6 New Educational Web Tools for Teachers

February 21, 2015
Once every month, EdTech and mLearning team prepares for you a list of new interesting educational web tools that we have collected from our PLNs. The purpose is to keep you updated of the latest releases in the world of educational technology and help you discover new tools to leverage in your instruction. Here is what we have curated for you for this month.

1-  BrainNook

BrainNook  provides a variety of educational games and learning materials to help boost students engagement and interest in Math and Language Arts.

2-Sight Words

It is packed with free tools to help educators and parents teach sight words to kids from Pre-K to 4th Grade. This website�s free and printable resources are designed to promote learning in the classroom and also at home. The site's features include:

• 12 fun Games from Go Fish to Snakes ; Ladders, easy to print and customize (http://www.sightwords.com/sight-words/games/)
• Customizable Flash Cards in three different sizes (http://www.sightwords.com/sight-words/flash-cards/)
• Classroom-tested Lessons, complete with �how-to� videos (http://www.sightwords.com/sight-words/lessons/)

3- Drawp for schools

Building on the success of Drawp, the popular art app for kids, MoonDrop Entertainment released Drawp for School, an iPad app that offers all the innovative creativity tools of the original Drawp, with the addition of intuitive workflow management that saves teachers valuable classroom time. Drawp can be used with all subjects, and lets teachers distribute and collect work as easily as with paper worksheets while automatically storing them in the private Drawp cloud.

4- Clyp

Clyp is an excellent tool to record audio. You can also use it to upload and share your recorded clips. Clyp requires you to open an account with them to save your audio recordings and make them downloadable. Clyp is also available as a mobile app for both iPad and Android.

5- Create A Graph

This is a very good and easy tool to use for creating graphs. You can choose from a variety of pre-made graphs (e.g Bar, Line, Area, Pie, XY) and customize them the way you want.

6- Cakey

Cakey provides a safe place for young children to watch YouTube videos. Parents have complete control over which videos children have access to. Children feel empowered being able to navigate themselves back and forth between different video collections without asking for help or permission from their parents. Parents have the ability to add ANY video from YouTube, not just from a restricted set of videos.

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Educational Web Tools You Might Not Have Heard of

January 23, 2015
When designed well, technology can making life easier. Too bad most technology has the opposite effect. Here are a few notable tools that educators say have helped them in some way. Perhaps you will find one useful too.

Education Genius 

Like a Wikipedia of annotations, any student or educator can publicly annotate classic literature or academic journals.

Wdgts

A collection of utilities you can use without unlocking your iOS device, such as a calculator, calendar, currency converter, etc.

Mover 

Transfer files easily between backup services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, or even FTP and WebDav.

Pop Up Archive 

Audio recordings stored here are automatically tagged and transcribed, making them easy to search later.

Want more? Check out these collections .

Utilities 

This one is curated by ICT coordinator Tessa de Wit.

Productivity Programs/Apps 

This one is curated by head of computer science Mike Washburn.

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Great Platforms to Find Open Educational Resources

January, 2015
Here is a list of free educational tools that will help you find some great open educational resources (OERs). Bookmark them, pin them, and add them to your collections.

Gooru 

 Go here for videos, sites, interactives, questions, slides, textbooks, handouts, lessons, and exams. Filter by CCSS, subject, and grade.

OpenEd 

Go here for videos and games. Filter by CCSS and grade.

Spongelab 

Go here for games, images, animations, and lesson plans. Filter by language and subject.

ReadWorks 

 Go here for lesson plans, reading passages, and question sets related to reading comprehension. Includes CCSS-alignment.

PowerMyLearning 

Go here for games, videos, and interactives. Filter by grade, subject, and CCSS.

Wolfram Education Portal 

Go here for textbooks, lesson plans, widgets, and interactives related to math.


Want more? Check out these collections of apps .

Free tools you should use!

A collection of free apps and websites curated by ESL/EFL teacher Cynthia Jones.

Adaptive Curriculum Tools (Free) 

A collection of free tools Curated by Michael Wacker for the Denver Public Schools Blended Learning Program.

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Excellent Web Tools to Engage Students in Hands-on Learning

January 19, 2015
Looking for hands-on activities that can engage your students both mentally and physically? Inspire the maker inside your learners with these creative tools and resources, from crafts to electronics to health.

Osmo 

 By analyzing objects in front of its camera, this kit turn an iPad into a hands-on learning tool.

LightUp 

Build working circuits with magnetic snapping blocks to teach young children about electronics.

Pinoccio 

 Add wireless capabilities to your do-it-yourself electronic projects to make them web-accessible.

Fit 4 the Classroom 

 Discovery Education, Sanford Health, and WebMD teamed up to offer free lesson plans around health, diet, fitness, etc.

Want more? Check out these collections of tools.

Lesson Plan Resources 

This is curated by librarian Terese Brennan.

Health 

 This one is curated by nurse Heather Frasso

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6 New Educational Web Tools for Teachers

January 17, 2015
Below is a collection of some useful educational web tools we have recently discovered through feeds in our social media network and most particularly through Graphite. The purpose of this collection is to introduce teachers to some newly discovered educational platforms that could be of some use in their instruction. The tools we have for you today span different topics and disciplines and can be used with different age groups.

1- Encyclopedia of Life

Encyclopedia of Life provide a wide variety of resources and materials to teach kids about life on earth. These materials include images, videos, articles, maps and many more. The topics covered are multifarious from biodiversity to ecology. To search for and access these resources just click on �discover� button on top of the page then select �Education resources� on the left pane.

2- Bookshare

Bookshare is a website that offers reading for people with print disabilities, for those who suffer from a visual impairment or physical disability that impedes their reading. Here are some of the features of Bookshare:

• Listen to books with high quality text-to-speech voices
• Hear and see highlighted words on screen
• Read with digital braille or enlarged fonts
• Create physical braille or large print
• Read directly from your Internet browser

2- Explore Science

Explore Science is a great website from California Academy of Sciences which provide teachers and educators with a plethora of teaching resources to help students understand the different scientific phenomena .

3- Educurious

This is a non-profit organization that provides training and support tailored to the needs of teachers and students. The courses it offered to students are PBL-based and are geared towards empowering them to develop solutions to challenges they care about.

4- Biodigital Human

A better way to understand health and the human body. The BioDigital Human is the most comprehensive set of true 3D anatomy and health condition models ever assembled. Choose from 1000�s of interactive visualizations to build your own custom library of models.

5- Clarify

Clarify is a downloadable software that allows users to grab multiple screenshots and create screen recordings. Clarify enables you to mark up your screenshots, add text to them and export them as a document to PDF, Word or Dropbox. You can also send them to Evernote, Wordpress or the web.

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Excellent Teacher-tested Tools to Help in Your Student Assessments

January 10, 2015
Technology offers a range of ways to assess student progress, from gathering or crafting various types of assessments to providing ways to track and analyze them. Here are some notable teacher-tested tools to aid in your student assessments.

Common Core Quest 

Find lots of free Common Core Math and ELA assessments, videos, and games in this app.

Quizbean 

 Create your own online quizzes and see your students' results in a report card.

Edusight 

Use this free online gradebook to record your students' assessments and progress.

BrightLoop 

Capture other kinds of assessments using photos and notes, and showcase them in a student portfolio.


Want more? Check out these collections of tools.

Quizzes, Activities and Assessment 

This collection is curated by technology integrationist Emily Huff.

Formative Assessments 

This one is curated by instructional media specialist/librarian Sara Frey.

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Great Educational Web Tools for Paperless Classrooms

December 20, 2014 

Few classrooms are entirely digital or paperless, though more and more are striving towards a middle-ground that can replace some of the workflow tedium with technology while remaining focused on their students. If that sounds like you, here are some digital classroom resources to consider.

Annotate.net

Engage your class using your tablet. Whiteboard, assessments, screen mirroring, collaboration, flipped classroom. Perfect for 1:1 or BYOD. Free signup!

Showbie 

 Assign, collect, review, and annotate of all your students' iPad-based work with this app.

Hstry 

 Create and explore interactive web-based timelines that include text, images, video, audio, and quiz questions.

ReadWorks 

Find CCSS-aligned research-based units, lessons, and leveled non-fiction & literary passages with this web tool.

Mosa Mack Science 

 Engage your students with this web-based series of short, problem-solving, animated science mysteries.

Want more? Check out these collections of tools .

Digital Skills 

This is curated by pre-kindergarten aide Amy Loomis.

Lori's Paperless PE Classroom Collection 

This one is curated by PE teacher Lori Galloway.

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Popular Educational Apps and Tools for Teachers

December 13, 2014
This past year has seen a rise in mobile devices, especially with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives and 1:1 iPad programs. Here are some of the most popular educational iOS apps that have risen quickly in popularity. Some you may already know. If not, take a look and see if they are relevant to you and your students.

Socrative Teacher and Student 

 Use these clicker apps to easily create quizzes, games, and exit tickets for immediate formative assessments.

Educreations -

Record video lessons and tutorials using a whiteboard canvas, imported images, your on-screen drawings, and your voice.

Book Creator 

Put together digital textbooks and storybooks for your iPad, then publish them in iBooks for others to download.

Toontastic 

Create animated stories by moving existing cartoon characters around, recording your voice, and overlaying background music.

Grammar App 

Formatted like an interactive book, readers are presented with numerous tutorials and questions as they progress through it.

Remind101 - Send text messages to students and parents for reminders, notices, and other info. All phone numbers are safely hidden.

Want more? Check out these collections of apps.

Educational iOS Apps 

This is a collection of educational apps for iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches. Curated by David Kapuler.

BYOD Apps and Tools for the Classroom 

This is another collection of iOS and Android apps that can be used in the classroom. Curated by Chris Beyerle.

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Great Teacher-tested Games to Engage Your Students

December 7, 2014
Games can be fun and addicting. Well-designed educational games can make the act of learning just as fun and addicting. Here are some teacher-tested games to engage your learners and get them craving more. Parents may like these for holiday enrichment too.

Mathtopia

 Addictive like Candy Crush, but nutritious Math Facts for the brain.

Chairs! 

 Learning organic chemistry is tough, but this teacher-created app makes a difficult subject much easier to understand.

Grammar Pop 

A simple grammar game from Grammar Girl, who you may have seen on the Oprah Winfrey Show or Reader's Digest.

Wuzzit Trouble 

 A teacher-created puzzle-solving game to help develop mathematical conceptual thinking skills.

TopIQ 

A collection of simple learning games and digital storybooks for kids 2 to 7, from ABCs to tracing to addition.


Want more? Check out these collections of tools.

Game-Based Learning - Math 

This is  curated by fifth grade teacher Monique Haug.

Fun Educational iPad and iPod Apps for Kids -

This is Curated by middle school language arts teacher Cary Fields.

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