One of the best ways for students to engage in content is to be hands on in the learning process. Spark Video is an app that kids can use to create their own instructional videos.
Part of Adobe’s Spark platform, the program comes with ready-made templates, images, and sounds. Students can create their own narrated video, which can reinforce the learning they have done throughout the year.
Buncee is a multimedia display tool that allows students to easily create displays and narrate them through recordings.
Students can choose from the premade templated or upload their own. They can either create a presentation with all their own materials or use any of Buncee's graphics. This is also a useful and engaging tool for younger students who might find programs like Powerpoint to be overwhelming.
Canva opens a world of creative possiblities in the classroom to help enhance the learning process. Students can create posters, presentations, and documents with the ease.
Canva has tons of images, icons, and templates that can inspire students to work on any kind of graphic design they desire. It will allow students to channel their creativity into their classwork to help develop more thoughtful, fun assignments.
Easel Assessments allows teachers to create and assign self-grading quizzes, and track student performance.
You can use Easel Assessments for things like do nows, exit tickets, or quick checks to gauge understanding in the middle of a lesson. Easel allows you work through the TPT website to post activities directly from their catalog. You can also download and edit the activities before you upload. Activites can be shared directly to a google classroom page.
Edpuzzles allow for any video to be turned into a lesson.
Edpuzzles are interactive, and can be as long as 15 minutes and as short as 3 minutes. Edpuzzle videos will pause for students to answer short answer or multiple choice questions based on the lesson. You can access other people premade Edpuzzles, or create your own. While students are completing the Edpuzzle, teachers can track progress and provide feedback. Students are able to read and listen to the material, and have the ability to review and rewatch any section. Edpuzzle can act as a small activity, test prep, or an assessment in and of itself.
Edulastic is an online assessment tool.
It allows for teachers to make their own quizzes, tests, and formative assessments, or access premade ones. You can connect your account to Google Classroom for easy transitions. There are both diagnostic and curriculum aligned assessments. Lessons can be completed in class at a teacher pace, or individually at a student pace. Class content can be embedded with articles, links, and videos. Assessment data is broken down in real-time.
Epic! is a website that provides a huge library of books and videos for students to read.
Teachers can assign books, or allow for students to pick out their own texts to reads. Books can be assigned as a class activity, or individually. Many young students get excited about Epic! because they can read things they are interested in. There is plenty of freedom that comes with Epic! as students are given a sense of autonomy to choose their own adventure.
Fan.School (formerly known as Kidblog) made it fun by allowing kids to create their own journal-like entries in a safe space.
Even in the digital world, writing skills are still key to success for any student. However, not everyone enjoys longer pieces of writing. Nothing that goes up on the site is made public unless the teacher approves it. Students can also add photos, videos, or audio to their post by uploading their own clip or using one of the premade selections.
Flipgrid is a video discussion and sharing app.
It allows students to record videos of themselves that they can upload and share with their classmates. Teachers can pose questions that the students respond to via video. This allows students to respond to questions that vary in levels of understanding. This increases collaboration, communication, and is a fun alternative to basic class posting/discussion boards. It allows students to work in small groups, or share with the whole class. This application will help those students who thrive of oral responses a chance to do something other than write or type an answer.
Hypothesis is a free Google Chrome extension that allows students to annotate any page on the internet.
Hypothesis is a collaborative resource that allows teachers and students to interact with one another on the same texts. Teachers are able to post materials where students can collaborate in discussions with one another directly on the document. I would also recommend using Hypothesis to grade annotations and measure student understanding.
Khan Academy is a set of online tools used to help educate students across a variety of topics.
Khan Academy is it is personalized based on each student and their responses. If a student is excelling in a section of reading comprehension it will provide them more difficult, in-depth questions based on that area. The website will detect a students strength and weaknesses.
Khan Academy has premade lessons that can be used, or you can use this websites videos and activities to support your own teaching. This would be good to use in class for a quick do now lesson, it can act as its own lesson, or can be a great review tool.
The goal of Learn Around the World is to use technology to connect students and educators globally.
They have events and collaborative projects where students can work with people in different countries, and virtual field trips. LATW also has guest speakers and private events that teachers can take advantage of. Imagine speaking with someone who lives in Buenos Aires while learning about Argentina. Your students can ask questions and use their curiosity to spur discussion.
Mendeley is a program designed to aid students in writing research papers.
It lets students organize citations and notes, annotate PDFs, search for journal articles, and keep all work in one place. It helps students simplify their reference management workflow so they can focus on achieving their goals.
Mendeley is a great addition to your classroom because it offers many great features which include automatically generating bibliographies, and collaborating easily with other researchers online. Students can easily import papers from other research software and find relevant papers based on what they're reading.
Padlet is another collaboration tool that teachers can use.
Students can create a variety of presentations, infographs, message boards and timelines with Padlets colorful templates. This could be used as a fun project or a way to create an engaging review site. Students are able to use all of the features available with Padlet, or upload their own materials. Students can interact with and comment on each others Padlets. Teachers can monitor all interactions that students have. This tool can be used for any subject or grade level.
Pear Deck allows teachers to make lessons interactive so every student can actively participate, whether instruction is synchronous or asynchronous.
Peardeck slides can be used for the whole class at a teacher-led pace, or students can work independently at their own pace. These slides are interactive, and ask multiple choice and short answer questions. This can also be linked directly to Google Slides to make them all the more accessible to students at anytime, even through their Google Classroom page.
Perusall is a digital e-reader combined with collaborative annotation tools.
The app allows for a class to act as an online community by giving every student the opportunity to view their classmates work all at the same time. Students can respond to each others comments and ideas to work together on assignments. Perusall allows teachers to make a private section for their class. They can then upload any content such as pictures, articles, e-books, videos, or links to other sources. Students can view the content at their own pace, leaving questions, comments, and concerns along the way for the teacher and all of their classmates to see. Teachers can create smaller sections within the class, which can help to encourage group work. Teachers can also create assignments with specific due dates, or embed questions and thoughts within the reading for students to see and respond to. Perusall can be used for any assignment, but might be most beneficial for a longer or more complicated passage.
Popplet is a mind-mapping and brainstorming tool for students.
You can use this tool to guide assignments, encouraging students to create mind maps for their projects, or create a classroom-guided brainstorm to explore new ideas. This tool is also used in group projects to help students creatively come up with solutions to problems. It teaches the concept of brainstorming and has a useful option to save your ideas for later.
Quizlet is a classic study tool for students.
With Quizlet, students can create digital flashcards. Students can learn through multiple choice and written sections. This allows for students to make a game out of review. After a Quizlet is made, it can be shared with friends! Students also have the option of using already existing Quizelts online to help expand their learning.
Renzulli Learning is an online program that allows students to be matched based on their learning styles, modes of expression, and interests.
Students will take diagnostic activities to help develop their talent profile. It is meant to help students recognize their strengths and learning styles. The teacher can use these profiles to group together based on ability, or create effective matchers for students to work together. These resources also allow students to pursue advanced training in their strengths and areas of personal interest. The teachers will have immediate access and oversight to all the students' profiles, time spent on activities, and websites visited by the students.
This creative, learning portfolio system enhances communication between teachers, parents, and administrators.
With a variety of activities to choose from, teachers can select an assignment or create their own. Once students have completed the task, they can add their work to their personal portfolio, which can be shared with mom and dad. One of the best features of this app is the lack of paperwork for teachers. Students have the option to express their creativity in a variety of ways and can work in school and at home.
Socrative is an online platform designed to enhance student and teacher digital communications.
The idea is to take quizzing online, for remote learning and for a paper-free classroom. This also makes the feedback and marking near instant, which saves teacher time while also making progress faster for learning. Teachers can use Socrative for a class-wide quiz, or break up the class into groups. Individual quizzes are also an option, allowing teachers to work as they need for that subject. Teachers are able to create quizzes with multiple choice answers, true or false responses, or one sentence answers, all of which can be graded with feedback for each student.
Sutori lets anyone arrange information into an engaging, interactive format for storytelling.
It’s a more intuitive way to illustrate the relationships between concepts than a slidedeck. Teachers can use pre-made stories in their lesson plans or they can create their own stories in a snap to use as teaching tools or study aids. Stories can even be assigned as projects or homework, which could be a welcome alternative to an essay assignment.
Tiki-Toki is great for developing timelines.
Students can customize events and choose different formats to explore their ideas. They can provide as much information as they need to fully explain a topic. This tool is ideal for both classroom-led activities and solo work. There are option to work with different dates and styles to make the timeline personalized and as informative as possible.
Twitter is a free social media app.
Teachers can create a classroom or team twitter account to post daily homework, pictures from field trips, and to share what’s going on in the classroom. Students can make free accounts as well to connect with the readings they are doing, follow literary magazines, and it can even be used instead of a worksheet. Many students already have Twitter, which can make it easy to get started with. This makes it easier for parents to see what is going in the class, and kids can easily access this from home.
Through the Venngage app, students can create their own infographics to present information, data, or knowledge.
It was developed to be a straightforward and easy way to introduce data set discovery. Venngage can assist students in the learning process by bringing statistics to life. Rather than create the presentation from scratch, Venngage comes equipped with templates to guide the process and help students create a visually appealing addition to their work. Students can use the pre existing templates or upload their own content.