New tools and how we as educators might use them
Let's identify tools and the ways teachers could use them
to empower learning.
As we explore these and other new tools, we must ask
ourselves; How do we incorporate these into our classrooms in meaningful and
useful ways?
Art/Drawing
- ArtSnacks
For any teacher who wants to let kids draw while learning aligned curriculum
concepts in science, writing and more.
- Art Edventure for primary and intermediate
-
Block Posters
- Cooltext.com Free "Graphics Generator" to
make logos and website buttons; fun fonts you can download.
-
drawto draw and share instantly
- Download Comic Life (download) Any
teacher who is teaching writing concepts and wants to add a creative twist
- digimi: Create
avatars.
- gliffy You can
create professional-looking flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical
drawings, and more.
- goanimate You can create your own
animated content for free. All you need is an account!
-
Imagination cubed
- kerpoof create original artwork, animated movies, and
stories (take the time to review how to use, some students had a problem with
movies not saving)
- Sketchcast
-
Mosaic
Creator
-
My Avatar
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Newspaper Clipping, make your item look like it appeared in a newspaper
- Roman Architecture explained
- sumopaint Online image editor
- Tuxpaint Drawing program
- TheHeroFactory Design
superheroes for stories
- Voki allows you
to create personalized speaking avatars
- Wordle A toy for generating “word clouds” from
text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear
more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different
fonts, layouts, and color schemes.
Audio/Sound/Music tools
Blogging
- Blogger
(tutorial) Free blogging
tool, best to start your own and learn the ins and outs first
- Classblogmeister (Safe, moderated blogging tool for
teachers) For teachers encouraging writing and feedback about writing
- edublogs Student and teacher blogs.
- Gabcast A
podcasting and audioblogging platform that offers an easy way to create and
distribute audio content.
- Kidblog
classroom blogs for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide
each student with their own, unique blog. No student email addresses
necessary.
- Wordpress Create blogs.
- 21classes Free classroom and teacher blogs
Bookmarking
- del.icio.us
Keep, share, and discover the best of the Web using Delicious, the
world's leading social bookmarking service.
- Diigo and Delicious (Social
bookmarking and Web2.0 features)
- Sharetabs Share links as tabs.
- iCyte bookmarking
- saves pages with highlights, tags and notes
- StumbleUpon Suggests sites
based on your interests.
Calendaring
Converting Tools
- mediacoder Convert media to other formats.
- any-video-converter: Convert
video into any format.
- any-audio-converter: Convert
audio into any format.
- mediaconverter Audio/Video Converter.
- zamzar (Free
online file conversion, turn that Youtube video into a video you can add to a
powerpoint)
- Real
Player - free video downloader that also allows you to convert it to
different file types; great for Flash video conversions!
Editing and Collaboration tools
- Annotate Online document review.
- authorGen
- authorstream Share slides and presentations.
- drop.io Use drop.io to
privately share and collaborate in real time be web, email, phone, mobile and
more.
- Drop Box--drop all your docs here from multiple computers to back them up and share while on different machines.
- elluminate Learn
Central offers a FREE vRoom for up to 3 people to meet online; great for
sharing, planning or just collaborating; and can have a group of people in one
school meet and share with 2 other groups in another school by just using the
internet, a computer, projector and screen
- Google Docs Let's you collaborate on documents in a word-like,
excel-like environment
-
File Dropper
- googletimeline
- Pirate pad --like the old Etherpad that Google bought and discontinued
- iGoogle
- slideshare Share Powerpoints
- Skype
Any educator who wants to collaborate or let their students collaborate with
authors, experts or other teachers and students in remote locations.
- wiggio Makes
working in groups easy. Organize your groups and create and manage chats
with the group.
- TeamTreks Teamwork adventure. $10/student/yr
- Voicethread Create
collaborative projects in which people can add voice comments to posted video,
audio, pics, docs, etc.
- Windows Live- 25 gigs of storage in your Skydrive, can share items with others.
- yackpack Connect with groups
by yacking over the Internet with the cloud technology.
Educational Resources for Teachers
Business/Computers
Games
and Quizzes
Math
Resources and tools
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-
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Google Sketchup Any teacher
who wants to give kids a hands on experience while learning measurement,
geometry concepts and creative design (download)
-
-
Math
Snacks Any teacher who wants to let kids review key math concepts
in a non-threatening way
-
-
Random
Number
Science/Geography
-
Celestia (free download) For
any teacher who is teaching space science or the solar system and wants to
engage kids
-
- Phet--interactive physics activities
Web
Resources
-
Classroom2.0 For teachers who want to
join a world-wide professional learning community
- Raid my files! (Kevin Honeycutt's site with lots of
different classroom tools)
- Web2.0
Key Ring In Excel (To help unlock educational resources and to keep
key-learning in the palm of your hand)
Writing
and History resources and tools
-
ePals (For
teachers who want to encourage reading and writing while connecting their
kids to kids around the world)
-
Intel
Teach to the Future tools (Ranking items and provide reasoning to why,
investigate relationships by comparing/contrasting, develop well reasoned
arguments.)
-
noodletools The Web's most comprehensive and
accurate MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian bibliography composer with
fully-integrated note-taking.
-
bibme.org
-
- Scrotus--Supreme Court Blog
-
Story
Chasers (A multi-state (and potentially multi-national) educational
collaborative empowering students and teachers to responsibly record and
share stories of local, regional and global interest as citizen journalists.
Story Creator Any teacher
who is looking for a creative way to inspire reluctant writers to create
narratives
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Newsmap.jp Presents "treemaps" in
realtime of most popular news headlines using an algorithm. Can view
treemaps by country.
E-mail sites
Microblogging
- ning Build your own
social learning network in a few clicks. Build a site and experiment for a
while before using with kids
- Plurk A way
for teachers to build their own, custom support think-tank
- posterous.com Microblogging made super simple
- Twitter Social networking
-
Cover It Live Users can text comments from cell
phone or from computer to the website during an in-person lecture for instant
discussion and feedback by others
-
typewith.me
Create a collaborative document that numerous folks can share thought, ideas,
comments on without having to login
-
wallwisher Online notice board maker - make
post-its, drag and drop to organize, post announcements, etc.
-
Photos
Podcasting
- Gcast A podcasting
service and the basic service is FREE. Beginning April 1, 2009, podcasting by
phone will require a yearly subscription fee of $99.
- Podbean Podcast hosting.
- Podcast Alley Podcast hosting.
- Podcast Pickle Podcast hosting.
- Podomatic (A tool for creating and publishing podcasts)
- drop.io Create a
drop.io profile and use the call in option to have audio recorded. You
can conduct conference calls too. Collect audio recordings and compile
into a podcast.
Surveys/Polls
Video
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Joost Like cable
TV with some good nature and science content (teacher should preselect shows
to share)Hulu (Movies and video resources, should be previewed by teachers as
there are mainstream titles and themes here)
-
Kick
Youtube (Teachers can convert Youtube videos into videos you can
use)
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MovieClips
- delivers more than 12,000 Hollywood movie clips
- Teachertube Educational videos
-
Telavision Create a Video-Vision
using photos, music, effects and transitions. Share on the web.
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Today’s meet
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Livestream (free video broadcasting with
embeddable player and ability to use multiple camera feeds. Does provide
optional application to download and stream from.
-
oovoo video chat
-
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WizIQ.com Teach live and online with free,
easy-to-use virtual classroom
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U Stream
Live streaming video. Great for virtual lectures!
Screen Capture
-
- Jing Still and moving screen capture. Instant
e-mail, web and IM share.
- Screenr Create
instant screencasts. Uses twitter login
Presentation
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Prezi Zooming presentations. Blocked for
students?
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Glogsterforeducation - Online
collage maker suitable for any subject. Art tools, graphics, pictures,
video and audio can be inserted. Innovative, collaborative,
sharing-ability. Log in to use. Also premium membership available.
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vuvox
Allows you to create interactive slideshows and presentations from photos,
video and music from many sites
Website and online tools
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Alice Computer
programming in a 3D environment
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classtools.net Free, customizable
flash templates to embed into blogs, wikis and websites.
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Go2Web20
Web application index, you can watch for new tools here
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NVU Web design software. Free.
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Open
Options Open Source and web base resources for teachers
- Webnotes Annotate the web.
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Weebly Create a free website & blog with an easy
drag and drop interface
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Zoho
Notebook You can create content of type text, image, audio, video and
embed content of any type from multiple applications.
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Tiny
URL Can copy and paste your long, assigned URL from a blog, wiki, or
website and get a tiny, easy-to-type one instead. Blocked for students,
but staff can override filter.
Text to Speech conversion
Wikis
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PBWorks Create wikis for the
classroom.
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wetpaint Create wikis for the classroom.
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Concept Mapping
Questionable sites: