WSD eToolBox

Web-based tools continue to proliferate, giving teachers more to add to their arsenal, but it can be hard to determine which resources are worth spending time exploring. At the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) conference this year, Adam Bellow, founder of EduClipper, and Steve Dembo, Online Community Manager for Discovery Education offered a quick run through of some favorite apps. The two educators are early adopters of ed-tech classroom strategies and have a lot of experience with tech integration.

Nice Technology scope and sequence for different types of computer skills, tied directly to ISTE Standards.

Rewordify.com helps you read more, understand difficult English faster, and learn words in new ways. Just paste in difficult English (or enter a web page URL) and click the yellow button. You'll see an easier version, for fast understanding now. You'll learn what the hard words and phrases mean with our Smart Highlighting. (Click it or tap it.) You'll read (and teach) better tomorrow with vocabulary lists, learning activities, quizzes, flash cards, and more-that you get instantly, with answer keys-from any block of text you enter!

"The printables encourage writing and thinking in a quick and fun way. A student's efforts to complete the printable can then become the first step in writing longer essays, poems or stories on the same subject. The printables also can be used with students enrolled in literacy and English-As-Second Language (ESL, ESOL) programs and provide an educational resource for teaching language arts."

EveryoneOn is a national nonprofit that aims to eliminate the digital divide by making high-speed, low-cost Internet, computers, and free digital literacy accessible to all unconnected Americans. Technology and digital skills are essential to ensure future generations can compete in the global economy and to prepare them for the 21st century workforce. EveryoneOn aims to leverage the democratizing power of the Internet to provide opportunity to all Americans - regardless of age, race, geography, income, or education level.

"Booktrack is transforming reading the way sound transformed silent film.   Booktrack is delivering an innovative and engaging experience for today's generation of digital-savvy students, providing new ways for students to study and enjoy reading and writing. Booktrack Classroom is an exciting new technology that synchronizes audio with text to create an immersive reading experience. Stories and essays published with Booktrack include a customized, movie-style soundtrack that complements the story. Students can create Booktracks for their own writing and create a soundtrack from over 20,000 professional-quality audio files and share it with their classmates to read. Funded by investors including Peter Thiel (co-founder and former CEO of PayPal), Booktrack will change the way people read, write, and publish their stories."

Wiki full of comics that can be used in the social studies classroom and beyond! This wiki is an attempt to help us share resources and ideas - it has taken me a lot of research to find these titles - I have not been able to find any sort of complete "list" of titles that would make it easy - so here we go!

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Tiki-Toki is web-based software for creating beautiful interactive timelines that you can share on the internet.

"On October 29, 2014 the Alliance for Excellent Education hosted a webinar in its Project 24 leadership series. Project 24 is a systemic planning framework around the effective use of technology and digital learning to achieve the goal of college and career readiness for all students. This webinar focused on the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1998 to protect the online privacy of children. More than fifteen years later, as digital learning constitutes a critical component of education both in and out of school, COPPA has become yet another hurdle between teachers and connecting students to digital learning opportunities. The webinar explored what educators need to know about this law, and how they and school administrators can successfully navigate COPPA to ensure that students are afforded the full benefits of online and blended learning opportunities.  It showed how teachers can provide consent for students to register for online websites.  It explored whether or not students who are under thirteen years old can even use Web 2.0 resources without running afoul of the law.  And it dealt with how school districts assume the duty of COPPA compliance. During the webinar, Mark Cheramie Walz gave educators straight-forward answers on how to comply with COPPA without sacrificing the potential that digital learning and online resources afford. Tom Murray from the Alliance moderated the discussion. Mr. Cheramie Walz and Mr. Murray also addressed questions submitted by webinar viewers from across the country."

"Welcome to Wikipedia for Schools! This selection of articles from Wikipedia matches the UK National Curriculum and can be used by school children around the world. 6000 articles, 26 million words and 50,000 images make Wikipedia for Schools bigger than Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia put together! Wikipedia is great, but it wasn't designed with the National Curriculum in mind. And because anyone can edit it, articles sometimes get vandalised. That's why we've put together this special collection to make learning as easy and safe as it can be. Here at SOS Children, we've checked all the articles, tidied them up a bit, and put them together by school subject. SOS Children ( www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk) is a charity which works around the world to help children in need. As well as Wikipedia articles, we've collected pages from the SOS Children website, so you can learn more about the work we do in 125 countries around the world. We would like to say thank you to the Wikimedia Foundation, the people who made the Wikipedia site. We would also like to thank the many people who have come together over the years to make Wikipedia what it is today."

"Digital Bytes teaches teens digital citizenship through student-directed, media-rich activities that tackle real-world dilemmas. Teens learn from the experiences of their peers then create collaborative projects that voice their ideas for making smart, safe choices online."

"Welcome to the OneNote for Teachers Series With Microsoft OneNote, educators can create digital notebooks that support academic standards and outcomes across disciplines. Students may use OneNote across content areas and grade levels. OneNote also supports research, collaboration, information management, communication, note taking, journaling, and other academic requirements."

Website by 12 year old scientist Sylvia full of blog posts and video episodes on all things "Maker". Check it out!

"In today's post, I am sharing with you this wonderful Google Forms cheat sheet created by Shake Up Learning. This document is particularly useful for beginner users. It provides a lot of tips on how to do a wide variety of task on Forms including how to create a form, change and customize the theme of your forms, add collaborators, and many more"

Great site by Discovery and 3M that includes info for teachers, students, and families on the science of Everyday Life. LOTS of great lesson activities, interactives and more.

A discussion of the rapidly changing world of technology and the great potential it has to transform how teachers teach and students learn.

"Creating professional timelines and Gantt charts has never been easier.  Seamless integration into PowerPoint and a powerful yet simple Timeline Creator Wizard means you can start creating great looking Gantt charts and timelines in minutes."

Great resource for teachers who want to learn how to use OneNote with their students in school.

The Microsoft Office 15-Minute Webinar team delivered a webinar-style talk on "10 great Office timesavers."

by Marija Petreska Expert Educator Columnist, Macedonia Another Sway feature I simply adore alongside with Swaying tweets is Swaying YouTube videos. And I devote this blog post on tips and ideas how to mix some video lessons and sway them.