Learning Technologies Tools and Sites

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom.

Richer than a document, simpler than video, SlideSpeech transforms the way ideas are shared. By reading the speaker notes in your own presentation using the latest text-to-speech technology, SlideSpeech ensures your message comes across loud and clear.

Spelling contest practice activities

Story Cove is a service that hosts audio and video stories based on the folktales from a variety of places and cultures. The stories are divided by their continent of origin. Each story is intended to convey a lesson on culture and society. The stories can be watched as videos or listened to as audio-only recordings.

"Create. Share. Track. Online and mobile video presentations for sales, marketing, eLearning and more."

Learning English / Learn American English and more

 Pen.io is a writing tool that simplifies this process and allows you and your students to create and maintain a work portfolio that can be published and shared on the web.

"Your personal web page. Because you only get one chance to make a first impression."

Explain the Joke began in January 2013 as a way to explain jokes to folks new to English or new to United States humor.  It also works for folks who laughed but did not get the joke… until it was explained. Enjoy the jokes and enjoy the explanations! 

Create rich images with music, video, sound, text & more. Share and discover deeper stories through images.

SoundCloud is a free tool for creating and sharing sound tracks. On Monday I included it in my list of alternatives to Aviary. Today, I showed it to some teachers at the Bancroft School in Massachusetts. When I showed the option for inserting text comments into the sound tracks a teacher spoke up with an idea for using Sound Cloud in a world languages course. The suggestion the teacher made was to have students record spoken tracks on Sound Cloud and share them with her. Then she could use the comment feature to provide feedback that is tied directly to each student's recording. The comments could be tied to the exact second at which a student pronounces something incorrectly, uses the wrong verb form, or to praise a student for pronouncing a new word particularly well. SoundCloud allows you to have up to two hours of recordings stored in your account at one time. After that you need to either delete an old recording or upgrade to a paid plan.

ClassDoJo is a free online service for recording and generating data about your students' behaviors. To get started using ClassDoJo you create class lists and select the behaviors that you want to track. Then assign each behavior as a negative or positive behavior. Once you have created your class lists and selected behaviors to track, actually tracking behaviors is quite easy. To track your students' behaviors just sign-in, select your class, and start marking student names with positive or negative points. When you mark with positives or negatives you can state the reason by selecting from the menu of behaviors that you created while creating your ClassDoJo lists. You can use your computer or your mobile device to make entries in your ClassDoJo account. Students can view their records by signing into their records through secret Clas DoJo codes assigned to them. Parents can have reports about their children sent to them by you.