Technology Tools For Teaching & Learning

image: westtennessewritingproject.com

I am posting a link to a web page with categorized tools to help teachers find the right match of online tools for their students related to curricular and student needs. Surely, in looking through this list, you will find one or more sites of interest. This web page might be one you want to bookmark, save as a favorite, or add to a social bookmarking site you maintain such as Diigo or Delicious.

Technology Tools for Teaching and Learning

Once you skim through the list and check the sites, let us know which sites you use, would like to use, or would like to investigate further, and possibly why you selected these specific sites.

Interested in Learning How to Use Prezi

The video below will present you with a
How to use Prezi, an exciting presentation tool! from Scottish Book Trust on Vimeo.
thorough overview of how to set up your account and how to use Prezi. The presentation is long, but it is worth watching for a solid overview. As you explore with Prezi, you can return to the video for more information. After watching the video, let us know how helpful it was and what your opinion of Prezi as a authoring tool is. How do you envision using it in the classroom? If you have created a Prezi, please feel free to share the URL link to it.

I just found this short Prezi online, and thought I would share it in light of the fact that The National Day of Punctuation is approaching. Who would have known there is such a day? This Prezi includes links to access additional information on punctuation. Although the Prezi is short and does not contain much information, it does demonstrate that a colorful, attractive presentation to give quick information can be accomplished with this Web 2.0 tool.

National Punctuation Day on Prezi

TodaysMeet: Perfect Tool for On-the-Spot, Total Student Engagement

Looking for a way for students to write comments during class for all to see and interact. TodaysMeet is the answer. It is a safe environment for students to post comments, a bit like Twitter, but all comments are just seen by those who are given the URL to join the discussion. It is easy for a teacher to moderate the comments, and the students are not off on the Internet using an open, public site like Twitter. TodaysMeet is excellent for backchanneling, having a place for students to write comments and pose questions while a class is in session. Check out at the site's About TodaysMeet, and then grab some friends, set up a room at the main TodaysMeet page by entering a URL, and then sending the URL to those you want to join in. TodaysMeet is definitely a powerful teaching tool. Here is also a video to learn more about TodaysMeet. Additionally, check this blog post one educator wrote about using the tool: Backchanneling with Elementary School Students. If you have checked out TodaysMeet, let us know your thoughts. If you have used it, tell us about your experiences. What are your suggestions for using the tool with students?

The 35 Best Web 2.0 Tools Chosen by You

from http://edudemic.com/2010/07/the-35-best-web-2-0-classroom-tools-chosen-by-you/

The 35 Best Web 2.0 Tools Chosen by You is a list generated by teachers. It's a must-see list. Review it for what you are using and what you might be using. You'll likely find at least one new tool to enhance your teaching and professional development. These are all tools that teachers are presently using to enhance their teaching and enrich the lives of their students as learners. You'll get a good feel of what is out there for your taking.

Okay, enough preaching, but take the time to review the list, and post a comment. What on the list is one of your favorites and why? After checking out some new ones to you, let us know what you might consider implementing in the future.

50 Sites in 60 Seconds

50 Sites in 60 seconds is a not-to-be-missed slide presentation of excellent websites to use for integrating technology tools into your teaching. Go through the slide presentation, and note which sites you know and which you want to check out. There's plenty here to keep you busy and to give you excellent ideas for sprucing up your teaching. With the summer coming, it's an excellent time to play, explore and think about what new tools you want to integrate into your teaching and how you might use them to spark student engagement and learning. Enjoy, and let us know what you find. Post a comment.

Top 10 Web Tools for Educators, from Harvard Education Letter

For setting up websites to keep students current, Google Sites and Weebly are listed as the top tools.  Edmodo ranks at the top for posting assignments and other notices and for students to upload work and communicate with peers (see image to the right).

Wikispaces remains a popular tool for students to collaborate in creating web pages.

To set up forums, Chatzy or TodaysMeet allow students to collaborate in real time.  Twitter is not only catching on for microblogging, but is one of the fastest growing social networking sites, outpacing Facebook according to some sources.  Vocaroo and Voki record voices and other sounds for embedding in \web pagesn and the like.  Poll Everywhere is used to gather students' opinions.

For more information on these tools, check the Harvard Education page, Top 10 Tools for Educators. Let us know which of these tools are you use and how students respond. Which tools would you like to try and why?

Reminder: Free Technology for Teachers

If you have not already bookmarked or created a feed to Free Technology for Teachers, which describes free to use online sites, offers free lesson plans, and categorizes access by an index of subject areas, such as science, math, and so forth, it is time that you have. This is a site worth checking regularly, and it has over 25,000 readers, not surprisingly! New posts appear almost daily. Educators find this site an indispensable resource. Once you have time to explore, let us know what you find of value.

Free Technology for Teacher is maintained by Richard Byrne, and his site has won numerous awards. If you don't find what you are looking for the first time around, check back later. This is not the first time I have posted a blog about Free Technology for Teachers. Just wanted to post another reminder about a blog chock full of resources.

Image credit: banner on Free Technology for Teachers

Teachers' Websites

Let's share examples of excellent teacher websites you have explored. Based on one student's contribution to our class's online discussion, I found an excellent model created by a teacher who has been a student at Saint Joseph College. Please take some time to explore Mercier's Magic. There's plenty to explore here. When you first open the site (be sure to have sound on), you will find her current school year site, but under the Home tab, you will see accessible sites from prior years.

Not only does Ms. Mercier group her content by subject area and audience (e.g., parents), she also provides throughout the site links to wonderful websites for instructional purposes. She uses Weebly to maintain her site. Feel free to explore Weebly as a mean to create your own student-centered website.

Ms. Mercier works with symbaloo.com to create customized pages of recommended sites for students. Here are fast links to some of her Symbaloo pages:
multimedia , math, and writing.

To create your own customized resource pages for your students with Symbaloo, open an account, and then you are set to build your pages of recommended sites by discipline, subject area, or general area of interest, using Symbaloo's database of recommended sites.

Ms. Mercier also maintains a blog through Weebly, allowing her students to post comments. In addition, check her Twitter account.

Webbly, Mrs. Scelia is a site designed by another Weebly-user teacher. Ms. Scelia started this site August 2010 to provide resources to her young students.

Let us know what you think of the websites these teachers maintain.

Post your recommendations of teacher websites worth visiting by providing the URL's.

Photo of Ms. Mercier from Mercier's Magic. Photo Ms. Scelia from Webbly, Mrs. Scelia
Logo from Weebly.

Rapping in the Students with Video and Collaborating Writing

The Free Technology for Teachers blog featured a story about a high school teaching using two resources to ignite reluctant learners.

The first, The Week in Rap, is an online video set to rap music that reviews in a few brief minutes major events of the week. For students who don't keep current of world events, this is an excellent means to introduce them to world events and to promote in-class discussions.

Take some time to view a recent The Week in Rap video. Remember the old days when we sent students to school editions of Time or Newsweek magazines to stimulate discussions of current events. Students using The Week in Rap get a glimpse into world events in a matter of minutes, but can also replay the video and read its text to facilitate further reflection.

The other tool, Etherpad, is an online synchronous writing environment conducive to a social constructivist approach to learning, as students use the tools to collaborate and create texts. The additions each writer, at his or her own computer, makes appear on the screen as one text forms. This tool has applicability for a range of learners. Try it out with a friend or colleague.

Let us know what you think of these free tools to use in the classroom.

To learn about the high school teacher who used these two tools with her students, check on the Free Technology for Teachers blog, the posting for Monday, February 15, 2010: Using Technology to Find Students.