My Top
Ten
Tech
Tools
by Kelli Stair
Voicethread Voicethread.com is a
multimedia conversation
tool that allows teachers
to upload or connect to
multimedia sources and
enable student
conversations about each
media piece. Teachers can
give directions and students can respond through text, audio, or
webcam. Voicethread engages multiple learning styles and allows all
students to participate. Voicethread also encourages revision as
students will replay their comments until they are satisfied with the
result. Voicethread allows publishing of student-created multimedia
projects for evaluation and teacher-created projects to enhance
students learning. The free version allows multiple identities under a
teacher’s username or allow students to create their own identities
with an email account. An annual subscription allows a teacher to
manage a list of students’ identities with advanced features to track
and manage comments.
Study
Stack Studystack.com is a site that lets you create your
own flashcards for review. You can print out flash
cards, use your words to review, play study games,
and quiz yourself. What makes this site unique is
the extensive lists of pre-
generated study stacks,
particularly SAT, GRE, MCAT,
and LSAT test prep words. In
addition, vocabulary lists are
arranged in different subject
areas and for different
languages. If you are tech
savvy, you can embed study
stacks, games, and activities
onto your own website!
If you’re looking for an easy-to-use learning
management tool for blending your classroom,
look no further than Edmodo.com. You can keep
track of assignment posts, make quizzes, track
progress, and let students interact with each other
on Edmodo. Excellent for discussions, quizzes,
and easy management of assignments, this tool
has a comfortable layout and intuitive design.
Students will find the layout easy to navigate as it
resembles social networking sites. The
possibili
ties for
using
this
platform in the
classroom are
limitless. With
thousands of teachers using it, groups designed around
sharing teaching ideas have forums that really help you get
acclimated. Students in your classroom get a virtual
backpack to put their work in, so no excuses about leaving
homework at home! Students can submit work to you any
time and you can leave comments with your grades.
How did I make this great
magazine to post to the
site? ISSUU.COM is the site.
It’s never been easier to
publish online magazines
and embed them anywhere!
In addition to publishing-
say, student magazines,
creative writing, art, subject matter journals- you can manage your
own library and make different shelves of magazines. Students
could sign up for free accounts and send you a link to their
magazine projects or portfolios. You can also subscribe to
magazines and you receive the latest published version. If you
wanted to, you could
keep track of your
students throughout
their portfolio-
developing careers!
Talk about an
authentic audience
for writing- can you
imagine the thrill
students would get
from publishing their writing to subscribers all over the world?
ISSUU.com
Todaysmeet.com allows users to
create a backchannel for
discussions. A backchannel is
when you use networked
computers to have real-time
conversations online at the same
time that you have a live speaker or panel of speakers. Think
about sitting in a lecture hall with a speaker while also
having your laptop or cell phone in front of you. On the
projection screen is a list of any comments or questions the
audience has for the speaker. The speaker can use this
backchannel to answer questions, address comments, ask
listeners to provide resources, etc. Using free software like
Today’s Meet allows listeners to participate and archives the
whole backchannel for future reference. Speakers can have
immediate feedback about the direction of their lecture and
listeners can actively participate in the discussion without
having to interrupt the speaker. If you lecture at all in class,
using a backchannel can dramatically increase the
effectiveness of your lecture and participation of the
audience.
Screencast-o-matic is an online video recording
platform that allows users to create videos using
screenshots- whatever is on their screen. Screencasts are
especially useful for how-to videos of things relating to
education that are done on the computer. For example, if I
wanted to show someone how to format pictures in a Word
document, I could make a video using my voice as I
performed the task and my audience could see my screen as
if I were right in front of them demonstrating. These
screencasts can be added to YouTube, archived in the
system, or sent as a link to others. Screencasts could be
used for direct instruction or as a way for students to show
what they are doing as they are doing it. You can record 15
minute screencast videos with
a free account, and no
downloads are necessary.
Students could create videos
for portfolios of tasks and
show that they knew how to
complete all requirements of a
task. Use it with another
program like Scrible and really
have a powerful tool!
www.screencast-o-matic.com
Scrible.com is a research
tool that bookmarks
webpages and allows you
to annotate those
webpages by highlighting
in various colors,
adding notes
directly to a page,
organizing those notes
and annotations with a
legend,
and sharing your annotated
webpage as a separate URL.
If using screencast-o-matic and scrible together is
too complicated and you want a simpler solution,
Jing is your answer! Jing can be downloaded at
http://www.techsmith.com/jing-features.html
and allows five minutes of video screencast
recording with simple annotation tools. Because
it is a download, you may need administrator
access to download to school computers.
Do you have shelves full of 3-Ring binders? If so,
livebinders.com is for you. If not, you are probably like me
and have stacks of papers, sticky notes, index cards, lists
written on napkins… and you need livebinders most of all!
Think of a 3-Ring binder… for the web. Livebinders allows
you to organize websites, videos, pdf and Word files, and
images into virtual binders that you can make public for
others, collaborate on with colleagues, and have access to
from any computer with an internet connection… including
your cell phone! Not only for education, livebinders.com is
searchable for recipes, hobbies, activities, and more!
Glogster at
http://edu.glogster.com/ has a catch phrase: Poster
yourself! Glogster software allows you to create an
interactive poster with images, videos, and other
animated elements. While there are many more options
with the paid version,
the free version will give
you an idea of the
capabilities of glogster.
Students love the
creativity, design, and
production aspects of
creating their own
posters. The paid
version allows
embedded activities
within the poster and a
student management
system!
Whether you teach remedial
English or AP Literature; math,
science, or social studies; project-
based learning or standardized
test prep, shmoop.com is an
invaluable tool. Written in a
conversational tone, shmoop lays
out the basics in a fun, easy-to-
comprehend way. Under
literature, for example, books
and poems are broken using the
following categories: summary,
themes, quotes, characters, analysis, questions, quizzes, resources,
and write an essay- a step-by-step
tutorial that leads students through
the writing process. Under Biology,
topics are covered in the following
categories: intro, in depth, terms,
roots, big themes, real world, study
questions, quizzes, best of the web
(resources) and citations. If students
need extra incentive, shmoop offers shmoints that you earn and can
redeem for prizes. Shmoop is one of my favorite resource sites and
will actually help students become independent learners.
Did anyone catch the 11 tools, not 10? I lost count and added
an extra. It was too hard to decide which one to let go!
While not technically a
technology tool,
www.freetech4teachers.com
is my go-to site when it
comes to what is new in
technology for the
classroom. While it can be
overwhelming- and the
editor posts every week, if
not daily- the site is well
organized with easy-to-
navigate internal links and
great connections. I’ve
included screen shots of two
of my favorite posts. If you
love technology- or even just
have some curiosity- plan to
be amazed by how the time
flies!