21st+Century+Skills









Voicethread Voicethread is an amazing Web 2.0 tools because it allows students to pair pictures with audio comments. What's even more exciting is that groups of students can work together on one presentation and multiple comments can be added to one image. This makes Voicethread one of the first "Group Audio Blogs," a neat way to collaborate around a picture. Check out this sample of what can be done with Voicethread created by a Wake County middle school classroom studying Darfur.

SPresent SPresent is another neat tool that lets users create Flash presentations that can be included in websites. Flash presentations are visually interesting and really easy to make---and SPresent is another free service that you can use as long as you're willing to create an account. See your parents before you create a new account for any service, though! Here's [|a presentation that Mr. F made] for Open House this year using SPresent.

Bubbleshare Bubbleshare is a great tool for kids interested in sharing lots of pictures here on the wiki. It will let you upload pictures that you've taken or that you've downloaded and saved to your computer and then create a slideshow that can be embedded into wiki pages.

TeacherTube Designed as a safe alternative to YouTube, TeacherTube is a place where students and teachers can post videos that are related to classroom content. There are literally thousands of videos already posted in almost every subject area that you can imagineand users flag any inappropriate videos so they can be removed by TeacherTube employees. Gliffy Gliffy is a really neat tool that allows users to create professional looking diagrams or flowcharts. Diagrams can be created by individuals or groups of people working together on a project. Like many Web 2.0 tools, Gliffy provides limited free access (5 diagrams or flowcharts) for users who create an account. Remember that you must get your parents' permission before creating an account at Gliffy. Here's an example of what a Gliffy diagram can look like. Gabcast Gabcast makes podcasting easy! After setting up a free account, teachers and students can make audio recordings for their blog with nothing more than access to a phone. Gabcast literally walks users step-by-step through the process of recording, stores files automatically on their site and provides embeddable text that you can use to include your recordings in posts on any blog service. If you’re using Blogger, you can even have Gabcast post your new recordings directly in your blog! [|Here’s a post from The Tempered Radical introducing Gabcast]. It also includes an embedded Gabcast recording that the Radical made while driving across Raleigh :

Gcast Gcast is a service that functions much like Gabcast. Users can create a free account allowing them to make recordings by phone. Gcast then provides users with embeddable text for including recordings in blog posts.

Voki Voki is a free service that is bound to appeal to middle grades students everywhere because it allows users to create talking avatars using nothing but a phone. After setting up an account—which are limited to people 16 years of age and older, so you’ll likely have to create a classroom account and supervise student use—your kids will be able to record one minute messages and attach them to talking hot dogs, blood-sucking vampires, afro-sporting athletes or famous figures from history.

Vokis are great for introducing or responding to blog posts. They are also great for short public service announcements on topics of interest. Here’s a post from The Blurb that includes a Voki. It is a public service announcement designed to introduce viewers to the genocide occurring in Darfur.  Animoto Animoto is a simple tool that allows users to quickly create interesting photo montages that resemble MTV music videos. The advantage of using Animoto is that users need absolutely no video editing skills at all. To create a video, simply upload images, select a music track from Animoto’s podsafe music collection and hit the “Produce” button. Within minutes, you’ll have a short, engaging video complete with flashy transitions that you can embed as a hook for a blog post.

Garage Band One of the greatest challenges for students and teachers who tackle podcasting or digital moviemaking is finding what is known as “podsafe” music. Podsafe music includes tracks artists have licensed for free use without copyright restrictions. Garageband makes tackling that challenge easy, providing thousands of tracks across genres from up-and-coming musicians that can be downloaded and used in a range of digital applications—including podcast programs and videos created by your students.