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gClassFolders is a Google Drive script that will create folders for you for as many course sections as you need. The concept behind it is this; students have a "dropbox" folder in their Google Drive accounts that you have shared with them. To submit work students drag files into that "dropbox" folder. From there gClassFolders sorts submissions to the correct folder for each student. The latest version of gClassFolders is part of gClassHub which includes other useful scripts like Doctopus. This means that after your students have submitted their work through Google Drive you can grade it, write feedback, and have emails sent to students from one spreadsheet in your Google Drive account. Some other highlights of the latest version of gClassFolders include the option to add students to add students without having to re-create all of your folders and an option for moving students from one class to another without having to re-create folders. Applications for Education It does take a few tries to really understand using gClassFolders and Doctopus. Once you get the hang of it though it can save you a ton of time in the management of the files that students share with you. Visit the instructions page on gClassFolders for detailed directions on running gClassFolders.

What it is: Inklewriter is a great digital tool that lets students (and teachers if you are so inclined) write and publish interactive stories. Inklewriter lets students create choose-your-own-adventure type stories, story lines can come with choices and then be linked back together. Inklewriter makes this process easier by keeping track of which story paths have been finished and which still need work. There is no set-up required, no programming language to learn and no diagrams. Inklewriter is free to use and easy to share with the world when it is published. When a story is finished, it can even be converted to Kindle format!

How to integrate Inklewriter into the classroom: Inklewriter is a great digital tool for creative writing. Students can explore multiple plot lines and what-if scenarios in their fictional writing. I also like the idea of using Inklewriter to ask kids to explore the "what-ifs" in history. What if we lost/won this war/battle? What if the other guy (or girl) had been elected president? What if the Berlin wall hadn't come down? These types of stories are fantastic opportunities for students to explore their curiosities and, in the process, learn more about the event they are exploring. After all, you have to know something about how an event actually went in order to write alternate endings. Inklewriter would be a fun way for students to come up with alternate endings to a novel they are reading. Our students wrote a variety of endings for The Giver. Each student wrote a different ending that picked up from the last chapter of the book. Inklewriter would have been a great tool to use for all of these endings to be available in one place. Students could copy/paste the last paragraph of the actual book and then offer their alternative endings as options. In science, students could use Inklewriter as a tool to record their hypothesis. Students can write out the objective and steps in their experiment and make a new "alternate ending" for their various hypothesis. In math, students could create story problems where they lead others down the path to discover the correct answer.

4. QuizBean (formerly known as QuizPoo) is nice platform for creating simple image-based quizzes that your students can complete online. The service recently received some updates that teachers will appreciate. First, you can now add more than two answer choices to each question. Second, you can now assign quizzes to students on a class-by-class or individual basis. Third, quiz results are automatically sent to your teacher dashboard when students have completed a quiz. One of the things that I like about QuizBean is that students get immediate feedback on each question that they answer. Before moving to the next question students are told if they got the previous question right or wrong. The new option of having your students' results sent directly to your dashboard will save you a lot of time grading quizzes. The option to include pictures makes QuizBean a good platform for asking questions that include diagrams and equations.

All About Explorers is a site that Russel Tarr tipped me off to this morning. The site, developed by Gerald Aungst and Lauren Zucker, was designed to help students develop their skills in identifying valid information found on the Internet. On All About Explorers students find fake biographies of famous explorers. The biographies do contain information that is in part based on facts, the content is intentionally written to be inaccurate. Applications for Education Teachers who want to use All About Explorers to teach their students to be discerning consumers of information should take a look at the All About Explorers lessons and treasure hunts. The treasure hunts are short activities in which students compare information from multiple sources on the web. The lesson plans are a series of five activities designed to introduce students to web research strategies discerning the quality of information found online. My only criticism of the lesson plans is that lesson four perpetuates the myth that .org domains are generally non-profit organizations and that they somehow have more credibility than .com or .net domains. (A quick glance at martinlutherking.org or dhmo.org will dispel those myths).

"The primary goal is to inspire youth to explore their own interests through a series of online activities and related incentive badges. Many of these badges are integrated with content from online education conferences, which highlight a variety of different topics. Smithsonian Quests & BadgesThe second goal is to enhance students' cognitive capabilities by incorporating knowledge and skill-building into the quests. The online conferences and quests are interdisciplinary in nature, offering students the opportunity to choose what they care about most. All quests engage students in exploring a topic of interest either as part of a formal standards-aligned school curriculum or as a student-driven after school activity. An important secondary audience is you, the educator, whose support is vital in connecting with students. To this end, you also will be offered badges that will document their participation in Smithsonian online conferences, online professional development sessions, and the completion of class projects. All quests will be reviewed and badges awarded by a team of Smithsonian experts."

designed by the creators of Easy Bib, guides students as they evaluate online resources. After students indicate their desired address kof the site to be evaluated, Research Ready opens the site and asks the user a series of questions concerning purpose, accuracy, authority, relevance, and currency.  If a student needs support determining the answer to  a question, he or she can consult the help guide.  After writing a final review, students may email or print the results. Students can access the evaluator for free.

Active Textbook is an interesting service that you can use to turn your PDFs into multimedia documents. The basic idea behind the service is that you can upload PDFs and add pictures, links, and videos that are displayed when students read your PDF through the Active Textbook viewer. While reading your PDF through Active Textbook students can highlight, draw, and add comments to the document. Active Textbook could provide a good way to create your own short multimedia texts for students. The most compelling feature is the option for students to highlight and take notes on the document while they're reading it through Active Textbook. Active Textbook also adds a dictionary tool to your document which could be handy for some students. Active Textbook is free to use for up to 500 pages of material.

Skaffl is a free iPad app that is designed to help you distribute, collect, and grade assignments on your iPad. Like similar apps, on Skaffl you can create classrooms that your students join through a class code. Once your classroom is created you can distribute assignments and hand-outs to your students. Assignments can be created in the app or you can attach items created outside of the Skaffl app. Your students can submit work through the app. You can grade your students' assignments directly within the app. Assignments that aren't going to be graded (a rough draft of an essay, for example) can be annotated by you to provide students with ungraded feedback.

"Today's students are surrounded by technology. From laptops to smartphones to tablets, students use devices and apps for personal entertainment, communicating with friends and family, and even for education. Not only is technology easy for them to use, giving them a central place where everything important is located, they also enjoy using these devices. That's why when it comes to education, teachers need to listen to students."

Kahoot is a new service for delivering online quizzes and surveys to your students. The premise of Kahoot is similar to that of Socrative and Infuse Learning. On Kahoot you create a quiz or survey that your students respond to through any device that has a web browser (iPad, Android device, Chromebook). Your Kahoot questions can include pictures and videos. As the teacher you can control the pace of the Kahoot quiz or survey by imposing a time limit for each question. As students answer questions they are awarded points for correct answers and the timeliness of their answers. A scoreboard is displayed on the teacher's screen. Students do not need to have a Kahoot account in order to participate in your activities. To participate they simply have to visit Kahoot.it then enter the PIN code that you give to them to join the activity. Using Kahoot, like Socrative and Infuse Learning, could be a good and fun way to conduct review sessions in your classroom. Using Kahoot could also be a good way to gather informal feedback.

The Global Bookshelf is a book search and recommendation engine. The purpose of The Global Bookshelf is to help people find travel stories. The books you'll find aren't travel guides, they're travel stories that could inspire you to visit a new place and experience a new culture. You can browse The Global Bookshelf by region, genre, and book format (Kindle, PDF, physical book). Students can add their book reviews to The Global Bookshelf. If you have students who have read some travel narratives, consider having them write a review to share on The Global Bookshelf. This is a great way to provide an authentic audience for your students' work. The Global Bookshelf is good place for your students to find books that they may enjoy reading. Maybe they'll read a story that sets them off to explore the world.

Rewordify is a free site that was developed by a special education teacher and former computer programmer for the purpose of helping students read complex passages. At its most basic level Rewordify takes a complex passage and rephrases it in simpler terms. Students can adjust Rewordify's settings to match their needs. For example, students can add words to a "skip list" and those words will not be changed when they appear in a passage. Students can also use Rewordify to simply highlight difficult words instead of having them replaced.

What it is: Physics Central is a fantastic website full of…you guessed it, physics! There are fantastic sections for students to explore science, activity books, experiments and activities. Students can learn more about physics in action (physics as found in the world around us), meet physicists, and learn about physics research. Physics Central will ignite a students curiosity in: sound, electricity and magnetism, force and motion, light and optics, material science, quantum mechanics, space and the universe, and thermodynamics and heat. My favorite find on Physics Central so far (I'm sure there will be many more favorites the longer I explore) is the Nikola Tesla and the Electric Fair section. Here, students will find a downloadable kit that includes a manual, comic book, and four related activities.

Science

Kids these days don't read email. So how do you get them to remember important assignments, tests or messages for their parents? You send them a text. SendHub is a fast and simple communications tool designed to help educators communicate more effectively with their students after the school day ends. Their simple user interface enables teachers and administrators to make calls, send messages to individual students or entire classes, and also stay in touch with parents. Here are a few reasons why SendHub might be right for your class: * Easily build your class database with text to join, or simply import existing contact lists. * Send messages from your phone or the Web-- communicate the way you want to. * Schedule assignment or test reminders to be sent to students for any time in the future. * Share groups with other teachers or administrators without hassle-- then everyone with your group will get changes you make immediately. Signup for free at www.sendhub.com

"To help students complete research projects related to school, extra-curricular, work, and personal tasks, we have developed these series of lessons to assist you in teaching skills related to the Google search engine. These lessons are intended for students at a range of grade levels and technological expertise. Since we realize that educators teaching these lessons are varied, we have taken a broad range of factors into consideration. Therefore, we realize some are not adept at accessing the web, might feel uncomfortable teaching the ins and outs of search, or have limited computer or Internet access. To this end, we have written detailed step-by-step lessons, provided Internet links for those with live access or screen shots to print out for those who have limited computers, and include levels of lessons for the various student populations you serve"

We have devised an interactive curriculum aimed to support teachers of secondary students (approximately ages 13-17). The curriculum helps educate students on topics like: YouTube's policies How to report content on YouTube How to protect their privacy online How to be responsible YouTube community members How to be responsible digital citizens We hope that students and educators gain useful skills and a holistic understanding about responsible digital citizenship, not only on YouTube, but in all online activity.

The introduction of the iPad has opened a world of possibilities in entertainment, the workplace, and education. Apple has always been at the cutting edge of education technology, and teachers and students all over the country are discovering that the iPad can be an effective, intuitive, and fun tool to use for teaching and learning. An iPad can be used for everything from quizzes to reading - and students are finding new ways to use the device to make their lives easier.

EdPuzzle allows you to add your voice and questions to educational videos. On EdPuzzle you can search for educational videos from Khan Academy and Learn Zillion. Once you've found a video you can insert your own voice comments. You can also create a series of questions to go along with your chosen video. Questions are inserted along a timeline that matches the video. That means that your students don't have to wait until the end of a video in order to answer the questions. EdPuzzle could be a good tool to use to create short review videos or flipped lessons for your students. You could also have students use EdPuzzle to annotate videos by pointing out important aspects of videos by using the voice comments option and or the question building option.

With Tellagami, begin by creating and customizing a character. Although there is not a great deal of variety in virtual appearance, just enough options exist to personalize your character. From there, you choose a background either from a few in the app itself or your camera roll. I love to take a picture at the front of the classroom and have my character introduce me to the class. I have worked with teachers where they introduce the classroom to students or parents with their character in different spots around the room, even on a bookshelf. After you customize your character and background, you can choose how you want your character to talk, either by recording your voice or typing in text. If you record your voice, you have 30 seconds. If you choose text to speech, there are male and female voices with a few different accents. Some quick ideas you might try: * Have your character tell a story. * Pick a person in history and have them introduce themselves * Use a plant cell as the background and have the avatar name and discuss the function of each part of the cell. * Recite a famous poem or speech * Read a poem they wrote * Take a trip or go back in time and describe where the location/time period * Speak in Spanish, French, Mandarin or any language When you are all done, Gamis can be emailed, posted to Facebook, or Tweeted, which also generates a link to share. You can also view your movie online and get the embed code. I could see embedding a whole bunch of these on a class wiki or blog. You can also save them to your iPad Photos, which is what I like to do. From there, Gamis can be combined together in iMovie or incorporated into other apps like Explain Everything. (Greg Kulowic has some great examples of this, as "appsmashes.") Your only limit is your imagination! Using animation with your students can have a profound effect on how they participate in a project. Their work can be liberated when they have the opportunity to separate

City of Immigrants is set in New York City in 1907. Players take on the role of a fourteen year-old Jewish immigrant named Lena Brodsky. Lena is from Russia and she arrived in New York after her older brother who came to New York a few years earlier and sent money home to buy passage for family members. Lena is now trying to earn money to send home so that her parents can come to New York. Throughout the game you meet other people in Lena's life in New York who are faced with tough choices just like she is. Applications for Education City of Immigrants could be a great game for middle school students and some high school students to play to learn about the challenges that faced immigrants to New York in the early 1900's. What I really like about the game is that players meet the various people involved in Lena's life. Meeting those people could help students understand the community dynamics common to immigrant neighborhoods at the time. The Mission U.S. games are available to use in your web browser. Some of the games will work on iPads and Android tablets. The Mission U.S. website offers an educators section that includes printable lists of vocabulary terms, writing prompts, and post-game discussion prompts.