Digital Magic Tricks

New technologies are often perceived as magic. Let's explore a bunch of FREE tools for recording and SAFELY sharing student voices online, collaborating with partner classrooms, and more!

Past Presentations

  1. Poll Everywhere Survey from #micon - Martin Institute Fall 2010 Conference - Sep/Oct 2010 (Memphis, Tennessee)
  2. Poll Everywhere Survey from ACTEM - Oct 2009 (Augusta, Maine)
  3. Google Moderator series from OTA. My presentation for OTA on 11 February 2009 is available as an audio-podcast.

Contact and Digitally Follow Wesley

Survey and Crowdsource an Audience

Create free SMS and web polls

Create and publish annotated screen captures to the web

Setup free SMS alert messaging for groups

Use a cell phone as a mobile audio recorder

Use visual voicemail with any cell phone

  • YouMail (downside: you do have to share your real cell phone number with others)
  • K7.net (upside: provides you with a new phone number you can use)
  • GrandCentral (from Google, new feature set and open enrollment coming soon)
  • Hat tip to Ryan Collins and Liz Kolb for these links

Create a moderated, walled-garden learning community (social network)

Videoconference readily with friends and classroom partners

Find global classrooms for collaborative projects

Create Flashcards which are web and iPod Touch accessible

Download YouTube videos to a USB Thumb Drive

Create Interactive, Hyperlinked Timelines

Webcast an event LIVE online

Setup free content filtering at home

Find Free, High-quality Professional Development Online

Schedule an Event for People on Different Calendaring Systems

  • Doodle.com (sent a simple text poll to people to indicate available dates/times)
  • Eventsbot (handle event registration and even payment)

Create and use a Custom Digital Newspaper

Never Lose a Good Website

Screencast a How-To Tutorial

Still To Be Added:

  • Setup a separate Facebook environment and personal profile for your students
  • Obtain free PhotoShop Replacement Software
  • Clearly and Accurately Explain Copyright Guidelines in 5 Minutes
  • Create and Publish a Digital Story
  • Convince Your School Board to Embrace 21st Century Skills

Longer session description: Often the most valuable learning outcome of a professional conference is a single website, collaboration idea, or software application which can transformatively help students and teachers more effectively demonstrate mastery of knowledge and skills included in the curriculum. This presentation focuses on a diverse array of web 2.0 tools teachers and librarians can use to enhance classroom websites, collaborative projects, and multimedia reports created by students individually or in distributed teams.

The ability to embed content permits educators to create multimedia- rich webpages on their school website integrating images, voice recordings, videos, and animations. Web tools which provide these functionalities will be demonstrated and explored in this session, as well as other web tools which can enhance research-based methods of providing recognition and feedback for students. These include methods for moderating social networking interactions among students as well as other educational constituents (including parents) and expanding the menu of collaborative knowledge product possibilities for students including interactive digital timelines, collaboratively authored digital stories, and synchronous presentation environments for sharing and teaching by students.