar it will source all info on the web or someone will answer it for you. Magic. You **don't** need to be a member or sign up etc.

Week 9: [] Ever get a question from kids about a song or a piece of music and you cant play it to them because you don't have it? Grooveshark is a very extensive music library that lets you stream tracks from the net. There are many of such type of website but this is excellent all the same. Could be used for class singing, background music etc. I wouldn't recommend you use it all day long as it will use a large amount of your schools bandwidth.

Week 10: [| http://mywebspiration.com/] Yes, i have put this on before, but it is awesome so use it! For years schools have used the program 'inpsiration' for mindmapping, brainstorming and a variety of different graphical thinking organisers. Now Webspiration is available, teachers don't have to use pre-purchased licesed software. Can edit a chart from anywhere with net access and even upload previous Inspiration mind maps. Perfect for any classroom with a projector, in fact criminal to not use it in any class with one. Once created you can share with your students or email them the document.

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<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> __Term Two 2009__ Week 1 media type="custom" key="3727251" This is [|Vuvox]: A slide show presentation tool

Week 2 This is Shelfari: An awesomely visual way to present students favourite books or a book list to follow. [|Click here to view my shelf]

Week 3 media type="custom" key="3844327" This is [|Bookr]: A great way to publish students writing books on the web. It uses photos from flickr and then is able to be embedded in wikis/blogs.

Week 4 media type="custom" key="3855793" This is [|Scrapblog]: A really easy creative and very professional way for teachers and students to share dig photos.

Week 5 media type="custom" key="3855821" This is [|FontStruc]t: A font designing sight in which students/teachers can design a unique font, share it online and download it.

Week 6 media type="custom" key="3855843" This is [|Spell with Flickr]: An easy way to fancy up your wiki/blog site. Type in the word you want and it will source photos from flickr to match. You can then embed in your page.

Week 7 media type="custom" key="3885093"

This is [|Photograph Puzzle Maker]. You can take a photo or image on your computer upload it and then choose the size of the pieces and the puzzle maker will turn your image into a usable puzzle! You can then embed in your page. Great for Literacy.

Week 8

This is [|Be Funky.] An extremely powerful tool that lets you edit photos online. The 'Mac-like' tools available on Be Funky allow the user to make some stunning creations with their photos and really enhance creativity in the classroom.

Week 9 media type="custom" key="4009861" <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">This is [|Blabberize]. Its been around for ages but is a really fun way to use your photos and voice together. Awesome for students to play around with when they're looking for ways to present findings of inquiry, speecehs etc.

Week 10 media type="custom" key="4043805" This is [|MyWebspiration]. The online form of Inspiration. You can orgainse ideas, thoughts and the like online then share with others via email or publish it online or even embed to your wiki or blog like this one. Its currently free so use it!