AS_Web2.0

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Tool Name: VoiceThread Homepage: http://voicethread.com/ Grade Level: Could be used K-12, probably not as useful below 2nd grade Possible Uses: There are many! The biggie is probably posting an image or video and asking students to leave comments or input about the posting. Summary: I have not used this tool, but it looks like it has great potential, they even have a separate network for educators so they can restrict access to their content! You can only gain access to this network if you are an educator or have been added as a student by an educator, therefore only the people you want to have access to the content get it, and NO student e-mail addresses are required. This company is doing it right.

A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate pages and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). The students can even draw on and annotate the images as they make comments about them. Very cool! I can't wait to try it.

The free account will not give you access to the education network, but it is more than enough to get your feet wet with this tool. An individual license is $59.95/yr and gives you access to all the features. K-12 Educator account licenses are based on classrooms. They are $60/year or $10/month and give you access to the education network. You can create up to 100 student accounts at this rate and add more students at the rate of $1/student. This price also allows you to export up to 30 VoiceThreads per year.

Tool Name: Scratch Homepage: http://scratch.mit.edu/ Grade Level: K-12 (target audience is 8 - 16 years of age) Possible Uses: create interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art while teaching basic programming skills Summary: Scratch is a project from MIT and appears to come from the same people that developed the Lego Mindstorm programming language. As students create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. Scratch takes full advantage of the computer and can be used to open creativity of the students. Best part is it is completely free!

Students program their creations by drag and drop of programming elements into the scripting box. The elements then click together like building blocks to create small programs.

Tool Name: Gliffy Homepage: http://gliffy.com Grade Level: 7-12 Possible Uses: Flow charting ideas, Venn Diagrams Summary: Gliffy is the web 2.0 version of Microsoft's Visio. There is a 30 day free trial after which your account reverts to the free account. This account will give you 5 public diagrams and allows you to embed your diagrams in other web pages, however it is not Ad free. Educators get a 50% discount off the multi-user prices, but the rates are pretty steep at $12.50/month for 10 users.

Tool Name: Poll Everywhere Homepage: http://www.polleverywhere.com/ Grade Level: All ages, though probably more appropriate above grade level 5 Possible Uses: Quick summative assessments, checking for pre-knowledge, large lecture questions to the instructor, formative assessments Summary: Poll Everywhere lets you pose a question to the audience who can then answer using; SMS text messaging, smart phones, twitter or the web. Up to 30 people can respond for free, 32 people in an unlimited number of classes, if you have an educators account. If you need more than that, or if you want the ability to identify who is responding and to grade the response an individual educator license is $129/year and allows 40 respondents in an unlimited number of classes.

Tool Name: Mind Meister Homepage: http://www.mindmeister.com/ Grade Level: 5-8 if instructor lead, 9-12 instructor or student Possible Uses: Brainstorming sessions, review sessions, collaborative note taking Summary: Mind Meister is a mind mapping tool that can be used individually and collaboratively to brainstorm, take class notes, review important topics and more. You can only have 3 maps in the free account, but you are able to work collaboratively on those maps. For educational use, Mind Meister has several pricing levels, the individual educator license is $29.50/yr. If you are not going to use the collaborative features it may be better to use one of the free tools available like FreeMind.

Tool Name: Quizlet Homepage: http://quizlet.com/ Age Level: K-12+ Possible Uses: Anything you would use flashcards for, vocabulary, game creation, quizzes Summary: Amazingly powerful for such a simple application. You can make your own set of flash cards for review, or create a group and study with friends. There are 5 ways to study; basic familiarization, learn mode (kind of like computer based testing, but lets you keep track of your mistakes and retest), Test Mode, Scatter which is a matching game and Space Race which is a video game mode for learning. Again this is another completely free application.

Tool Name: Wiki Spaces Homepage: http://www.wikispaces.com Age Level: K-12, Probably most useful above 2nd grade Possible Uses: Electronic Story Telling, Classroom activity information, any web page publishing Summary: Wiki Spaces is one of many wiki hosting companies available on the web. Wikis give the ability to create web pages without needing to know how to use HTML, java script, Active X, or any other web programing language. You create your web pages by using a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor. This allows you to focus on content and not the code to make it look nice.

The free Wiki Spaces account is more than enough to get started and use for demonstration purposes and even small classroom projects. If you want slightly more control, and no ads, you can pay the $5/month or $50/year for a basic account. An account that can be used by an entire school is $2000/yr and gives your school a dedicated environment with single-sign on capabilities as well as the ability to use your own web domain name.

Tool Name: Animoto Homepage: http://animoto.com Age Level: 4-12 Possible Uses: Electronic story telling, Classroom "Posters" Summary: Animoto gives you the ability to upload images, videos and music. It will then analyze the media and create a slide show set to the music for you. This removes the need for the students to worry about how to make a video and lets them focus on the content. The free version has limited themes and is restricted to a 30 second video. K-12 educators get a free account for their classroom to use that has unlimited video size, but they are currently re-evaluating their education policy, so this may be up in the air for a while and it may be hard to get an account.

Tool Name: Google Custom Search Engine Homepage: http://www.google.com/cse/ Age Level: K-12+ Possible Uses: Differentiated Instruction, Directed Research Summary: With Google Custom Search, you can use Google to create a customized search experience for your classroom. You can create a search engine that will include only the specific web pages you want to be searched, the search box can be placed on your own web pages or wiki and you can customize the look and feel of the results to match your web-site. If you designate that your site is a K-12 site, Google will even remove the ads that are normally along the side of the search results.

This has the potential to be a great tool for classroom differentiation, for example if you have students with below grade reading skills in your class, you can pick sites for them to search that have lower reading skill requirements, then have them use that search engine, this way all students will be learning the same skills, using the same methods, but tailored to their needs. The other obvious advantage is you can check the web sites for accuracy before putting them into the search pool to make sure the students are getting proper information.

As with all google tools this is completely free to use.

Tool Name: Rubistar Homepage: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ Age Level: Instructors at all levels Possible Uses: Help creating rubrics Summary: Easy Rubric generation. Pick your topic, select the categories you wish to grade and the Rubric will be populated with default criteria. You can then customize the rating scale and criteria to fit your needs. When done,you can submit the form to print or download it for your use. Quick, simple and easy to use and it is free.