Vocabulary Spelling City

Is dedicated to helping students, teachers, parent-teachers, and school systems. Is an award-winning site with ongoing introduction of new features, many based on input from existing users.

Fatures:

• A REAL person who says each word and sentence
• Free home pages for teachers and parents to save lists
• Teacher training videos
• Free printable handwriting worksheets
• Free teaching resources with lists and lesson plans
• Twenty-five games to play online or to print such as:
• Alphabetical Order, Unscramble, Parts of Speech, HangMouse, Crossword Puzzle, WordSearch, and Vocabulary Test.
• A free forum and newsletters
  
  

Teachers: We have Parent Letters available as a PDF for you to print and send home with your students’ spelling word lists.

Voki

What is Voki?

Voki is a FREE service that lets you:

• Create customized avatars.
• Add voice to your Voki avatars.
• Post your Voki to any blog, website, or profile.
• Take advantage of Voki's learning resources.

What is Voki Classroom?

A classroom management system for Voki

• Students do not need to sign up!
• Add and manage your Classes & Students!
• Lesson pages automatically created!
• Customized appearance & instructions!
• Get unlimited email support!

Benefits:
-Speaking
-Characters for education
-Engage students to introduce technology
-Enhance language
-Great for homework

Linkedin

LinkedIn is the social network for business. Use it wisely to make powerful networking contacts.

Benefits:

-Easy setup
-Reach a specific audience
-Learn how to use it:
 -Get and receive advice
-Find collaborators
-Learn about your industry
-Recruit staff

Features:

• Building a network of connections with no limits on size or numbers
• Reconnecting with any member of the LinkedIn network, provided that he knows you and agrees to connect to you
• Creating a professional and detailed LinkedIn profile
• Giving and receiving an unlimited number of recommendations
• Joining or creating up to 50 different LinkedIn Groups
• Requesting up to five introductions at one time (after someone accepts an introduction, you can request a new introduction in its place)
• Performing an unlimited number of searches for LinkedIn members in your extended network.

Edmodo

The safest and easiest way for educators to connect and collaborate with students, parents, and each other.

• Create a blended learning classroom
• Join global learning communities
• Discover and share valuable resources
  
  
  Benefits:
  Edmodo does not require private information from students. Students join Edmodo at the invitation of their teachers using a unique code the teacher generates within their Edmodo account.
  Once invited to join Edmodo, students can only access groups to which they have been invited by their teachers.
  Students cannot be “friended” or contacted by anyone outside of their Edmodo group.
  Students in Edmodo can post messages to their teachers, or to their entire Edmodo group, but students cannot send private messages to each other.
  Teachers maintain full control of their Edmodo groups and can delete posts, monitor all activity, review student posts before they go live, and even set individual students or groups of students to “read-only” access.

Assignments: Are created by teachers and distributed to their students using the assignment post feature. Teachers can title their assignments, identify a due date, associate a description or prompt, and include attachments from the web, computer or Edmodo library.

Quizzes:  Quiz features include the ability for teachers to create quizzes, edit and load previously created quizzes, provide a quiz description, set the time limit for a quiz, and preview a quiz before sending it to their students (group).

Planner:  Enables teachers to manage personal and group-based events and tasks. By creating an event or task, teachers can help students keep track of upcoming assignments, events, projects, school activities, professional obligations, and more.

Pixton

Create comics quickly and easily with this free site! Choose starting scenes, add new frames, change characters and add text. At this site, students can create, share, and "remix" comics. The "remix" link allows students to add their own twist to ready-made comics. Students can read comics created by others and also make comments on them. Other highlights of the site include a featured author and blog. The free version of Pixton is open to the public. There is also a fee-based version for schools (with teacher and student registration levels and safety tools) with a 30-day free trial period available. Be aware: the Pixton for Schools (if continued after 30-days) will cost $1 per student.

Pros:

-Colorful, expressive, creative

-People oriented

-Wide emotional range; preset expressions

-Wide range of increasingly realistic characters which can be easily modified

-Props are numerous and keep increasing

-Can use templates or start from scratch

-Can remix comics to create new ones

-Can easily create series

Pedagogical applications:

Pixton allows students to apply content knowledge and generate new forms of analysis. Students can imagine new scenarios for historical characters, recreate past events visually, and interpret primary sources through a comic strip. It helps foster creative thinking in the classroom through the ability to create original characters, or to develop unique forms of historical analysis.

Foreign language classes - create stories in the English language and then have it translated to the foreign language by other students in the classroom and vice versa. Language Arts classes - use comics to write summaries of current events, respond to reading assignments, express problems, and create works of humor.

Storybird

    A platform for writers, readers, and artists of all ages.
Storybird lets anyone make visual stories in seconds. We curate artwork from illustrators and animators around the world and inspire writers of any age to turn those images into fresh stories.

Completely free!

Benefits: Storybird is a user-friendly Web 2.0 application that offers teachers in a digital classroom the opportunity to spark creativity and improve writing skills in students. Storybird uses templates and drag-and-drop graphics that even a 5-year-old can use. Many picture themes are presented by Storybird as a starting ground for the digital story. Storybird includes privacy settings. Storybird allows users to purchase a soft or hard cover book version of their digital story. Although Storybird seems to be built for younger students, some themes may lend themselves to older, more creative, students.

Pedagogical Applications:

Storybird is excellent for many writing assignments. It’s an engaging site that will help bring even the most hesitant writers out of their shell.

Storybird can also just be used to have students write on their own. The fact that the work can stay unpublished until it is finished allows it to be worked on over several class periods.

Pinterest

The visual bookmarking tool that helps you discover and save creative ideas.

Benefits:

Discovering new things

Inspiration

Sharing

Making contacts

Building a portfolio of things you like

Building a portfolio of your work (e.g. a photographer creating a board of their photos)

Pedagogical applications:

1. Locate amazing images for your lessons. Pinterest is a very visual resource, which is what makes it such a great place to look when you’re trying to find images for a lesson or a lecture. There are tons of material that is historical, contemporary, art historical, or just plain interesting to look through.

2. Have students pin project ideas. Pinterest can also be a great place to get students working. Teachers could have students pin ideas on a board that relate to a particular project they’ll be working on.

3. Use pinning as part of a lesson. Of course, pinning itself could also be an educational experience. Students could have to pin items that fit a certain set of criteria as part of a lesson.

Write about

A community where students engage in high-interest writing for an authentic audience and teachers help students grow through the entire writing process.

Features:

Teachers can sign up and participate in the Write About community for free. Up to 40 free student accounts can be created with up to 3 posts each. Unlimited posts can be added with a Classroom account for $4.95/month. Teachers with multiple classes can add up to 250 students with unlimited posts for $7.95/month.

Pedagogical applications:

Write About provides many images with writing prompts. Students can write their response and do an audio recording of it. Teachers can create virtual classrooms and provide individual written feedback to student writing. Student creations can be shared publicly or just with their classmates. Teachers can change prompts or upload their own photos.

Voicethread

VoiceThread is used by everyone from elementary students to top-ranked universities to corporate executives. It’s easy to learn and powerful enough for your most complex projects. The technology fades into the background, putting people and their ideas front and center.

Features:

Creating: Upload, share and discuss documents, presentations, images, audio files and videos. Over 50 different types of media can be used in a VoiceThread.

Commenting: Comment on VoiceThread slides using one of five powerful commenting options: microphone, webcam, text, phone, and audio-file upload.

Sharing: Keep a VoiceThread private, share it with specific people, or open it up to the entire world. Learn more about sharing VoiceThreads.

Pedagogical applications:

Improved social presence: Students find that the ability to see and hear their instructor and classmates improves the sense of social presence of others in the classroom.

Better understanding of nuance: Students are better able to understand the nuances of discussion when they can hear the tone in someone’s voice.

Student Projects: VoiceThreads are a great way for students to deliver projects and solicit feedback from others.

1. Use VoiceThread to feature video clips which students comment on. As the videos play, comments that have already been added appear at the appropriate time in the video; that is, if a student comments on something that is said in the video at, say, 2:35, then his or her comment appears at that moment.

2. In online courses, use VoiceThread to have students introduce themselves to one another.

3. Faculty members can also use VoiceThread to generate discussion pertaining to committee work or at conferences.

Today's Meet

TodaysMeet is the premier backchannel chat platform for classroom teachers and learners. Designed for teachers, TodaysMeet takes great care to respect the needs and privacy of students while giving educators the tools for success.

Students join fast, easy to start rooms with no registration, and can immediately start powerful conversations that augment the traditional classroom.

Benefits: 

 Todays Meet gets students chatting, using a 140-character limit and an easy-to-use interface. Is a backchannel which helps teachers conduct online discussions, while channeling the results onto one web page or an Interactive White Board. Students can get to Todays Meet with the click of a mouse, if the teacher provides a link on a classroom blog or classroom web site. Once there, students login to Todays Meet simply by typing their name and clicking Join. No accounts or passwords are needed for teachers or students to use Todays Meet. Ease of use is one of Todays Meet's best features. When students and teachers want to speak, they type in a short sentence or two and click Say.

Pedagogical applications for TEFL:

1. Have a conversation. Students can talk about anything in a TodaysMeet room, and often you’ll draw out the shyest, quietest students — the ones who would never raise their hand in class discussion.

2. Share links. Post the URL for a website you want everyone to visit. Links you post are clickable in TodaysMeet.

3. Ask questions. During a lecture, presentation or movie, if students are unclear about something, they can ask questions and get answers without interrupting.

Padlet

Padlet is a great platform for bookmarking and sharing digital content. A virtual wall where multiple users can post comments and media. For teaching and learning purposes, this can be useful to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing around particular topics for face-to-face, online activities or both. Padlet can also be used for activities that usually require butcher’s paper or sticky notes, except the virtual wall can immediately gather and store valuable ideas for future reference.

Tip: It is recommended that you sign-up for a free account so you can access extra features such as privacy settings and storage of your walls.

Padlet features :

-Is completely free

-Is very easy to use and has a user friendly interface

-Is web based and does not require any software installation

-It allows you to easily add notes, text, images, videos, and drawings to your wall

-You can also add word documents from computer to your Padlet wall

-Padlet provides a wide variety of layouts to choose from

-Padlet works across multiple devices including mobile phones

-Any Padlet wall you create can be embedded into your blog or website.

-It enhances collaborative work. Multiple people can post to the same wall at the same time.

-Any Padlet wall can be exported in a variety of formats including, PDF, image,CSV, or Excel.

Pedagogical applications:

-Padlet can be used to complement activities that require students to discuss ideas during or outside class time, bring their own point of view, share content and show how they work through problems. 

-The ability to capture, store and share this information in a variety of formats can help students reflect on the learning journey and provide academic staff with valuable qualitative information.

Socrative

Socrative empowers you to engage and assess your students as learning happens. Through the use of real-time questioning, result aggregation, and visualization, you have instant insight into levels of understanding so you can use class time to better collaborate and grow as a community of learners.

It is free and students do not need an account they just join a teacher's room.

Teachers login through their device and select an activity which controls the flow of questions and games. Students simply login with their device and interact real time with the content.

Quick and Easy Assessment

Student responses are visually represented for multiple choice, true/false and Short Answer questions. For pre-planned activities a teacher can view reports online as a google spreadsheet or as an emailed Excel file.

Benefits:
-Instant feedback: See student results in real time.
-Personalized content: Design assessments specifically for your students.
.Reports: Get the info you need in seconds.
-Compatibility: Engage with students on any device or browser.


Pedagogical applications for TEFL:

1. True or False Questions

2. Multiple Choice Questions

3. Short Response

4. Visual Data (Bar graphs and visual short responses)

5. Exit Ticket

6. Pre-Assessment

7. Post-Assessment

8. Create Short Quizzes

9. Upload Premade Quizzes

10. Reflection

11. Collect Background Knowledge

12. Quick Check for Understanding

13. Voting on best responses

Google Drive/Google forms

Google forms lets you run a survey or quickly create a team roster with a simple online form. Then check out the results, neatly organized in a spreadsheet.

Google Forms is a tool that is part of Google Drive for creating surveys, tests, or web input forms. Google forms allows anyone to create an easy to use web form, tie it to a spreadsheet where you can track results and post it on the web without having to know programming

It is free! Just having a Gmail Account.

Benefits:
-It works faster
-Access anywhere
-Collaborate better

Forms tips:
-Make long forms easier to fill out with page breaks.
-Let people edit their responses after submitting them.
-Pre-fill form ansewers in your survey before sending it out.
-Get better data by randomizing questions and answers.
Pedagogical applications for TEFL:- You can make  quizes with different difficulties.(multiple choice, write a paragraph, check boxes,etc.)- Make surveys for students to collecting information about them.- Close or exit ticket.