Thing #19 2.0 Winners, What Fun!

I really took advantage of the directions on this one and looked at SWOmoz choices for award-winning tools that interested me.
I didn't necessarily think about finding things what would be "useful"....I just played!

But as with many things fun (and potato chips), I couldn't stop with just one. So here are the ones that bubbled to the top for me.

I love cute little widgets (almost as much as image generators) so I went looking at that category. And found a source called SpringWidgets. I added one to my other blog counting down the days until TLA conference, but don't bother looking at it in district. Same song, forgotten what verse...it's blocked! I clicked on the Widget Gallery and selected the one called Countdown to Summer...but what is cool is you can change the text to say what you what the countdown to be about...it is "posted" on a little yellow sticky note complete with push pins! I added a couple pf widgets from the "currently popular" on the home page...take a look towards the bottom of the side bar if you have a "light bulb moment" or need a "fortune." Treat yourself at home...of course!

Another award choice for me is Guess-the-google. TH first brought this fun little guessing game to my attention so I was glad to find it on the award list, play it some more, and get to write about it a bit. From the web site:

Guess-the-google reverses this process by picking
the keywords for you, the player must then guess what keyword made up the image - it's surprisingly addictive.

BTW...I do see some educational value in this particular little game...vocabulary building, drawing conclusions...ok, you can think up the reasons for using. I just want to play!

CAUTION: This fun little game is out on the WWW. That means it is available to anyone and everyone. The game is NOT the problem...some of the players are. Especially if they are high scorers. Their inappropriate screen names will appear to the right of the game screen...you can click into the game to get rid of the list. Do try the game for the game's sake and if you think it is useful in class, work you magic for figuring a workaround to the list of names should it hold some less than appropriate examples. I WISH there was a way to close that part...I wish the creator would realize his game would get more "press" if that element wasn't so in-your-face so to speak.

Update late Thursday night...the list of high scorers looks better than it did yesterday!

O, yes...it also takes Flash 8 to work, but that can be downloaded from the site should you need it.

When I found DonorsChoose.org on the awards list, it triggered something I had participated in earlier this year. I have a friend who applied for some financial assistance through this organization and was able to get some resources for her class...materials that had long-ago gone out of date and the school/district was not able to replace with updated versions. So she wrote the "grant" and after about 6 weeks, she was awarded her money, purchased her materials, received a digital camera to record the learning and has been busy sharing her "wealth" with her students. She will turn in a results report later this year.

As a contributor, it was easy for me. I wrote a check, but donations can be made online...partial or full. You can see a complete breakdown of the proposed expenses and how the request is to be used. I did a search for projects for here in Houston...there are pages and pages ranging from batches of spiral notebooks to a copier/printer!

Maybe this the way to go for something you need?
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Can't wait to see the new list of web winners when it comes out in May!

Hopping towards the finish line...good night!

Froggy Wart