Several web tools are available to enhance the educational experience for both teachers and students. Storybird allows students to create picture books, chapter books, and poetry with the help of professional artwork, thus stimulating their creativity and improving their language arts skills.
Keri Falcon's webtools to enhance instruction:
1. www.storybird.com
Storybird is a different kind of language arts tool that students love to use. Using storybird, students can create illustrations that will inspire them to write stories. Storybird is for all ages as well, you can create picture books, chapter books, poetry, etc. Storybird offers professional artwork to use to get rid of the "blank page" issue when writing. Students can use the artwork to jump start their creativity and create their writing. There is also a feedback option that allows their peers or teachers to leave feedback during their work process. Teachers and parents like storybird because it is a safe and private environment and collects no data from the students. Storybird is free to use and will actually help schools raise funding. There is an option to run a class or school fundraiser through storybird and get 30% of the proceeds back. (Contributed by Keri Falcon)
http://www.wordle.net/
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 your own desktop to use as you wish.
The Wordle web site does not charge anything for your unlimited use and enjoyment of the site. If you would like to give a small monetary gift to Wordle's developer and operator, Jonathan Feinberg, you may do so through Paypal. (Contributed by Shamani Langille)
https://goanimate.com/
$39/month or $299/year
The students can make professional animated movies. Students can add a character, swap a background, or start a scene just be dragging and dropping. Teachers have the option to moderate student videos before the videos become visible to the group. Teachers can approve or reject student created videos and comments. Student videos can't be published publicly, without teacher approval. Group management can be one on this website. Teachers could segment my students into classes and workgroups. The teacher can approve or reject student-created videos and comments. (Contributed by Shamani Langille)
2. www.voicethread.com
VoiceThread is a cloud application which means it can run inside your web browser and requires no software to download, install, or update. VoiceThread allows students to transform a collection of media, like images, videos, documents, and presentations, into a place for a conversation. The unique aspect is that the conversations are not live, so it leaves room for people to participate when they are able to but not miss out on conversation. You can make a VoiceThread private, share it with specific people, or make it completely public. Educators can use VoiceThread to extend and document classroom conversations, online tutoring, virtual class spaces, etc. For a single educator, a VoiceThread license costs $79 per year or $15 a month. VoiceThread offers customized pricing packages for whole school or district licenses as well. However, students can sign up for free accounts at VoiceThread using a valid email address and once added as a contact, they can be invited to the VoiceThreads that the educator creates. Students are able to comment an unlimited number of times. (Contributed by Keri Falcon)
Share My Lesson | Free Lesson Plans & Teacher Resources
sharemylesson.com
Share My Lesson is a destination for educators who dedicate their time and professional expertise to provide the best education for students everywhere.
Free lesson sharing, funded by the American Federation of Teachers, built by educators. Share My Lesson is committed to providing members high-quality and effective lessons and useful information to use in the classroom and for professional development. Sign up is free, using your first name and zipcode. Creative Commons licenses are issued and no private member is shared. (Contribution by Lori Diamond)
Tes Teach with Blendspace | Create & Find Free Multimedia ...
www.tes.com
Make learning fun with Tes Teach with Blendspace, the free and easy edtech tool teachers love for lessons, projects, presentations, and more. No planning needed.
Testeach is way to make your own lesson using a mix of online sources and your own content. The set up is very easy and is free. Start with your topic, enter it into the search box and testeach brings up videos, images and other related content from a large list of sources including Google, YouTube and Tes. Tes is a marketplace to help educators find free and paid teaching resources created by other teachers. Quizzes can easily be added to the lesson. Tes tracks comments and likes and more so teachers can evaluate student performance and engagement. Blendspace or testeach: https://www.tes.com/lessons (Contribution by Lori Diamond)
Fanfiction is a site that forms a community of writers who are excited to continue exploring stories that they love. For example, Harry Potter lovers can write additional parts of the story and take the storyline in completely new directions. Readers can read and comment on an author's contributions. (fanfiction.net) Contribution by Donna Evans.
Fanfiction is a free resource.
Student benefits
Students can be extremely encouraged by readers. The site seems to be very supportive and it provides a forum for students to share their imaginations and write about what they are passionate. It also provides for many hours of reading in different genre.
Educreations allows you to upload video lessons that you create yourself and to also browse and use video lessons created by other educators. (educreations.com) Contribution by Donna Evans.
Teacher benefits
Subtopic
Make a tutorial once that is available forever Having your videos available as well as those created by other instructors can be a real time saver. Teachers can also send pre-recorded videos of tutorials to students who are absent.
