K-12

K-12 related resources that could be useful in education landscape, just for anyone from Adminstrators to Students and their Parents.

Google Apps
Organizations around the world, inclulding schools and other educational institutions are moving on to Google Apps for its collaborative features of email, document sharing and communication tools that are bundled together into what is Google Apps.  Google even has a special for Education edition which is free of cost to K12 schools and educational institutions. And here are the 10 reasons why should make a switch from conventional email systems to Google’s cloud based email. Oh – and incase you like reading a lot,  there are some case studies too.

Facebook for Educators
A good information resource on using Facebook as a collaboration tool in classroom and beyond by Linda Fogg Phillips.

Zamzar is an Online File Conversion Utility that lets you convert files up to 100mb in size to the choice of your format. You don’t need to download any software, it is completely online utility.

Intel Education enables 21st century teaching and learning through free professional development, tools, and resources that help K–12 teachers engage students with effective use of technology.

 

Digital Storytelling

• Storybird – Storybirds are short, art-inspired stories you make to share, read, and print.
• StoryJumper is a place to create and discover stories for kids.
• Lego’s Comic Builder – based on Lego comic characters.
• TikaTok – students can create and publish their own book.
• Carnegie Library’s MyStoryMaker is also a good, flash based, step by step tool.
• Kerpoof’s tool – allows you to create different kind of art works like a picture, movie, card, drawings etc.

Online Encyclopedia for Kids

• Wikipedia (Simple English version)
• Yahoo Kids
• The Library of Congress
• Fact Monster
• Kids.net

Search Tools

• Tag Galaxy – searches the keyword you specify against the Flickr tags database and returns the results in an awesome galactic interface.
• Boolify – allows students to visualize and interact with the abstract concept behind the search process–it is intuitive and easy to use with your class or in your library.
• KidsClick WOWS – world of web searching
• 123PeopleSearch and PIPL are two great tools for people / biography search
• Search Cube returns the imgae search results in the form a a cube of images.
• Spezify is a search tool that returns a combination of image, text, video results in a single visual presentation to the user.
• Wolfram Alpha – a very powerful mathematical data search engine.
• Watch Know Learn is a cool video search engines that fetches educational videos meant for K12 use.
• Shahi is a visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images, and more!
• QWiki – returns search results in a storytelling way.
• Scirus - is the most comprehensive scientific research tool on the web.