The TPACK video below gives more general information on thinking about incorporating technology tools in your classroom.
Tools are extensions of Technologic Literacy. The following tools are useful for my practice, and could be to yours, too!
Book Creator
Pros: user friendly, integrates writing and engaging technology, allows ownership in publishing written pieces, can be used for purposeful free write, can be used in “comic book mode”, has a cool guessing draw feature where you start to draw something and it autofills pre-made clipart images to pick from
Cons: Bells and whistles could be distracting to certain kids, privacy issues when books are actually published online, look of website caters to younger audience
Epic!
Pros: great for kids who are more engaged listening to books or have trouble with the decoding piece, FREE books, books in print available as well, can be sorted by reading level, kids earn rewards, whole class earns rewards, easy class code login, audio books could be used for read aloud
Cons: Parents have to purchase a membership in order to use it at home, smaller selection of higher level books, teachers who are against incorporating technology into the reading block
Google Keep
Pros: notes can be text, images, etc… can be put into Google Docs easily, can share notes to colleagues or peers, reminder feature
Cons: Difficult with longer notes, not many formatting options
Pros: (Teacher account) to communicate with colleagues outside your physical circle, follow content you’re interested in, exposure to limitless teachers, ability to share content with parents easily, account your students may follow professionally, allows you to be exposed to perspectives you may not be in person or within physical social circles
Cons: Privacy issues, too much content can be distracting, social aspect may interfere with productivity of user
Kahoot
Pros: Fun and engaging, easy to prep, user-friendly, premade assessments over multiple topics, share with coworkers, quick assessment, competitive,
Cons: focus can be taken away from the content and focused on speed instead, only 1 right answer, discouraging if students get behind, ranks students
Kiddle
Pros: websites that come up are kid-friendly, you can look up resources like webpages, images and videos, credible sources, inappropriate content does not show up
Cons: Kids have a lot of free-will searching freely, teachers should use with expectations and trust in their students
KidRex
Pros: Similar pros to Kiddle, slightly more broad results
Cons: Results aren’t as filtered as some teachers may prefer, research with anticipated student results, can’t search images or videos
KidzSearch
Pros: comprehensive results, more resources on the home page to pick from without researching, great tools in the sidebar, results are filtered for inappropriate searches
Cons: not quite as clean on the homepage, may be confusing or distracting to younger students or those tempted to get off-task
Padlet
Pros: great for later access with presentations/professional development, categorises information well, multiple templates to pick from, shareable link, all types of content can be uploaded
Cons: can be difficult to get the swing of, limited formats of organising content to the given themes beforehand
Popplet
Pros: user-friendly, color-codable, content can be as simple or complex as needed, presents well to a group
Cons: not super editable with content or text, login doesn’t sync with Google, images must be uploaded from computer instead of a search enging
Prodigy
Pros: Differentiated based on skills or standards, easy to see class progress, can be accessed at home, prizes make it motivating for kids, can be differentiated to specific students, allows for planning over time
Cons: didn’t align to my specific test-prep, no support for students getting wrong answers continually
Socrative
Pros: Easily accessed by the class with a teacher code, non-distracting screen for students, great opportunity to go over student’s answers as a class and reflect on them, you can include names or take them away
Cons: Seeing an entire class of short answers is not practical in a class of 20 students. This works better with smaller groups or very short responses.
Storyline Online
Pros: Great books read by famous people, quick videos
Cons: readers aren’t necessarily celebrities the students will be familiar with, more adults
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