New Online Softwares to Use within your Teaching Career

With the ever expangin World Wide Web... more more we find the use of new online softwares that are free or have a minimal charge for teachers and students alike to use within the classroom. These softwares allow (especially the student) to be as creative as possible and really get into the homework or projects. The children that we teach today are of a different generation, a "Digital Generation" than many of us are used to. Not to date myself, but I didn't get my first cell phone until the mid 90's... and I was in my early 20's... today in the third grade classroom that I teach in... almost everyone has a cell phone, ipod, DS, PSP, or some other device with a crazy initial sequence. Some of the softwares that I have tried and have really enjoyed are the following:

Del.icio.us: Social Bookmarking Website, which allows a person to bookmark a site that they have been to or one that they want to remember for future use. I like the fact that you can share bookmarks with friends and colleagues as well as house everything under one software. Many email sites, like AOL or Google have something similiar but not as extensive as Delicious. The only thing that I would like to see updated is the ability to create folders. I know as a Graduate Student, I can be working on two-three papers at one time and organizing my research a little more would be extremly helpful.

Diigo: This in conjunction with the above site really gives students a leg up on research and information on the World Wide Web. This gives anyone the ability to highlight text within articles or on webpages so that if and when you return to the article, you can go directly to that section. In addition, teachers can use this as a means to teach students how to draw out important information within a text rather than coloring the whole page yellow.

Slideshare: Is a step up from Powerpoint. This makes any class presentation come to life. There is something for an elementary school student building a diarama for a story that he or she read, or creating a drawing by hand to describe the story that they have just written. But this takes those thoughts one step further. Definitely, great for those collaboration projects... as well as enhancing audience presentations (this allows the students to focus on the content/information being presented, rather than the cardboard box that they are holding.) A student can be as creative as he/she wants to be, by adding music and special effects to jazz it up.

Mind-Mapping: I have used this in a few of my own school projects and what an easy tool to use and its free. This website takes the graphic organizer to a whole different level. It allows you to create flow charts and room to add additional information (especially for those students that are having trouble taking or organizing their daily classroom notes.) Definitely one to use as often as possible. You can also allow the students to use it to create study guides that are interactive and re-emphasizes the information taught.