Brainy Box

BrainyBox is a neat new offering from the folks at Class Tools which reminded me a lot of Museum Box without the kinks.  Using the BrainyBox tool you can build a six sided cube made up of text, videos, images, and hyperlinks.  You can even embed other multimedia such audio files from SoundCloud or Google objects.  A nice feature of BrainyBox is that students do not have to create an account to access and work with their box.  They simply create a password for their work and they can access it anytime using the URL and password (same for Fakebook).

Now What?

BrainyBox is a great sites for students to use because it forces them to think about the content they are going to use on their six sides.  There is a limited number of space on each side as well so they have to be selective in what they include.  This is another reason why I like the Twitter model so much...it encourages students to think about their writing.  This is an excellent tool for students to use for presentations.

Animated Fakebook

As I have shared here before, Fakebook is a really cool way to get students to create a false Facebook page for a an historical figure, book character, or even place or event.  Recently I found out on Free Tech 4 Teachers that they have added a new feature to their site which allows you to animate your Fakebook profile.  No, you won't be able to make your person dance or anything but you will be able to show the progression of the page.  This is a great way to use Fakebook as a timeline creator or historical synopsis.  Check out this profile for Harry S. Truman to see this feature in action.

Now What?

If you haven't used Fakebook in the past, check out the short tutorial below which walks you through how to create you very own profile in a matter of minutes.  Also if you are interested, I have also created some great resources for the creation of a profile including agraphic organizer for planning and a reference sheet...feel free to use them in your classroom.  For those with SmartBoards...check out this template for use with SMART Notebook.