QuestGarden WebQuest Collection

WebQuests were a hot topic a few of years ago, but now that the initial novelty value has worn off, they may well be worth a second look for promoting independent enquiry and self-paced learning. QuestGarden offers a huge bank of WebQuests for free (as well as additional resources for paid members) so it's a great place to start if you're looking for one to supplement or kick-start a topic.

Geonames: Find Yourself on the Map!

Geonames is an interesting little site where you can type in your name to see if there are any places in the world called the same. I tried it and was surprised to find 6 places called Abena, including one in Spain.

When considering the educational value of this service, I though it might be an nice way to get learners exploring a range of possibilities. Rather than spinning a globe and pointing a finger, this could be an engaging way of launching a topic. It could be used as part of a research project, a writing prompt, a starting point for exploring any data on landscapes, populations or anything else that is to be the subject of study.

Mee Books & The Story Home: Audio Books for Kids

MeeGenius offers a range of free (and paid) books for kids that they can listen to and/or read along with on the site. The stories are beautifully illustrated to engage younger learners and although the range isn't great, it's another place to find free reading content for kids; add them all together and you have a lot of choices to keep them busy!

The Story Home is another site where kids can listen to tales read by a guy named Alan. Unfortunately, there is no read-along option on this site. However, there is a wider range of stories than the previous site and they can be browsed by category, so still lots of useful stuff to keep younger learners engaged and occupied. Given the lack of illustrations, why not get your learners to create their own visual responses?

Research Reliability

Here's a video you might want to show your learners about the need to cross-check results from search engines and collaborative encyclopedias before taking it as fact. It could be used as a jumping off point for discussing effective research skills, as well as how search engines actually work on popularity rather than reliability.

Kadoo Private Video Sharing

Youtube is a great place for putting videos to share with the world, but if you cannot access it or require even more control over your privacy, Kadoo might be a good option. You could also use it to supplement the space provided by Google Video and have the ability to set your sharing preferences so only those you want to see the videos can do so. 

Zac Browser for Autism

"Over the past 3 years, Zac Browser has helped over 2.5 million children from around the world with autism by providing a free software solution filled with activities and videos." 

Watch the 5-minute introduction to see if you could make use of, or contribute to, the Zac Browser project.

NB Unfortunately, Zac Browser is only currently available for PC, but a Mac release is coming in July. In the meantime, you might like to try out ZacPicto, the "virtual assistant for people with autism."

Moonbase Alpha

"Step into the role of an explorer in a futuristic lunar settlement... 

Your mission is to restore critical systems after a meteor strike cripples life support equipment."

Moonbase Alpha: An education guide is provided with lesson plans for this interactive game where survival depends on teamwork, use of resources and learning from mistakes. Although tagged as a game for science subjects (ages 11-15), I think the immersive nature of the challenge would also be great for inspiring some creative writing. It only takes about 20 minutes to play an episode, so why not try it out yourself to see its applications in your classroom?

Tagul and Tagxedo Word Clouds

Wordle is well-known for good reason, but these two alternatives are well worth exploring too if you want more image options (with apologies for not blogging about them sooner).

Tagxedo allows you to create word clouds which form a recognisable image. Here's an example of a Michael Jackson Tagxedo. The resulting words are not clickable but the range of images and customisability is why you might choose it over other options. You can find 101 ways to use Tagxedo here.

Tagul offers a similar service to Wordle although each tag is connected to a url, so you can click on words to carry out a Google search on that term. If you'd like the word to point to a different site, this is an adaptation you can carry out on the site. Here's an example (image only) below. 

Get More out of Google

A conversation with some of my learners surprised me as I learned that they had zero knowledge of search operators, even the most basic ones such as '+' and '-' preceding search terms. Coincidentally, this infographic on searching effectively came to my attention via a NY Times lesson plan on research the same day.

If you want to create a display using the infographic, you may have to fiddle with your page settings to prevent split text, but this one's certainly worth going through with your classes, even if only to make them aware that operators and Google Scholar exist.

Google provide the html to easily display the infographic on your site, so it could be published to your library's or subject's VLE, wiki or blog page for future reference.

Although Google has produced the infographic, the operators will work with many other search engines too.

Created by: HackCollege

Stay Focused - Bye to distractions

This week, one of my learners asked me in her blog how she could self-manage her tendency to go onto sites such as Facebook when sitting down to do some work. It reminded me of an extension I'd read about a while back called Stay Focused. For those using Chrome as a browser (and why would you use anything else?), you can set time limits for particular websites and once the time has elapsed you will not be able to return to that site until the following day. The settings in Stay Focused can be customised so you can wean yourself off hours wasted on social networking or gaming sites.

The great thing about Stay Focused is it allows learners to set their own limits, thereby increasing their independence. If they're mature enough to realise they have a problem, why not give them the tool to sort it out, rather than resorting to teacher or parent monitoring?