Also

http://theapple.monster.com/benefits/articles/3210-5-fun-internet-activities-for-the-classroom

1. zamzar, formatfactory and the sp version of realplayer  can be used to convert files into different formats – for playing on phones etc.
2. flash meeting can be used for videoconfering.
3. http://blog.storybird.com/ – for creating digital stories – has banks of images.
4. Fronter – a sort of virtual classroom where teachers can store their resources, set homework and receive assignments from their students. They can also fill in their monthly reports for the principal. Looked pretty good but probably more geared to secondary schools. Think they also said it costs 2 euro per user per year.
5. teachers-pet.org – a plugin for word or open office (and maybe ppt) which can be used to quickly create bingo cards, jumbled sentences, split sentences (that kids have to match up). Can use this software free for a certain time and then have to pay something for it.
6. ikea home planner  (http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/rooms_ideas/splashplanners.html ) – for creating 3d images of rooms (kitchens, living rooms etc)  that can be printed out.
7. digital comics –
   - makebeliefscomix.com – creates strips with 3 pics and is FREE
   - comic life (plasq.com/edustore) – creates A4 page comics. You take the pictures, insert them and add speech bubbles. (Have used this before myself and it’s pretty cool). Not free – but pretty cheap.
8. myavatoreditor – exactly like that tool on the wii where you can create people with different hair, eyes etc.
9. Creating Videos using online tools – i.e. those you don’t have to install on your PC (unlike photostory):
   animoto.com – good choice of music to accompany video. Slow to render. No control over transitions.
   stupefix – 60 sec limit but you have control over transitions.
   clipgenerator.com
10. fisbookclub.com: (Using technology to encourage reading books)
    A site where children can get recommendations from other students about what to read and who then can also contribute a video review of a book themselves. When they do this they are sent a certificate.
11. Euro creator – an educational version of youtube – i.e. where contributions are vetted. When children contribute a video they get positive feedback and a certificate from the EU commissioner! The video can also be embedded in their own pages.
12. Moodle – there was a talk on this which I missed because I was attending the blog stuff – but this seems to be the new up and coming virtual learning environment – which includes blogs, wikis and much more. Apparently there is a very good book on it available on amazon.
13. Blogs – using wordpress (FREE)
    This presentation was by a 5th class teacher – who worked in a school whose website was too cumbersome to allow the students to add anything. He wanted a way to allow the students contribute to their own website.He started off thinking about the scoilnet blog but decided on using wordpress instead as on the scoilnet blog students are not allowed to add stuff. So they created this blog/website: http://primaryscience.wordpress.com (originally intended for displaying science experiments).If you take a look you can see he organises it all under different categories and stores a lot of his resources there. Every student has their own login and they contribute posts, comments, pictures and audio. As you can see they had the author Sarah Web in recently – so they photographed her and interviewed her and the students themselves put the photos and interviews on the blog. They also did something similar for the Young Scientists.The presenter told us he doesn’t have to monitor the posts. They had a big dicussion (based on webwise.ie) at the start about what’s appropriate and safe to contribute and has had no problems. (But I think you can actually set it up to monitor the posts if you want).He also said that since he set it up some of the other teachers in his school has set ones up for their own class and that he has a link off the school’s website to his 5th class blog.

See also

• http://www.mlpsi.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=184 and 
• http://www.anseo.net/?p=2072 (for tricks from the Friday night which I missed. also has links to schools that have blogs – good examples to look at)

A video of the first night is also available at http://flashmeeting.e2bn.net/fm/3cd184-8372