My Top 3 Most Used Classroom Resources, Goals, & More!

Today, I wanted to look at my top most used classroom resources.  Currently, there are no other resources I currently use more than:

Google Docs -Google Docs is online, browser based, and free. My students can create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets without needing Microsoft Office installed at home.  They can work on any of these at the same time as a partner or small group.  GoogleDocs even autosaves regularly for students that have a hard time remembering to save their work or save it in the right place. 

GlogsterEDU - Allows students to create interactive "glogs" or posters.  Think of it as digital scrapbooking with a collage of media including music, text, videos, hyperlinks and more.  For more about GlogsterEDU or to see my example, CLICK HERE to read my previous blog post. 

Fakebook - Fakebook is resources created by ClassTools.net that allows students to create fake Facebook pages for anyone they wish.  We use Fakebook to create pages for our Historical Figure Presentations and we create them as part of our Novel Project (they create pages about characters from a book the whole 6th Grade Reads).  Students do not need to even have an email to save their Fakebook Page.

As this school year advances, I hope to improve my skills teaching and integrating GoogleDocs in my class curriculum.  I use GoogleDocs quite a bit, but there are still so many other skills I need to learn. I just recently taught myself how to create self graded quizzes using Google Forms in GoogleDocs.  I also want to improve my Internet Safety Curriculum.  Internet Safety is a huge passion of mine and I have never rested on my current curriculum and lesson plans.  The site KidSmart I blogged about this week is a new resource I will be using in my class. 

To reach my goals, I will continue to look for resources and training materials online to help me teach myself.  I will extend my curriculum to include more extensions using GoogleDocs to increase my students familiarity with it.  I will continue to browse the near 100 blogs I frequent to find more quality Internet Safety Resources.  I will also increase the number of activities we complete in class pertaining to Internet Safety.  The more access my students have to quality Internet Safety Information and hands on activities, the more aware they will be in their daily journeys online.