Educators can implement any of these easy tools right away
Educators seeking inspiration and a quick rundown of easy-to-use, valuable classroom tools got exactly what they were looking for during TCEA 2014 presenter Cathy Moak‘s session, which covered 44 tools educators can use to boost classroom engagement and creativity.
Resources included video creation, infographic tools, note taking, presentation tools, and more.
(Next page: 44 classroom tools)
Animoto: Create and share videos, and put photos, video clips, and music into longer videos.
Answer Garden: This minimalistic feedback tool helps in online brainstorming and also functions as an embedded website poll or guestbook.
Blend Space: Educators can access free resources to create lessons in 5 minutes in order to flip the classroom, differentiate instruction, or conduct project-based learning.
Canva: A simple—and free–graphic design tool
Celly: This is an easy way to organize with mobile social networks. It offers group texting options, multiple-choice polls, and more. (This tool doesn’t appear on Moak’s list, but was mentioned during the presentation.)
Class Dojo: Teachers manage behavior with positive and negative reinforcement and are able to send reports to parents.
Class Mint: This tool uses research-based techniques to help students score well on tests and exams.
Diffen: Users can compare anything through compare/contrast, identifying similarities and differences, and more. The tool gives users pictures and text to reinforce their understanding.
Edmodo: Teachers and students connect with one another and with classes across the globe via this secure online classroom and collaboration tool.
Edpuzzle: Educators can turn any video into a lesson with this tool. They can crop, insert audio notes, embed quizzes or questions, and upload their own videos.
Educreations: This global community is all about teaching and learning. Have a question? Learn the answer. Want to share your knowledge? No problem.
Evernote: This well-known app enables users to collect and note everything they need to know and remember, all in one place.
EWC Presenter: This tool gives teachers and students the ability to create infographics, interactive presentations, and other visual content.
Fotobabble: An easy way to use images and audio
Haiku Deck: This tool is all about beautiful presentation creation. Text is limited, putting the focus on the images.
Instagrock: Research topics simply by typing them into a search field, and this tool presents you with key facts around that topic. Difficulty levels and reading levels are customizable for varying student abilities and grade levels.
Kaizena: Teachers can add voice comments to document, such as when editing student papers, making for more detailed feedback.
KeepVid: This tool lets users save YouTube videos to their desktop. “Why should you do that? Have you ever met your network administrator?” Moak asked. “Have you ever tried to stream during your class period?” This saves time and avoid connection and buffering issues.
Litmap Project: Within this geographic book database, books are mapped onto the LitMap by where they take place or the place they are about. Maps include nonfiction, fiction, mystery, science fiction, any kind of literature that can be associated with a specific geographic location.
Lucid Press: Users create print and digital documents for quick viewing.
Memonic: This is a way to gather, store, and share information from the web.
Mind Meister: This tool offers a great way to create and work on mind maps.
Mozilla Popcorn Maker: Teachers can use this resource for video editing and layering. During her presentation, Moak used this tool to put a creative spin on the popular/annoying song, “What Does the Fox Say?”
Padlet: Create a vast array of different “walls,” each with a different theme and purpose.
Pearltrees: Use this visual and collaborative library to organize web resources, files, photos, and notes for easy access and sharing.
Picmonkey: “Photo editing made of win.” You should check it out just for the tagline.
Piktochart: An infographic tool
Pixiclip: This online canvas is a valuable tool for flipping classrooms. Teachers can communicate via a webcam or mic, and this interactive whiteboard tool lets user upload images, draw sketches, and replay them later.
QR Stuff: Create QR codes in the classroom
Remind 101: This popular tool can help teachers remind parents about school events, weather advisories, student accomplishments, and more. Phone numbers are kept private and messages can be scheduled for later distribution.
Scoot and Doodle: A social creativity site that blends video conferencing and drawing/creation.
Show Me: Users can create quick and easy tutorials. This isn’t limited to teachers—students can create their own tutorials to share with one another and demonstrate their knowledge.
Slideshare: Students and teachers share presentations and information through slideshows, infographics, and more.
Socrative: Teachers engage students and prompt them with questions via a smart student response system that uses educational exercises and games.
Storify: This is another tool for content curation and publishing. Users collect media, publish it on Storify and embed it wherever they like, and then share it with desired sources.
Storybird: Students, teachers, and anyone who wishes can use any device to create short, art-inspired stories that are able to be published.
Thinglink: Any image can become interactive using this tool. Music, video, text, images, and more are added to a photo to enhance its impact and educational value.
Today’s Meet: This resource helps users embrace the backchannel and connect with an audience in realtime.
Ustream: Via a live video platform, users can maintain their own streaming television channel. Educators can set up one-way broadcasts of student events for parents who are unable to attend. They also can broadcast in high definition and embed and customize content.
WeVideo: This tool enables collaborative online video creation. The platform offers video editing, collaboration, and sharing across any device.
Wikimedia Commons: This massive resource is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language.
Wikitube: This tool is an extension of the Chrome browser, and it adds relevant YouTube videos to Wikipedia search results.
Wolfram Alpha: Students use this massive computational research tool to calculate mathematical problems step-by-step. But it also performs dynamic computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms, and methods.
Zaption: Using this web app, teachers and students can quickly add images, text, quizzes, and discussions to existing videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and private video libraries.
Access Moak’s resource list here.
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