It comes as no secret to my PLN Twitter friends…I am tremendously disappointed by Fliggo’s decision to roll Fliggo into Vidly. As an educator, I heartily supported Fliggo, but I cannot recommend Vidly. Since learning of Fliggo’s decision, I have been reviewing and exploring and searching for a replacement site. So far, the closest I have come to finding a student-safe place where students and children can view YouTube videos is Totlol. I offer my recommendation for Totlol with some reservations.

First, these are the things I liked about Totlol….

• Totlol is powered by the YouTube API. I do not feel comfortable opening YouTube to our student population, but gosh darned there are some great videos for learning and motivation posted on YouTube!
• Totlol allows the user (most likely a parent, possibly a teacher) to optimize an account based on the age group of children: toddler, preschool, kindergarten, young kids, and tweens. Totlol’s Age-Optimized Interfaces enable kids of different ages to interact with the site and the video content in different ways.  (click here to link to an excellent visual comparison of the interfaces).
• When using Totlol as a logged-in adult (with a paid account) you have access to personalization features, you can participate in the community by submitting and screening videos, and you will be able to play and create video collections.
• As a paid member, you can also link your YouTube account and activate or deactivate a parent lock. This means that children can view a YouTube on this site, but will not be able to click on the YouTube link embedded in each video.
• While I do not feel young children should be given free rein of the Internet, it can be difficult to constantly monitor your child while he/she is on the Internet (phone calls, interruptions, etc.). A parent or teacher could be fairly confident that a child could not link to the YouTube site and the public content available on Totlol is monitored and approved by a community of parents.
• The creator of this site was very responsive and helpful when I corresponded with him. Please take time to read our email correspondence found at the end of this post.

While there are few things that I could find that I did not like about Totlol in terms of navigation and management I do wish…

• I did not have to pay for an account so that I could review and work with the site. The fee was minimal, but I do not have to filter content in my household since my children are adults. Basically, I had to pay for an account in order to review this product for my blog.
• this niftly little site could be used in a school environment. Unfortunately, if YouTube is blocked in your school the videos that are available in Totlol will also be blocked since videos are delivered directly from YouTube (blocking the YouTube domain blocks Totlol).
• personal videos could be uploaded from your home computer. As it stands now…home (or school) videos must be loaded to YouTube first (which means that content will likely be blocked in a school environment).

I had high hopes that I had finally struck upon a site that could replace Fliggo. While, there is no doubt that this application serves as a wonderful interface for young children viewing videos from a home computer, I don’t think it will work in a school environment at this time. Parents, check out this marvelous service. Teachers, I will continue to search for a Fliggo replacement. Please read over the email exchange I had with Ron, the gifted creator of this site.

This was my email to Ron…

I recently came across your site and am very impressed with the ability to lock the site so students/children cannot link to YouTube. Have you considered working with schools to offer solutions for teachers/administrators so they could also lock an account of teacher sanctioned YouTube videos on a larger scope?

By the way, I will be reviewing your product on my edtech blog at http://farroutlinks.net/blog sometime in the next day or so. (I do kind of wish I had not had to pay to try the service by the way).

Thank you for your consideration,

Jen

This was Ron’s quick and helpful reply to my email…

Hi Jen,

Thanks for the mail. I’ll try and and answer as best I can, though some things are complex than they seem…
1. I see Totlol as an enabler not a disabler and designed it this way. Having lots of easily accessible, great stuff is the best way to keep people from going elsewhere…. The Parent Lock is meant to prevent accidental clicks and outside distractions. While it is effective, it does not block the ability of the browser/network to access other sites.

2. In regard to schools:
a. I have received several requests along the lines you suggest – which basically boils down to having a “teacher-level” account functionality that can guide and direct associated student accounts. I have a pretty good idea how to actually implement this – but to be bluntly honest – I don’t see this happening without it being a funded project, and I don’t see a funded project happening any time soon.
b. A lot of schools block the domain youtube.com at the network level. Since videos are delivered directly from YouTube, blocking the domain blocks Totlol. There is a technical solution for this, but it requires, for youtube to make some technical changes to the way the API system is set up. I have seen no sign that it will happen.

3. I built Totlol by myself and have to abide to a very rigid framework of terms set by YouTube. Membership fees were suggested by users as an alternative to closing the site and after careful consideration this is the route I chose to follow.

The site contains no advertising, sponsorship or promotions of any kind and it supported solely by it’s members.

If you have any other questions – feel free to ask.

Best,

Ron

If you are looking for strategies to share YouTube videos in a classroom environment you might also want to check out my School-Friendly Video Saving and Sharing Strategies post….keep in my Fliggo is no longer an option.

I recently read that a principal had “outlawed” the use of crossword puzzles and word searches in his elementary building, after deeming them lower-level activities. I wish I had bookmarked the article, but of course I can’t find it now.

While I believe there may (note, I said…may) have been justification for his edict in regard to word searches, I happen to believe that crossword puzzles can be used to help students bridge vocabulary words with definitions and also believe that crossword puzzles can help build spelling and strategy skills. That’s not to say, that crossword puzzles should be used every day in every way…all things in moderation…but golly…NO crosswords at all!? What do you think? Do you believe crossword puzzles serve a purpose in the classroom? Can crossword puzzles be used to help students learn?

I will concede that crossword puzzles make the most sense when they are integrated in student coursework. In my opinion, random crossword puzzles are not as meaningful (for focused learning) as crossword puzzles that are developed to compliment a unit of study or as tools to review past units of study. With that in mind, you might find online crossword generators helpful tools to add to your repertoire.

Use the following free generators to input words and definitions to quickly create crossword puzzles that compliment coursework:

• Crossword Puzzle Games – input up to 20 words and definitions. The generator will also work if you do not add definitions, but I feel the definitions add more depth and help students associate words with their definitions.
• Crossword Puzzle Maker – This program puts all of the words you specify (no more, no less) into a simple crossword puzzle that will remain online for approximately 2 months. You can add up to 60 words/definitions and program the creator to use several different options (some of which include square size, color of square, computation size, etc.).
• Instant Online Puzzle Maker – Separate each word and its clue with a slash “/” character. Press the Enter key once after each clue, except for the last clue. Clues can be up to 255 character long.
• Read*Write*Think Crossword Puzzles – select a grade level, use a pre-made puzzle, or create your own. The generator is useful because you add words first, create the puzzle to make sure all words can be used, and then add your definitions. Many generators require words and definitions first and then generate a crossword…sometimes a crossword cannot fit all the words you designate into a puzzle.
• Teacherview Crossword Puzzle – I hesitated to add this to the list since I did not particularly care for the format of this generator. Still, it does the job and could be used to help students develop placement strategy since the crossword is created using one-letter fields prior to adding the definitions. Try it and see what you think or better yet, give students an opportunity to puzzle out a crossword of their own.
• The Teacher’s Corner – create a crossword puzzle using a maximum of 20 words/definitions. Every word MUST have a clue and no two words can be the same. Presumably you can also add images to your crosswords, though I was not successful using the Chrome browser. The site also features a large number of pre-made, categorized crossword puzzles.
• Discovery Puzzlemaker – the “criss-cross” option of Discovery Puzzlemakers is a fast and simple crossword generator that offers width, height, and size square options.
• Study Stack – I reviewed this super little flashcard creator a few months back (see my Create Web 2.0 Flashcards in a Flash! post) and wanted to point out that one of the study features you can take advantage of when you create flashcards with this product is a crossword generator.

If you would like to create a crossword using a program on your computer hard drive (instead of one of the generators I shared above) I highly recommend Eclipse Crossword, a free crossword program download. You can use the program to create a printable crossword or an online crossword (if you are a web designer). The program is easy to install and use. You could save crossword puzzles to a shared drive or hard drive if you work with students who do not have Internet privileges. There are other software programs that can be used to create crosswords, but why pay when you can use Eclipse Crossword? It’s a dandy program that is absolutely free!

If you do not feel inclined to create a puzzle there are a number of crossword puzzle sites that feature pre-made puzzles that can be used to challenge your students (or yourself). If you are looking for some pre-made crossword puzzles to solve check the links below (I have not listed them in any particular order):

• Boatload Puzzles – this site features 40,000 free online crossword puzzles for your solving pleasure. The site features the following options:
  • Print puzzles, if you prefer to solve them on paper.
  • Three puzzle sizes: 40,000 Small (13×13) puzzles, 40,000 Medium (15×15) puzzles, and 20,000 Large (19×19) puzzles.
  • Save a partially finished puzzle, and finish it later.
  • Pause and hide a puzzle, so your score isn’t penalized for taking a break.
  • Presumably you can also embed a puzzle on your website, but the script did not work in this blog (and I tried it in IE as well as Chrome)…too bad…it seemed like a neat feature.
• USA Today Daily Crossword
• Thinks.com – a different puzzle each day
• Washington Post Crossword Puzzle – a different puzzle each day
• Newsday.com – a different puzzle each day, with an extra large puzzle on Sunday
• ABC Teach – several free crosswords (nice for younger students)
• NY Times Learning Network – Twice a month you can play a new crossword puzzle.
• Web Crosswords.com – a different daily puzzle that can be solved online or in print
• Best Crosswords.com – register to play these free games online or print them to solve them using pencil and paper.
• Free Crossword Puzzles – five free puzzles a day
• Crossword Puzzles for ESL students – varying degrees of difficulty
• Many Things.org ESL Puzzles – some of the puzzles feature picture clues
• Science Crossword Puzzles – a limited variety, but nice for science emphasis

For those individuals who become frustrated while trying to solve a crossword puzzle (like me) I will end this post with some puzzle solver tools:

• Langenberg.com – tools to help solve crossword puzzles (also good for Scrabble)
• Crossword Tools.com – “an online collection of fantastic, artificial intelligence tools related to crosswords and recreational wordplay of all kinds!”
• Crossword Puzzle Games – this site features the generator I mentioned earlier, as well as this simple crossword puzzle solver.

Of course, how can you solve a crossword without a dictionary near by (perhaps I should say as close as your finger tips)? Use any of the dictionaries featured in my 25 Online Dictionaries post as you solve a pre-made puzzle or assist students in solving a puzzle you generated for them.

Even Flash Gordon would have been impressed by the new website I recently discovered. Share SWF is a marvelous Flash sharing site that holds a lot of promise for educators and bloggers. Some of the Flash files that are available on the site could be used to embed interactive, educational resources on a teacher site or blog. In addition, Share SWF could also serve as excellent vehicle to upload student-created Flash files. Young college age designers could use this site to share their work in a public format and see how it “rates.” Officially the site requires that a user be 18 years or older to upload a Flash file, though a teacher or parent could share student created Flash files.

I have embedded a few of the files I discovered on the site below using the share feature found at the site:

Here is a strategy activity….

Here is an interactive instructional activity…

Here is a fun and fanciful (and somewhat addictive) activity…

I am seriously hoping this site grows and grows. I know there are many talented Flash artists out there! Hopefully we can all benefit from their generosity and talent!