Short Description: WaybackMachine is an Internet archiving tool or "digital library" which may be freely accessed and searched by anyone. The archives includes Internet web pages, in addition to the digital forms of books/texts, audio recordings, videos, images, and software programs. Examples of Uses: Educators can use WaybackMachine to demonstrate the permanence of Internet activity to their students. Particularly with social media postings, educators can show their students that websites are archived and accessible in earlier versions, providing some insight and clarity to the "Delete" or "Remove" buttons that students believe are so reliable. In doing so, students can understand how difficult and impossible it is in most situations to erase their digital footprint.

Short Description: Formative is a free, online tool which allows teachers to create a variety of assessments, collect data, and provide feedback to students in real time. In setting up an assessment, teachers may create their own material or upload documents, images, and YouTube videos (to name a few) to which they may add questions. Such questions can include multiple choice selections, True/False, short responses, and "Show Your Work", the latter two requiring manual grading/correction. After all responses are submitted, the teacher may then receive a summary of class scores and export that data to a spreadsheet. Furthermore, the feature of tagging certain skill sets to an assessment enables a teacher to track each student's progress with a particular subject. Examples of Uses: Formative can be used for nearly any subject or topic. Throughout a unit, a teacher could create multiple assessments to evaluate their class's understanding of the material. In a Social Studies unit on the Founding Fathers for instance, a teacher could upload photos of the different Founding Fathers and ask for an identification and brief description. For another question, they could upload a map of the United States and ask students to manually draw in where certain historical events took place. Also, the teacher could upload portions of the Declaration of Independence and/or the Constitution and have students respond to questions posed regarding those documents.

Short Description: Symbaloo is a social bookmarking tool through which teachers can share their favorite web resources. In addition to organizing homework, lesson plans, and administrative paperwork all in one place (among other features), Symbaloo allows teachers to create "webmixes" consisting of links and sources for particular subjects and/or topics. For students, it's a useful tool for gathering content for research and maintaining that content in one common area, rather than searching all over the Web. Examples of Uses: Teachers can use Symbaloo to organize websites and databases which are reliable and trustworthy for their students. Teachers can post links to sources of information which they deem credible and useful, thus saving time and energy for their students. Teachers can also review the websites that their students find and share to their own personalized learning spaces.

Short Description: economics-games.com allows students to run simulations and make decisions as a market participant. A student may elect to play a solo game or a multi-player game, selecting from a variety of economic topics such as fixed costs, monopoly, competition, and prisoner's dilemma (to name only a few). Depending on the game, students are initially presented with certain data/information and must submit decisions based on what is provided. Once the student (or each player) makes a decision, the student is directed to a results page which can then be discussed with the teacher and/or as a class. Example of Uses: As an aspiring high school Social Studies teacher with a background in Economics, this seems like a great tool to use to supplement the introduction of economic/business terms and concepts. In the classroom, students can learn definitions and principles (i.e., the "Who", "What", "Where", "When"); in the simulations/games, students experience and demonstrate the practical application of such terms to understand the "How" and "Why". In this context, critical thinking skills are used to assess the information provided and arrive at a well-reasoned decision. Such skills are further developed as the students and teacher engage in a discussion about the rationale and impact of the choices of the student(s), without, of course, the pressure of real world economic consequences. With an often dry topic as Economics, this tech tool also seems like an effective way to keep a class interested and engaged with material. Perhaps bonus points could be offered to students who yield good results in their simulation and can support their decision-making with strong arguments. The obvious limitation is that this particular tech tool is designed for one subject. However, similar simulations and educational role-playing games exist for other content areas. In any case, the simulation or game should present information to the s

Short Description: Seesaw is an educational tool that allows teachers to maintain a digital portfolio of student work, as well as deliver differentiated assignments to specific students. Additionally, the teachers can provide feedback on submitted work and students can submit their work/assignments with text or video comments (typically reflections). The tool also comes with the feature of enabling the sharing of these portfolios with parents of the students. With teacher monitoring and approval, parents can gain access to their child's work to track academic progress, view the teacher's feedback, and contribute commentary of their own to the submissions. Examples of Uses: Teachers can use Seesaw to collect digital files throughout the school year as opposed to a pile of papers. In this sense, Seesaw is effective for both organization and communication. By sharing a student's digital portfolio with the parents, this serves as an effective way to preemptively prevent the need for parent-teacher conferences. Through Seesaw, parents are able to monitor what has been submitted and can also view what the teacher has evaluated or commented upon. In doing so, they can easily determine where their child needs improvement or support. This knowledge and method of communication can lend itself to early solutions before a deficient or underachieving academic situation develops.

*Short Description*: FlipGrid is a video discussion tool which allows teachers to create an online social community for class engagement and collaboration. It could be considered a version of Google Classroom with the additional features of SnapChat and Instagram (and 100% teacher control of video moderating and privacy settings). The teacher creates a "Grid" for their class and then posts a Topic to begin the conversation. Users respond with their own 90-second videos and can reply to other responses as well. The time limit to the video serves a similar function to the character limit of Tweets: encouraging succinct but meaningful contributions. Not only does FlipGrid give a voice to some of the more shy students of the classroom, but the sharing of information and responses facilitates digital collaboration. It is an effective tool for collecting and sharing summative and formative responses.
Some of the additional benefits include a rubric grading system that comes with the program which can be customized by the teacher. Furthermore, the teachers are able to share content with the students' parents as well. As far as limitations are concerned, not every student has access to a camera or recorder through their computer. Although FlipGrid takes pride in its security measures, there could also be parents who are concerned about their children filming and posting videos to the Internet.
*Examples of Uses*: As an aspiring Social Studies teacher, I see FlipGrid as a useful tool for getting all students in my classes engaged in topics that have historically been more controversial than others. If a student feels shy or reserved being put on the spot in the classroom with a particular opinion or view, then they may feel more comfortable having the time to prepare a thoughtful response at home and pausing/resuming their video as needed for editing. Also, I see this as a valuable tool for facilitating collaboration for current event discussions. As students choose an event/topic and summarize it with their original video, other students can engage with the video and contribute their own video responses with commentary, thoughts, or follow-up questions.