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Sketch Toy - Hakim El Hattab
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use Sketch Toy to demonstrate symmetrical drawings. This tool is great for enhancing, creating and visualizing math concepts from basic geometric shapes and area to complex constructions and trig. Use on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Use for hands-on work with any geometry or trigonometry functions. Since this tool works on such a variety of devices, it would be ideal to use in a BYOD (or 1:1) geometry class. Art teachers who want to "draw in" their more mathematical students can offer this as a design option, especially when teaching about perspective. Drag in images of alphabet letters for younger students to practice tracing. In art class, pull in images of artworks (even students' own work) and have them highlight design principles such as the path of your eye in viewing this image. Annotate any image using freehand drawing and writing. Use this tool as a visual writing prompt. Transform learning by creating drawing stories where a small group adds to the drawing as they pass it around on a tablet, narrating the story among themselves. Save it and play it back for them to write down their own versions of the story. Drawing stories would be a great way to practice world language skills or for ENL students to master vocabulary!You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Skimcast - Bill Hollingsworth
Grades
5 to 8In the Classroom
Skimcast would be the perfect tool to show students how to take notes for a report or speech or create a study guide during, or at the end of a unit of study. Work together as a class and read the sentences that are just the relevant facts. Then show students how to pull out just the important words - deleting all prepositions, articles, and connector words. Resource teachers can use Skimcast to make reading from core classes shorter and easier for their students. ESL/ELL teachers can use this tool to make the text more understandable to limited English speakers.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Slang Idioms and More - 5-Minute English
Grades
2 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site on a projector or whiteboard when you have 5 minutes left or you want your students to do additional vocabulary work. Or provide it as a resource during your idiom lessons. ESL students have a very difficult time understanding idiomatic language and will benefit from the definitions and examples here. Ask them to share an example with your class of a similar idiom from their language. Often the translation of their idiom is funny enough to provoke classroom laughter but also explains why someone might say, "it is raining sheep and cows" instead of "cats and dogs."Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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SMMRY - smmry.com
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Introduce SMMRY to students working on research projects as a way to quickly determine content and viability of using websites. Use to differentiate instruction with students. Use with learning support students as a resource to make content easier to understand (and shorter to read). Use SMMRY summaries when teaching how to summarize in an ENL class. Compare the summary you create as a class or in small groups with the "automated" one. Are there subtleties or important distinctions that this tool misses? As a challenge for your more critical thinkers, have them try to figure out what signals the tool uses to create its summary.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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SMS Generator - Class Tools
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Engage students with what they know, text messaging! Inform students you will be creating a text conversation between two historical figures, fictional characters, scientists - anything from something the class is reading. On the whiteboard or with a projector display the SMS Generator. Show students how to use it by having them create the conversation. The text is not limited, but keep it reasonable. Besides using SMS Generator for presentations, it could be used to teach or refine social skills, practice writing in a new language, or explaining a math or science concept to a peer.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Socrative - Socrative.com
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
If you've ever wanted greater student engagement, increased student interest, and heightened discussion and interactivity in your classroom, Socrative is the answer. Students can give their input and express their views anonymously, if you wish.In any curriculum area, ask open-ended questions and display student responses with your projector or interactive whiteboard. Alternatively, students could respond on a tool like Padlet, reviewed here, and also vote on the options.
Use this tool easily in your Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) classroom since all students will be able to access it for free, no matter what device they have.
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Song Lyrics for Teaching ESL - Songs for Teaching
Grades
1 to 8In the Classroom
Use ESL songs from books written by ESL specialists! Use links provided for using songs in the regular classroom, too.Follow the simple suggestions at the end of each set of lyrics for ways to do the activity with your students.
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Song Lyrics: Using Songs in the ESL Classroom - Neil Coghlan
Grades
1 to 8In the Classroom
Find lyrics to any song you want! Share this link with your students themselves, They may want to look up some songs they have heard and did not fully understand.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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SoundGator - soundgator.com
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use the many files on SoundGator to add interest to multimedia presentations and as part of your digital storytelling needs. To create a digital story use a tool like Book Creator, reviewed here. Find a large variety of tools for multimedia presentations at TeachersFirst Edge tools, reviewed here.''''''?Choose an interesting sound to share with students as a creative writing story starter. If your students enjoy creating podcasts and videos, share this site as an excellent resource for adding interest and drama to their presentations.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Sounds of English - Sharon Widmayer and Holly Gray
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Check out the Tips for Teachers section for fun ways to teach correct pronunciation; no special training is needed!! Sing, hum, and play your way to helping children with pronunciation issues.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Sounds of English: English Pronunciation - Sharon Widmayer and Holly Gray
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as a learning center or station for students who are having a difficult time with English, and may need some visual aids. Be sure to provide headphones so the sounds do not disturb other students.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Speakable - Speakable
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Teachers can use Speakable to support students with speech difficulties, English language learners, or world language students. Create assignments from the lesson library or create your own vocabulary lists. Speakable analyzes the person's speech and provides instant feedback, making this an excellent resource for distance learning or independent practice. Creating activities can help you teach new vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and language pronunciation. In addition, instructors can easily embed assignments into other learning sites such as Formative or Google Classroom.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Speechnotes - Speechlogger & TTSReader
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Speechnotes is a very versatile tool, for students, parents, and teachers alike. Bypass poor typing skills, dysgraphia, dyslexia, and physical disabilities. Use this tool to create emails, documents, or anything requiring typed text. Use in your writing class so students can get their thoughts into text without having to also think about typing. Be sure they edit their work. Use when you are in a hurry with emails requiring long text. Use for your newsletters or family emails. Share this on your class website and at Back to School Night. Emerging literacy students will enjoy the success they have with their oral language into written word. Improve content and forget about mechanics of writing or typing. Focus in on grammar and mechanics after seeing the recognized mistakes. Include this website on every toolbar and as a favorite on your class web page. ENL/ESL students can speak English, play it back, and correct it until it "sounds right" and expresses their ideas correctly.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Spezify (beta) - Spezify
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use Spezify on an interactive whiteboard or projector as you introduce a new topic in science or social studies or when the class asks "What is ____?" . With very young students or non-readers, use Spezify to help them find information they can understand and to inspire them to try to read some of the short text excerpts alongside the images. Activate students' prior knowledge as they recognize the images and remark, "I didn't know Edison was the one who invented that!" Visually show the "big picture" on any topic. As you teach research skills, try a comparison of Spezify results with Google results for both functionality of the search engine and reputability of the results. NOTE: Preview any search terms you plan to display in class if the terms could possibly bring up inappropriate images. You may need to adjust your terms. Of course your students know what they are supposed to do if something inappropriate comes up when using a search themselves, right? If you have not discussed this, now is the time!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Spiral - The Social Learning Network
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Spiral is a terrific set of tools to use whether you are just starting to incorporate tech with students or if you are a long time user of tech with students. After creating an account, start out simply with Quickfire. Students must create an account (no email required) and select their school. Teachers must approve students to join a class. You can also download Spiral's spreadsheet, fill it out, and upload it. You could also use Quickfire for back-channel discussions which encourages timid students to participate.Edge Features:
Includes an education-only area for teachers and students
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Multiple users can collaborate on the same project
Includes teacher tools for registering and/or monitoring students
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Spreaker - Spreaker Online Radio
Grades
1 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Enjoy a live radio show from your classroom! Publish written pieces of writing, science reports, social studies reports, and any other reports you would like to share. Create a New Book or Book Review podcast for the media center. Link to your podcast URL on your class website. Publish directions to projects, explanations for difficult concepts, or even a radio show of you reading your favorite books for your students. Have upper elementary students take turns reading aloud for a podcast aimed at little reading buddies in kindergarten. Allow students to podcast to "pen pals" in faraway places. Record your school choir, orchestra group, poetry club, or drama club doing their best work or dramatic readings of Shakespeare soliloquies. Take your school newspaper to a new level with recorded radio articles. Be sure to include interviews with students, teachers, principals, parents, authors, artists, and almost anyone. In younger grades, use to save an audio portfolio of reading fluency, expression, or to aid with running records or even include writing. Be sure do this regularly throughout the year to analyze growth. Have fun at Halloween with your Halloween station filled with favorite spooky stories! Welcome your students to a new school year by sending them your message. Create messages for classmates who move away. Bring your foreign language classes an extra resource of your pronunciations whenever they need more practice. ESL/ELL, special education classes can often benefit from the extra explanations, practice, and elaborated instructions given at their own pace. The possibilities are endless! The site itself is a "web 2.0," social networking style site, so some schools may have it blocked. Ask about unblocking just YOUR teacher account so you can have students access it while at school and under your supervision.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Includes social features, such as "friends," comments, ratings by others
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
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Sqworl - Caleb Brown
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
In the classroom use this site to combine url's of online class projects into one group. Create a group of resources for students or parents for different subjects and share the url through your classroom website or newsletter. Create a group with videos relating to classroom content. Create a classroom account and let students add resources they have found to groups to share with others. Show students how to follow other groups on Sqworl and share resources by creating their own groups. Share this site with others in your building or district as an easy way to save and share online resources.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
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Starting Harry Potter - Wizarding World Digital LLC
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
In addition to just reading the books, young students can explore the magical creatures section on the website and then use a drawing app like Google Drawings, reviewed here to design their magical creature, complete with a description of its abilities and habitat. Not familiar with Google Drawings? Watch an archived OK2Ask session to learn how to use this tool:OK2Ask Google Drawings, here. After reading a portion of a Harry Potter book, students can use the character profiles to analyze a character's traits and development. They can then create their own fictional character using a tool like Storyboard That, reviewed here or for younger students Story Map, reviewed here incorporating elements inspired by the Harry Potter series. Older students can explore the series' themes and its impact on popular culture. They then create a podcast episode or a blog post using tools like Podbean (for podcasting), reviewed here or Straw.Page (for blogging), reviewed here to discuss their analysis.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Stencyl - Stencyl, LLC
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Create games for student review and/or practice, or use to assess knowledge before and after a unit. View example games for an idea of what you can create using this tool. One of the best learning tools for kids is to have them create their OWN games. Use your own teacher account so you do not need student emails at school. Ideally, students can create games for either learning or review for their fellow classmates. Assign a small group of students to create a game and then act as "host" to present their research information on a topic and keep the "audience" engaged. Learning support teachers might want to work together with a small group of students to create review games on a projector or interactive whiteboard. The process of creating the game provides another layer of review/practice before students play the game for more repetition.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Includes social features, such as "friends," comments, ratings by others
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Requires download/installation of software
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Stories for Kids - Pitara Kids Network
Grades
4 to 7This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Keep this site in mind when you have a few minutes at the end of the day. Read one together and then set your students at computers in pairs to take turns reading aloud to each other.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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