Welcome to Educational Technology - Becoming an iEducator
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Topics to Cover
Web Tools to Know
Google Docs and Other Google Educator Tools
Create, share and collaboratively edit documents using a Google account. Google Docs is especially useful for group projects where students are working together on an assignment. Ask your students to provide you with access to their Google Doc while they’re working on it so that you can give them real-time feedback on their progress.
Weebly is a free online tool designed to make website creation a breeze!
Dropbox isn’t specific to teachers, but it’s a very handy tool. I’ve spoken with many teachers who use it with their students to share documents, turn in homework, etc. If you haven’t already given Dropbox a try, I’m telling you, it’s worthwhile. It’ll make your life so much easier.
Screencast-O-Matic is an online screen recorder with a one-click recording feature. You can use it from your browser on either a Windows or Mac computer. You can video up to 15 minutes in length for free.
Screencast is another media storage website. With a free account, you get 2GB of storage and 2GB of bandwidth a month. You keep the rights to everything you upload and you can determine the privacy settings for each file. From there, Screencast makes it easy to share and embed your media. Screencast also works seamlessly with TechSmith’s screen recording Camtasia software.
Sliderocket-The New Way To Present
Sliderocket is a free web application for making presentations that can be accessed with your gmail account, can be downloaded, and shared on-line. It can be used as a flip teaching tool or simply as a new way to build presentations for you as the teacher or for your students presenting in class.
SlideRocket is a revolutionary new approach to business communications designed from the start to help you make great presentations that engage your audience and deliver tangible results.
As one of the largest and most popular flashcard creation websites around, Quizlet allows students and teachers to customize their own “sets” of flashcards. You can manage access to the flashcards you create and share them with your students.
With a free option for K-12 teachers, Wikispaces is a great tool for making custom webpages that your students can edit together. You can manage privacy settings, create student accounts without email addresses, embed media and even customize the design of your Wiki pages.
Web tool for collecting web pages with information you don’t want to loose.
This is a quick, easy to use website to build and share resources as you research. The interface resembles sites that students are familiar with such as Pinterest, and the sharing option works well for group projects. This allows students to gather materials without ever copying and pasting.
The American Association of School Librarians has announced that iCyte is part of their 2011 list of the top 25 websites for enhancing learning and curriculum development.
Mindmeister is an online mind-mapping application. Users can create simple or complex mind-maps, containing text, links, images, tasks and files. Text size and color can be formatted by the user, and a mind-map can consist of any number of interconnected nodes. The site features a WYSIWYG mind-map editor which is entirely browser-based. A desktop application can be downloaded for working on mind-maps offline. Mind-maps can easily be shared with others, and other users can collaborate on mind-maps as well.
With over 2,600 videos ranging from arithmetic to history, Khan Academy is a great tool for reviewing a subject that you’ve already taught. Also, the website is just beginning to post practice exercises for additional reinforcement.
Symbaloo is a quick and easy web tool for collecting and organizing websites you use in your classroom and at home. With Symbaloo you can save a link to your favorite websites as a visual link accessible on the internet. Each website you want to save is shown as a ‘tile’ with its own graphic and or color. You can also group them by topics, subjects, themes, teams, tasks, assignments, etc. You can even make your favorite Symbaloo your home page which has quick links to your favorite sites.
DocStoc is a popular service for sharing documents online. Users can view documents, upload, share, and embed their own and other's documents.
Bring sites to young children quickly without address typing hassle.
Glogster is a social network that allows users to create free interactive posters, or glogs.
Popcorn - video editing tool
Add live links, pop up text, and other fun ways to edit videos.
Have you ever thought about enhancing video clips by adding your own questions, text, or even maps? This is your chance to make videos interactive in your classroom.
Visit https://popcorn.webmaker.org/ to make your videos “pop”!
Other Sites to Visit
Use Animoto to easily create presentations and videos with your own images and music, or choose from a library of stock files. Teachers can apply for a free Animoto Plus account.
Edmodo is a social network that you set up for your class. It looks like, feels like and smells like Facebook; however, it employs many safety precautions that keep students on task. Students cannot have private chats with each other, invite anyone to the class group or make private posts. It’s great because you can use it as a resource to answer questions and stay connected with your students outside of school.
Animate a picture of yourself with Gizmoz’s avatar creation studio. Your students will get a kick out of it!
Prezi is a really neat cloud-based presentation program that allows you to zoom in and out. If you don’t mind your slides being public, you can sign up for a free account with 100MB of storage.
Google Earth is a nifty tool that is being used by educators around the world. It puts the planet’s geographic information at your fingertips and can be utilized in a variety of educational activities. There’s even a helpful Google Earth for Educators Community where you can go for new ideas or to share some of your own.
With millions of YouTube videos, there’s bound to be something that’s relatable to your lesson. There are step-by-step tutorials, news clips, editorials, short documentaries and more. Recently, YouTube launched an education-specific version of the website called YouTube for Teachers.
Vimeo is kind of like YouTube in that it is a place for you to easily upload any kind of video you create—even high definition. A free account gives you access to 500MB worth of storage each week that you can use for a variety of things like customizing your website or blog.
Use IMDb, the internet movie database, to see if there are any movies that are relevant to the topic you’re teaching. If you find one, you can also check the rating to make sure it’s appropriate for your classroom.
This website is a little bit like YouTube because you can watch streaming videos. However, it’s very different because each video shares teaching ideas and methods that can be implemented in a classroom.
Although not specific to teachers, Quora is basically a wealth of the world’s information. The gist of it is that if you have a question, say about a topic in your homework, you log in and post it. There, people who follow that topic will answer. I’ve met teachers who give the website out for high-level classes like physics and chemistry. It’s a great way for students to get a nudge in the right direction on a project or difficult assignment.
Penzu is home to what is probably the most realistic imitation of lined paper on the internet. This nifty online journal is accessible from any computer with the internet, so it’s great for writing prompts and class notes.
Wallwisher is basically an online message board where you post “Sticky Notes.” You can make one for yourself to help you remember important events and dates, or create one for your class. You can even choose to approve each sticky note before it is created so that you can monitor what’s being said.
TeacherTube is exactly what it sounds like—YouTube for teachers. A colleague of mine introduced me to TeacherTube last year and it’s been a favorite ever since. The design of the website is getting a little outdated (it’s reminiscent of past versions of YouTube), but there are many educational videos to choose from. Plus, students love it because a) they’re watching videos, and b) it reminds them of where they find clips of ceiling cat.
Dabbleboard is an online whiteboard drawing interface that allows you to collaborate and share your work with an unlimited number of users.
Use Diigo to highlight text and images on webpages that you’ve found and then access them at a later date from your Diigo account. You can also create sticky notes if you need to write additional comments. When you return to the website, all of the annotations you made are still there.
Blabberize is a fun web 2.0 tool that allows you to upload a picture (of a person or animal), select its mouth, and make it talk by adding an audio file. Like Gizmoz, your students are sure to get a kick out of it!
If you want to show a YouTube video in class that isn’t entirely appropriate or relevant, use Tubechop to cut out all of the excess and only keep what you want to show.
If you tend to provide your students with a lot of links to online readings, activities, etc., you should look into using bitly’s link shortening service so you aren’t sending your kids super long URLs. You can even track how many times each link has been clicked to get an idea of how many students actually followed your instructions.
SchoolTube is a moderated video sharing website for K-12 students and teachers. Find videos on everything from anime to zoology. The design of the website is more modern than TeacherTube, which a lot of students appreciate.
Animate basic web-based paint drawings with Disapainted. It’s a cool way to give life to a simple concept and, since it’s online, it’s even easier to project onto your interactive whiteboard.
This web 2.0 tool uses cell phones and/or laptops to gather feedback from students. You can post as many questions as you’d like, which is nice if you have several classes.
A simple way to search for scholarly literature on any subject you can think of.
Free automatic bibliography composer.
ThingLink helps you create and discover rich images. Be creative! Make your images come alive with music, video, text, images, shops and more!