Tell us about a cool tool! Add your entry as a comment below. Please include the following information in your response.
- name of the tool
- platform(s) on which it works (web-based, iOS, Android, etc.)
- what it does
- one way it could be used in your situation (classroom, PD, etc.): Be specific with your ideas!
- optional: screen shots of the tool in action
- optional: "testimonials" from users (i.e. students or staff)
I am not sure that you would call this a digital "tool," but my students and I found it to be quite engaging. We went on a virtual field trip of Mount Vernon right from our seats in class. I put a link on my Moodle to a couple of places I wanted them to explore. I turned the class loose and what I got to watch was amazing! They were "traveling" all over his home, grounds, and plantation.
ReplyDeleteI had given them instructions and questions to answer to guide them to some of the more important areas that I wanted them to check out. However, what happened next was the amazing part. When their guided exploration was done, they kept on exploring. I had students saying, "You have got to check this out!" "Mrs. Thornton, look at this!"
When the lesson was done, I know that my students really understood what plantation life was like in the 1700's. Without computers, this would never had been possible without taking a very expensive trip.
This would not be for every teacher...but there are many places to go on the internet to take a virtual field trip.
I think virtual field trips are so powerful, especially when some of your students are very limited in their experiences. Great idea to share!
DeleteThe name of the digital tool I would use would be PhotoStory 3. This piece of software is a free download from Microsoft and it runs on Windows XP and even Windows 7 (the specs do not say it runs on Windows 7 , but it does because I have used it on a Windows 7 computer).
ReplyDeletePhotoStory 3 is a cool piece of software that allows you to create digital storytelling projects using still pictures. After adding pictures to the project then you have the options to add special effects, music, slide transitions and/or voice narration. Once created and saved the project can be played on computer, TV, or DVD player. (In order to burn to a DVD you must have a special plug in that you can purchase from Microsoft for a small amount of change and you WILL want to purchase that plugin!)
I see this being used as a tool for students to use with stories they have written. After they have written their story they will use PhotoStory 3 to create a presentation where they add pictures that go along with their story. The pictures could be ones they have taken or have scanned in or even found on the web as long as they coincide with their story. After adding the pictures they use a microphone and the voice narration setting in PhotoStory 3 to read the story they wrote and record their voice with the pictures. This is a great way for them to present their story. I have included a link from youtube of a student project that used PhotoStory 3. This is not one of my students but an example that I found on the web and it goes along with the idea I listed above. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFy0t9WGkZ4
I have personally used PhotoStory 3 to record the events of my family vacations and even our schools 6th grade camping trip. It is a great way to show off the pictures you have taken. It is much like movie maker except you can only use digital photos and it is very user friendly. Give it a look...it just might be a tool you would like to use as well.
Good find! I can see this being great in my Social Studies class to have students recreate the stories of history.
DeleteOne tool that our class has used a lot this year for a variety of reasons is iMovie. This is an Apple platform, but I know there are web-based alternatives. It has been an easy app for my elementary students to use with little or no help from me.
ReplyDeleteIt is used to develop any video taken on the ipad into an editable format that then looks polished when completed. It contains a variety of templates, sound effects, etc. to make editing easy for students.
We first used iMovie this year to create announcements for the school. 5th grade students plan segments, write cue cards, film the segments, and edit into a polished format to share with the school each Friday. This is all student driven and my job (after the first week) has been to help them evaluate their finished project and upload what they do. Students have also created a video about the Revolutionary War to demonstrate what they felt was most important to learn. One more example, has been use with one of my students with autism. He had a difficult time putting his thoughts into writing. I gave him the option of recording himself telling his story before he wrote anything. After spending 15 minutes recording (and re-recording) himself, he came back to his seat and started writing. When we started writing the following day, he asked to use the ipad. I told him he needed to write his ideas down first. He then told me he did...without it being assigned...AT HOME! When I looked at what he had written, it was almost word-for-word what he had recorded the previous day. He then told me he was ready to tape Part 2. Not only did he write the story, it was very well written and funny. (One of his main characters was R.K., the opossum. When I asked what R.K. stood for, he told me, "Road Kill, of course!") It has opened a new door for him!
My students love seeing themselves as "movie stars." Some of our grade level videos are on www.youtube.com (search Diana Yonker). Some are better than others. :-)
YES! I too have found this as a lot of fun! We've used this to create commercials and movie trailers this year! Great tool!
DeleteThe iMovie sounds like a great deal of fun. I think I could use it in my Multimedia class. I would have them make a commercial. Thanks for the idea.
DeleteI love iMovie! We created a very nice "Grandparent's Day" video one year where the students were green screened into some images. They read poems and talked about why their grandparents were special. Not a dry eye that day!
DeleteA popular app! My students have created movies on bullying, responsibility, and friendship and have shared with the school during our morning assemblies. This is such a user friendly app.
DeleteI discovered the AMAZING benefit of Google Docs when I was completing my degree. It was SO challenging to try to find a time for all the members in my group to meet and get our schedules together. We were able to create a PowerPoint presentation on Google docs and never meet once! We were all invited to join a project, and once we were in we were able to edit it anytime we wished.
ReplyDeleteJust the other day our school offered an after school training to Google Docs. I rediscovered the joy of this tool! I learned about the ability to create written documents, charts and tables, and improved my knowledge of the PowerPoint like presentations. This program is so great for the idea that you can see who is in the document editing, you can see who has edited what, and you have the capability to chat and discuss what your ideas are right there on the side!
From the educator standpoint, this is an awesome way to let students collaborate without the problems of "Joey's absent and has our project," students can research individually and yet easily share and collaborate, students can work at their own pace on the projects and even at home, and students can keep up with the group if they are absent that day! How great!
Also, we as educators can go in and see who made edits and what they did. This eliminates the factor of ineffective group work. Students now have a responsibility to participate in the project, or there is PROOF that they didn't contribute and students will know this, hopefully encouraging them to want to participate in group assignments.
I also learned that we can create quizzes and surveys on Google docs...which I'm trying to learn more about. I don't think it grades it for us, but it does organize it into a chart which is nice for fill in the blank or short answer. One thing we did notice, it works nicely with Google Chrome, but some people in Safari were having a hard time opening some of the documents.
My AP students are working on an partner review project. Two of them set up a google doc to edit each other's work in real time -- this was without any prompting from me! Very neat to see these tech-savvy students using the Web 2.0 tools intuitively.
DeleteThought I have not yet used this tool in my own class, http://todaysmeet.com looks like a very useful tool. It is web-based and absolutely simple both on the set-up and use sides. I have used this Today's Meet as part of a faculty meeting for the Indiana Online Academy where participants could post questions and feedback in real-time to get immediate feedback apart from the presentation itself.
ReplyDeleteOne way I could see this used is to replace worksheets during a video presented during class. Open a Today's Meet session and have students type observations as they watch. You can monitor and assess, even pose relevant questions as they emerge from the video. Students can interact with each other and you while watching. Since they have a hard time NOT multi-tasking, this could keep them more engaged.
I use peer reviews in my classes. Using Today's Meet sounds like a faster way to accomplish the task. I like the interaction concept.
DeleteWhat a great way to engage all students. I have my students use todaysmeet during small group time. One group activity is to read a current event article then communicate about opinions or other predetermined questions via todaysmeet. While I am meeting with another small group, I am logged on to the todaysmeet chat so I can monitor and ask questions or redirect if need be.
DeleteI chose the Popplet digital tool to explore. It runs on Vista, Windows 7,IOS,or Android platforms. You can choose the free download or pay a small fee per student plan. All plans include use of all the features.
ReplyDeletePopplet is exciting visual communication tool that can be used for any type of design/planning process. The free program allows the user to create diagrams of their thoughts or make notes in color. Students can add images, or create galleries. Popplet can be used for sketching ideas, and collaborate with others. Students can add content from Flicker, YouTube, or Google Maps automatically. The organize feature has nine different automatic options. It does have a presentation mode and hide nametags. You can export the file as a pdf or jpeg. Students can print the screen as well. Each block has a bubble option that allows additional text.
I am excited about using Popplet with my programming students next year. They will be able to do the entire planning and research process in a graphical format
I would have my students choose their own groups and create a software development business. They would create a company name and logo in Paint. The students would import the logo into the Popplet screen. The team would use Popplet to design the product (which most likely be a game created in the Alice Programming language) for their company. On the first Popplet page they would keep their notes and sketches about the story and basic layout of the program design (flowchart – visual logical layout of a program). The programming team would create a second Popplet page called research. The team would lay out their program according to the different segments (world, properties, methods, function, and events) of Alice. Students would be encouraged to color code each segment. The students can type additional questions, make comments/notes to a bubble associated with each box. Students will include any YouTube, blog sits, Flicker images, etc. used to learn how to make their game. Popplet pages will be used to guide the students as they create the game. The final step will be to post the game movie on My Big Campus to get feedback from other students.
I am looking forward to use Popplet with my beginning programmers. I think Popplet will help my students conquer the tricky abstract concept of programming logic.
I used this last year. My students created a geometrical scavenger hunt and they had choices of how to present. This was one choice some of our students picked. They enjoyed using this tool.
DeleteThe name of the tool I use in the classroom is called Educreations. It is a video tool which allows the teacher to create classroom videos in a very simple platform. It's platform is web-based and iOS. Teachers can create a video on the iPad with voice, save the video, and assign this video to classes or to the web. If a teacher does not have an iPad they can use a writing tool and create the lessons on the web. Students can watch these videos thru a link, embedded in a website, or use their own login to the Educreations site. The screen shot below shows the teachers view of the dashboard. They can assign these videos created dircctly to each class.
ReplyDeleteI can use this app to flip my classroom. Students can watch the videos at home and come to my classroom working on their assignments allowing me to work with each students individually. My students have enjoyed them. I had a student actually ask me to create three videos for her. She was stuck on three standards to pass on her ALEKS and needed my help. She wanted to work on them at home.
This tool can be beneficial in many aspects. Students will create their own video after completing a geometrical scavenger hunt.
I had not seen this before your posting. This is looks like great tool and I plan to incorporate it into my trainings! Thanks for the cool tool!!
DeleteThe name of the tool is tiki-toki.com. It is a timeline creator which allows the students to up load videos, pictures, of audio clips and place them in story lines on the time lines. Then students can share the URL for others to view the time line.
ReplyDeleteThis is a web-based platform that has free limited use or expanded uses for a fee. Students are able to work from home or school and enjoy being able to personalize the presentation.
I use this for students to thing about all the things that have and will influence who and what they will do in the future. But it could be used in a variety of classroom settings.
Tumblebooks.com (Screen shot is on my blog)
ReplyDeleteThis is a great reading source! It is web-based and IPAD compatible. You can download up to 200 books on your IPAD! You will need to have your school/library buy a subscription. For the meantime, get the free trial because that is what I did. Once you can convince them of the purchase, your students will have an online collection of animated, talking picture books with sounds and music. My students would love this!
I would like to use this as a resource with at-risk students to give them more confidence in reading. They could listen to a story if they struggle with fluency and take an online quiz immediately following to practice comprehension. These quizzes would produce a report that could be used to show growth or help come up with differentiated intervention strategies. There are also lesson plans on here already! This will help save time.
I currently do not have testimonials of users, however the website does offer some if you are interested! I am going to try this in my class as soon as possible.
I can provide a testimonial. There is a 2nd grade teacher in my corporation who uses Tumblebooks on a daily basis. She absolutely loves the site and I love that it also works with the iPad. The free collection is very nice and you are right that once you get hooked on the free ones you will want to purchase more to add to your collections. This is a great source!
DeleteA tool that I have found particularly useful for the my current position working with teachers in the Professional Development realm has been Educreations. It is particularly useful as an app for iOS, but it can also be used and accessed via any device with internet access at educreations.com. It is a really user friendly whiteboard app which can allow the user to create lessons using imported pictures, drawing, writing, typing and also voice recording.
ReplyDeleteI have used this tool to record explanations of processes so that teachers can access the "lessons" and can hear/see me explain it whenever they need. I also think this would be really useful for the classroom for modeling purposes. Teachers can give examples and demonstrate how they "think-aloud" and work through processes so that students can have guidance outside of the classroom.
Screenshots are on my blog.
I recently discovered this tool and use it in the same way. The teachers are enjoying and also using it for those students that may be a little to shy to actually stand up in front of the class. They are very excited about the possibilities with Educreations for our 1-1 launch next year.
DeleteI have used educreations as well. However, I have never used it as a modeling tool for my students. I really like the idea though. I need to start creating lessons on educreations so I can have substitute teachers utilize the prerecorded lessons when I am gone.
DeleteI have my students record themselves as they verbally explain and show how they solved real world math problems. I love how it allows me to hear their thinking process. It has given me great insight to how they think.
Showme app on ipad is very similar, but can not utilize graphs and coordinate grid screen.
A digital tool that I use in my classroom that my students really seem to enjoy are eInstruction clickers. It is a great way to review before tests. Though the software, I set up multiple questions in a variety of formats (multiple choice, true and false, short answer, etc) and using the clickers the students respond on their own. I project the software on the screen so the students can see the questions from their seats. Typically, the first round the students are on their own to answer the questions. After each question, I get immediate feedback on the number of students who answered incorrectly. We will have a quick review and then move on to the next question. Once complete, I can run a report that shows how each individual student did on the review.
ReplyDeleteThen, we go back and go through the questions again but this time they get to collaborate with each other. I make it a competition between all of my classes. The winning class receives bonus points. It's great watching the students really get into it when they know bonus points are at stake.
These clickers also offer the ability to have the students take a test using them. However, I have not used this yet. I am considering testing it next year with a few of my classes.
The tool I want to talk about is called Clayframes. This is an Android app that allows the user to make a claymation movie. I'm sure ther are other apps for iPad that would do the same thing. I have not used this yet in class but would love to. I teach 7th and 8th grade Science and this could be used to make a movie of cell division (mitosis or meiosis), plate tectonic movements, weather forcast, forces and vectors, DNA, and many others. I have the kids use powerpoint to make flipbooks about mitosis, but this would be much better. It is very easy to use. My holdup is that we do not have tables in class. However, I could see kids using their own tables or phones to run this app. The link to Clayframes is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jal.clickstudio.mainpack&hl=en
ReplyDeleteClassroom Tool
ReplyDeleteWhat: PhEt - Interactive Science Simulations from the University of Colorado
http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/new
Platforms: Web-based (needs Java)
What is it, what it does, and How to Use it...
In lieu of labs....PhEt simulations allow students to explore science content while sitting at a computer. Unfortunately, there are many topics in science that students cannot experience in a K-12 environment (or many University settings for that matter). For example, the spectrophotometers in our building hit their prime 15 years ago. Instead of having students complete a hands-on lab - PhEt allows students to still experience a particular topic.
In addition to labs...Another benefit of PhEt are the visual models it uses to deliver a concept. In a hands-on lab students can decrease the volume of a container of gas and see that the pressure increases. Student understanding of a concept can be strengthened when students also complete the PhEt applet because they can observe the particles hitting the sides of the container more frequently.
Though I have not used PhEt for students that were absent, need RTI or an additional challenge I think there are some possibilities in those realms!
In A Wordle...
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago I stumbled upon a simple, free, but extremely useful web-based program called Wordle. In the elementary setting, I have found many uses for Wordle. I have found that working with teachers in the middle and high school settings, they have also integrated Wordle in a many classes. In fact, I cannot think of an area where you would not be able to utilize this simple program.
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.
Here are just a few of the ways I have either used it myself or seen it used in elementary school either collaboratively or alone:
students write their spelling words
review important concepts in a unit/chapter of study
characterization
rhyming words
list words in any part of speech
examples of figurative language in a story/novel
All About Me
State capitals
This is one quick example.
The ways to use Wordle are endless! I must say that when I found it, I thought 'eh' it's ok, but the response by my students was amazing. They absolutely love the ability to be creative with their words, fonts and color schemes.
All of that being said, I have found several aspects to be a bit frustrating. The biggest, is that if you find a word cloud you like, you cannot save it and continue browsing. You can cannot go back! I also have trouble saving the file on my machine, publishing is an option. I am sure the more sophisticated techy could figure this out, but I have just told the students to print the one they like.
This tool became a staple in my class! The students love creating and I loved the that it could be used anywhere!
My students and I love wordle (use wordsalad on the ipad). I have used it for pre-reading by listing key vocabulary words, or a novel's story elements. Then the students predict what the novel will be about based on the wordle.
DeleteI also create a wordle of all my students' names and a theme for the year (when creating the wordle type the theme several times so it appears larger on the wordle). Then I print it, frame it, and display it in the room. This year our theme is 'teamwork' so my wordle contains all student names and the word 'team' appears larger than all other text around their names. I have it displayed in the classroom as our reminder that we work together as a team.