Free Educational Games and Software

Educational Freeware is a site that reviews the best free learning games, software and websites.  The site breaks down the ability to search by subject matter or the different kinds of Educational Freeware.  The site allows you to look for educational freeware whether it is online or whether it can be downloaded.  So far, it is limited to Windows, but in some cases is available for Linux.  You will also find links to news and articles related to other Educational Freeware software and downloads.

The site is the work of Marianne Wartoft who had been developing educational software for over a decade.  You can view the software she has developed on her website.  She created this site as a place for housing all the resources related to Educational Freeware and to help bridge the gap that can exist between down-loadable and online software, since some times they serve the same purpose.

Educational Productions from the Nobel Prize

Most of us know about the Nobel Prize.  Hopefully some of our students do as well.  The Nobel Prize site has made available educational games and resources to learn about subjects related to the 6 awards for the Nobel Prize: Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Economics, Peace, and Literature.  There are over 40 resources and games available for teacher use that relate to the various Nobel Prize awards. 

Some of the games are actual games while other are just interactives that teachers can use in the classroom.  What is great about this site is that you can find something that will work for all the core subjects because several of the physics can apply to math.  I suggest checking out the list to see if there is one that you can use in your classroom.

Mixxt - Create Your Own Social Network

Mixxt is a European based company that aims to provide its user with the ability to create their own social network for free.  Of course the free means advertisements, and you can get a Pro account to remove those, but advertisements online are basically part of our culture now and I think the average Internet user recognizes them and avoids them.

Mixxt is another option for teachers who might want to create a place for students to collaborate with them outside of school.  There are several features that are offered that can enhance the collaboration between students and teachers.  Teachers can customize and design their layout with total freedom.  You can set the network to private or public which can be very important for educators.  You can activate and deactivate several modules, making controlling your social network much easier.  You can create rich content pages and customize events as well.  You can insert media and share files with your members. 

If you are looking for a way to connect with students outside of the classroom then Mixxt might be an option worth checking out and playing around with the features.  

Hollur

Hollur is a site that allows users to create 20 second audio files.  As a member you create the file and then other members can follow you and listen to your messages.  So why 20 seconds?  Think about a voice-mail message and how long those are before you tune someone out.  For more information about Hollur I suggestion that you visit their Frequently Asked Questions for more information.  So why use audio instead of text?  Audio makes the message more personal.  Sometimes, !!! in text does not have the same effect as hearing those same exclamations in your voice. 

Some of the features include the ability to allow you to embed these messages, so you could put them on a website or blog that students use.  You can tag the recordings as well to help with organization.  Another neat feature is that you can add a link to the recordings so that if you are talking about something from the web, they can see what you are talking about as well.

So how could Hollur be used in education?  As a teacher you could create an account and then have students follow you.  You could then leave audio messages for your students explaining homework assignments or providing reminders for due dates and test dates.  Parents could follow you as well and you could leave short messages to parents letting them know about what went on in class or reminding them to sign permission forms.  If you have a Twitter account for your students you could link to this site and your messages for students.

Time Lapse Creator

A neat tool to use in collaboration with Flickr is Time-lapse Creator.  The idea is rather simple.  Take your pictures, upload them to Flickr, then use the Time-lapse Creator to put together a time-lapse of your photos.  I know that there are several districts who block access to Flickr, so teachers and students might have to work on it at home to put the time-lapse together.

I could see this being used in science classrooms taking time-lapse photos of experiments catching reactions or in Earth-Space Science classes showing the hydrologic cycle process.  I could also see it used in geography classes to show change over time as it relates to climate.  It would be neat to setup a camera and do a similar time-lapse of weather patterns outside your school.  If you teach Art, it might be worth while to have students take pictures of a project as they work on it. 

You will have to sign in to Yahoo to use this service.