OER - Free Teacher Materials - Lesson Plans, Interactive Lessons, Games, etc.

OER (Open Educational Resources) is a network of teachers sharing curriculum with the world.  Choose from interactive lessons, lessons plans, game based learning, textbooks, labs, etc.  The materials are aligned with the common core and can easily be searched.

 





The best part, everything found on this website is free to use and share!

Animated Videos

Here is a FREE new tool in which you can make animated videos quick and easy. Tellagami is a tool that currently can only be used through an app, not on the Internet. You pick a scene, add your voice and then share your gami (what they call the videos). Currently you are able to record 30 seconds of audio and only one character is able to be put in a gami .

Tellagami is very easy to use.

 

What devices can Tellagami be used on? iPads, iPhones, SmartPhones (Android) or Android Tablets. Click HERE to take an "App Tour" to see how Tellagami can be used on an iPhone or an Android phone.

Here is a sample Tellagami.

Free Langauge Education Site

Learn or brush up on 6 languages for FREE!

The site Duolingo allows you to practice your language skills for free. It takes an approach similar to Khan Academy and puts you on a path where you start with easier skills and vocabulary and slowly moves you toward more advanced skills and vocabulary.

To sign up - Pick the language you want to learn and provide your email address and create a password.

*If you are having students use this site, they need to be 13 years of age or older. That is because students under 13 are not supposed to sign up for accounts that require identifying information (their email address is considered identifying information). Websites are not supposed to collect that sort of information from people under the age of 13.

Picmonkey - Free Photo Editor

Sometimes you need a quick tool to use to edit your photos. I am a fan of the website Picmonkey to edit my photos. It is free and easy to use. There is no login needed to use this web tool. Just upload your picture and begin editing. Once you edit your photo you can re-save the photo and continue on with your work.

The ways you can edit your photo:

Basic Edits (crop, rotate, exposure, colors, sharpen the image and resize)
Effects (change the coloring effects of the photo)
Touch Up (allows for editing of people - airbrushing, teeth editing, etc.)
Text (add text over the image)
Overlays (images and shapes that look like stamps on your main image)
Frames (variety of frames around your image)
Texture (add textures such as metal and paint over your photo)

Click the blue rectangle to select picture you want to edit from your computer.

On your next screen you will have your editing controls on the left side of the screen.  At the bottom of the control area  is the option to save your edited picture. 

Google Scholar

Did you know that all Wisconsin residents with a library card has FREE access to BadgerLink. This service offers articles,journals, books, video, and podcast. What makes this service so valuable is the fact that all information is from reputable sources that are solid and good.
http://www.badgerlink.net/

We also have another resource that has reputable sources in the forms of articles, journals, and books, and that if you do not have a library card you can access. This source is Google Scholar.
http://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en

Creating Google Forms

Google Forms is a great educational tool!  It's an easy way to create surveys, quizzes, and forms to collect information.  To get started you have to have a free google account (which all Menasha employees do), and then the forms are created under Google Docs.  Once you have created a form, the responses collected are put into a spreadsheet format.  These responses can also be viewed as piecharts and graphs.  The video will show you just how easy it is to create a Google Form.

Capturing Student Voice

Here is another free site that I'm excited to share with you! It is a very simple website that allows users to capture voice and then put that recording into wikis, websites, blog and more. The site is called Vocaroo. The is no need to log into this site. It used to be an option but they got rid of it. The netbooks that are being used in the 7th grade and by Maplewood staff have microphones built into them so you can easily record audio. Watch the video below to see how easy it is to capture voice using this site.


The ability to record voice can be useful for many multimedia projects as well as in foreign language classrooms. There is no limit to the length of the recording. If you close the window before copying the code or URL for your recording, it is lost and you will have to re-record. If sounds quality is bad, adjust the volume on your computer.