Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Delicious highlights #1

Since I opened my Delicious account I have noticed I am so much more likely to bookmark a website than I was when I just stored them on my laptop. I think maybe one of the key things for me, apart from having my bookmarks available online, on any computer, is the fact that I am adding to a collective pool of recommended sites. Recently I have been turning to Delicious to do a search rather than Google, and usually finding that if I enter the right search tags I can find exactly the kind of websites I was looking for. What's more, I can search my own bookmarks, my network's bookmarks or everybody's.

Anyway, because it is a virtual treasure trove for me, I thought I'd pick out some of the highlights from the last week and share them with you here:

  1. The New Media Literacies - this is a reasonably short YouTube video about the way our conception of literacy is changing in the 21st Century. I found this over at Lunchbox.  
  2. Spelling City - I've put my students on to this one already. A great spelling site, and thing I like most about it is that the students can either choose from lists on the site or enter their own list, and the website will test, teach and create games using those words. Great!
  3. KEEPVID - Many schools have blocked websites like YouTube, and teachers know how frustrating it can be to find something really useful but not be able to show it. KEEPVID enables you to easily download a video so you can play it back later from your computer. Problem solved!
  4. Youtubetime - while we're talking about YouTube, here's a useful website that provides a way to link to a specific part of a YouTube video.
  5. Teachers TV - As the website says, 'Thousands of education programmes on TV and online.'  Andrew Churches put us on to this at his workshop last week.
  6. Graphic Organisers - teachers love this kind of thing: lots and lots of free graphic organisers in pdf format.
  7. LibriVox - ok, last one: this site provides free audiobooks from the public domain, and the option to record chapters of books in the public domain. I have some students who are excellent listeners, but who really struggle with reading. Sites like these have the potential to turn these students on to books and literature. (hat tip: Andrew Churches)
Well, that's it for last week's highlights. I wonder which websites out there are waiting to be discovered this week!  Hopefully you found some of these useful, and by the way, don't forget to bookmark Webb-ed Feet on Delicious using the tag at the top of the sidebar!

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