Mixwit..com

We know that today's students are plugged-in, volume turned up, I need music for everything I do type kids. Well why don't we use that to our advantage and have students create projects by making play lists that students can share with the class that is revolved around a subject. To achieve this great idea a website called MixWit Media Playground is a perfect and sleek way of doing so. This site is still running in Beta, so there can be some problems in it, such as some of the music that I added in my example wouldn't work at first, I'm guessing some type of copyright issue, but that's not my problem.

I think the best way is incorporate this into a project or classroom would be a doing genres of music in history in classes by breaking music down by 60's, 70's, etc. Or my favorite, a good icebreaker for the beginning of the year! Every student has to listen to some type of music. It could be from what they listen to on their 80 gig iPod, or whatever their parents play. Music usually shows you who they are outside of the classroom. My students can't believe that I listen to mellow music like Micheal Buble as well as the newest Lil Wayne. You can learn a lot and connect on another level just by listening to what they like!

By the way, I think this site is awesome!

eBooksquad.com

We all know how much of a problem text books can be in the classroom. From students loosing them left and right, spilling food and drinks on them, and writing great messages like, do you want to know what Mr. Steve does in his spare time? Turn to page 45....ok now turn to page 103, 22, 297, etc. etc. etc. you know you've wasted 10 minutes to see the final answer. Anyways, eBooksquad is a great website that searches the net for eBooks, and all the books it finds, are of course, free! I wouldn't say that it has every book possible, but it is definatly a cool site if your looking for examples from books, tutorials, and other basic things.

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PlanningWiz

Since I'm a drafting, architecture and mechanical engineering teacher, I think have a weak spot for sites that are geared towards my subject area. PlanningWiz is a website that anyone can use and the best part is that you don't need to have any form of experience in drafting or architecture to start drawing up plans of you classroom, home, apartment, or office!

This can be perfect for multiple content areas, some that come to mind for me is in my drafting 1 class, to show the basics of floor plans and room design, to life skills classes or planning their apartment or a cost analysis of furniture needed. Your imagination on how to add this into your curriclum is the only thing stopping you! Don't we want to include math into ALL subject areas, this site is perfect for it since it uses metric and imperial for measuring (it's on the bottom corner of website).

humyo.com

Computer storage has came a long way, from the big old floppy disks, to the great invention of zip disks, well that actually wasn't a great invention but it worked, and now usb flash drives. Most companies, schools, and even some homes have networks where files can be stored and be accessed on any computer, while in the building that is. Humyo fixes this problem of accessing these files by creating a free online storage system that can be accessed anywhere you want, in or out of the building, up to 25 gigs of media files and 5 gigs for non-media files. If you want to upgrade you can and get some added security, an "H" aka humyo drive on your computer, no ads, 100 gig of storage, etc. etc. for a little cost of $5 a month, not bad to back up your files!

Fewer Pursuing Tech Degrees - TIME Article

We all know that kids are good at using computers and they're starting younger and younger, actually my 3 year old nephew can navigate through YouTube to watch cartoons without a problem! Anyways, instead of yelling at the "computer slackers" for not keeping up with their homework in Slavic studies because their creating a program for Ubuntu, instead we need to encourage them to finish with a degree!

According to a resent article in TIME Magazine, "Fewer college students are pursuing computer-related degrees at a time when demand is increasing and thousands of baby boomers are retiring from technical jobs."

So go ahead and push those slackers to get those basic high school programming classes and tell them that they'll be getting crazy paying jobs for something that they love! Whats wrong with that picture?

Livemocha.com

We all know that today's students are going to be working at a company that will speak more than one language. And because of this most schools have some type of standards for a foreign language implemented into their curriculum. But what about the students that want to learn a language that's not available? Livemocha Beta is a website that "blends self-paced lessons, a vibrant community, and interactive tools to help you talk to the world."

Of course this site if completely free and it lets students track their progress by using the tools inside of Livemocha. This could take an independent study to a whole new level for students and teachers!

HippoCampus.org

So I found this a while back, and it's a resource tool for all your core subject areas, actually its a great tool and it's called HippoCampus! Very similar to MIT's OpenCourseware, but this is set up for high school classes. You could easily use this site as a guideline when teaching in that subject area. It also has higher level classes such as physics and calculus and even college prep classes! .

openculture.com

Openculture.com is another free open courseware, but with a twist! The difference is that openculture feeds by linking you to iTunes or downloadable mp3 files. Today's students forget to bring their books, paper, and pencils to class, but always have their iPod with them. Openculture uses the students favorite tool (their iPod of mp3 player) and utilizes it to learn. This site has linked up with multiple colleges and universities to give you the an enormous amount of information.

Just think...instead of lecturing for 20 minutes in the classroom, have the students go home, download the podcast from iTunes, and have them fill in the note sheet! Now that's using some great technology!

MIT OpenCourseware

One of the best schools in the nation has TONS of information online, for free of course! the Massachusetts Institute of Technology aka MIT, has all their information, lessons, projects, practice quizzes, etc. online. The classes range from architecture, planning, engineering, health sciences, humanities, art, science, management and many many more.

I know what you might be thinking, it's MIT!!! But don't worry, I have used this website to help get ideas for projects, as well as to show examples. Not all classes at MIT are for geniuses! That's why they also created Highlights for High School open courseware, which focuses on AP Calculus, Physics, and Biology, as well as small projects you can do in classes such as introductions to robotics, electronics, theater design, and other subjects.

Lego Digital Designer

The amazing world of Legos! They've been around forever, but you probably remember having a big bin of them in the closet that you use to build houses, cars, monsters, etc. But who wants to deal with that mess anymore when you can go digital? That's what the Lego Digital Designer software is all about. It's a simple 3D software, almost like a basic CAD program, that lets you take already made pieces and put them together just as if you were doing it in real life! This is perfect for all grade levels. If particpate in FIRST Lego League, Lego NXT Robotics, or if you're teaching about simple machines using blocks and triangles. The number of things you can do with this software is endless!

This is a 4 min. video that gives you a quick runthrough of what you can do with this software.

Lego also has a Educators Link that provides free lessons and activities. You can actually search activities by grade level, age, and activity. This is great for the busy teacher or a starting point to build a lesson off of.

Johnny Chung Lee's Procrastineering

I have found this guy through multiple websites and the work he does is amazing! He's all about what this blog is about, technology on the cheap! Below are links to his website, as well as his blog. He hasn't updated his blog in a while, but it's still worth putting up there.

Johnny Chung Lee's Professional Homepage
Johnny Chung Lee's Procastineering Blog

My favorite thing that Johnny Lee has created is the Wiimote Whiteboard. Check out the video below.

Johnny Lee on www.ted.com

Technology on the Cheap!

Welcome to my Teacher Technology Source blog! I’m writing this to help teachers find ways to help incorporate the best technology while on a tight budget, and we all know our schools are always looking to save every penny possible.

I have found many different resources online on multiple sites, so I thought it’d be a great idea to put them all together onto this blog! So sit back, read, click, download, comment, and let me know what you think about my findings. If you find something you'd like to share, just let me know and I'll share it with everyone.