Websites+for+21st+Century+Skills

` = = [|http://www.animoto.com] Educators can apply for free usage: [|http://animoto.com/education]
 * Tip:**It takes just minutes to create a video which can bring your lessons to life.

**Primary Access**
==== Capture your students' imagination with movie narratives based on primary sources. Primary Access is an online tool that allows students and teachers to combine text, visual, and sound elements, which are then combined to convey information about their chosen historical event or time frame. A library of Primary Access movies is available through a catalog by historical time period. ====

**SOS for Information Literacy**
Learn how to effectively incorporate information literacy into your lesson plans. S.O.S. for Information Literacy is a dynamic, collaborative web-based multimedia resource for educators, K to 16. This site links lesson plans and teaching ideas for information literacy through a comprehensive quality control system to ensure that lessons are high caliber. = =
 * Tip: **Create an account and build your own lessons or activities.

**Diigo**
Need help in organizing your favorite websites? Diigo is a social bookmarking site that allows users to save websites, as well as tag them, add sticky notes and annotations, and share them with other users in various groups. ** Tip: ** Sticky notes are an effective way to start a virtual conversation among teams of students on the merits of a website. **Google Reader** **// Note: You need to create a Google Account to use this feature. There are MANY Google Tools – this is 1. //**  Overwhelmed with all the information on the Internet? Google Reader is a tool for gathering, reading, and sharing all the relevant blogs and websites you read on the web. This easy-to-use tool constantly checks sites (blogs, news sites, and webpages) that have been selected by you, scans them for updates and new content, and then organizes them in the Reader for easy access. Reader is a great organization tool to keep current with educational trends, research and news! ** Tip: ** This is a great organizational tool for students to keep current on their research topics.

**Simply Box**
If you’re a visual learner, then this is the tool for you! Simply Box is a tool that allows users to capture, share, and organize anything found on the web into an unlimited number of "boxes" and then share with friends, groups, students, or the world. However, rather than saving lists of bookmarks, it allows users to capture just a part of a webpage, whether it’s a headline, a paragraph, a photo, or a video. Items can be saved and organized. ** Tip: ** As students collaborate on projects, this tool makes it easy to organize, cite and keep track of the individual resources culled from various websites.

**Mindmeister**
Be creative -- think maps! Mindmeister and Bubbl.us are both online mapping tools: Mindmeister is better for middle and high school students, while Bubbl.us is for younger students. Both websites allow users to think visually, collaborate, and share ideas through concept maps. ** Tip: ** Effective tools for teams of students to collaboratively brainstorm what they know about a subject and what questions they want to research.

**Polleverywhere**
If you want to get learners’ attention, then ask a provocative question. Poll Everywhere is a voting platform that can be used in classrooms and libraries to gather answers to a particular question. Participants vote by sending a text message via their cell phones or by voting on the web. ** Tip: ** Use this survey tool to involve and connect students to complex issues. I have participated in a demo of this…kids would like.

**Wikispaces**
This is the quintessential collaborative tool! This easy-to-use website allows anyone to write, edit and share content, depending on the permissions granted by the wiki owner. ** Tip: ** Students can use a wiki as a research journal, documenting their progress from beginning questions to finished products, as they receive feedback directly on the wiki from their classroom teacher and librarian.

**Zoho**
Zoho offers an all-in-one online collaborative package; it provides online tools from mail and presentations to notebooks and wikis, with many tools in between.

**Curriki**
Seeking new teaching strategies? If you’ve got an old lesson that you want to breathe new life into, Curriki can help. It is a free member website where educators share ideas and hear from others in the profession.
 * Tip:** If you have a lesson that you love to teach with your students, share it with others. Everyone can be successful if we all help each other to be better teachers.

**Partnership for 21st Century Skills**
What skills will our students need to be successful in the 21st century? Partnership for the 21st Century offers educators information, resources, and tools to understand, identify and integrate the 21st century skills of creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving skills and communication and collaboration skills.
 * Tip:** Here’s a great resource to help educators learn how to integrate 21st Century Skills into the curriculum.