Isle of Tune

If you have a lot to do today, you may not want to click this link. Isle of Tune is an amazing game that allows you to turn a simple neighborhood landscape into a musical journey. Each element (buildings, trees, cars) has its own sounds that can be manipulated and blended. It’s a fascinating combination of architecture and visual layout with music. It’s a very cool way to connect patterns to music, and to visualize different musical concepts. It’s also just plain fun. Be sure to check out some of the isles made by other users, especially the one for “Boys of Summer!”

Anne Frank House Secret Annex Online

I never realized exactly how small the annex that Anne Frank and her family hid in was until I saw it for myself a couple of years ago. If you can’t make it to Amsterdam, though, the Anne Frank House website (the official site of what is now a museum dedicated to Anne’s life and legacy) has an incredible 3D rendering of the space. Beyond being able to truly see the dimensions of the house, the rendering is interactive, meaning you can virtually walk through the rooms and click on various extras that will give you even more information. It’s an amazing way to supplement readings of the book, as these extras feature excerpts from the text and photos.

I will admit that the graphics wouldn’t work for me in Safari, but worked perfectly in Chrome.

Learn It In 5

Learn It In 5 is a website of instructional videos to educate teachers on various Web 2.0 tools. Don’t know what Web 2.0 is? Don’t worry, there’s a video for that, too. These quick, 5-minute tutorials give a great overview and introduction to tools like Twitter, Google eBooks, and our old favorite, Storybird.

In addition, there are many educational videos you can use in class, on diverse topics like the American Revolution and Einstein’s theory of relativity. There’s a lot on this site to explore, and it’s all geared specifically to educators.