Socrative http://socrative.com/ can be used to collect anonymouse questions and answers, ie, a survey, send a short quic to your students, including pictures/images, and se a space race game to moe rocket ship across the screen as a team (or individuals). Links to tutorial videos as well.
A multi-user collection of over 300 tools. Original based on a presentation for Norfolk Public Schools by Mickie Mueller, this LiveBinder is updated frequently. For all levels of learners.
From R Byrne: This is the most useful collection of screencasting tools I've seen. Includes both Windows and Mac applications. There are several worth trying and having on your desktop. Show Me What's Wrong, offered by Screencast-O-Matic, might be of particular help: it can be sent to a student having trouble with an application. When he/she opens the mailing, they start recording their screen, audio recording as they explain what they are doing and why they are having a problem. When they close the application it is mailed to you.
This list of tools also includes some for capturing iPad and Android device screens, including AirDroid that can mirror your tablet on Mac or Windows computers.
There are actually 4 STEMs sites, and one linking to the Federal Registry of Educational Excellence (FREE), with a huge collection of animations, photographs, videos, maps, articles, etc.
"We offer a collection of pre-formatted graphic organizers that you can integrate into activities and lesson plans or use by themselves. We offer three different formats for your convenience:" in html, pdf, Ms Word. Nice downloadables to brainstorm various types of writing activities.
"To use SummarizeThis you just copy and paste text into the summary box and click "summarize." A summary of the text then appears above the original text that you copied."
Crazy, isn't it. Are computers really able to summarize an article appropriately? Try it out. R. Byrne suggests using this tool to help students working on longer research papers where many things need to be collected and processed.
Twitter has a nice API for collecting tweets around a particular hashtag. This is especially useful if you have created an event and want to use a Twitter thread for continuing conversations.
The API uses Google Spreadsheets and it allows conversations among participants to be "replayed" with an infographic. Very nice archived visualization.
This might be an interesting tool to use with advanced writing students. It appears to be a toolbar add-on with Collect, Organize, Cite, Sync, and Collaborate features. Works with Mac, Windows, and Linux.
"Peeragogy is a collection of techniques for collaborative learning and collaborative work. By learning how to "work smart" together, we hope to leave the world in a better state than it was when we arrived." Good reading for the teacher interested in professional development
One of the best places to find current pedagogical materials and lesson plans. An award-winning education site. Browse by grade level, subject matter, standards, and past collections.
A great lesson plan for writing collaboratively. Students extract memento and write them on large cards/pieces of paper. They then create the poem by placing the cards on the floor or table. The teacher (or students) select a topic that the quotations should reflect. It makes students thing about the real meanings within the text. Students discuss their found quotations as they write them. The 5 min. video shows students discussing and coming to realizations as they collect and collaborate. Great speaking, writing, reading activity.
"The World Digital Library hosts more than 10,000 primary documents and images from collections around the world. Sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the mission of the World Digital Library is to promote the study and understanding of cultures. "
This looks like a fabulous resource and it is map driven, with content described in seven languages.
A really great article by Larry Ferlazzo on how to use positive classroom management with your students. Tips include avoiding collective punishment, getting students to take responsibility for their own behavior while envisioning long-term effects, and so on.
"One of the Eight Essential Elements of Project Based Learning is Revision and Reflection. This important element enables learners to improve their work through the use of feedback from multiple sources - peers, teacher, and expert.
"However, giving and receiving feedback from others can be tricky. It can take time, and the giver might not know how to frame his or her feedback, both in terms of content and tone. The receiver might take critical feedback personally, or be misled by feedback that is off-target in some way.
"One way to avoid potential pitfalls and help ensure feedback is "kind, specific, and helpful" (to quote Ron Berger) is to use a protocol. One of our favorite feedback protocols is the Gallery Walk. The basic idea is to post pieces of work on a wall - as in an art gallery - so people can move around and look at it. In BIE's "PBL 101" workshops, teachers use this protocol to give and collect feedback on their initial ideas for a project they're designing. "
"Google's Drawing program is the perfect platform to practice orthography- the skill of writing characters and symbols to create words- in language classrooms with non-Roman alphabets, such as Arabic or Chinese. Students of these languages need lots of practice handwriting the new alphabet or pictographic symbols, which is difficult to do in a digital environment. In traditional word processing programs, typing pictographic languages, such as Chinese, requires the student to change the keyboard language and then phonetically type the syllables. Characters will pop out fully formed, which is efficient and useful, but bypasses the important orthographic practice!
Google Drawing presents teachers with an opportunity to digital collect and monitor their students' orthography without having to scan in and email worksheets. The Scribble Tool in Google Drawing allows the user to create free form lines and by extension hand-drawn language characters. Couple Google Drawing with a pen mouse and Chinese language students are fully prepared to complete short answer or extended writing assignments online."
You could also use Google Drawing for students from pictographic language to practice handwirting English.
SlideBoom is a free service for sharing PowerPoint presentations on the web. Create online versions from your ppt, embed the presentation in a blog or website, collect feedback, discuss the presentation in groups. Free.