Teaching Tools

KidsClick!

Advantages: broken into categories based on subject matter to make searching more relevant

Good for upper elementary

Created by librarians so includes good resources for quality searching

Disadvantages: guides to good but doesn’t block bad sites

Many pop-up ads

Reading level above many lower elementary levels

Ask for Kids

Advantages: can narrow search by subject

Images and videos available

Free

Many ways to search (video, images, weather, etc)

Disadvantages: very cartoon-y

Draw and sticker feature: is fun, but distracting and not very educational

Clusty

Advantages: groups search results in clusters to make it less overwhelming

Disadvantages: no real filters on search

Complete Planet

Advantages: can search by category/topic

Tried to block inappropriate sites

Searches databases

Searchable sites are listed in many locations so you don’t miss anything

Disadvantages: sometimes encounter “false positives” in your search result

Podcast Project

I think the greatest challenge to doing a project like this in a classroom is the amount of time it takes to complete one podcast. Even if the students are on-task and know their material, editing takes a long time. Most likely, elementary school students would not be doing the majority of the editing, so that is time the teacher has to take to complete the podcast.
The teacher could reduce the amount of time spent on the project by selecting music ahead of time and preparing it in the audio program. This would save some time on editing later on.
I think it would be a great idea to have students who can read well make podcasts for a listening station in the classroom. These few students could come in before or after school, or work on the project during class time when the rest of the class has other material to work on. This would give students the opportunity to use a podcast without requiring the whole class to take the time on it. It would also be beneficial to a center in the classroom or in a lower grade level class.