GOOGLE FORMS IN-SERVICE
HERE ARE SOME LINKS TO WEBSITES THAT WE HAVE OR WILL USE IN CLASS. THEY CAN BE VERY HELPFUL AND FUN TO USE.
EDUTYPING - KEYBOARDING SOFTWARE FOR CLASSROOM AND HOME USE - MUST HAVE AN ACCOUNT!
PIXTON - MAKE COMICS TO PRESENT INFORMATION
PIKTOCHART - INFOGRAPHICS CREATOR
SMORE - CREATE FLYERS TO USE IN THE CLASSROOM SETTING AND TO PRESENT INFORMATION ON VARIOUS TOPICS
DIPITY - CREATE INTERACTIVE TIMELINES
AKINATOR - A FUN "WEB GENIE" GAME
SCREENCAST-O-MATIC - ALLOWS YOU TO RECORD YOUR ACTIONS ON THE COMPUTER SCREEN - GREAT FOR PRESENTING "HOW TO" ACTIVITIES ON THE COMPUTER.
MAKE-USE-OF - TONS OF INTERESTING ARTICLES TO USE IN THE CLASSROOM SETTING - CURRENT EVENTS, ETC.
JEOPARDY LABS - ONLINE JEOPARDY GAME TEMPLATE
NEWSELA - NON FICTION LITERACY AND CURRENT EVENTS ONLINE
APP INVENTOR - LEARN TO CREATE MOBILE APPS
KAHOOT - FOR TEACHERS - CREATE ONLINE QUIZ GAMES TO BE PLAYED WITH THE WHOLE CLASS (GREAT FOR REVIEW)
MIT APP INVENTOR - ANOTHER GREAT APP CREATION LEARNING SITE
EASEL.LY - CREATE AND SHARE INFORMATION AND IDEAS THROUGH INFO-GRAPHICS
FODEY - A FUN NEWSPAPER CLIPPING CREATOR
COGGLE - CREATE NOTES IN A DIFFERENT WAY
THINGLINK - ADD INFORMATION TO IMAGES FOR GROUP DISCUSSIONS
TODAYSMEET - A CHAT ROOM FOR YOUR CLASSROOM.
SPORCLE - TRIVIA GAME SITE WHERE YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN
LOUPE COLLAGE MAKER - TURN PHOTOS INTO A WORD OR IMAGE COLLAGE.
REFSEEK - A GUIDE TO 25 OF THE BEST ONLINE RESOURCES FOR LOCATING EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS
RECITE.COM - VERY NEAT WAY TO BRING TAKE YOUR FAVORITE QUOTES TO THE NEXT LEVEL
GOANIMATE - MAKE ANIMATED VIDEOS FOR YOUR CLASSROOM
POWTOON - ANOTHER ANIMATED VIDEO CREATOR
NBC LEARN - NBC Learn is the educational arm of NBC News dedicated to providing resources for students, teachers and lifelong learners.
BRAINPOP - Animated Educational Site for Kids - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts & Music, Health, and Technology.
TED.COM - TED is a nonpartisan nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks. TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 110 languages
WORDLE - word cloud creator
PADLET - From your hobby to your career, your class notes to your final exam, your mood board to your runway show, padlets help you organize your life.
TAGXEDO - Tagxedo turns words - famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters - into a visually stunning word cloud.
FREE TYPING GAMES = Includes different games, lessons, and tests to learn typing online.
ZAPTION - Zaption provided free interactive video tools to engage learners.
SCREEN CAST O MATIC - Screencast-O-Matic is a handy tool for recording screenshots and sharing them with friends or colleagues for a number of different purposes.
ZOOM - Zoom unifies cloud video conferencing, simple online meetings, and cross platform group chat into one easy-to-use platform
TWIDDLA - Twiddla is a free, no-setup, web-based meeting playground. Mark up websites, graphics, and photos, or start brainstorming on a blank canvas.
VOKI - Voki is a FREE service that lets you: Create customized avatars. Add voice to your Voki avatars. Post your Voki to any blog, website, or profile.
SIGN UP GENIUS - A FREE online software tool for volunteer management and event planning. Save time with sign up sheets and schedules for schools, sports leagues, business, etc.
General Business: http://lessonplans.btskinner.com/genbus.html
Free Online Learning: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/
Internet4Classroom: http://www.internet4classrooms.com/ct-bus.htm
Free Technology for Teachers: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
Teaching Tips Index: http://www2.honolulu.hawaii.edu/facdev/guidebk/teachtip/teachtip.htm.
ClipChamp (clipchamp.com) — Video projects can be great learning experiences. (In fact, this post I wrote about video projects is one of my most popular all-time.) Turning in those video projects can be a hassle. If you don’t have an idea established, consider ClipChamp. It lets you upload video quickly and easily to share. Students can upload their video projects, make video files smaller and share them to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo or Google Drive.
OrangeSlice: Teacher Rubric (Google Docs add-on) — This add-on makes creating rubrics in Google Docs easy and fast. Once you install the add-on in your document, use OrangeSlice to write the rubric (or choose a pre-made one) and then start grading. It also shows student progress from the initial grading.
BoomWriter (boomwriter.com) — BoomWriter makes the writing process visual and engaging. It has three sections: StoryWriter, ProjectWriter and WordWriter. In StoryWriter, students write a story in an illustrated digital book. They can later order real published copies of their books. ProjectWriter is a platform for non-fiction group writing projects. WordWriter makes vocabulary fun and interactive.
Nearpodize this! (Chrome extension) – Presentation slides are good for delivering content, but interactive slides are great! Nearpodize this! lets you make a Google Slides presentation interactive, just like Nearpod makes slides interactive. The teacher controls how quickly to advance through slides, and Nearpod provides interactive elements that students can use on their own devices.
StoryJumper (storyjumper.com) — StoryJumper is a bit like BoomWriter’s StoryWriter tool. StoryJumper is a simple story-writing platform that even the youngest writers can use. Add scenes and photos to your text to make an eye-catching picture book. Books can be shared with others, and published copies can be ordered.
Hemingway App (hemingwayapp.com) — If students do any writing for you, Hemingway App may become your first line of defense against poor grammar. When students write, they can copy and paste the text from their writing into the page at Hemingway App. The site instantly analyzes their writing for wordy sentences, passive voice, complicated words and more. It even shows what grade level the student is writing on!
Storyboard That (storyboardthat.com) — Storytelling can be fun, but creating a story without a plan can be complicating — and confusing for the reader! StoryboardThat lets students create storyboards to organize their stories or their thinking. It taps into Creative Commosn photos and lets students use posable characters. Students drag and drop elements into their layouts.
LEGO Movie Maker (iTunes) — Stop motion animation can be a fun, creative way to express ideas. Students can use this app as well as their LEGOs (or anything else) to create videos easily. Shoot images, edit them in the app, add music and produce your movie. A new feature lets students shoot a new frame of the movie by simply snapping their fingers.
Quizizz (quizizz.com) – I’ve used and loved Kahoot! for a while (and still do), but I like Quizizz’s take on multiplayer gamified assessment. (By the way, have you seen my 10 ways to electrify class with Kahoot!?) Create multiple-choice questions (or choose a set of questions from Quizizz) and give students the game code so they can join. Students work at their own pace through questions and watch themselves move up and down the leaderboard as they answer questions. It’s a lot of fun!
LAW GAMES - http://www.texaslre.org/games/
GOOGLE CLASSROOM - https://classroom.google.com/h
FAKEBOOK - http://www.classtools.net/FB/home-page
FAKE TEXT MESSAGE CONVERSATION CREATOR - http://ifaketext.com/
DAILY STARTERS - Establish a morning routine with Scholastic's Daily Starters — fun, fast math and language arts prompts and questions, including Teachable Moments from history and Fun Facts, such as "Before erasers, people used a piece of bread!" Sort by grade (PreK-8), and project them onto your interactive whiteboard or print copies for your students.
GOOGLE EARTH - Zoom over the Sahara desert. Fly past the streets where your students live. Take a tour of the Eiffel Tower. You can do it all with Google Earth, the tool that makes the world feel a little bit smaller with its map-generating capabilities. If you're new to Google Earth, the tutorials offer a great introduction.
SMITHSONIAN EDUCATION - The Smithsonian offers thousands of resources for educators, including lesson plans, virtual tours of their latest exhibits, and the opportunity to connect with experts in the field. In one lesson, "Final Farewells," students can see a school yearbook from the Civil War era up close, and discuss how the political climate may have affected the content.
GLOGSTER - Glogster bills itself as a tool for making interactive posters, or glogs, containing pictures, text, video, links, and animation. A glog on To Kill a Mockingbird might contain a link to the Scottsboro trial, a clip from the Gregory Peck movie, and a drawing of the tree where Boo Radley leaves gifts for Scout. Fun!
TEACHER TUBE - TeacherTube is the best source for instructional videos in a safe environment. We especially love the clips of teachers showing off the catchy rhymes they've made up to teach certain topics — check out the "Mrs. Burk Perimeter Rap" and the "Mr. Duey Fractions Rap."
FLIPPED CLASSROOM IDEAS/LINKS
- 9Slides - A wonderful way for teachers to create an interactive/guided presentation for their students flipped learning.
- Answer Pad - The ultimate assessment tool for teachers to use with their mobile devices or browser to gauge student's learning.
- Ask3 - A fantastic iPad app for turning your iPad into a recordable whiteboard. This allows for a teacher to create guided lessons (by adding text/drawing/narration) that students can view at home. Students can then use the app in class to answer each other questions before asking the teacher, while teachers can use it to assess student's learning.
- BoomWriter - An excellent innovative site that allows students engage their creativity by completing chapters of a book/story and then having other students vote on which one should be included in the finished product. Once a book/story is completed a trade paperback copy can be ordered, turning students into published writers.
- Educreations - A terrific iPad app that is very similar to Ask3 as it turns the iPad into a recordable whiteboard. However, teachers can not only create a guided lessons, but also post them on the web for their students to view at home for flipped learning.
- GoClass - A wonderful iPad/web tool that allows educators to create lessons and then assess students learning in real-time. Also, students can view the lessons at home on their mobile devices and learn at their own pace.
- Knowmia - One of the most popular sites/apps for creating and searching for video lessons for students. Simply put, Knowmia is one of the best and easiest ways to flip a classroom.
- Math File Folder Games - A great site/company for educational iOS Math games that can be used to create 21st Century "Math Centers". This is a great way to use educational apps to reinforce flipped learning.
- MentorMob - A fantastic site for educators to create guided learning playlists that students can use at home for self learning. One of the best sites around for creating a flipped classroom.
- Nearpod - A terrific all-in-one solution for mobile devices in education. Teachers can use it to create engaging lessons that students can do from home.
- Blended or Flipped Classroom - article with description and video examples
- Flip Learning Network - community of educators and ideas on flipped learning in all content areas (even P.E.)
- IPAD AND IPHONE APPLICATIONS FOR FLIPPING THE CLASSROOM
Explain Everything (iPad/iPhone, $2.99) - With this application, you start out with a board space (white, green, or…) where you can add text, pictures, video, or drawings. Next you record your voice-over for each slide you create. No account is needed for sharing lessons via email after you save to your photo library, a plus when working with younger students. This application allows for simple annotating and editing of the slide and voice-over elements. This is a good, all-purpose application, and, if you prefer, can be used without the “talking head” effect.
Video in Video (iPad/iPhone, free) - I couldn’t test this app on my iPad, because it doesn’t have a camera (too old — something to think about if you are having students use these applications since not all may have the latest, greatest devices). So I tried it out on my iPhone and easily combined a video of students working in class with a “talking head” in the corner explaining what was going on. I can see how this would be effective for narrating a process on display or for asking questions to generate student discussion or written response.
Sock Puppets (iPad/iPhone, free, upgrade to Sock Puppets Complete for $3.99) - Use your voice, or multiple voices, to create brief animated lessons delivered by Sock Puppet characters. Change out the background and props. You will need to upload to YouTube or Facebook in order to share. Too cute for words, right? Upgrade for more options. The puppets are the “talking heads” here.
“Cloud” (Laptop or Desktop) Applications for flipping the classroom
Jing (free) - Use this basic screencasting tool to walk your viewers through whatever you do on your computer. Sharable via Screencast.com, with limited storage, it is especially good for brief how-tos (under five minutes). Upgrade to Snagit for more images and longer videos ($49.95). The very popular, top-of-the-line product for flipping lessons is Camtasia — where you get the whole nine yards for recording and editing screencasts and videos, plus the ability to include interactive assessments ($99, or schools can arrange for a site license). This tool allows you to be a “talking head” as much as you want.
VoiceThread (free, also available on iPad/iPhone) - This tool works like a narrated slide show. Students can add comments in text or writing as well. Your finished product can be embedded easily or shared as a link. This format is great for image-rich mini-lectures, though due to uploading issues, you are limited to shorter files on mobile devices. A limited upgrade is available to educators who apply. An educator’s license allows you to set up class accounts for your students for $79 per year or $15 per month, “talking head” optional.
Mozilla PopcornMaker (free) - Create mash-ups that draw upon Soundcloud, Vimeo, or YouTube videos. I used this to make a fun teaser for our new elective celebrating reading and technology. (Unfortunately, annoying ads pop up in the midst of your video.)
TEDEd (free) - Choose videos from the TEDEd files or add your own. Complete the lesson with questions and discussion prompts. Share the link for others to participate. Students will need to log in to interact with the lessons you create. I finished my first TEDEd flip, on the topic of innovation, in 15 minutes.
SooMeta (free) - This versatile tool can be used for digital storytelling (a kind of flipping, if you think abou tit) or for more traditional flipped lectures. You can easily search for and pull in media from the web, add your own voice recordings or music from Soundcloud, then embed your mini-lesson in a blog or wiki. You can add polls too. I used this to prompt student writing about their summer reading. I chose a voice-over over “talking head” video, but that’s me.
FlipGrid (free) - This tool allows you to type a question and create a link for a “grid.” Students respond to the question in video format (they’re the “talking heads” this time) and are added to the “grid” of all the responses. Users must be 13 years old, but this tool could be a fun way to set up a lesson by getting students to think about and respond to a question at home. It might be great for building vocabulary in English or learning foreign languages. Warning: Users need to be able to use Flash on their devices, and they will need access to recording video as well.
ALLISON - A NEW WORLD OF FREE ONLINE LEARNING - This platform offers free online courses from some of the most well-known names on the internet today, including Google, Microsoft, and Macmillan. With over 4 million users and over 600 courses already, it covers topics such as economic literacy, personal development and business/enterprise skills.
COURSERA - Much like MIT’s Open Courseware, this site has 114 educational partners that provide free courses to almost 10 million users. One benefit to Coursera is that there are very specific courses that fit perfectly into particular niches, such as “Data Management for Clinical Research” from Vanderbilt University and “Innovation for Entrepreneurs: From Idea to Marketplace” from the University of Maryland. Its wide network of partners allows for a greater selection.