My Top

Ten

Tech

Tools

by Kelli Stair

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 pre-

generated 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 publishing-

say, 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 portfolio-

developing 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

Todaysmeet.com allows users to

create a backchannel for

discussions. A backchannel is

when you use networked

computers to have real-time

conversations online at the same

time that you have a live speaker or panel of speakers. Think

about sitting in a lecture hall with a speaker while also

having your laptop or cell phone in front of you. On the

projection screen is a list of any comments or questions the

audience has for the speaker. The speaker can use this

backchannel to answer questions, address comments, ask

listeners to provide resources, etc. Using free software like

Today’s Meet allows listeners to participate and archives the

whole backchannel for future reference. Speakers can have

immediate feedback about the direction of their lecture and

listeners can actively participate in the discussion without

having to interrupt the speaker. If you lecture at all in class,

using a backchannel can dramatically increase the

effectiveness of your lecture and participation of the

audience.

Screencast-o-matic is an online video recording

platform that allows users to create videos using

screenshots- whatever is on their screen. Screencasts are

especially useful for how-to videos of things relating to

education that are done on the computer. For example, if I

wanted to show someone how to format pictures in a Word

document, I could make a video using my voice as I

performed the task and my audience could see my screen as

if I were right in front of them demonstrating. These

screencasts can be added to YouTube, archived in the

system, or sent as a link to others. Screencasts could be

used for direct instruction or as a way for students to show

what they are doing as they are doing it. You can record 15

minute screencast videos with

a free account, and no

downloads are necessary.

Students could create videos

for portfolios of tasks and

show that they knew how to

complete all requirements of a

task. Use it with another

program like Scrible and really

have a powerful tool!

www.screencast-o-matic.com

Scrible.com is a research

tool that bookmarks

webpages and allows you

to annotate those

webpages by highlighting

in various colors,

adding notes

directly to a page,

organizing those notes

and annotations with a

legend,

and sharing your annotated

webpage as a separate URL.

If using screencast-o-matic and scrible together is

too complicated and you want a simpler solution,

Jing is your answer! Jing can be downloaded at

http://www.techsmith.com/jing-features.html

and allows five minutes of video screencast

recording with simple annotation tools. Because

it is a download, you may need administrator

access to download to school computers.

Do you have shelves full of 3-Ring binders? If so,

livebinders.com is for you. If not, you are probably like me

and have stacks of papers, sticky notes, index cards, lists

written on napkins… and you need livebinders most of all!

Think of a 3-Ring binder… for the web. Livebinders allows

you to organize websites, videos, pdf and Word files, and

images into virtual binders that you can make public for

others, collaborate on with colleagues, and have access to

from any computer with an internet connection… including

your cell phone! Not only for education, livebinders.com is

searchable for recipes, hobbies, activities, and more!

Glogster at

http://edu.glogster.com/ has a catch phrase: Poster

yourself! Glogster software allows you to create an

interactive poster with images, videos, and other

animated elements. While there are many more options

with the paid version,

the free version will give

you an idea of the

capabilities of glogster.

Students love the

creativity, design, and

production aspects of

creating their own

posters. The paid

version allows

embedded activities

within the poster and a

student management

system!

Whether you teach remedial

English or AP Literature; math,

science, or social studies; project-

based learning or standardized

test prep, shmoop.com is an

invaluable tool. Written in a

conversational tone, shmoop lays

out the basics in a fun, easy-to-

comprehend way. Under

literature, for example, books

and poems are broken using the

following categories: summary,

themes, quotes, characters, analysis, questions, quizzes, resources,

and write an essay- a step-by-step

tutorial that leads students through

the writing process. Under Biology,

topics are covered in the following

categories: intro, in depth, terms,

roots, big themes, real world, study

questions, quizzes, best of the web

(resources) and citations. If students

need extra incentive, shmoop offers shmoints that you earn and can

redeem for prizes. Shmoop is one of my favorite resource sites and

will actually help students become independent learners.

Did anyone catch the 11 tools, not 10? I lost count and added

an extra. It was too hard to decide which one to let go!

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-to-

navigate 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!