My Top Five Tech Tools
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 pregenerated 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 publishingsay, 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 portfoliodeveloping 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
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-tonavigate 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!