Tech Apps PD Course Participants

Although this site is supported by California and Arkansas state initiative, there are a lot of resources and information applicable for Texas school administrators.

Founded in the fall of 2001, the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) is the principal association serving, supporting and representing U.S. state and territorial educational technology leadership. SETDA works in partnership with like-minded individuals and organizations as a forum for inter-state collaboration, cooperation, and best practices.

PETI - Evaluating Educational Technology Effectiveness Profiling Educational Technology Integration (PETI) resources are available to all stakeholders including states, districts, schools, and other organizations, to assess the integration of technology.

The 21st Century learner encounters different perspectives, different cultures, and different languages when involved in global collaborative learning. These technology-savvy students will develop personal skills that include the ability to self-assess their behavior, to develop and achieve goals, and to react to real world situations. 

This site is a central resource for and link to all State and Federal grant opportunities administered by TEA. Grant management, administrative guidance, and other resources can be found at TEA Grant Resources.

Projeqt describes itself as "dynamic presentations for a real time world." Use it to create linear and stacked slide presentations for any type of event. Embed images, text, documents, or add data from your favorite social media tools. Tip: Use in your library to create a stacked slide show to feature books by genre.

Gamestar Mechanic is an interactive site that leads users through the game design experience. This site teaches the principals of game design and systems thinking in a highly engaging environment that allows users to share games with other community members. Tip: Use as part of a STEM initiative, Gamestar Mechanic has a teacher's page with useful lesson plans.

Do more than watch a video: discuss, question, and comment. Vialogues puts the "think and do" into video watching. Vialogues allows you to post a video and then invite participants to answer questions, discuss or just comment. This asynchronous tool can be used for private or public interactions. Tip: Use this tool with media literacy lessons.

Tell stories with graphics, text, and audio with this visually compelling application on desktops, iPads and iPhones. Network socially without sidebars, ads, or logos in this online environment that focuses on the content you create with photos, video, and slideshows.Tip: Use this tool to share daily life in your dynamic library with the school community using video, photos, and text.

comic creator

This interactive digital graphic novel is set in the early years of the 21st century. It tells the story of Alice through text, sound, games, and music. The story is wonderful and the design in fabulous, readers will love it. Students will enjoy this story in five parts, librarians and teachers will like the education pack as well. Tip: Use with a digital projector for group reading activities.

Just what every teacher needs, a quick and simple cool tool! Quicklyst does more than let student take notes or make lists. Students can organize, save and search their notes with just a username and password. Registration is not needed. This easy to use site connects to Wikipedia and Merriam Webster. Download, print or send notes to a Kindle. Tip: Have students use the organization capabilities as a pre-writing tool before they create their research projects.

SpiderScribe is the visual learner's ideal tool. Collect a series of files including documents, pictures, maps and more, and create a concept map based on the collection. Lay them out for optimal visualization. Share them. Even collaborate to build them. Be it text, images, files, or events. 

This site is a powerful, user-friendly tool for creating to-do lists and task management. The full-featured mobile version allows you to manage your lists and tasks anytime. Reminder methods let you receive notices of upcoming tasks via email, SMS, and instant messenger. To-do lists and tasks can also be shared with others who use the site. Tip: Use the site to work with others on a collaborative project to organize everyone's tasks and to help the group meet deadlines.

This web site supports the use of cell phones in the classroom by providing a controlled, secure environment for users. Students join teacher-created "cells" where phone numbers are kept private. Teachers can moderate all comments to make sure they are on-topic and appropriate for the group. Tip: After students text comments about a reading assignment, teachers can review the comments and display them using a projection device at the beginning of class the next day to stimulate discussion.

Wiggio promotes itself as "a free, online toolkit that makes it easy to work in groups." Host virtual meetings and conference calls, make to do lists, send messages, poll groups, manage events and more. Wiggio has something for everyone when it comes to collaboration. Tip: Use features such as polling or to-do lists with group members in your state or national committees.

Collaborize Classroom is an online education platform allowing students and teachers to participate in a collaborative learning environment. It is designed to extend classroom instruction by engaging students in online activities, assignments, and discussion.

BoomWriter is a supremely engaging creative writing website that has students reading, writing and assessing content in ways they've never done before! The teacher selects or produces his or her own story start, and the students let their imagination and writing skills take over. One chapter at a time, the students write, read, and then vote on the submissions they like the most. The winning chapter is then added to the story and the process continues. The teacher determines the total number of chapters to be completed, and when the competition is over a new book is ready to be published.

StudyLadder, geared for elementary and junior high/middle grades, lends itself to being an interesting, ready to use stock of activities to reinforce many content standards from a wide range of curricula. Many of the activities offer a game-like feeling, while building conceptual understanding. The site is also supportive of the flipped classroom concept, and a variety of different user account options are available, including parent accounts. Tip: Set up a station with a white board at a parent open house that showcases this site as something parents can use at home, too.

Learn It in 5 is for professionals, students, and parents who want to increase their Web 2.0 skills. A series of videos, all 5 minutes or less, guide users through lessons of their choice. Users can search for specific topics or browse to discover new techniques. Tip: Include videos in your weekly newsletter.