Tools

Tools for Teachers

(and for Students in some cases) 



Tool selection criteria:

  • Tools must have a learning curve which matches the utility of the tool.

  • Tools need to do something better (more efficiently or more effectively) than we can do without the tool.

  • Tools may bridge or enhance access to technological tools or resources which is especially important with young learners who may have a wide range of reading and language abilities.




Audio Tools

These are helpful for non-readers, almost readers, and those learning English.

 





Voki

http://www.voki.com


Easy to create speaking avatars.


strengths: easy to create, engaging, support for almost readers and others

challenges: advertising, can be distracting


Vocaroo

http://www.vocaroo.com

Easy audio clips

Strengths: easy!

Challenges: quality of audio is a little "rough"



Read the Words 

 http://www.readthewords.com/

paste words and they are read


Strengths: easy to use, works with any words

Challenges: takes more than one step, there are ads, but they are mostly text...


Readability

Simplify reading the web...

http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/  


BEFORE:                                                                                                        AFTER:


Image Tools and Sources 


Safer Resources for Images (always adults first)

http://kitzu.com
http://www.pics4learning.com/
http://epod.usra.edu/ (earth science)

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day (Nat. Geo)

http://www.americanheritage.com/picture/ (historical images)

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/ (news pictures)
http://www.w3streams.com/ (a collection)

Flickr and its associated Tools

Flickr: http://www.Flickr.com

Tools which use Flickr
Image Coder for codes of CC images: http://www.imagecodr.org/
Search Flickr by Color: http://labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr
Make Words with Flickr letters: http://metaatem.net/words
Make cool online picture shows: http://splashr.com/

Generator Tools:

Play with Letters - Add Letters (to signs, shirts etc...):http://www.addletters.com/index.php
Add words and messages to images: http://www.imagechef.com/

Online Picture Editing

PicNik: http://www.picnik.com

Screen Capture Software

Screenhunter: http://www.wisdom-soft.com/sh/sh_free.htm (windows only)
Jing: http://www.jingproject.com/ Screen Capture (video and image)

Multimedia

www.teachertube.com
www.youtube.com
LIVE African Safaris (DAILY): http://www.wildearth.tv


Mind Mapping

Bubbl.us www.Bubbl.us
Webspiration http://www.mywebspiration.com/

Media Converters

http://zamzar.com/
http://mediaconverter.org

 



A Few Additional Tools 

Glogster

http://edu.glogster.com

the EDU part is IMPORTANT
makes multimedia "posters" (websites) 


Wordle 

http://www.wordle.net/


can be used for ideas, vocabulary, self-reflection, character traits, settings, etc...


Micropoll

http://www.micropoll.com 

Almost instant online polling... simple, quick!


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