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12 Awesome EdTech Tools for 2012-2013

Free Technology for Teachers

Why Only 12?

Only twelve tools were chosen for this document in order to keep it short and sweet. In the course of a year Ill review thousands of apps and websites that teachers and students could use in their classrooms. Yet, most of the time what educators ask me for is a short list of the essential tools that are appropriate for most K-12 environments. The twelve tools selected here t that criteria.

Its blocked!
There is a chance that one or more of the tools in this guide is blocked in your school building. In all cases except for one Ive included alternative resources to try if the one that I have featured is blocked in your school. Also in all cases except for two none of these tools require you to download or install any special software. That said, you may have to allow a Javascript to run on some of these sites.

Author?
Youre probably wondering who wrote this, how were these tools chosen, and why were they chosen? This awesome document was written by me, Richard Byrne. You can read more about me on the last page. The tools chosen here are my personal favorites. Theyre tools that I used in my classroom and have introduced to thousands of other teachers in all grades and content areas.

FreeTech4Teachers.com

Twelve resources every teacher should try.

Give students a research assignment and the rst thing they do is head to Google. Unfortunately, many students dont know how to take advantage of Googles advanced search tools. Familiarize yourself with Googles advanced search options here http://bitly.com/ advgsearch Google Documents is my go-to tool for word processing. I can create, save, and share all of my documents from any computer. I use Google Docs for publishing assignments as stand-alone webpages, editing students writing, creating presentations, and giving short self-graded quizzes. Learn all how to do all of this at http:// bitly.com/gdocsteachers

Evernote (http://evernote.com) is the tool that I use for bookmarking everything that I nd on the web. I have Evernotes web clipper tool installed in my browser. The web clipper allows me to select all or part of a webpage, add notes to the bookmark, and tag the bookmark so that I can easily nd it again amongst my thousands of bookmarks. And the best part is my bookmarks are accessible to me on any computer. Evernote can also be used for taking notes and storing les. Evernote has iPad, iPhone, and Android apps. All of those apps allow me to take notes by typing or speaking. A popular alternative for bookmarking is Diigo.com

Jing (www.techsmith.com/ jing.html) is my favorite tool for creating annotated screen capture images and for creating screencast videos. Using Jing I can capture all or part of my computer screen, type on that image, highlight text on that image, and draw on the image. I can also use Jing to record a screencast video that captures all or part of my screen. As the video records I can talk about what is happening on my screen. Creating annotated screen capture images and screencast videos is a great way to provide people with directions on how to use a new web tool or piece of software. To use Jing you do have to install software. Two alternatives are Screenr.com and Screencast-o-matic.com
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Twelve resources every teacher should try.

If you should YouTube videos in KeepVid (http://keepvid.com) is a your classroom, A Cleaner Internet tool for downloading videos from (http://clea.nr) is a tool that you YouTube. need. If YouTube is blocked in your school, downloading videos from A Cleaner Internet is a browser YouTube can be one way to bring extension available for Chrome, educational content into your Firefox, and Safari. The extension classroom. Download the videos at removes all of the related videos home put them on your laptop or and advertisements that surround on a ashdrive to bring them into videos on YouTube. There are your classroom. other browser extensions that do a similar thing. What makes A KeepVid allows you to save videos Cleaner Internet different from in a variety of le formats. most is that not only can you KeepVid can be used by copying a display videos without the related YouTube URL into the KeepVid content and advertisements, you website then downloading the can also search YouTube without converted le. To streamline the seeing any related sidebar content. process a bit you can use KeepVids browser bookmarklet. If you cannot install browser extensions on your school Disclaimer: Using KeepVid to computer, give ViewPure.com a download content from YouTube try. ViewPure.com will allow you can be considered a violation of to show a YouTube video without YouTubes Terms of Service and displaying related videos and may violate copyright. Use your advertisements. discretion in using KeepVid. WeVideo (http://wevideo.com) is a collaborative online video creation tool. In the video editor you can upload your own media clips or use stock media clips to produce your video. The video editor provides tools for trimming the length of display and or sound of each element you add to your video project. What makes WeVideo collaborative is that you can invite other people to create and edit with you. WeVideo offers a Google Drive app. WeVideo for Google Drive allows you to sign-in and store your media les in your Google Drive account. The video editor in WeVideo for Google Drive offers the option to use your webcam to record and upload video to your projects. If WeVideo doesnt offer what you need, you might want to take a look at Pixorial.com for online video editing.
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FreeTech4Teachers.com

Twelve resources every teacher should try.

VoiceThread can be described as an online slideshow accompanied by commentary (voice and text) from other VoiceThread users. To start a VoiceThread one person posts images and records their commentary about those images then other users can login into their accounts and share their commentary on the same images or what was said by the previous person. In short, it's like having a conversation at an art gallery, but the conversation is held and recorded online instead of inperson. Wallwisher (http:// wallwisher.com) is a collaborative online corkboard. Wallwisher provides you with an online wall to which you can virtually stick multimedia notes. Your notes can contain text, image links, and video links. If you include a video link, the video will play within the Wallwisher wall. TodaysMeet (http:// todaysmeet.com) is a free service for quickly creating chatrooms to use with your students.

TodaysMeet is completely free to use. Setting up a chat area in TodaysMeet is very simple. To create your chat area just select a name for your room (that name becomes the url for your chat When you create a wall on area), how long you want your Wallwisher you can choose to room to exist, and select an allow anyone to comment optional Twitter hashtag for your anonymously or you can choose to chat area. To invite people to your require people to sign-in to chat area send them the URL comment. If you require sign-in assigned to your room. VoiceThread has been used by you can moderate sticky notes math teachers to create "how to" before they appear on your wall. Ive used TodaysMeet in my videos about math problems. classroom to provide my students Ive often used Wallwisher as an with a place to quickly ask VoiceThread could be used as a online, multimedia, collaborative questions and answer each others tool for students, parents, and KWL chart. questions. TodaysMeet rooms teachers to collaborate on a local provide a great place for students Wallwisher works well on history project. Gather and scan to ask clarifying questions. Read some pictures of your community interactive whiteboards and on more about using TodaysMeet from years past then have students iPads. Although new walls can here http://bitly.com/ftftmeet and parents talk about the history only be created on a computer. of the town. Alternative: Chatzy.com Alternative: Linoit.com
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Twelve resources every teacher should try.

Dropbox (http://dropbox.com) is a great service for storing, sharing, and collecting les online. In a Dropbox account you can save all of your les in just about any le format. By putting your les online in Dropbox you can access them whenever you need them from any computer. You can use Dropbox to share les too. Dropbox offers iPad, iPhone, and Android apps. Many third party services integrate with Dropbox which further enhances its utility. A great third party service to use with Dropbox is DropItToMe (http://dropittome.com). DropItToMe provides a secure way for people to upload les to your Dropbox account without seeing the contents of your account. Try DropItToMe to collect assignments without cluttering your email account. Alternative: Box.net
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Every classroom should have a blog. Blogging creates less work for teachers as it allows for rapid, widespread communication with parents and students. Maintaining a blog creates an on-going record of the academic year. A simple, yet valuable blogging assignment for students is to ask them to write a weekly blog entry reecting on what they learned that week and what questions they have moving forward. Ask students to comment on each others posts. Edublogs (http://edublogs.org) provides teachers and students with a free blogging platform. Using Edublogs teachers can set up and moderate blogs for their students to write on. For teachers just getting started with blogging, the customer service/ support network provided by Edublogs is second to none. Alternative: Blogger.com

Just as with blogs, there are numerous free platforms for creating a classroom website. Weebly (http://weebly.com) was selected for inclusion in this guide because of their excellent user support. Some people get intimidated by the thought of trying to create a website, but with Weebly if you can send an email, you can create a website. Weebly for Education offers bulk creation of student accounts (up to 40 for free) which teachers can manage and moderate. Students can create their own websites and blogs using the accounts that you create for them. Weebly websites are great for creating digital portfolios of your students work. Weebly websites can incorporate a blog element, a calendars, and a le storage component. Alternative: sites.google.com

Richard Byrne is a Google Certied Teacher and author of the award-winning blog Free Technology for Teachers. Free Technology for Teachers received the Edublogs Award for Best Resource Sharing Blog in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. In 2012 Richard received a MERLOT Classics award for contributions to helping educators discover and use educational technology. 1n 2010 Richard was a nalist for ACTEM Technology Educator of the Year. Richard has spoken at numerous conferences and schools in North America and Europe. If you would like help implementing the use of the tools and more in your school, please contact Richard.

About the Author

Contact Richard Byrne

richardbyrne@freetech4teachers.com Twitter.com/rmbyrne Google Voice 1-207-619-3291

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