Update - 17 December

Jelly Cam ... wonderful, simple stop frame animator

Browsing through my Twitter feed tonight I came across this really good fun app ... thanks to @digitalmaverick ...  It is The 'Isle of Tune' ... wonderful fun

Google Body Browser is a really powerful new creation from Google ... works in Chrome ... just a superb idea. Rather like Google earth for the human body !!

Update - 8 December

A colour mixing idea http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/colour_mixing/eng/introduction/ found by Craig Hough

Update - 1 December

Ian Addison led an online Vital chat on 24/11/10 on e-safety … here are the links he used:

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/teachers/resources/

http://www.safeshare.tv/v/MTpa3AS39uA

http://bit.ly/facebookstjohns

http://bit.ly/bgPPNt

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8490000/newsid_8495700/8495786.stm

http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/

http://www.getnetwise.org/

http://www.childnet-int.org/kia/primary/

http://www.lgfl.info/esafety/Pages/ESafetyHome.aspx

http://www.ikeepsafe.org/iksc_kids/

http://www.learningcurve.info

http://philbagge.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-should-iconfident-child-look-like.html

http://www.lgfl.info/esafety/policy/Pages/ESafetyPolicyStrategyResources.aspx

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/8_10/cybercafe/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/help/web/besmart.shtml

Update - 27 November

 Story Starts.   It is a great way for teachers to free the muse in their pupils and if it inspires more children to write like Jeremy Hodge (see Your Stories at Story Starts) it could well be instrumental in developing the next JK Rowling! 

http://www.storystarts.co.uk/

Update - 22 November

REonline

A good set of resources for Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism

This is what they say about themselves:

REonline was first launched in 2005 (succeeding theREsite, originally launched 1998). Its main function is as a portal site, providing information for all those working and interested in Religious Education in England. Additional resources are produced to supplement an identified need when finance and time allow. Further links for those working in other parts of the UK are provided when we are advised by our team of contacts.

Update - 20 November

I was at a Conference in Durham and had the pleasure, again, of listening to Tim Rylands … always something new… I learned about Switcheroozoo which is, in some ways similar to ‘Build Your Wild Self’ but has many other attributes that have to potential to inspire reading, writing, research and just downright good fun.(Pity about the adverts!)

This is what they say about themselves:

Switcheroo Zoo (a.k.a. Switch Zoo) started as a small project. We were playing around with the idea of making new animals by switching their parts. At first, the zoo had just nine animals, and it was the only attraction on the website. Today, there are 142 species in Switch Zoo, and the site features animal games, music performed using animal voices, a reference section about all of the animals in Switch Zoo, lesson plans, and poetry, stories and artwork created by students and visitors.

Update - 18 November

Odosketch This is an online sketching tool that really worth trying and shouting about  ... there is a log in and a sign on but only if you want to save ... you can have some real fun just by going here and doing it !!
Thanks to Tom Barrett ( followed by many Twitter rts )for the point towards this.

Update - 14 November

Scribblemaps - is the quick and easy way to rapidly make and share maps! It locks onto Google Maps and allows quick and easy annotation and loads more.

Tom Barrett has updated his 'Interesting ways' post on Wordle ... Forty-Eight Interesting Ways* to use Wordle in the Classroom

Update - 12 November

If you are looking for new, engaging ideas for primary work on e-safety education then this may well be for you ...
Safe is a new programme of practical activities to develop primary and elementary school children’s skills, self-confidence and safety awareness when using social network sites.

Update - 9 November

Children's Money World looks to have some interesting activities ... there are some free ones but the whole 800 costs £11.99 for a class for a year !!
This is what they say about themselves: We teach Maths, Numeracy and Personal Finance in a fun and interactive way. Our online activities incorporate the learning process with simple everyday tasks that aim to stimulate your child or pupil to learn through investigation, curiosity and association.

Update - 5 November

The BBC is going to town, quite literally, at the moment bringing a whole range of history focused programmes and related resources and information.
There is the new series 'Turn Back Time' which started on BBC 1 on 2nd November. This programme is well supported by the web site 'Hands on History' which, in turn, is further enhanced by the 'Victorian Britain' web site which has resources and teacher's notes to support the programme.

@Marthalanefox has just posted a Tweet about an impressive site  which gives real time world data on many aspect of life and times … The site ‘worldometers’ shows the current world population, births in the world today, bicycles produced this year etc. It has categories for environment, food, water  … amongst others.
This is what the site says about itself:

Worldometers is part of the Real Time Statistics Project, which is managed by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. Chief project coordinator is currently Sir Thomasson. 
Worldometers currently has 32 language specific versions. 
Our organization is being structured in order to have a Chief Responsible for each language version, who is the sole representative for sponsorship opportunities addressed to entities in the Country of reference 

Update - 3 November

Poisson Rouge have produced an exciting new interactive encyclopedia type 'thing' called encyclopediainteractica ...

Almost addictive ... if you are looking for the unusual then this is it !!

Thanks to John Sutton (@HGJohn) for the 'heads up' on this

Update - 1 November

@dannynic on Twitter has come up with a set of 10 Avatar Generators ... he says: Here are 10 websites that you can use to create fun avatars. Some allow you to save the finished creation as a jpg for free. If not, then use the print screen button to copy the screen, paste into a paint program, crop and save as a jpg.

Update - 31 October

Vozme - from text to speech

An absolutely enormous collection of free mind mapping tools ... lots of them ... here

You might find this brand new Wallace and Gromit avatar builder amusing and/or useful ...

Mark Treadwell, from New Zealand, has compiled a list of image libraries ... many are 'creative commons' but do check out the small print ... find the list here .

Update - 30 October

Alec Couros, Professor of educational technology & media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina, Canada from a tweet points out that he found 6 Free Sites for Creating Your Own Comics originally posted by Sarah Kessler

Update - October 27

The Blogger ' thecleversheep' has produced a list of digital resources to try to make some sense out of the problems associated with copyright and digital publishing.

This is what he says about them: In an attempt to bring some order to the chaos of Creative Commons licensing, I've created a list of resources that educators might share with students as a starting point for all manner of creative projects. To explain a bit about each resource, I've appended a 3 word summary to each CC tools/resource. The podcast explains how teachers might leverage these resources to teach students about the Creative Commons...

Update - October 23

Twitter contact @digitalmaverick has come up with the amusing and potentially useful talking pet tool … try it here.

Update - October 21

Just to let you know that Rockford's Rock Opera Part 2 has just been released as an iPhone/iPod Touch App (it'll work on the iPad soon too – once Apple have released iOS4 for that device in November).

It costs £2.99, and you can get Part 2 here: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id396897529?mt=8

If you have an iPhone/iPod Touch just download it (you'll need to be onWiFi) – it's got lots of new stuff, videos etc – and, give it a review and rating, should you care to.

Part 1 is free of course: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id345554761?mt=8

Update - October 20

Simon Haughton has updated his Bonfire Night section of his Infant Encyclopedia ... find the excitement here

Update - October 5

There are some great resources available on the SWGfL Merlin site that can be used even if you are not a subscriber. Special mentions from me go to 'Word Detective' and 'Word Wizard'

Update - September 11

Looking for web 2.0 tools ? Then look no further ... here is a superb list thanks to Primary Technology !

Update - August 26

Danny Nicholson , Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Also general tech geek ;) has posted these excellent science resource sites on Twitter.

Crickweb Science for KS2

UK Safari

Update - August 22

Spicynodes is a Prezi style mind mapping tool which is free to use (after sign up). Well worth a look if you are looking to give choice of tools to think with.

If you are working on an iPad I suggest that you take a good look at ‘Popplet‘ app … very simple, very clear. There is a paid version or a free ‘lite’ version

Update - August 15

These ideas are worth a good long look ‘wearewhatwedo’.

Historypin could be of special use in building home/school links.

Simon Widdowson rightly tweets about this excellent site – a great starter collection to bounce from … From Pearcedale Primary School in Australia

Update - May 8

These are a selection of the things I have been saving up to tell you about. Many thanks to my many friends on Twitter, Facebook, Skype ... and those in the 3D world for the 'heads-up'.

1. The Symphony of Science is a musical project headed by John Boswell designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form. Here you can watch music videos, download songs, read lyrics and find links relating to the messages conveyed by the music.

The project owes its existence in large measure to the wonderful work of Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steve Soter, of Druyan-Sagan Associates, and their production of the classic PBS Series Cosmos, as well as all the other featured figures and visuals. Continuation of the music and videos relies upon generous support from fans and followers.

2. Self Grading Quizes using Google Forms

3. Education Guardian - Classroom Innovation

This is a new website dedicated to the use of technology in schools as a teaching and learning tool. Each fortnight we will be putting up new material bridging the gap between the rapid advance in technology and the practical realities of teaching in class.

4. Titan Pad

This is another 'rescue' of Ether Pad for educational use. Like PrimaryPad.

5. PicLits

Whole word sentence building with attitude. PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture.

6. Tagul

Tagul is a web service that enables you to create gorgeous tag clouds. It is created by Alex, 27 years old entrepreneur and tech geek from Moscow, Russia.

Update - April 10

Tagxedo

If you have used Wordle or other similar tools and have liked the way that they display documents, poems or similar then you will love this – Tagxedo – turns words — famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters — into a visually stunning tag cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.

6 Interesting Ways to use an iPod Touch

Tom Barrett has developed the framework for many really useful ‘ Interesting Ways…‘ themes and these have been contributed to by people from all across the world. His latest is ‘6 Interesting ways to use an iPod Touch’ and is a great starter for those teachers and schools who recognise the power of personal, hand-held technologies for teaching and learning.

The Story Museum

The Story Museum exists to celebrate children’s stories and to share 1001 enjoyable ways for young people to learn through stories as they grow. We take story performances, exhibitions, activities and ideas to schools and communities. In 2014 we plan to open a magical new centre of children’s literature and storytelling in the heart of Oxford, UK.

Update - March 24

An amazing way to explore the Sistine Chapel ... wonderful graphics .... full panorama .. something to really talk about

Sumdog is an entertaining, motivating set of ‘cool, free maths games‘ designed to improve numeracy. The games are played live on the Internet. It is aimed at top end age KS2 and bottom end age KS3 – this really to do with the graphics and presentation – worth a look to make your mind up . Could be a good home/school link site.

Update - March 23

360 degree safe is an e-safety self review tool from the South West Grid for Learning. This is what they say about it: The 360 degree safe online tool provides a user friendly and interactive means for schools to review their eSafety provision and to develop an action plan to bring about improvements. The tool is currently free of charge to schools on completion of a simple registration process.

Paris 26 Gigapixels is a stitching of 2346 single photos showing a very high-resolution panoramic view of the French capital (354159×75570 px). Dive into the image and visit Paris like never before!

What a difference 26 gigapixels makes. What a wonderful way to explore the city.

Keyboarding for young children - Tricia Neal sent me this link to a keyboarding game for very young children.

Update - February 1st

Youblisher.com is a terrific way to publish children's (or your own) work. You will not believe just how easy it is to make superb publications from your pdfs.

It may be a little dated now but could still be useful.The Wild Web Woods is a game instituted by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Its purpose is for people/children to get to know and respect children’s rights and protect children from any kind of violence. The game is based on the Council’s ‘Internet Literacy’ handbook which has 21 fact sheets on important issues and contains lots of help for teachers and parents. The Wild Web Woods comes in 22 European languages.

Ollie Bray draws my attention to this new use of Google Street View by the National Trust. Click on an image of a property and get taken for a virtual look round using the power of ’street view’.

Danny Nicholson points out (on Twitter) a great site for teaching the science of plants. Its called The Great Plant Hunt.

This is what they say for themselves:To mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, commissioned and funded by the Wellcome Trust, has created The Great Plant Hunt. This exciting project will encourage children to explore the natural world around them and join other schools in the biggest ever school science project. Forming part of the Darwin 200 initiative, The Great Plant Hunt invites primary school children to follow in the footsteps of Darwin by going on nature walks in and around their school grounds. They’ll find out more about plants and in the process learn key scientific skills.

If you are a 2Simple user then these are for you. ‘2Simpleant’ has made a pdf of the all of the icons that you might need to brighten up your room and/or explain their various functions to your class. Get the download from here.

A new FREE drawing package download has just come my way… Alchemy …Now I just know that there are enough of these things to sink a battleship but this has some really nice features. Load the app and mouse bump the top bar to get the menu: select ‘create’ and ‘ribbon shapes’ and select ‘Affect’ and ‘Mirror’… enjoy

EasiDefine
EasyDefine was the brainchild of Prabhav Jain. He got so tired of spending excessive time looking up the definitions of many words that he developed the idea and code for an automatic and quick dictionary. He launched EasyDefine in 2009, in association with Chris Choi, while the two were in Torrey Pines High School. The programming (PHP, AJAX, Javascript (JQuery), MySQL, HTML), interface, and graphics scheme (via CSS) is done by Prabhav Jain and the graphics (via Photoshop) by Chris Choi. Currently, the site is maintained by Prabhav.

SafeShare - enable you to share YouTube videos using a direct URL that frames the video without the advertising and other distracting features ( thanks to Nik for this link)