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Prezi allows you to create stunning presentations online. There is a free version, or a better quality academic free version with more features. Excellent for teaching content, and it is more like a video than an ordinary old ppt.

" Mind maps are content- and purpose-agnostic. Use them for anything that requires thinking, planning, organizing, or writing." This is the third of three articles (linked here) ab out using mind-mapping productively. Great article for teaching writing. It's not all about "outlines."

Paper.li is an e-newsletter that accumulates articles on given subjects automatically. Sandra Rogers shows how to use ti for her personal learning network (PLN) and her own professional development.

This is a little complex, but students will catch on fast. One use, pointed out in the QR tutorial, is to create an electronic portfolio where all docs, references, video, photos, etc. can be collected and shared in one place. Connects to Twitter and Facebook, of course. Brief video tutorial on the front page, and lots of fun backgrounds and colors to play with.

A social blog oriented to middle-school learners. Teacher can set questions and request students to join. Free. Nice instructional video at the >Learn more about link. There are also many teacher/school district blogs to view as examples.

"Collect up gifs related to any vocabulary area you want to teach or revise. Embed them in an html page on your desk top and start a collection. Each time you add new ones send the html page to your students. (They will need to have a live connection on their computer to be able to view the gifs) Ask them to make notes of any words they relate to the images they see." This is another neat little tool with notes on how to use it from the very extensive collection by Nik Peachey. I'd suggest having the students make animated vocabulary gifs of words they want to learn/find useful.

A screencaster on the Internet--nothing to download. For Mac or PC, you can record anything within a limited frame for 5 min., so this would be nice to help students start running a program or to create their own short presentations. Easy to upload to YouTube, embed on a Website, send to a smart phone, share by email, tweet, or download as mp4. See R. Stannard's instructional video

A really nice collection of graphic organizers and literacy strategies tools as well, some online, some in blackline reproducibles. Take advantage of these tools to work with literature and other types of reading.

This page holds a list of essential sites for teaching computer science and coding to high school students. Spark interest by having students create their own games and apps while learning math.

R. Byrne: "Wideo is a nice tool for creating Common Craft-style videos. You can create animated videos on Wideo by dragging and dropping clipart and text in storyboard frames. You set the position and animation sequence for each element in each storyboard frame. When you have completed your storyboards Wideo generates a video for you. "This week Wideo added a new feature that allows you to build interactive buttons into each frame of your video. The buttons can be hyperlinked to any webpage that you like. When people are watching your video they can click the buttons to be taken to the webpage you want them to land on. For example, clicking the buttons in the video embedded below will take you to the website of my favorite animal rescue organizations." Older students could, of course, create videos themselves to instruct others. The new interactive button might also lead to a quiz on Quizlet or in Google Docs, for example.

Beautiful timelines for history or social studies.

"An Online Drawing Tool That Makes Everyone an Artist AutoDraw.com" t/h to Nick LaFave. AutoDraw turns sketches into more professional looking cartoons. By Google Creativity. Use to illustrate ideas about readings, or one's own storyline.