My Favorite Websites/Apps Used Daily in my Classroom
Google Drive has to be my number one favorite resource to use in my classes, hands down. The ability to allow kids to share resources with me and vice-versa across any platform is a blessing. The amount of cloud storage space is also lovely. I highly encourage all of my students to have a google drive account (it is mandatory for my debate/forensics students). It is easier to share information through class folders that students have access to, if I am slow to post anything to edmodo or to this very website.
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If G-Drive is number one, Google Classroom wins number two by a landslide. Signing up for Classroom is mandatory for all of my students for the following reasons:
1. It is how we maintain our weekly course calendar including readings, tests/quizzes, and assignments. 2. It is the easiest form of communication with all of my students when they cannot catch me after class/after school. 3. It allows for small group collaboration and or study groups that I can monitor. |
Diigo is something I recommend to my students be it my Extempers (in forensics) or students who are working on research papers. It offers a cloud-based bookmarking service that allows you to organize your websites through tagging.
My favorite feature is the Chrome Add-In that allows you to highlight and/or annotate articles. These annotations will show up on any computer where you have the plugin installed. This is a joy since I am on multiple computers throughout the day in my building, I can track whatever I have looked at on any machine. |
I have maintained a personal twitter account for years. For the first time, this past semester (fall 13), my students found my personal account and began tweeting at me.
Sometimes the dialogues are random, where we just say stupid things to each other. This is nice, because it helps foster somewhat of a personal relationship with students, which seemed to make them buy in a little more, or be more engaged. Many students Tweeted at me, or sent me messages while working on assignments. They enjoyed the PMs as a method of backchannel communication during lectures more-so than Edmodo, as this is a means of communication that they are used to. |
Apps for Your Phone/Tablet
Build the best democracy that money can buy in this innovative political idle game!Enlist the help of lobbies in order to raise money for your political campaigns. However, lobbies won’t be enough to get you to the top by themselves. Recruit staffers to help generate revenue and woo endorsements from top politicians for unique and powerful bonuses.Tap your way from a lowly campaign volunteer up to the highest office in the land!
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Show of Hands is a smart and fun community polling platform for people who love burning questions! Answer new questions daily and see instant, real-time, anonymous results from fellow brilliant minds around the country. This information is broken down by age, religion, income, and more! (You can just think of us as your national level town hall.)We're currently ramping up for election 2016 with polls surrounding politics and the issues our candidates are talking about. Come share your anonymous thoughts-- election 2016 is just around the corner! If you're not into politics, we have plenty of polls about other topics-- sandwiches, murder, puppies, relationships, the NBA Finals, and more! (What- we have a lot of interests!)
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Other Resources
Tools for Creating Audio/Videos1. Youtube-Create (https://www.youtube.com/create)
Instead of giving you links to several video websites, this is a good list of websites that are user friendly, and easily upload to youtube. 2. Weavly (http://weavly.com/) This is a good website that I have recently started playing with. If you are looking to make some kind of mix/remix of audio or video, Weavly allows you to plug video/audio from youtube and a few other websites into a matrix for editing and exporting. It is good, and its still in beta testing, so I expect it to continually approve. 3. YTD Downloader(http://www.youtubedownloadersite.com/) If you have your own software that you prefer to use for editing/manipulating videos, the YTD downloader allows you to download youtube videos to your computer for your own manipulation. 4. Go!Animate (http://goanimate.com/) I also like this website for its ease to create some quick animation for whatever your needs are. |
Spaces to Organize and/or CollaborateThese are some websites that I have played with in various capacities, that are tools you can use for yourself or to share with others:
1. Edcanvas (http://www.edcanvas.com) Edcanvas is a pretty cool tool that allows you to place materials in any organizational pattern for any purpose (creating a webquest, a mixed media lesson plan etc.) These can be kept private to you, or shared with the world. 2. Padlet (https://padlet.com/) This is literally an online cork board, where you can brainstorm/question anything. You can keep posts anonymous, or you can own up. Word walls, discussions, questions galore! |