Gooru functions as a sort of search engine for online lessons and learning materials. Its slick interface makes it very simple to find curated resources, like videos, interactive activities, digital textbooks, and websites. Most of the curated content centers around core academic subjects: math, language arts, social studies, and science. Teachers (or students) can organize resources into collections that are viewable for their classes or by other online viewers with the link to their collections. Students and teachers don't need a Gooru account to search the site or browse collections. They can search by subject area and drill down to specific lessons ("collections") within each topic. For teachers, collections within most courses also indicate which Common Core State Standards or Next Generation Science Standards align with the materials. While resources might originate from anywhere on the Web, Gooru users view them as they're embedded within the site's interface. With a free account, teachers can create collections for their students to view in a specific order, presumably giving purpose to an overall learning arc. The site is set up to allow easy transitions between video clips, digital textbook chapters, and websites, and all navigation takes place within the Gooru.
Wikispaces.com is a simple platform where teachers and kids can take these baby steps to online creation and collaboration. The user-friendly wiki site is great for grade-school children and powerful enough to accommodate tech-powered educators. The websites you'll create in Wikispaces are organized with hyperlinks and searchable tags. For this reason, they're a terrific choice for teachers to use with students. As kids author Web content in a safe environment, they'll discover how the Web is organized, filtered, and sorted. About seven minutes of video tutorials on Wikispaces.com’s help page will enable beginners to create and share their Web creations with an audience. Wikispaces asks for an email address when you create your account, but if a teacher creates the student accounts, no email is required. Creating a wiki is as easy as naming it and clicking Done. Inside a new wiki, you can edit your home page, add pages, or invite members to join your wiki. The edit button on each page reveals a few options. A menu of buttons lets you to insert pictures, create links to other pages, and more. If you save your changes often, you'll switch back and forth between the published page view and the editing view. Symbaloo is a free site that is used to compile websites into one location that is convenient. Each symbaloo allows you to create your own buttons for each website and use graphics from your computer or ones that are available. Teachers can use this to compile important sites for students or resources for themselves. The symbaloos can be made as a homepage or even can be embedded to a Moodle site. Pinterest is a “visual discovery tool” that lets users search for, upload, and collect images for later review, reflection, and inspiration. Users can collect individual images (pins) in collections called boards, and then share their boards publicly or save them for private use. The tablet and mobile apps for Pinterest offer the site's best features in an easy-to-use interface. Users can easily add pins from the Web, their own photos, or their current location. They can also flexibly search their friends' boards, as well as publicly shared boards from around the world. This is a great tool for finding new ideas to use in your classroom or at home. R Paper.li is an online platform that lets users create their own newspaper made up of content found on the Web. To start your paper, click the Create a Paper button. You'll choose a name, topic, and any description; then you'll be taken to a dashboard. Type in a topic and the source you'd like the content to come from (options are Twitter, Facebook, RSS, YouTube, and more). A list of links will populate; choose the ones you'd like to add to your paper by clicking the plus sign next to each. When you've added all the sources, Paper.li will take a few minutes to "print" your paper, bringing together all those links into a tidy page. Papers are visually customizable; you can choose formats and fonts to personalize design. You can choose how often your "paper" updates. LiveBinders is a free site that is used present resources quickly. Each "binder" can have different sections/tabs with resources posted in each section. It is a great way to post resources for students when doing research. Students could also create binders to help them organize thoughts for a project or collaborate with another student. A livebinder it bookmark tool is available for each internet browser to make adding items to your binder easier. Lino is a web-based sticky note platform that lets users add virtual sticky notes to a virtual bulletin board or canvas. Each note contains simple text, or you can add photos. Each board can be made public or private and you can invite students or other teachers to add content. You can download a bookmarklet tool to help make it easier to grab content from the internet. There is a paid upgrade that is available to provide more storage and eliminates ads. Padlet is a free resource that can be used in a variety of ways. Through this site, you can create a blank "board" with a question or topic. Students then go to your board to post answers or ideas. Student posts can be scattered around the page or organized in a scrolling list. Padlets can be used for collaboration, activators, formative assessments, and many more ways. Comment below on how you use Padlet in your classes! To try it out, go to www.padlet.com. |
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