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If you have an interactive whiteboard (Promethean, SMART, or Polyvision), it’s always nice to know where you can find websites that work especially well with your board.  A site that may not be suitable to use with your class in the computer lab could be very valuable once you use it with your interactive whiteboard in a whole group instructional setting.

As I was searching for interactive whiteboard links, I came across this site by ETTC (Educational Technology Training Center).  The site has tons of links suitable for your interactive whiteboard.  But the best part of the site is that the links are broken down by elementary sites, middle school sites, and high school sites.  ETTC also separates the links by subject area: math, language arts, science, social studies, music, PE, art, software, tutorials, and other.

It’s the best list I have seen to date.  I looked at about 70% of the sites under “elementary” and was astonished that the sites were of high quality.   There is nothing worse than a hotlist of sites that suck.

RELATED POSTS:

GAMES FOR THE INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD

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Every year there is a program that I decide I adore.  This year it’s Tech4learning’s Pixie - Check out the software overview by clicking the link.  Our county purchased Pixie as part of Tech4learning’s Imagination Suite.  We also received Image Blender and Web Blender as part of this package. 

What is Pixie?

Pixie is a drawing and painting program that allows children to express their creativity and practice much needed educational concepts. There are hundreds of educational templates that are ready for your students to use within the program. You can also create your own activities for students to complete within Pixie.

RESOURCES
TRADING POST. This Tech4Learning website is a place where educators can upload their Pixie templates, activities, and lesson plans. They are there for you to download and use with your class! Sign up for free.

Tech4Learning’s homepage is a great resource for tutorials, tips, and support for any of their programs: Pixie, Web Blender, and Image Blender.

Recipes4Success is a great website that provides tutorials on this program and all Tech4Learning programs.

BEST FEATURES ABOUT PIXIE:

1. Print multiple pictures:  If you choose to print multiple paintings at one time, you can print as “trading cards” and trade your pictures with your friends.  Think of classroom implications: if each child trades a different historical or literary figure, they can learn from each other’s cards.  You can also print mini booklets, comic strips, and table tents.
2. Share your pictures:  Choose to play your pictures in slideshow format directly from Pixie.  Add music, transitions, and have it run continuously.  In addition, you can export your slideshow as a Quicktime video, a web page, or a full presentation.
3. Export your pictures: Export Pixie paintings as common picture formats such as JPS or GIF.  Now you can import them into Microsoft Office, Photo Story, Movie Maker, etc.  This also means you do not need to have Pixie on your computer to view your pictures.

Language Arts Ideas

Create an ABC book. Give each student a different letter to stamp out with stickers or draw with the tools.
Create a noun sort by person, place and thing.
Sort words by consonant sound or vowel sound
Complete a Making Words activity using the letter stickers.
Create writing prompts for kids: Seasons, My Favorite Animal, My Hero, etc.
Graphic Organizers: Venn Diagrams, Story Maps, KWL, etc.
Sort words by syllables
Type and illustrate a poem
Create trading cards of literary figures
Sort between real and fictional characters

Math Ideas

Import real pictures. Draw and label angles that you find.
Use the coins to show different ways to make the same amount of money.
Stamp out number sentences to illustrate them.
Symmetry with the mirror tool.
Expanded form

Science Ideas

Illustrate Life Cycles
Sort by Living and Non-Living
Illustrate the Water Cycle or the Rock Cycle
Illustrate weather for the week
Sort objects by sink or float
Label parts of an insect, parts of a flower, layers of the earth, planets in the solar system, layers of the rainforest, etc.
Food Chains and Food Webs
Food Pyraminds
Differences between whales and fish
Differences between the different types of rock
Create trading cards of different rocks, minerals, or elements

Social Studies Ideas

“If I were president” writing prompt
Label a map of the US by the intials of each state
Compare presidents or any 2 historical figures
Add a state stamp and fill it with stamps that represent resources available from that state
Color the regions of MD
Sort by community helpers
Sort by human, natural, and capital resources
Create trading cards of historical figures or current political figures
Create a postcard from a historical landmark or location

Art Ideas

Design a kite
Design a Christmas ornament
Paint a self-portrait
Label a color wheel

Paint anything!

Often teachers come to me and ask for a way to resize their pictures at school.  Luckily teachers have access to Image Blender, a photo editor by Tech4learning that allows them to do this, but they only have access to it in the computer lab.  If teachers want to resize or edit digital pictures from the comfort of their own home or classroom, Pixlr is a great option for them.

There are several online photo editors. What makes Pixlr so special?  It’s one of the only free photo editors that allows you to resize pictures in pixels. This is incredibly handy if you are trying to find a picture to fix exact pixel sizes for avatars or icons on websites.  Pixlr was created for non-professionals and has many features including: resizing, cropping, layers, filters, etc.  When you are finished with your picture, you have the option to save in JPG or PNG format.

Again, I found a few more art websites by navigating my network in my delicious account. I think you will find them as fun as I did.

One Million Masterpieces

This is a collaborative art project that allows the user to submit an art piece, no matter how small, to be a part of the “biggest collaborative art project in the world.”

Scribbler

Scribbler is an interactive site where you draw a simple scribble or doodle.  When you are finished, you click “start scribbler” and the site makes an interpretive scribble of your carefully created doodle.  Interesting!  Experiment with changing the colors as scribbler makes your piece for added beauty.

BRUSHster: National Gallery of Art

BRUSHster is an online painting canvas with different brush sizes and shapes as well as a variety of colors.  The only thing I didn’t like was that I could only click “undo” and step back one time. 

Collage Machine: National Gallery of Art

The collage machine makes collages (surprise!) with different shaped pieces of papers in a select number of colors.  However, by changing the transparency of the pieces, you can make more of the limited choices you have.

Mondrian Machine

The Mondrian Machine is inspired by the art of Piet Mondrian, which consists of perpendicular black lines that subdivide his canvas colored with primary colors.  This site is probably the most primitive of the bunch listed here, but could still serve a purpose in art class if you are studying this topic.

Surreal Painter

Create surreal art with the help of pre-made backgrounds and objects!  After you create your masterpiece, you can share it with your friends.  It will look like you spent hours in a high-tech art program when really it only took you a few minutes using this site.  Be cool among your artistic friends! 

I came across a site today called Light Doodles, where an artist (Lori Stotko) uses LCD lights in a dark room to create light pictures. This is possible by setting the camera on an extended shutter speed so that it can capture the movements made by the light. Stuart Nafey is the photographer that documents these pictures. An example of one is below:

Even more amazing is the tutorial page that allows the visitor to see the process that Lori goes through to create a light doodle and how to create light drawing pens.  There is a 20 second video that shows Lori at work and is worth checking out.

Art and science teachers can use this site to explain basic concepts.  Art teachers can use this to show lines and photography objectives. Science teachers illustrate concepts of light using this site.  Check it out, and order some cool notecards with Light Doodles!

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Yet another cool website can be found through the GirlsGoTech.org page.  It’s a mandala maker that allows you to create a symmetrical design using basic shapes and colors, and can be used in the classroom to reinforce geometric concepts in math.  As kids work on their design, they can preview the finished design to see if they want to go back and make changes. Here is the design that I created below:

If you enjoyed this post, please follow me to my new blog address where I will continue to post new tech tips:

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So far you have seen me write post after post about academic websites.  What about artistic websites?  I have to admit I am the one person in my family who is not artistic.  My brothers and sisters were born artists.  I popped out a teacher.  How did that happen?  Anyway.  There are several art websites that are worth checking out.  Several of these websites have the capability to share the art once it is created.  Isn’t that the best part about the Read/Write/Share web?  Students want to feel like they are part of a larger community.  They want to have a voice among their peers by contributing to the content of the web.  There are several ways to do so in writing, and now you can by drawing and painting.

Mr. Picasso Head

Appropriately named – instead of building a Potato, you build a Picasso.

Art Pad

It’s like an online canvas! Paint away, my friends, paint away.

Tate Britain: Create Your Own Collection

You are in charge!  Pick your favorite masterpieces and create a collection. Share with friends!

MoMA: The Museum of Modern Art

Go on an art safari with your class!  Explore art and discuss the questions along the way.

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Okay – I know I feature a lot of websites, but maybe it’s because I know how hard it is to get software approved for classroom use in the schools today. I came across this website called “Build Your Wild Self” put out by New York Zoos and Aquariums. The site starts you will a human boy or girl template, and allows you to change different parts of your body to animal parts. Why would you want to do this? Besides being fun for children and adults, teachers can incorporate this into their classroom for creative writing or science. Just think: Let students create themselves as an animal, print it out, and then write about it. Students can explain how their new animal body parts allow them to survive in the chosen habitat. Or how about different writing topics to go along with this such as:

• Explain how your life would be different if you came home from school looking like this.
• What sports or activties would you be good at now that you are part animal?
• Research the different animals that you picked and why you would want to be like that animal.

Another great site is Switch Zoo. This site used to be entirely free, but over the last year or so they started packaging the “game” for sale on CD. I have to admit, this is one of my biggest pet peeves as a teacher. You find a great, free site to use with your class, and as soon as you make it part of your routine, the site becomes a paid site. Anyway, some features of this site are still free (just enough to hook you). I had my class create a new animal, print it out in color, and then build a habitat out of clay to match their new animal. Have your class:

1. Create a name for the new animal
2. Create a habitat
3. Explain how the animal adapts to survive in the habitat
4. Explain what the animal eats, how it gets food, and how it protects itself.
5. Write a creative story about the new animal:
   1. “My New Pet”
   2. “A Strange Day at the Zoo”

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What happens when you mix winter and Web 2.0?  You get the Snowflake Generator, of course!  The website folds the paper for you, and provides you with a virtual pair of scissors.  Just start cutting along the edge of the paper, work your way in, and end at an edge when cutting your shapes.  You can preview your snowflake along the way to see if you like the cuts you have made.  How fun is this?

Also, the website gives you an opportunity to view the Snowflake Gallery, where you can print snowflakes made on the site, save the snowflake as a .jpg, or share one with a friend.  If it could only produce a real SNOW DAY to get you out of school, this site would be perfect.

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Remember the days of KidPix?  Well, now there is a site online that offers a variety of art activities for children for FREE.  Similar to KidPix, Kerpoof offers children the opportunity to create a picture, a story, or a movie complete with backgrounds, clip art, and drawing tools.  For families or schools who are looking for worthwhile activities for kids on-line, this is a perfect place to start to foster their creativity.  Now the big question is:  How long will this site stay free?  So many sites begin free, and once they hook a large audience, begin charging their fans for access to the site.  I certainly hope this will not happen to Kerpoof.