EdTechWalden

OneNote is an excellent, easy to use tool for students, writers, people looking for a way to organize notes, or anyone who needs more flexibility beyond Word provides in the creation of documents.\nWhy this one: Teachers have the program already loaded onto their school issued laptops. The program allows teachers to create a digital notebook. The digital notebook allows users to collaborate their notes, audio, and visual information in one location. \n

The site offers teachers free organizers to help them brainstorm, organize, and visualize their instructional ideas. \nWhy this one: First, the user downloads the vocabulary organizer. Next, the user inputs the information onto the form and prints it out. In addition, the website has free teaching lesson plan notes accompanying each organizer. It is free and very easy to use. The graphic organizer is a great instructional tool for generative learning.

Google docs is a great way to merge existing documents, with the ability to create and organize documents online. It is better than a lot of other options because it is free, and transfers across computer platforms.

Google docs is a web based productivity platform that allows the creation of documents, spreadsheets, diagrams and forms. Multiple users can access files simultaneously, allow for collaboration.

Google has a ton of free resources that have the same functionality as Powerpoint or Keynote. One of the great components of Google Docs is the ability to collaborate with others through real time chat or make comments/revisions to a document. For a presentation, Google Docs has a presentation tool that is easy to use, free, and accessible from any location with an internet connection. Although the presentations are not flashy, they help teachers incorporate multimedia into their instruction and make the technology accessible for all of their students.

An essential part to PD is establishing relevance to what happens in the classroom. For many teachers implementing additional strategies to struggling readers or ELLs may seem overwhelming. Many teachers may already be using ESOL strategies in the classroom and may not even know it! Using this list of reading activities as a primer for background knowledge for some and a pre-training activity for others will help teachers realize that many ESOL strategies are just good educational practice. The Reading Resource is a clearinghouse of effective strategies for reading and although it is a bit difficult to navigate, it has a lot of resources for teachers from all educational levels.

FreeMind is an excellent resource for building graphic organizers of all types. Easy to use and free, FreeMind allows the user to create free-form maps, concept maps, flowcharts, and the functionality to do much more. The software also allows the user to save in a .jpg file format for easy retrieval from Mac and Windows machines.

Prior to beginning training it may be necessary to activate one's background knowledge or make connections to more complex material. TeacherTube is a great resource for educators to use to collaborate and reflect on activities from teachers around the world. In this example, participants from a PD course for teaching with ESOL strategies will watch and reflect upon how interactive activities (such as Reader's Theater) help the ELL make meaningful connections to text. Later on in the training, participants will name the specific examples from the course and how they were applied in the video.

Google Sites can be used for students to create digital electronic portfolios. These portfolios can be used as authentic assessments because the students can display their work, pictures, videos, add narration, and actively show what they learned. I like this site because it is free, easy to use, and there are many online resources that help the students learn how to create them.

Creating an online photobook is an excellent way to authentically assess your students. Mixbook is a free online resource that can be used to create this photobook. Students can import photos, decorate that pages, choose their own layout, and even order a hard copy. Parents and administrators love to see what the students are doing, and teachers can use the books to visually see what was accomplished and learned. I like Mixbook because it is easy to use, free, and creates great looking photobook "digital electronic portfolios".

Zoho is a free online tool to create presentations that look like PowerPoint presentations. You can create slides, add graphics, sounds, and videos. I like this resource because it is free, easy to use, and creates great looking presentations that can be shared.

This video teaches you how to use the forms feature in Google Docs. It is a great tool for pre-training because it allows you to acquire information about your workshop attendees. I like this training better than other ones that I looked at because it is instructive, simple, professional, and very useful.

This video is a great tutorial on how to use Survey Monkey. It is a great resource for using as a pre-training tool for a multimedia workshop that you may be developing. I liked this tutorial better than the others because it was direct, simple, and organized.

These would be good handouts to help students with exploring the constellations and identifying them. They would also provide a graphic organizer of information for students. Cynthia

Possible handout for students. Cynthia

Graphic Organizers to help students identify and arrange the planets. Cynthia

Pre-Training Introduction\n\nThis is a pumpkin carving site. It allows students to use basic skills to carve pumpkins and post them to the gallery for viewing. This will allow me to see which students are able to navigate the mouse, click and drag, save and post without them realizing they are actually completing a pre-training task. I checked out several pumpkin carving sites before I chose this one. I like it better because it allows students to choose multiple tools to use and also provides them with a broader scale of navigational skills to explore and learn. This will help us in our plotting of our activities in Google Earth/Sky later in the workshop. Cynthia

This is my second choice for a Pre-training activity. This leads us into our subject matter, but still allows us to use basic computer skills to navigate. I like this site because it is simple and nothing has to be downloaded in order for the students to explore. It is very kid friendly and not quite as technical for third graders as some of the other sites I visited. Cynthia

This is one of two sites for my authentic assessment activity. This specific game allows the students to identify the constellations and their location in the night sky after they have explored Google Earth and Google Sky. This will help me to see if they have acquired knowledge of the constellations and planets as they appear in the sky. I like this game in particularly because it allows you to draw the constellations and it is very kid friendly. I found many sites, but they are technical and require downloads. Cynthia

This is another part of my Graphic Organizer which will be used to help students identify the constellations, planets, and other Sky objects. This will be partnered with a worksheet that will help them to draw out the constellations and understand their placement as they explore Google Sky. Cynthia

I am also considering this for a possible authentic assessment alternative to the Astronomy Kids site. I just found this and I like the simplicity of it. Cynthia