Over the years, many of us have personally experienced the growth of technology in today's classrooms. Instead of taking notes, students are now occupied by surfing the Internet, scrolling through Facebook, and messaging their friends on their smart phones, tablets, and laptops.
Whenever I'm asked for a "first step" for teachers who want to start integrating web-based tools into their classrooms is to create a blog or website to serve as an online hub of activity. That online hub can be the jumping-off point for all of the web-based activities that you want your students to do.
Tackk is a free service that you can use to quickly create simple webpages. Using Tackk you can create a page to announce an important event, to advertise an event, or to show off your best digital works. I initially tried the service a couple of years ago and I revisited it today after receiving an email about their new education section.
April 11, 2014 A class website can be very helpful. Not only can parents use it to stay up-to-date, and students to keep track of assignments they've missed, but teachers can also use it as a guide for the next year. But how does a teacher find the time to maintain a class website?
Canvases Appstorm: Real time collaboration Canvanizer: Build a model, share your ideas, and more Twiddla: a meeting whiteboard Piazza: Efficient way to manage a class Q and A. Zoho Projects: Online collaboration Google Apps: Cloud-based productivity suite that helps you and your team connect and get work done from anywhere on any device.
This is a guest post from Samantha Morra at EdTechTeacher.org Tellagami, a free iOS app that lets you create short animated movies called "Gamis," is one of my new favorite animation apps to explore. Although the site promotes the app as a way to send greetings and messages for use within social media, I see it as a great tool in the classroom.
As a photographer, I often find myself caught between the impetuous models and their ravenous fans. I am of course talking about my children and their grandparents.
Keeping the photos coming can be a lot of work. I take many spur-of-the-moment shots on my phone, which I rarely connect to my computer. And my laptop itself has less storage than before, because I now rely on fast, lower-capacity solid-state drives
Google (docs & forms) - Make collaborative writing & group work online easy. Engage many students on one document. Use the Google forms for peer editing, creating a digital rubric and collecting feedback. Bit.ly - A URL shortener where you can share and track your links. It automatically creates a QR Code for links.
Web 2.0 is about revolutionary new ways of creating, collaborating, editing and sharing user-generated content online. It's also about ease of use. There's no need to download, and teachers and students can master many of these tools in minutes. Technology has never been easier or more accessible to all.
We are a little more than halfway through the school year, so I thought it would be a good time to update my list of must have things! Almost everything on here is free, they all make my life easier, and, most importantly, they enhance my lessons and improve my students’ learning. These are the things I can’t do without:
Web-based tools continue to proliferate, giving teachers more to add to their arsenal, but it can be hard to determine which resources are worth spending time exploring. At the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) conference this year, two early adopters of ed-tech tools offered a quick run through of some favorite apps.
Storify users tell stories by collecting updates from social networks, amplifying the voices that matter to create a new story format that is interactive, dynamic and social. Discover meaningful social media from the best storytellers online, including journalists, bloggers, editors and people like you, too.
If you are frequently sharing images online it's essential to have a virtual rolodex of go-to websites where you can quickly and effectively find free images. Not only that- but it's important that you have websites in which the legal restrictions are clear and concise.
Free tools to edit images, some cool photography & design
A collection of web and mobile based tools to help teachers & learners exploit the web
The Resource for Education Technology Leaders focusing on K-12 educators. Site contains a Software Reviews Database, articles from Technology & Learning Magazine, articles from Educators in Educators' eZine, Event and Contest listings, Reader suggested Web sites, and weekly news updates on education technology leaders.
The Resource for Education Technology Leaders focusing on K-12 educators. Site contains a Software Reviews Database, articles from Technology & Learning Magazine, articles from Educators in Educators' eZine, Event and Contest listings, Reader suggested Web sites, and weekly news updates on education technology leaders.
Free audience polling add-in for PowerPoint that uses audience members' mobile devices for voting and displays results live in your slides.
This year, I admitted a hard truth to myself. I wasn't having my students write enough. In an attempt to follow Kelly Gallagher's advice that students should write more than we can assess, I decided to have them blog weekly.
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-is-the-world-wide-web-twila-camp The World Wide Web is used every day by millions of people for everything from checking the weather to sharing cat videos. But what is it exactly? Twila Camp describes this interconnected information system as a virtual city that everyone owns and explains how it's organized in a way that mimics our brain's natural way of thinking.
You've got every device under the sun in front of you. Now what apps are you going to use? Here are the apps or app categories that I recommend you test for your school. There are lots of apps, and these are just my opinion based on what I've used with my students or successfully tested.
Padlet (formerly WallWisher) is a great little tool that has been popular for years now. The video below provides a demonstration of how to create a Padlet wall. Below the video you will find three ideas for using Padlet in your classroom.
21st Century Tools to help teaching-people and learners to achieve "BETTER" their tasks...
Ask awesomely Typeform makes asking questions easy, human & beautiful A user experience that makes your questions look & feel great everywhereDraw your users in when it comes to answering your questions online by offering them a seamless experience and interface across devices and platforms. Stimulated, inspired, excited.Happy respondents boost completion rates Typeforms make respondents feel at home with a format inspired by human conversation.
Zaption is an interesting video assessment tool that I tried when it was in beta last fall. This afternoon I received an email from the Zaption team asking me to take a look at the new version of the service. I was impressed by what I saw when I tried it this evening.
