Saturday, July 23, 2016


It is important to engage students and get them excited about learning. Finding the right 2.0 Tools is essential. I have include a list of tools that I have used or that seem interesting to me.

Free:
Scratch: Scratch is a free program designed by MIT to teach computer programming. It allows you to create animated stories, games, and animations. It could be used to gamify learning, introduce concepts, a presentation tool, or a way to show knowledge. One of the great things is you can see and play other programs and share programs. I have used it as a hook to Revolutionary War Spy codes, by allowing students to play other people’s spy codes. Some students chose to create their own codes.

Easygenerator: This tool is wonderful for creating a full online curriculum. I have not used it yet, but I am excited to try it. You can use easygenerator to create engaging material with a multitude of features to engage students. Students can take quizzes, watch videos, and interact with materials.
 Free to $59 a month

Class Tools: This tool allows you to make and play games, quizzes and diagrams. I have used it for several projects. One of my favorite project was using Twister. I had students read about squads since it is hip with the kids (think Taylor Swift’s squad). There was a great article in the New Yorker on squads. The students had to pretend they were a soldier at Valley Forge and tweet a Squad goal. The cool thing is if you put in a real name, a picture of that person comes up with your tweet. This tool could be used for anything to presenting, review, or final products. The possibilities are endless.


Dipity: Timeline creator that allows you create, share, embed and collaborate on interactive, visually engaging timelines that integrate video, audio, images, text, links, social media, location and timestamps. This could be used to introduce topics, review or create.
Free to $99 a month

Subscription:

Brainpop: One of my favorite tools! It has animated movies, learning games, interactive quizzes, primary source activities, concept mapping, and more. I use it as review, to introduce or to assess knowledge.


Raptivity: This allows you to create courses quickly. It includes artwork. It can be published as standalone learning interactions or link them together. It has lots of engaging features for all kinds of learning styles. It could be used to hook students in, introduce content and as a review tool. It has more than190 different interactions, such as games and virtual worlds. You can use templates to add in your content.

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