Library thing is like a social site for book lovers. There is a forum for book discussions (you can join an existing group or create your own) and, as with any other social networking site, you can have “friends” on Library Thing. You may even find people with (as the website puts it) “eerily similar” tastes. It is completely free to join. Adding books to your personal catalog is easy – just search the author’s name or the title of the book. There is even a section (see the “Local” tab) where you can find information in your locality about bookstores, author readings/signings, libraries and book festivals.

If you have a blog, you can easily add Library Thing’s blog widget to your site (I did – see it on my sidebar? Scroll down a little. There it is.). Oh – did I fail to mention that sometimes members can get free books? Bonus! There is an Early Reviewer program and a Member Giveaway program that you should definitely check out…happy reading!

Navigating the Twitterverse is simple. To “tweet” (post a message), you simply type in a brief (140 characters or less) message under “What’s happening?” and click the “Tweet” button. That’s it. You can include links in your tweets. I recommend using some URL shortener like http://bit.ly/, http://tiny.cc/ , or http://is.gd/. (I use bit.ly and it’s worked for me so far.) You can also share links to pictures by uploading your images to a site like http://twitpic.com/ , http://yfrog.com/ , or http://twitgoo.com/ and posting the link to your image on Twitter. (I use twitpic – no problems there.)

What’s that? You have something fantastic to share, but you just can’t share it within the Twitter message limit? Well, then head on over to http://www.twitlonger.com/ - when 140 characters just isn’t enough.

Who should you follow and why? Well, of course, that’s up to you, but when you follow someone, his or her tweets will show up on your home page whenever you log into Twitter – and this is how we share information. You can also send direct messages (nobody else will see these) to people who follow you. You can follow people you know (if they give you their twitter URL) by going to their page and clicking the “Follow” button. You can also check out the folks your twitter pals are following – you might want to follow them, too. You can search for people by entering their names in the “find people” area,  and you can browse interests – or tweeter categories - within Twitter to look for people to follow, too.

One site I found to be very helpful in locating people to follow is http://wefollow.com/. It is an index for tweeters. You can search for people who have categorized their tweets as, say, “education,” “educationaltechnology,” or “teaching.” Also, if you see something someone else has tweeted that you think the people following you might be interested in, you can retweet this message yourself by clicking “Retweet” next to their message – how easy is that?

You can make your tweets private by checking “Protect my tweets” under settings – in which case people can’t follow you unless you approve their request to follow you. Also, you will receive emails whenever someone follows you or sends you a direct message by default. If you don’t want those emails (or the Twitter email newsletter), uncheck these options under “Notices” in your settings. Managing your profile and design (also under settings) is pretty straightforward.

The bottom line is this…if you are not a tweeter, I definitely recommend at least checking it out! You never know what great resources or ideas you might stumble upon by way of a fellow tweeter! Follow me on Twitter, and I’ll follow you…then we can quickly share ideas and resources. Deal?    http://twitter.com/laineymic

All you have to do is read 10 books – your choice – download and print out the Double-Dog Dare Form, list the titles of the 10 books you read, have a parent or guardian sign the form, then bring the completed form to Borders, Borders Express, or Walden’s Books and select your free book!

This offer is valid for in-store only (sorry, no online ordering) and the deadline isn’t until August 26, 2010 – so you have practically all summer to read your 10 books! You can choose your free book from the following titles:

• Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary
• Miss Daisy is Crazy! by Dan Gutman
• Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown
• Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
• The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan
• Hoot by Carl Hiaasen
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare 
• Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
• The River by Gary Paulsen
• Kristy’s Great Idea by Ann M. Martin

For more information, visit the Borders site here.

Read on!

Virtual Vacation – with Google Maps, you can let your students take a virtual vacation! Students can research a location they would like to visit and with the satellite image view and street view features on Google Maps, they can virtually explore these locations. For example, here is a satellite image of the Eiffel Tower. You can access the street view, zoom in and out, and pan the camera to explore the location and surrounding area by following the instructions on this Screencast.

Glogster EDU – with Glogster EDU, teachers can set up a free virtual classroom and register up to 100 student accounts. The student user-names and passwords will be emailed to the teacher. Students will only be able to communicate with other students in their teacher’s group and will only be able to view Glogs created by group members. Here is an excellent tutorial on setting up a class, creating student accounts, and creating your first Glog (which is like a digital, online poster). Here is their Educator Resource Library (.pdf document) which includes ideas, lesson plans, examples, and a sample rubric. Some end of the year ideas include:

• create a Glog collage about things students learned this school year.
• create a country for your class, have the class elect the leaders (among their classmates) for the new country, and then create a Glog as an informational or travel poster for visiting the new country.
• assign a decade in US History to different collaborative groups and have students create a Glog describing their decade.

Year Board – with Wall Wisher, you can have your students post goodbye messages online. Notes can be moderated – see my earlier post on Wall Wisher – A Cool, Free Tech Tool. You can also create a wall and allow your students to leave messages about the unit, project, or activity they enjoyed the most/least this year. Another idea is to allow students to leave messages of advice to next year’s students, which brings me to…

Time Capsule – have your current students prepare a time capsule for your future students. You could do this with or without technology – or a combination of both. Students can leave examples of completed projects that show off the incredibly brilliant minds of the 2009-2010 class. They can leave stories of “a day in the life” of students in your class this year by writing a story, creating a comic strip, shooting a video, or creating a presentation. You can include a class picture, a list of “class award” recipients or top class averages, and even a Top Ten list of Advice or Dos and Don’ts for future students. You could also have students write a paragraph about what they would like to be doing 5 or 10 years from now to include in the time capsule. Some digital tools you can use are:

• Photostory- create a movie with still images, text, music, and narration. Students can add transitions, pans, and zooms to give the illusion of movement. Here is a step-by-step tutorial for using Photostory.
• Movie Maker – create a movie using still images, video clips, music, and narration. Students can add transitions and video effects to their finished product. Here are some excellent video tutorials for using Movie Maker.
• Prezi – an online, zooming, presentation tool. Prezi is free to use, but users must register. See my earlier post Give Power Point a Rest – Use Prezi!
• VoiceThread- create an online, interactive slide show using images, text, narration, and drawing tools. Students can comment on each other’s projects. VoiceThread is free, but users must register. Here are several VoiceThread tutorials. See my earlier post about VoiceThread.

Tin Can Ice Cream - this just sounds like a lot of fun! Check it out!

This concludes the three-part End of the Year – Activities/Projects post. Enjoy your summer!

Class Awards – these are probably more suited to younger rather than older students, but some could be funny for older students as well. Have your class vote on end of the year awards. For example:

• Most Freckles
• Neatest Desk (and/or Messiest Desk)
• Most Improved Handwriting
• Awesome Artist
• Ravenous Reader
• Miss/Mister Manners
• Super Style
• Problem Solver
• Always Cheerful
• Prince Charming
• Curious George

Here are some award templates in Word that you can customize:

• Award Template 1
• Award Template 2
• Award Template 3
• Award Template 4

Also, Crayola has a free online certificate maker here:  Crayola Certificates

Create-a-Comic – Pose a problem, then have your students create a comic strip in which the characters act out the solution. Give students a narrative writing prompt for a comic strip project. Read any good books lately? Allow students to complete a book report or story summary in the form of a comic strip. Have students describe the water cycle, the life cycle of a butterfly or frog, the rock cycle, or the life cycle of a plant in a comic strip. Of course, these are just a few ideas. You can do this with or without using computers – if you have some talented artists, they may even prefer to draw their own comic strip!

Here are some free, printable comic strip templates:

• Blank Comic Strip – 4 boxes
• Blank Comic Strip – 4 medium squares and one large rectangle
• Blank Comic Strip – 12 small boxes

There are also several decent online comic strip creators that are free:

• Make Beliefs Comix
• Bitstrips Comic Builder
• Professor Garfield’s Comics Lab
• Read-Write-Think Comic Creator

Student Created Puzzles  and Teacher Created Puzzles- Create puzzles to print out and give your students or have your students create a puzzle. For example, have students create a crossword puzzle based on a novel they read as a class assignment this year. The following site will allow you to do all this for free!

Discovery Education Puzzlemaker - create puzzles including, but not limited to:

• Word Searches
• Crossword Puzzles
• Cryptograms
• Number Blocks
• Math Squares

Simulations - most of these activities are better suited to middle and high school students – you will need a computer lab or laptops:

• Nobel Prize Educational Games/Simulations - there are lots of simulations at this site. The games and simulations are based on Nobel Prize-awarded achievements in the following areas:
  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Medicine
  • Literature
  • Peace
  • Economics
  • Click here for all of the games/simulations
• JA Titan Business Simulation – students can register to play for free and can invite each other to play together (up to 8 players). There are practice sessions available and private games. Students can select whether they wish to play a short, regular, or long game. Students choose a business scenario and learn about basic economic concepts, business management, marketing, research, and production while playing.  

Create-a-Board-Game - students create a board game based on a unit covered during this school year. This activity can be done collaboratively and requires materials like paper, scissors, poster board, and glue sticks. Students may use the templates provided for the question/answer cards and the game board, or they may create their own – especially if they want their game board to be larger than a sheet of paper (my kids used poster board). Teachers may opt to allow students to create the game using the computer (to enter true/false, multiple-choice, and/or short answer questions and add graphics), or give students blank cards and game board sections to fill in by hand. Here are some templates done in Word you can use (feel free to change the graphics):

• Question/Answer Cards – Set 1
• Question/Answer Cards – Set 2
• Question/Answer Cards – Set 3
• Quiz Game Board - this game board goes with the question/answer card sets above
• Spokes Game Board - a game board with a shape similar to Trivial Pursuit
• Hex Game Board - black and white game board
• Plain Game Board - black and white game board with square shapes
• Colorful Game Board - game board in pastels
• Basic Game Board - basic game board in bright colors
• Cards – Squares – Set 1
• Cards – Squares – Set 2
• Cards – Squares – Set 3
• Cards – Squares – Set 4
• Large Cube - use in place of a die
• Spinner - a game spinner

This concludes Part Two of the “End of the Year – Tech (and Non-Tech) Class Activities” post. Stay tuned for Here is Part Three!

Writer’s and Illustrators of the Future is sponsoring their quarterly Science Fiction/Fantasy Short Story (or Novelette) contest and their Science Fiction/Fantasy Illustration contest. The submission deadline for this quarter is June 30, 2010. Next quarter’s deadline is September 30, 2010 – which is also the end of the contest year. No entry fee is required and entrants retain all rights to their work. Entries must be mailed in to the address listed on the Rules page – where you can also learn about the cash prizes awarded for the quarterly contests as well as the annual grand prize.

Good luck and happy writing!!

Here are some ideas for end of the year projects/activities you can use - with laptops, in the computer lab, with a couple of workstations, with an LCD projector, or without using technology at all - as things wind down to summer break:

Internet Scavenger Hunt - this is a quick and easy project for your students to work on individually or in collaborative pairs/groups. If you want to make one of your own, first, decide what topic you want your students to research, then create some questions you want them to be able to answer. Then do a little research yourself and find some sites that will help the students locate the answers.

You can create the scavenger hunt as a document and print it out to give to your students, or you can create one they can access from a computer. An easy way to make one online is by using Filamentality. (For more info, see my previous post:  Filamentality – A Cool Tech Tool - examples included)

You can actually make several different types of online activities for your students with Filamentality. Simply fill in the online form, copy and paste the links you want your students to use, and submit – the activity will be accessible immediately. Then grab the URL for your activity to post to your blog!

Not feeling creative – or are you just plain out of time? Here are some pre-made scavenger hunts:

• Scavenger Hunts – listed by grade level (tabs at top of page)
• More Internet Scavenger Hunts

If you want your students to conduct their own research from scratch - instead of giving them links to websites – an online or printed document would be a good way to go. Here is an example of a scavenger hunt I created with random questions for students to answer by filling in the blanks:

• Test Your Research Skills

Electronic Field Trips - this is an activity you can allow you students to complete individually, in pairs/groups, or you can lead a whole virtual field trip. eFieldTrips.org offers free Electronic Field Trips – the trips include a trip journal for teachers to give students to fill out during the virtual visit. There is also an “ask the experts” session where students can submit questions and have them answered in 1-2 days. Even if the ask the expert session has expired, students can still access the trip journal and virtual visit. Be sure to check out the link for Available eField Trips.

Ball State University offers free Electronic Field Trips – check out two of their archived trips at the links below:

• Volcano Eruption – this trip to could also be used as a whole group activity (click on Students and create a username and password)
• A Whale of a Story – this trip is more like a web adventure and is better suited to individuals or maybe pairs.  Hurry – this trip will be removed on May 30, 2010!!

Creative Writing – Mysteries - this site is based on The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg, and offers an introductory video, writing tips, links to stories (in print and podcast form) people have written in response to the mysteries, and posted student work. There is a link on the submission page for printing student work in their own “newspaper.” You could also have your students submit their writing to your blog. This site is suitable for multiple grade levels. Teachers would need to purchase or borrow the book or the portfolio edition to facilitate this activity.

Video Conferences - connect with another class for a poetry/rap jam. Two history classes I worked with recently held one where students memorized a rap about World War Two and choreographed their performances which they presented to each other – a rousing success! Another idea is to have students who are moving up from elementary school to middle school, or middle to high, to connect with a class in the school they will attend next year as a “virtual tour” or for a Q & A about what to expect. Another idea is to connect with another class, have the teachers pose a problem/project to the students, then give the students a few days to solve the problem or complete the project. Connect with the class again and have students present their solutions/projects to each other. These are just a few ideas…

Web Adventures/Activities – most of these activities are better suited to individual use than to group work:

• CyberChase – this site, by PBS Kids, includes games, quests, and web adventures involving early math.
• Simple Machine Adventure - Help Twitch get the parts he needs to complete the robot by using simple machines and problem solving skills. Aligns with 3rd grade science SOLs.
• Art Detective – designed for grades 4-12. Solve the case of Grandpa’s Painting.
• Jamestown Online Adventure – You are the Captain of the Jamestown Colony. Can you do any better than the real colonists? Click Start the Adventure – you may have to temporarily allow pop-ups.
• Villainy, Inc. - Thwarting World Supremacy Through Mathematics! - this site was created for students in grade 5-8 and contains activities that explore statistics and probability, algebra, geometry, decimals, percents, negative numbers, and more.
• Lure of the Labyrinth – a web adventure for middle school Pre-Algebra students.
• Math by Design – use geometry and measurement to become an architect – created for Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 students to enhance their understanding of measurement and geometry objectives.
• Sense and Dollars - this site was developed to help young people in middle and high school come to grips with some of the basic principles of personal finance and economics, to practice using Internet technology, and to see how the principles they use in mathematics apply to other subject areas.
• Knowing Poe - as in Edgar Allan Poe. The videos on this site require the Real Player (which we don’t have), but the interactives only require Flash (which we do have). It’ll Be the Death of Me is an interactive activity you can allow students to complete on their own, or use it as a whole group activity. In this activity, students will try to determine what could have caused Poe’s death. Suitable for middle and high school students.
• CSI Web Adventures – the Experience – learn forensic science and apply your knowledge. The site offers three cases to solve – beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
• Interactive Simulations – Physics, Biology, Earth Science, Chemistry, and Math simulations. If you click “All Sims by Grade Level” in the left side-bar menu, you will get links to Elementary, Middle, High School, and University level sims  - check out the High School Teacher Guide.

This concludes Part One of the “End of the Year - Tech (and Non-Tech) Class Activities” post. Stay tuned for Here is Part Two!