There are so many free online tools out there that are fabulous to use in the classroom.
Many tools also provide an HTML code to embed what you’ve found or created into a blog post or page. If you’ve never used an HTML code, don’t worry, it’s really simple and I’ve made you a cheat sheet which you’ll find further down.
Using a variety of tools allows students to create, collaborate, communicate, and express themselves in a multitude of ways. Using embeddable content can also bring your blog to life in a way that’s not possible with plain text and images.
Note: If you’re using a blog that won’t allow embed codes, you can still use the online tools. There are some tools that don’t need to be embedded too. You just save them as an image or add the link.
What's In This Post?
What Are Online Tools?
There are many websites that allow you to use or make all sorts of content. This could be slideshows, videos, comic strips, quizzes, polls, graphics etc.
Many of these websites are free services. Or, they might be free at a basic/single user level and then have paid plans.
It’s pretty much impossible to keep up to date with all the tools that are out there and all of the updates and changes to the tools.
That’s why I’m going to make a few suggestions in this week’s post and then hand it over to you to share your own suggestions!
A Note On Age Restrictions
While the legal side of online tools can seem boring, it’s important to be aware that children cannot sign up for many online tools, even if they seem designed for education.
Websites based in the US that are collecting information from children under the age of 13 are required by law to comply with Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
These laws also extend to sites that are not located in the US but might be used by children in the US. Many countries adopt similar policies too.
If you look in the Terms and Conditions of many websites, you will find that children under 13 are not allowed to create an account or access the tool.
Some tools, such as PhotoPeach, state that “Persons under 13 years of age are required to have a parent or guardian review and complete the registration process.”
If you work with young students, get into the habit of looking for the information about age restrictions. It’s usually located under “Terms and Conditions” (sometimes under “Terms” or “Privacy”). These can usually be found right down the bottom or up the top of a website.
Tip: Use Control F (or Command F on Mac) to bring up a search box to find what you’re looking for. The Terms and Conditions are often lengthy. I often try typing in a search term like “13” or “children” to find the age information.
Getting around limitations with under 13s
- Teachers can still have accounts to create content for the blog.
- Have students sign up at home with their parents when this is allowed in the Terms.
- Use tools that don’t require signing up (eg. Tagxedo).
- Use tools that allow teachers to create student accounts (eg. Storybird).
Note: I’m no legal expert; if you have any other information to add, please do!
How To Embed Content
I’ve put together a cheat sheet to walk you through embedding an HTML code in a blog post.
If you haven’t embedded an HTML code before, it’s easy than you might think.
Or maybe you know how to embed but want to give your students some clear instructions (feel free to give this PDF to your students or embed it on your blog).
I used Padlet as an example. The same process applies to any online tool that offers embed codes (including videos on sites like YouTube).
These steps apply to both posts and pages.
Some Examples Of Tools
I’m going to share examples of five online tools that are free and popular with educators.
1) Padlet
This is a tool that can be as simple or as complex as you like. It’s basically an online bulletin board where you add ‘notes’. Years ago, Padlet was called Wallwisher and you could only add text and images.
Padlet has evolved a lot and you can now add notes containing audio recordings, video, maps, drawings, files etc.
People can also comment and like or upvote notes too.
I’ve embedded a Padlet below for you to try. Simply click on the big + and add a note sharing an online tool.
2) Animoto
This is a popular tool for businesses or individuals to create a video slideshow using your own images and videos. There are a range of templates to drop your content into, and lots of music to choose from as well.
The good news is, educators can apply for a free Animoto Classroom account (you get accounts for 50 students as well).
Here is an example of one of my old Animoto slideshows I made to share photos of a Cross Country event. This is a very simple example. You can add a lot more detail to your work if you like.
3) Make Beliefs Comix
Many students love making comics. It can be less intimidating than writing for some, and is a great way to display ideas creatively.
There are a number of tools around to make comics including ToonDoo and Pixton.
Make Beliefs Comix is a simple site that doesn’t require students to sign up. It works on computers and mobile devices.
Another great feature is that you can create your comic in any language. I’ve used Make Beliefs Comix a lot with students and they’ve always loved it!
This is a tool you can’t embed. You just save it as an image (click on “save to disk”) and insert it into your blog post as you would any other image.
I made a very quick example!
4) Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms
You’re probably familiar with Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms? Did you know you can embed them in your blog too?
These tools are so versatile and if you have access to iPads or computers in your classroom, you probably use them a lot.
You can find the full instructions for embedding Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms in this help guide.
If you use these Google programs, I’d love you tell everyone how you use them.
Personally, I’ve found Google Slides to be a great way to share student work on a class blog when students don’t have their own blogs.
Here are two examples.
Online work: Haiku poems
Here the students each wrote a Haiku poem on a Google slide on their iPads. They shared their finished product with me.
I put all the slides into one master slideshow by following the instructions on the Erintegration blog.
Offline work: Wacky Wednesday
In this lesson, the students created their own Wacky Wednesday rhyme and illustration after studying the Dr Seuss book.
I took photographs of all the students’ work and put them in a Google slideshow.
Note: If you just want a slideshow of photos, you can do a similar thing using the Meta Slider Plugin in Edublogs.
5) Anchor
I heard about this podcast creation tool when Richard Byrne blogged about the launch of new Anchor features recently.
This is a free service and you can use the app on your mobile device or your computer to create recordings.
There are some great options for background music too as you can hear in my example below.
I recorded the above example on my phone using the Anchor app. I then logged in to my Anchor account on my computer to download the audio file. Finally, I inserted the file in my blog post by clicking on ‘Add Media’.
(Note: you could probably do all this straight from your mobile device, but I had this post open on my computer. Let us know if you try inserting your recording into a post on your mobile).
You can even publish your Anchor recordings straight to iTunes, Spotify, Google Play etc. This could make it easy for your parents and students to keep up to date.
The only downside to this tool that I can see is that it is 13+ but teachers could still use it.
Build Your Toolbox
While it would be extremely difficult to keep up with all the online tools that are out there, you certainly don’t need to know about every tool!
I’ve always felt that it’s a good idea to build your own ‘toolbox’. That is, get familiar with a handful of tools that would be useful for you and your students. You can build up your toolbox over time if you like.
You can think of your students as building their own toolboxes as well.
Introducing tools in the classroom
When you introduce a tool for the first time, it can be a good idea to give students a set amount of time to just play around, press buttons, and see what the tool can do before starting your actual task.
Where to find more tools
If you’re keen to keep up to date with online tools, here are three blogs you might like to check out and/or subscribe to:
- Larry Ferlazzo’s Website of the Day
- Richard Byrne’s Free Technology for Teachers
- Educational Technology and Mobile Learning by Med Kharbach
Also be sure to look at the sidebar on Sue’s Student Challenge Blog as she has lots of useful tools listed there too.
Your Task
Note: Please make sure your display name tells us who you are, or write your name at the end of the comment. 🙂
This week you’re asked to do one of the following:
- Leave a comment telling us about a free online tool that you’ve tried or you think would be useful. Be sure to share the URL of the tool and tell us how it works.
- Have a go at using an online tool and embedding it in a blog post. It could be one of the tools I mentioned in this post or any other one. Share the post URL with us if it’s a public blog.
As always, you’re encouraged to reply to someone else in the comment section too!
Next week’s topic: All about videos
I used voki: https://www.voki.com/ in my blog. You create a speaking character. You can find them in my blog http://anastasiakazanidi.edublogs.org/%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%87%CE%AC%CF%84%CE%BC%CE%B1-%CE%B3%CE%BA%CE%AC%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%B9/ I made 3 voki (in greek language). It’s about Gandhi and the non-violence movement.
I am having my students use Voki for our Black History Month Projects, if they choose. They are using them to replace chucks of text on Google Sites. You can access the student projects here: https://sites.google.com/a/nbasd.org/bhm-pd-1-2018/
We are still working on the projects at this time.
Hi Dom, these projects are looking terrific. You do a fabulous job of combining different tools and platforms.
Thanks for sharing your post too, Anastasia! 🙂
I was just looking at Voki and it seems to say you can’t embed the free Voki option anymore? Have either of you found this to be a hurdle?
Hi, Kathleen,
you cannot embed the free Voki option but you can enter the URL.
You can make only 3 free Voki than you have to pay for more.
Hi Dom!
I loved how your students used “Smore” making “beautiful flyers”. Thank you for sharing.
Ines
Hello Dominic!
How interesting work! I’d like to know more about Black History Month Projects. What are they?
I had a YouTube video for students to watch. I needed to delete 5 seconds in the middle of the video. I used Edpuzzle to chop the video. The only problem was I couldn’t figure out how to chop the necessary 5 seconds without having a 2 part video for students to watch. To edit the video, I played the video to the part I needed to delete, chopped & saved. Then started the video after the 5 seconds I couldn’t show and played video to the end, chopped & saved. Does anyone know of a tool that would allow you to edit the middle of the video?
Link:
https://edpuzzle.com
I have never thought about editing a youtube video. thank you for the idea. 🙂
Could you just save the video as an mp4 and then import it into a basic video editor like Windows Movie Maker or iMovie? This is how I would do it. Once it is edited, you can then you can export it as an mp4 again. Hopefully this helps!
I use many online and free tools for my projects. Google form, docs, etc. are just few examples. On my blog you can see that students were accessed the Google form to vote their favorite logo. It was very easy for them.
Here is the link to the page – http://mrschristina2018.edublogs.org/logo-contest/
You posted tools that I never used by I will try to insert in my page.
Padlet is a great tool and my students are familiar with it.
Can you teach us (or other colleagues) how to blur students faces in a video… Even with parents agreements I still want to protect my students.
Other tools then Windows Movie Maker… (online tools maybe).
Cristina Elena Voicu
Hi Cristina,
Aren’t Google tools so handy! Great to hear you’re finding them useful in your classroom. I like the idea of voting on a logo.
As for blurring students’ faces…do you ever use YouTube? Because I’m pretty sure it’s easy to blur faces in a YouTube video. These instructions look pretty simple to follow https://www.wikihow.com/Blur-Faces-in-a-YouTube-Video
If you don’t use YouTube I’ll try to find another easy option for you 🙂
Hi Cristina, Kathleen and all participants,
I’ve just come across these three posts by a fave blogger of mine (and not only :)). See if they can help you:
2015 – http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2015/12/two-ways-to-blur-faces-in-videos.html#.WpaLVOjFJnI
2016 – http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2016/02/how-to-blur-faces-objects-in-youtube.html#.WpaLZejFJnI
2017 – http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2017/12/how-to-apply-face-blurring-to-youtube.html#.WpaLZujFJnI
I haven’t gone through the posts, but he includes clear videos to demonstrate how we can do it.
Hope it helps.
Warm greetings from Portugal,
Alexandra
Thank you so much for sharing, Alexandra! I should have thought to look at Richard’s blog; he seems to have a tool for everything! 🙂
Building up a teacher’s tech toolbox is what my blog is all about! My most recent post is on edpuzzle. This awesome tool allows teachers to take a youtube video, khan academy lesson, or even a screen recording and add questions to it. As a high school teacher, this helps promote online learning like so many colleges are going towards, at least for the general classes. With edpuzzle, you can track the student’s responses and even comment back to the. I also noticed you can embed a video! Fits right in!
Here is a link to my post about it: http://technoteswithkelsey.edublogs.org/2018/02/19/edpuzzle/
Here is a link to the site: http://www.edpuzzle.com/
Here is a great site for teacher resources, unfortunately it will be going away by July when Wikispaces shuts down, http://eduwikius.wikispaces.com/ I had contributed to this community for years, it is actually how I became involved in Edtech.
Hi Dom,
Hopefully the team will migrate, by importing the entire wiki content to another host. Perhaps pb.works.com wiki?
Hi Kbhuffman,
Thank you for sharing such a powerful learning tool. I’ve been through your article and keep the link of your blog so I may come back after the course and learn from your posts at my own pace.
Ines
Glad it was helpful! 🙂 Happy to have you there!
What a great tool to share with your staff. There are so many great free tools out there, that sometimes the only way to find them is by talking with someone who uses them. Thank you for sharing.
Vicki
I agree with Anastasia. We have used the Voki program for a few years. It is always very popular. Students prepare a speech on the topic but instead of presenting it, they type it into the program. They can choose from a range of people, languages, background etc. It is always popular. http://www.voki.com
Hi Karina,
I’d love to see an example of these! 😉 Do you upload them to Seesaw?
Kirsty
Hi!
I’m feeling kind of proud that I achieved tasks more quickly than I expected.
My grade was so excited to make a video today to explain our Math warm up game to the other classes and share it at home. I created a teacher tube account and it did work well but we have to wait for the video to be approved.
* First question – How long can this take?
* What are other people’s experiences with teacher tube?
I put it on my youtube channel and explicitly taught the grade how I selected the privacy options that meant it could only be found if you had the link. We had some great discussions about negative comments on youtube. Which they instigated before I could even start.
For tomorrow I have embedded a padlet to make a board about our interests which will be another good tool in discussing what we do and shouldn’t share online.
Please go to our blog and see if the video works for you.
Also their comments are improving.
* Does anyone have any tips on encouraging comments from students who speak a different language other than the main language teaching is delivered in?
I might try embedding google translator but it may not be useful for their Karen regional language.
Today was super fun and my brain hurts. Thanks for helping “remotivate” my ICT skills.
Hi Felicity,
I don’t keep track of the participants’ blogs and would like to visit yours. Can you please share the link?
Many thanks,
Alexandra
Hi Alexandra,
Here is our blog address. http://msbspecihill.global2.vic.edu.au/
Thanks in advance for visiting.
Thank you, Felicity, I have just posted a short comment 🙂
Alexandra
Hi Felicity and Alexandra,
Thank you for sharing the url. I’ve watched the lovely video and followed the interesting game!
Ines
Hello from Portugal,
As suggested under “tasks”, I’ve published a post on a chosen online tool – my option was word clouds. Please read the short 😉 post and leave your comment on http://teacheralexsoure.edublogs.org/2018/02/27/exploring-word-clouds/.
Thank you. Best wishes,
Alexandra
Hello Alexandra,
I’ll say the same thing here as I posted on your blog.
I enjoyed your post. I use wordart.com most because it have been the least sensitive to the different laptops and browsers that my students have. I appreciated the link to Image Chef because I hadn’t used it and it was a bit different. Its English link is: http://www.imagechef.com/ic/en/home.jsp
Kat
I had been using Storify.com to archive Twitter chats and Twitter posts from conferences and edCamps that I attended. Storify is going away soon, like some other of my favorite free online tools. Twitter actually has a button to automatically push Tweets into a “Storify Story” which in turn can be saved and embedded into a blog or any website. Here is a link to one of my posts using Storify, http://mrsal.edublogs.org/2017/10/21/edcamppgh-october-21-2017/ I am looking into the costs of Storify 2 and other free tools as a replacement.
Hi Dominic,
It’s a shame that it so often happens with so many great free tools… I lost everything – pretty much – I had on TACKK because I didn’t get their email warning they were shutting down. Even when it happens, as you are experiencing now with Storify, it’s not the same having to transfer or download and the trouble of finding alternatives.
Greetings from Portugal,
Alexandra
Hi Alexandra,
My greatest sorrow, when I began to learn dealing with web 2.0 tools (during “Web 2.0 Wednesdays” was that the most creative were always forbidden for students under 13: I couldn’t use Edmodo, twine, thread voice… The other obstacle was myself: I can’t follow a “quick English speaking” video tutorial, I have to transcribe everything and read it carefully; thus it takes me a long time to do a short new step.
Ines
This is such an important topic for me. I created my blog when I was taking a Web 2.0 online class and the began teaching a Web 2.0 class to some of my teachers. I am working to update this blog, but my last blog posting was in August, 2013 and it was titled One Technology Tool at a Time. It can be found at http://vickstershu.edublogs.org/. I agree with your statement, there are so many tech tools that a teacher can use, but where to start and how do I become good at all of them. What I teach is that you need to find one or two tools and make them your own. If you try to include all of them in your “toolbox” then you will just get frustrated. So find one or two and learn them, use them, and make them your own.
I have been mentoring a new computer teacher for our elementary school and I tell her the same thing. She wants to do so much, but trying to do it all at once will only frustrate her and not get her anywhere. Take and find one or two things you want to do in the classroom and make it your own.
It has always been my feeling that technology is a tool to be used in your classroom. It can’t replace the content or the curriculum, but it can add to the content and it can add to the curriculum. Use it wisely.
Some of the tools I introduced were:
Mind42 – a free online mind mapping tool. (https://mind42.com/)
Little Bird Tales – a free digital storytelling tool (https://www.littlebirdtales.com/)
This week was a revisit for me and it has just got be so excited to do this again.
Vicki
Hi Vicki,
Thank you for your so fair and sensible advice. I’ve tried Google Forms, Google Docs, some Movie makers, like Kizoa, “tests buiding” sites, like socrative, classflow, kahoot and so on, but a lot of them were just lost, for they need practice and persistance for us to get used to them and use them quickly.
So I agree with you that we must choose a few, integrate them in classroom activities and just once and a while incorporate a new one. I also think that it’s more important to share our digital literacy and skills with the students themselves and wait for them to master the technological requirements.
Ines
In addition to setting up my blog for the student challenge, I also created my first Google Form and embedded it into a secondary challenge post. My plan is to gather feedback from the “select few” students that will be involved in the challenge. Still working on instructions to create avatars and adding/creating all my student blogs.
http://cunninghamclass.edublogs.org/category/student-challenge/
If someone could try to access this form it would be very helpful. We have a closed network, so I had to perform some “techno magic” to get the form accessible to the public. I want to be sure it is visible to others 🙂
As far as other online tools, I have used padlet in the past and often forget about it’s usefulness! It’s good to know I can now embed it into a post. I will have to dust that one off and pull it out of the toolbox when the time is right! I’m still exploring and may have a few more techy surprises before the week is out. I kinda love the geeky stuff!!!1
Kae Cunningham
Hi Mrs C,
I could access your form: it looks just great!
I’ll be a commenter in the Students Challenge, so hopefully, I’ll visit your Students.
Ines
Thanks Ines! Please visit anytime!
🙂
Kae C.
I have also used padlet in the past and I am glad to know that it can be embedded in a blog post. There are so many great online tools that I sometimes forget which ones I have tried before. 🙂
I love using padlet. I have even had students create a board of images in place of an older activity, cut images from magazine and glue to common board i.e., teapots, art that tells a story. Preserves magazines and avoids all the scraps of paper.
Thanks everyone for sharing your recommendations. I’ve already checked a few of them out and added them to my list of apps to use in the classroom. In the last 2 weeks I’ve used 3 apps with the students in my Years 7 and 8 Humanities classes. I’ve used Padlet for 2 learning tasks: to design a storyboard for an allegory (a parable) and to post and share students’ “heroes” – a person they admire – in preparation for an Australian of the Year task. We used PicCollage to created a collage for our inquiry question (‘How do we create a fair and just community?”) and finally we used SimpleMinds mind mapping tool to summarise learning themes. They all worked well for both me and the students and met our learning intention for each lesson.
Hi Donella,
Thank you for sharing Picollage and Simple Minds mapping – wich I didn’t know – as well as for exemplifiying their uses. I kept their links for visiting after the Students Blogging Challenge.
Ines
Hi Class! This week I took a look at some of the tools – I like the idea of trying the Make Beliefs comic strip tool with the students, although I am a bit cautious about it as a colleague I worked with in a previous school ended up having to deal with a cyberbullying situation when someone misused a Bitstrips (a similar tool) for mean purposes instead of for the assignment…
Instead, as it is “Reading is Fun!” week at my school, starting on Monday 5th March, I thought I’d try one of the slideshow type apps instead to make a recap of the books we’ve read as a class so far this year. I used Animoto and found it super easy to use with pleasingly professional looking results. I found the ’embed code’ to copy and did so, ready to add it to my new post.
Then I went to my class edublog made a new post introducing Reading Is Fun! week. (UPDATE! Most students have returned their permission slip and some have started commenting on ‘our’ posts) but when I got to the embed code bit (following the instructions in this week’s Better Blogging With Students course post -which were very clear, thank you Kathleen) I see that I only have “Insert URL” as an option (maybe I need the premium package for full functionality). So I went back to the Animoto site and got the URL which I embedded into the post. The blog is private at present so you can’t view it without a password but you can see the video made on Animoto here: https://animoto.com/play/Vqr00XToK7PzgZp9fPgKKQ
Have a great week! From Min
Great work Min,
Learning how to embed code can be difficult and it is changing often. I have learnt easier ways to do things over the last couple of years compared to when I first began blogging. Your animoto was great. My first animoto which you will see in the first post for the student blogging challenge was showing off the avatars my first class created when blogging.
It has been a long week with floods in my brother house, so my free time vanished quickly. In what concerns our common task, I had the first long “Learning to Blog” session with my Colleague, principal of middle school and teacher of Portuguese. So far she can log in, upload an image, write something and post it.
I uploaded a movie in teacher tube: a surfing lesson showing my 8th grade student Vasco. As her mother asked to keep the movie private except in our blog, I chose this feature. However, for security reasons, my movie is awaiting moderation, so it isn’t visible yet: http://cadescrita.edublogs.org/tag/vasco-l/
Hi Ines,
I hope your brother’s situation is improving. How awful.
Thank you for your responses to people this week. It’s so helpful! Thank you for your contribution of ideas to the Padlet too.
Nice idea adding the surfing video. It sounds like you have some keen surfers in your school. Many of the young students I teach (as a relief teacher) also love surfing. I have never tried myself! 🙂
So I have been really into the app “Canva” to make photos I have taken into blog-worthy photo art! I am really having fun with it, it has a lot of photos you can use for free which ties into the copyright/creative commons talk we had last week.
I also love Padlet for having conversations with my class and for organizing my units. I used this for the Global Read Aloud last fall and it made it so easy to connect with people, especially if in a different time zone.
Has anyone used Kahoot? I used this with me penpal class. We made quizzes about where we are from the send to our pen pal class. If you don’t have access to alot of devices I was recently introduced to Plickers.
For typing practice, which helps bloggers, I use TypingClub.
I am excited to introduce Comix to my class, they are going to love it! So many great ideas… is it possible to compile the list into one document? Perhaps this has already been done! M.
Hi Mandy,
Thanks for sharing some great ideas! I love the idea of using Kahoot for collaboration with another class!
I know Sue Wyatt has a good Symbaloo of online tools which I think she was going to update. This could be a handy way of keeping track of all the ideas!
I am excited about these online tools, not just for blogging purposes, but to add to my toolbox of strategies for the classroom. I think Anchor will be particularly useful, especially since I do not have a smartphone, and the app can be used on the computer as well. I am intrigued by Storybird for the same reason– I work at a small private school that has no special ed teachers on site, and I am always looking for ways to help my students with reading difficulties to understand what we are reading. I think both of these apps could be wonderful to help with the strategy of imagining a portion of a text, keeping in mind that some people imagine auditorily, not visually. Tagxedo would be useful as a prereading activity, perhaps having students look at the words included to predict what a theme or subject matter will be. Actually, I just tried an activity called “Wordsplash” in my classroom for the first time. It is designed to introduce vocabulary and show the relationship between vocabulary in a text. Tagxedo could be integrated easily into a “Wordsplash” activity. L Cote
Hi Lindsay,
Thanks for your wonderful reflections. Tagxedo sounds like it could be perfect for you. There are so many different ways you can use it.
Anchor seems to be getting really popular and I can see what. There is a lot you can do with it!
My students have always loved Storybird. I hope it might work for some of your students too. 🙂
Hello Friends, I have a favorite web tool I share with teachers as often as I can, Flipgrid. I’m a bit biased toward this technology since it was created by a professor and fellow students in a certificate program I was enrolled in at the University of Minnesota. It enables students and teachers to discuss ideas and show evidence of learning through a simple process whereby users record short video responses to a topic. The responses show up in a grid and the teacher and others with access to the topic are able to watch all other responses.
You can learn more about Flipgrid at https://info.flipgrid.com/ Also, give it a try through this topic I created for a recent EdCamp https://flipgrid.com/98b988
Hi Tom,
Thanks so much for sharing about Flipgrid. I have heard a lot about it but hadn’t seen it in action much. My friend Linda Yollis has been using it with her third graders and she showed me a few examples lately. It looks fantastic! She has recently published a post about it too if anyone is interested. http://yollisclassblog.blogspot.com.au/2018/03/flipgrid-idioms.html
Thank you for sharing your EdCamp example. It’s great how versatile it can be from the youngest learners to even adults.
Kathleen
Dear Tom,
Thanks for sharing about Flipgrid. Having responses organised in a grid sounds very user-friendly. Are there any age restrictions with this technology?
Thanks,
Brittany
Most things I use have already been mentioned, but here are two more.
Any of you who work on writing clarity might enjoy trying out the Hemingway Editor. In theory, students of all ages could use it, since you do not need to register or to download anything to use it. But it is probably most useful with high school on up. Students who have learned to write one way for academic writing often need to rethink things for the web. I find it provides a nice follow-up to my ‘wordiness’ session. Teachers might also enjoy testing some text they have produced for their own students. You can see its readability grade level, which sentences are hard to read, and more.
Another fun site for 13+ students (and a useful one for teachers not using a platform) is SurveyMonkey. The free version allows you to create an unlimited number of surveys and quizzes. They can have up to 10 questions each and up to 100 respondants each. The quizzes are like the surveys, but can give scores, corrections & answers (for some question types) as feedback. One of the options for distributing the surveys/quizzes is an HTML code, making it easy to embed them in class blogs.
That said, I don’t think I would want to underage students of any age to open individual SurveyMonkey accounts for class work. Taking part in the surveys doesn’t require an account; only creating them does – but what students think up won’t always be appropriate (or legal) to ask. However, you can create as many as surveys/quizzes as you want with a free account, so there is no reason why older (13+) students can’t plan surveys or quizzes that teachers then ‘create’ through their accounts (watching for any inappropriateness). The students can still do the surveys or quizzes that others planned once they are online (or you can opt for print out versions if they want to go around gathering data). So it can still be fun for students, even without them having individual accounts.
Hi Kat,
The Hemingway editor is an excellent suggestion! I just tried it out with this post and it says it is 5th grade level which is “good”.
I wasn’t sure what the ideal range was and found this interesting article on Medium. https://medium.com/the-mission/after-10-000-data-points-we-figured-out-how-to-write-a-perfect-medium-post-58c41c314f6a
It says “An article that could be read by a 6th-grader or below received 20% more recommends”. The Medium article is two years old but has some really interesting data, nonetheless.
SurveyMonkey is another great example of a useful tool.
Thanks!
Hi Kathleen,
Thank you for the article link. I am going to add it to my class’s readability links.
I notice that my link to the Hemingway Editor isn’t working. For anyone else wanting to try it out, it’s: http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
-Kat
Today, I am using Padlet to help students organize their own study guide for Economics. I chose the layout that lets them connect different blocks together. I have not used Padlet before, but have seen other teachers use it. I really like using technology and resources that students can collaborate together to learn from each other.
I did not embed this into my blog, but I did put it into Google Classroom. If I like how Padlet works, I could use the QR creator and post codes around the school to pique the interest of students that are not in my class. I could use it also to figure out what students know about FCCLA or FCS.
Also, next year, when we do NaNoWriMo, we could use it for brainstorming ideas about how to continue a story!
So, I have an update on my Padlet adventure! One issue I had (and there is probably an easy fix) was that students “post it” notes kept covering each other up. I might be that I had a few too many requests for information or too many people responding. I used Padlet for another class (independent study). I gave the student a list of topics to research and curate his information on the Padlet. We will see where it goes from here.
Here are my Padlets:
https://padlet.com/sara_gladson/on9q07ssaeq5
https://padlet.com/sara_gladson/7goyveo1l3p9
Hi Sara,
I love seeing what you’re doing with Padlet as I hadn’t seen it used as much with older students but it’s so versatile!
You might have figured it out already (I’m just catching up on comments!) but I think you can change your layout pretty easily. A grid might be a good solution? These instructions might help https://padlet.com/support/formats
An online tool that is used in our district is Schoology. This is a great way to connect with other teachers as well as your students. Each week, I post different assignments on Schoology for my students to access on their iPads. I also use it to post quizzes and tests. The homepage of Schoology reminds me of Facebook so it is very easy to navigate. Even the children were able to sign in and find their task independently.
You also have the option to make groups so that you can add more than one class, for those who have multiple classes. Students can comment or add additional posts within the group. For example, you could create a reading group where students can discuss different books that they are reading in English class.
I have enjoyed using it and students can access it at home to show their parents what they have been working on at school.
Hi Sara,
Thanks for explaining how Schoology works. I had heard a lot about it but didn’t really know how it works. It sounds great!
I consider myself an expert now. I have collected most of my favourite webtools in my peartrees
http://www.pearltrees.com/italianteacher
Pearltrees enables me to collect what I like and to share it online.
I can then have access to my favourite tools simply by writing this link.
Among the tools that I love there are so many.
For creating video and presentations on YOUTUBE I use https://screencast-o-matic.com/. It is free. You can also choose to save the file as a video file.
I love also GOOGLE APPS as I can create documents and collaborate online.
I didn’t know this one. I already registered. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Tiziana. This is a great collections of tools!
Thanks.
I have had great educators who have helped me. As I said there are plenty of tools but relying on my favourite ones and what I have bookmarked is great!
The ones I have used so far are Quizlet, Padlet, and Slideshare. I’ve used the first one to make vocabulary review games in English; I’ve used Padlet to share students literature projects like book trailers, book reviews or posters, and the last one to upload PPT presentations like this one that I made to teach my students how to register in an online platform: http://humanidadescuan.edublogs.org/2018/02/22/guia-de-registro-plataforma-de-ingles/. Today I’ve discovered Google Slides, but I don’t know if it can be used in a free Edublogs account. I think it has a good design.
Ardora is a downloadable program that allows us to design activities in HTML pages. You design it and students access to it by a link published on your blog. It’s been useful for me.
Hi Derly,
You’re right– you won’t be able to embed Google Slides in your post, however, you can link to it. This list shows you some of the things you can embed with a URL (Slideshare is one of them as you probably know) http://help.edublogs.org/embedding-with-a-url/
I’ve never tried Quizlet but I’ve heard lots of people talking about it during the course. I’ll have to have a play!
I’ve also never heard of Ardora. Sounds handy!
Hi Kathleen,
I have just been working through the best way to share a PowerPoint for a conference presentation. This resource doc should be very helpful. Thank You!
Kae C
Oh great! Slideshare is a really popular way that people share their PowerPoints. Good luck with your conference!
Here is the link to my Week 7 Task: “How to Embed an RSS Feed Into Your Blog
https://artgoldberg.edublogs.org/2018/03/09/how-to-insert-an-rss-feed-into-your-blog/
Nice work. Great video you made to accompany the post too, Art!
I love using Storybird with students, because they adore creating stories using pictures. I’ve also used Voki (especially for Literacy, with students writing and/or recording vocabulary words) and it’s one of my favourite tools to use.
Hey Stef, is Voki still free? I thought I saw you can’t embed the free ones? My students used to love it too (back in the day!).
Hello all!
Have been working on an educational conference presentation , I am doing next week. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to create a post to share my resources. So I explored some online tools,and embedded a resource document. I then explored ways to share a powerpoint presentation and selected slideshare, uploaded and used the embed code in my post.
I am very pleased with my results. Lots of firsts for me on this one! ( including the conference presentation) Wish me luck!
http://cunningham71.edublogs.org/2018/03/13/personal-finance/
Kae C
Nice work, Kae! I hope you’ll let us know how the conference goes. I’m sure you’ll love it and probably start wanting to do more conferences! Good luck. 🙂
I am following all the steps in this post to embed the link but it doesn’t show up the same on mine when following the steps.
Lisa Meyer
Wow, looks very nice.
Hi Kathleen,
The online tool I have used the most with my blog is ‘explain everything’. The students use the app to access the tool. It’s terrific for allowing the children to explain their learning. We then upload as a video.
Cheers,
Kirsty
PS I don’t have a link to a post because my blog now has password.
Hi, I am excited that I was able to create a Padlet account and create a bulletin board with all of my favorite blogs. Now, the task at hand is to figure out if I can or how I can embed it into my blog?
Lisa Meyer
Hi Lisa,
If your blog is a free one, unfortunately you won’t be able to embed it! You’ll just be able to add the link.
Let me know if you need more help.
I have had fun using Wordle in the past. Wordle is a free online tool that can be used to create word clouds. Text can be typed or copied and pasted straight into the word cloud generator. Word clouds can then be edited in terms of text colour and the outer shape of the cloud. Words that are repeated the most appear the largest. In the past I’ve created individual word clouds for students with adjective describing their personalities and strengths. I’ve had some technical difficulties at home this evening, hoping it’s my computer or the internet, rather than Wordle no longer working.
http://www.wordle.net/
Brittany
Hi Brittany,
Wordle is an oldie but a goodie, for sure! It’s working for me so maybe it was down for a bit or maybe just your computer. 🙂
Dear Kathleen,
Glad to hear Wordle is still working for you. It has occurred to me that I should probably branch out and try some new web tools, too. 🙂
Yes, I have been having a number of computer and internet issues this evening. Probably not the best evening to try to catch up on my blogging homework. If you have a chance, can you please let me know if I’m up to date on my tasks? I believe that I am, but would be sad if I have accidentally missed something. Thank you so much.
Hi Brittany,
I just checked and you’re up to date. Well done! I’m just putting the finishing touches on our week 10 task which I’ll publish tomorrow night. 🙂
Dear Kathleen,
Thank you so much for responding to my comment and letting me know where I was up to. Glad I didn’t miss anything. I’ve just finished my last task. Thank you so much for your time and effort in facilitating the course. Happy blogging! 😊
For this task, I attempted to connect my edublog to my edufolio. I don’t think I have managed this yet, but do have a blog page on my edufolio. Any advice is much appreciated!
Hello everybody,
One of the websites that have been a hit in my classroom is eslgamesworld.com. It is great to use as an additional tool to introduce, review, and reinforce concepts, especially grammar topics.
Let me know your experiences. You can also check additional tools on my blog at http://teachb1.edublogs.org/2018/03/29/useful-esl-websites/
Sheryl
Hi Sheryl,
Thanks for sharing this link! I’ll have to check out the sites you mentioned in your post 🙂
Hi everyone, my favourite online tools at the moment are
-FlipGrid https://info.flipgrid.com/
We use this to reflect on our learning. The students have also made videos to demonstrate how to do an addition strategy. We hope to embed some of these videos on our Blog to teach other students the strategy.
I also like using sqworl https://sqworl.com/ to bookmark sites for easy access for children. I encourage children to use sqworl at home as a ‘flipped classroom’ approach. I have place my relevant sqworl links on our Blog.
Hi Helen,
I used to love using Sqworl with my students so they could easily access sites both at school and home.
Flipgrid looks fabulous! I’m not sure if I already shared this great post Linda Yollis published recently. Her students used Flipgrid for their idiom topic. It worked really well! http://yollisclassblog.blogspot.com.au/2018/03/flipgrid-idioms.html
I use Protopage.com in my classroom. (http://www.protopage.com/). It helps speed up the time it takes the little one and the older ones in the login process and it’s free!
Susan Adams
I have used mentimeter https://www.mentimeter.com/ in the classroom. It is an interactive application tool that you do not need to download, participants access your poll/question with a code.
I used the snipping tool to capture the word clouds of student responses and included as images in the blog.
http://missaclay.edublogs.org/2017/09/28/where-did-the-time-go/
Hi Heather, I hadn’t heard of mentimeter before. It sounds handy!