MORE+Cool+Tools

=More Cool Tools....= (and even MORE Cool Tools in Alphabetic Order from the IRA's Technology in Literacy Special Interest Group - TILE-SIG)

Cool Tools for Schools One of the most exhaustive lists of tools out there. [|Prezi] Prezi is a very cool online presentation tool that is a fabulous alternative to PowerPoint. Information is presented in an interactive engaging manner.

[|Weebly] This is a GREAT free Website building Tool. Literally drag and drop! A blog comes with every site! YOU will love it!

[|Voki] Voki is a free service that allows teachers and students to create personalized speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile, and in email messages. Let your avatar explain what you learned in your inquiry process.

[|Independent Lens: Off the Chart Web Karaoke] This tool is a easy as 1..2..3. Listen to a sample song. Compose your own poem or lyrics that represent what you learned in your inquiry process. Perform your song to ready made music.

[|Toondoo] Toondoo is a cool, comic-creating tool from Jambav, a fun site for teachers and students. Jambav is devoted to creating a unique array of free and customizable online games of educational value for children of all abilities. Represent what you learned in your inquiry process through a comic strip.

Wordle [|www.wordle.net] Wordle enables you to create artwork from words, its wondrous properties also allow you to identify key words within a written passage and analyze content. There are unexpected ways to make use of word clouds, classroom teachers already have stepped out in front by identifying all kinds of applications for the classroom that encompass everything from assessment to test review to storytelling.

Penzu [] Penzu is a free web-based private journal and diary. According to the Penzu, studies have shown that keeping a journal can not only boost your “working memory” but your grades too. One of the best things about Penzu is that it's incredibly easy to use. Whatever you write is saved automatically and you can insert images if you like. You can keep your entries private or share them with others. Penzu can easily be used for class writing projects or students can access the program for keeping their own personal notes.

TEXT2MINDMAP [|http://www.text2mindmap.com] This online program automatically converts a student's structured list of ideas, items or sentences into a mind map on the web. The student can then freeze the map and move the pieces around on the screen. The final product is printable, or it can be saved and shared with others.

Trailfire [] Trailfire is a Web tool that allows users to save a series of Web pages about some topic. The pages can be annotated with notes or questions, and the trail link can be shared with other users or students for their perusal. This is an easy way for teachers and students to cull a cohesive set of resources about some topic much like you would do for a Webquest activity.

VoiceThread [|http://voicethread.com] VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish.

Glogster [|www.glogster.com] Glogster is an exciting poster-creation tool that provides a platform for students to combine text, images, video, and audio to create an interactive, Web-based poster masterpiece. It introduces students to 3-D communication skills, requiring them to merge the left and right sides of the brain as they seek to communicate and evaluate both information and meaning. The visual, audio, and textual capacity of Glogster not only will appeal to digital learners, it has the potential to support the visual literacy skills that are becoming essential skill sets for 21st century learners.

Letterpop [] Letterpop can be used to create eye-popping newsletters, actionable presentations, irresistible invitations, beautiful product features, sizzling event summaries, informative club updates, lovely picture collages, etc. It is a service that allows you to easily create online newsletters with text and images and several pages. It offers a free plan with which you can publish up to 10 newsletters. When you’ve created a new one, you can update up to 25 contacts with up to 10 emails per year. Newsletters will be available through online profiles and RSS.

iCUE [] Students and learners of all levels can interact with content via games, challenges, interactive activities, and quizzes all while being connected to a community of friends and learners engaged in discussions around academics, current events and important issues.

Photo Story [|www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx] Bring digital photos to life with Photo Story 3 for Windows. Teachers can download Photo Story 3 for free. Teachers and students can make show-and-tell fun again as they create slideshows using your digital photos. With a single click, you can touch-up, crop, or rotate pictures.

Delicious [] Social bookmarking sites allow students to research issues/topics, and share information. Students can access the bookmarks from any computer, share sites with groups, organize sites by topic. Also includes RSS feeds so students can sign up to receive information on any topic of interest.

Plantation Letters [] This website displays letters from people living the antebellum plantation life. This site shows social studies teachers how they can use web 2.0 tools to help students analyze primary source documents.

Google Maps [] Google Maps allow students to create and personalize maps. Basic functions include adding multiple placemarks, and descriptive text to a map. Images/photographs can be added to any map, but the photos must be online (Flickr). Students may place hyperlinks in the descriptive text boxes to link the map to additional information/web sites if so desired.

Audacity [|www.audacity.com] Audacity open source, free, cross-platform sound editing system that records music, voices, or any other necessary sound for presentation. Students can use Audacity to incorporate sound into podcasting, powerpoint, or moviemaker. Audacity is great for beginning podcasters.

Slideshare [|www.slideshare.net] This site allows students to upload a PowerPoint presentation, with an audio file included if the student has included an MP3/podcast. Students can upload and share their presentations with small groups or with the class.

Scrapblog [|www.scrapblog.com/] Scrapblog allows you to create a scrapbook using your own photos, audio, videos, and text. Scrapblog is very user friendly and would be great in the classroom because it will be simple for the kids to use and it is free!

FreeRice [|www.freerice.com] FreeRice is a vocabulary-focused site with a philanthropic side. Students and visitors go through multiple-choice vocabulary questions which get increasingly harder as they answer correctly. As the students answer correctly, rice is provided for Third World Nations through the United Nations World Food program.

Great Book Stories [] This is a collaborative wiki space for K-20 students and educators wanting to listen and see a great digital story about a book, and to create and safely share stories about great books with a global audience and receive feedback.

Webspiration [] Webspiration is the online version of Inspiration, the visual thinking tool that helps you capture ideas, organize information, and diagram processes whether working individually or collaboratively. It is currently in a free beta-version, but will eventually have a subscription fee.

The Geometer's Sketchpad http://www.dynamicgeometry.com/Instructor_Resources/Evaluation_Edition.html 

[|Stixty] Stixy is an online tool that helps users organize their world on flexible, shareable Web-based bulletin boards called Stixyboards. Users can create tasks, appointments, files, photos, notes, and bookmarks on their Stixyboards, organized in whatever way makes sense to them. Then they can share Stixyboards with classmates, friends, and family.

[|Creatly] Creatly is an online tool that provides a "visual collaboration platform" allowing users to create interactive diagrams. Several templates are available for educators and students to modify in order to meet the needs of a lesson. Original diagrams can also be created by educators and their students. Creatly allows users to share and collaborate on graphic organizers through easy publishing and post-it style comments.

[|YoLink] Yolink is a useful search engine that scans webpages, searches search results, ebooks, and other online information to reduce the time and effort involved with finding information online. After locating and organizing your search results, Yolink will place your search result in Google docs or your preferred networking site. This is a powerful tool to use in the classroom. Yolink allows students to become more efficient online researchers.

[|MixBook] Mixbook allows individuals to create books together using photos. Great collaborative tool for "publishing" books at the elementary level and posting the resulting book on a class blog.

Bounce The folks at ZURB have just released [|Bounce], a nice little tool which lets you take notes on websites and then share the URL with friends or colleagues. Bounce is basically a dressed down version of [|Notable], ZURB's full featured website feedback tool for teams. The user interface for Bounce is dead simple. Just input the the URL you want to take notes on and in a few seconds Bounce will deliver a screenshot of the URL. Here you can take as many notes as you wish, input your name (which Bounce uses to label the screenshot with your notes) and press save. A public URL is then served which you can email or post to Twitter and Facebook. As you scroll over the boxes you drew on the screenshot, your notes will appear. Bounce is free to use, no registration required -- and with no software to download or steep learning curve, it makes for a great little tool for development teams to get contextual feedback on their web projects.