Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Create animated slide shows, videos, collages and more from uploaded pictures or those on Facebook. Use this free online image suite to store and organize photos. Edit photos using a variety of effects. With this easy to use uploader, store photos in your own online library. An excellent idea for backup of photos or to share photos with friends by sharing a link. Create slideshows, collages and movies from your library of photos. Add effects and pieces of music to enhance your photo slideshow. Use the online software to send links to friends. Use the embed code to add to blogs, wikis, or sites in order to share the content. With the paid premium version, burn your slideshows to DVD.

tag(s): images (270), photography (131), slides (45), video (257)

Want to enhance the viewer experiences and discussions around the YouTube videos you embed? Enter the URL of your You Tube video to add DVD-like controls without altering the original content. Use EmbedPlus to add features such as scene skipping, movable zoom, third party annotations, slow motion on-demand, and instant replay. Set start time and scene markers if desired. Add your annotations during this set up process. When done, click get Code to either copy a new URL for your video or obtain an embed code to place in a blog, wiki, or site to share with others.

tag(s): movies (51), video (257)

This animation tool will help create a video or a video slideshow with pizzazz. Add personal sounds, videos, and other media to create the next level of video for your classes. This tool is great for schools without access to other free video or multimedia creation software. Create 30 second videos including music choices from over 300 soundtracks. A typical thirty second video requires twelve images making this a reasonable choice for projects with middle and high school level students. Also look through their many templates making this video creator easy to use for anyone. Students ages 13+ can set up their own Animoto account if they have a school email, but their account won't be connected to your teacher account, therefore, they will need to email you their completed video links. A better solution for some teachers may be to consider using a "class set" of Gmail subaccounts, explained here; this tells how to configure Gmail subaccounts to use for any online membership service. Using Gmail subaccounts will provide anonymous interaction within your class. You will also recieve emails from Animoto when videos are completed and passwords are changed. You can also use the Gmail subaccounts for students under 13, with appropriate parent permission. See this Animoto Blog Post, about how teachers can set up student accounts.
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tag(s): animation (62), images (270), movies (51), photography (131), slides (45), video (257)

Every teen and college student knows Skype, the free tool for making calls from computer to computer anywhere in the world. By downloading and installing free software and setting up a free account, you can talk and/or make a video call to a similarly equipped computer elsewhere in the world for free. Skype uses a lot of "bandwidth" so is not suitable for very slow networks. It may also be slow at high-traffic times on a good network. Some patience and pretesting is required before you can be sure it will work for your needs. Connect to classrooms, experts, authors, virtual special speakers, or interview subjects using Skype.

tag(s): virtual field trips (80), webcams (10)

This creative site offers "how to" videos on a WIDE variety of topics. Anyone is able to view the videos, but you must be a member (which is free) to comment on the videos, grade the videos, or submit your own "how to" video. Topics vary; some are appropriate for the classroom - others are definitely NOT appropriate. Some of the general topics that may be useful in the middle school or high school classroom include: alcohol, autos, motorcycles, and planes, business and money, computers and programming, diet and health, education (which features a variety of science experiments and more), film and theater, language (English, Chinese, Hungarian, Russian, Finnish, sign language, Polish, and countless others), music and instruments, travel, and several other topics. Within each of these general topics, there are thousands of specific "how to" videos.

Membership is free and has many perks. You are able to comment and/or grade the video clips or even submit your own video. Registration does require some personal information: a username, password, email address, and date of birth. ALL USERS MUST BE OVER 13-years of age! Check with your administrator about allowing the students to register for this site using fictitious names. You may wish to set up a class registration instead of entering true data into the registration site. Another option is to create a free Gmail account to use for memberships. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service.

Warning: not all videos are suitable for the classroom. Be sure to preview what you wish to share. If you choose to allow your older students to navigate this site on their own (for research or a class project), be sure to set boundaries on which videos to watch, consequences for going elsewhere, and WATCH CAREFULLY! Some videos explain "how to" do things that are unsafe or inappropriate for school-ages audiences. Wonder How To does include unobtrusive advertisements.

tag(s): aircraft (16), business (47), money (119), russian (24), sign language (10)

ScreenPal is your old Screencast-o-matic but with lots of new features, and an easier name to type! Use this simple and free tool to create a video recording of your screen to upload and share on a teacher web page, wiki. blog, etc. This is an easy way to create a tutorial from your own computer screen. When you visit sites that have tutorials on how to use their software, you are looking at a screencast. Use this site to communicate specific directions on how to use different applications in and out of the classroom. Audio is not necessary for the screencasts but may be beneficial, depending upon the tutorial. Free features include: unlimited recorder (videos), full video editor, audio recording & editing, access across devices, share and host unlimited videos, publish video channels, and automated captions.
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tag(s): communication (136), tutorials (51), video (257)

You can be as adventurous or not as you wish! This safe, free site lets students and teachers show off their talents by sharing their appropriate videos to be viewed all over America. With a simple registration, you can upload your classroom video, which then goes into a "holding" area. That video then awaits approval by the website's moderator before becoming available. Because of the layering of approval, this site poses no security concerns to students or schools. Not only can teachers and students upload videos, but administrators may also want to post welcome or informational videos to be viewed by parents and students. You may also wish to share some of these videos with your class. Teachers will find videos suitable for classroom instruction (and lesson plans). Use the search box at the top of the webpage to look for topics that relate to your current units of study. Searching the site and simply viewing the videos does not require any registration or log-in. There is a link to SchoolTube Games , as well.

tag(s): video (257)

Move over YouTube! Teachers now have their own place to learn and to teach: TeacherTube.com. Since this site is designed specifically for education, there is not as much concern about "public" contributions and appropriateness for school! Teachers will find videos suitable for classroom instruction, such as Ben Franklin chatting with a group of students, or there are also professional videos ideal for staff training (such as Classroom Strategies for Differentiated Instruction). Search and view videos or click on the subject area that interests you, and then click on a video to view. To leave comments, save your favorites, or upload your own video, you will need to register. It's all free. Obviously, this isn't a site for students; however, there are many educational videos suitable for all subject areas that you could share with your students. If your school blocks streaming video sites, consider accessing this site and choosing videos at home, or they may not be viewable.

tag(s): video (257)

YiNote is a Chrome browser extension allowing users to take notes while watching online videos. After installing the extension, click the icon in your browser bar while viewing any video to bring up a box for adding notes. YiNote adds a time stamp to match the place in the video of saved notes. Return at anytime and click on your notes to go directly to that point in the video. One-click sharing allows the option to share notes via a direct URL or through links to social networking sites.

tag(s): bookmarks (47), citations (34), curation (35), flips (6), note taking (34), video (257)