TOP 10 TOOLS 2008
Kevin Amboe

I am a teacher in the Surrey School District.  For the past four years, I have been the Elementary Information and Media Literacy (IML) Coordinator.  In this position, I have been able to work with administrators, teachers and students.  Last year we developed the Information and Media Literacy learning capacities.  Although developed independently, they align very closely to the ISTE-Nets-S.  In 2007, I was selected as a Canadian Apple Distinguished Educator.  As of this year, it is a group of 50 Canadian and 1200 world-wide educators with identified expertise in educational technology leadership.   My websites are at fcweb.sd36.bc.ca/~amboe_k and
iamliterate.wikispaces.com

Kevin's Top 10 Tools as at 1 March 2008

1. Google Earth - Bringing the earth to reality for students is amazing. Students can learn about their surroundings in a way not possible without a tool such as this.  Students can learn it almost instantly and start finding landmarks that they know.

2. Wikispaces - I have been using this site for the past eight months to collaborative develop a knowledge base around information and media literacy.  The free spaces that are available for teachers means I can recommend it for other teachers to create their own as well.  You can see how the site has grown from three pages to over 50 pages in the relatively short time.  iamliterate.wikispaces.com

3. Skype - Who doesn't like free phone calls.  This is both personally and professionally a valuable tool.  We have used it to conduct meetings on several occasions.

4. Comic Life - This comic strip creation tool was purchased for our district last year and students love to write now.  Students are motivated to write and are learning about the movie creation process at the same time.

5. Flickr - Sharing photos that I have made as well as seeing what others have created is a great service.  The additional features of creating groups to share with and geotagging the images increases its educational value.  flickr.com/amboe_k

6. Zamzar - I do many presentations and you can't always rely on the network to be up when you need it most.  Zamzar allows you to convert files and online videos into downloadable file formats.  

7. Del.icio.us - I have been deep in Del.icio.us for more than a year and I love the power built into it.  I started with just a few sites, now I have over 1000 sites tagged, bundled, and shared on several of my other sites.  This amazing tool has allowed me to keep up to date, and forget the sites I only use or need to tell someone else about a few times a year. del.icio.us/amboe_k

8. iMovie - As part of the iLife suite, iMovie puts students in the creative driver's seat.  I taught secondary students video editing 10 years ago and it was difficult for them to learn.  I can now teach grade 2 students this much easier tool that creates just as good of a product.  We are able to allow students to submit assignments in oral and visual ways instead of text only.

9. Google Reader - At first I didn't think I needed an aggregator.  I was using Safari as my reader, but it was limited to that computer. Google Reader being integrated into the Google suite made it my choice for a reader.  I can't always keep up on my RSS and blogs but it is easy to review them when I have time using this tool.  I haven't used it with students yet, but see the potential of setting up feeds for customized searches for different topics.

10. Ning - The size of ning and its communities can be overwhelming volume.  Classroom20.Ning.com is one that I participate in when I have time.  I love that I was able to join several different educator communities.  The conversations are refreshing and varied.