Wallwisher

Wallwisher is a great website I found on free technology for teachers. It is free and easy to sign up for. At first, I wasn't so sure how it worked, but they have example walls for almost every purpose you could think of using this site for. I looked at the education example which was a wall in which the teacher posted that they wanted their students to write sentences with a word of the day provided by the teacher. Students can then post sentences onto the wall and the teacher can comment on them. It works almost like an online homework board.  I thought that for this purpose, this site could be used as a much more elementary version of an online discussion. It also is a fun way to encourage students to be involved in their homework, because everyone can see what is posted (unless when you make your wall you choose the setting so that only the person who made the wall can see posts). When I made a replica of the education wall, I found it super easy to use, and I liked that I could adjust the privacy settings. It is also fun and creative to use because when you set up your wall, you can choose from many different backgrounds, set a picture icon, and give it a title and description or directions. You can even personalize it even more by uploading your own pictures rather than the ones provided by Wallwisher. You can also post videos and pictures to the wall. For example, when I posted to my word of the education wall, I wanted students to write simple and complex sentences with the word of the day, so I posted a YouTube screen cast of a teacher explaining different types of sentences for those students who need a little refresher.  Overall, I loved this website and thought it was very fun to make and that as a future educator, that I could see myself using this site for fun little homework assignments or as a fun way to introduce a new concept in class as an icebreaker. Enjoy! 

TimeRime

History teachers, this is the website for you! TimeRime  is a great website I found that lets you make, view and share interactive timelines. It is free and easy to use. You can also use other pre-made timelines that others have already made on topics such as musical history, world wars, famous politicians, the history of the United States, etc. This is a fun, visual, and interactive way to teach and learn about history and it is very helpful that you can make your own timeline using this site, because then you can be very specific about what information you enter into your timeline. This site is great not only useful to make timelines, but also to share your timelines with others, and learn from other timelines already made. You can also purchase a more advanced version of TimeRime for educational and professional uses if you wish, but the free version works fine for simple purposes. If you plan to use TimeRime to only view other timelines, there are no extra skills are needed, but if you plan to create a timeline, you need to learn to use the site, and also register for the site. The timelines would also be great to use with an interactive whiteboard, or SMARTBoard, or even an overhead projector. In searching some timelines that were already made, I thought that the one on President Obama's life could be very helpful to teach students and inform them with the upcoming elections and Presidential debates going on. This could also be a fun way to introduce a unit on Presidential history or to learn about elections and the government. I hope you find TimeRime as interesting and helpful as I did and that you plan on using it in your Social Studies lessons in the future.