Some interesting stuff on the "cool tools" list, and of course some annoying stuff.
It's a little embarassing, but not at all surprising, that my favorite was the most old school -- the flash cards. The uses are just so obvious and immediate, and I may start as soon as this week, since we're studying the Constitution and Bill of Rights and there's a lot for the kids to remember. (I'm a little unsure of the logistics of making a deck and then giving kids access to it, but it seems figure-out-able.) Tried Quizlet first (http://quizlet.com/) and immediately signed up for it, but then I checked out Flashcard Friends (http://www.flashcardfriends.com/welcome.php) and actually liked it better. It seems more versatile, and you can upload images and sounds to the flash cards for free, whereas on Quizlet you have to become a paying member to do such things. I love that you can add both images and sounds to the cards. Anyway, definitely something I want to make part of my repertoire.
I also signed up for TeacherTube (http://www.teachertube.com/members/myHome.php). It looks like you have to slog through lots of junk to find the videos you'd actually want to use, and I don't know how much patience I'll have for that, but I did pretty quickly find one clip from the John Adams mini-series on HBO, and that made me think that this has possibilities. And for myself, at least, though maybe not for the class, I signed up for "Ta-Da Lists" (http://tadalist.com/). I was skeptical about that at first, but as a major list-maker, the idea of having all sorts of them, short-term and long-term, saved electronically in one place is intriguing. Whether I'll find the time to start making and saving them is another question.
Some other sites were intriguing at first, but then annoying or frustrating in one way or another. I'm interested in the comic strips sites for example, but Toon-Doo's homepage was just confusing and gave no indication of where to start, and Pixton apparently is a paying thing (although I know Elizabeth uses it for 8th grade science -- is she paying thru her class budget?). GoAnimate doesn't say on the homepage whether it's free or not, then implies that it is when you go to register, and then starts talking about something called "Go bucks". I'm sorry, that's just sleazy. Bye bye. And Glogster's homepage seems to be nothing but utterly vague platitudes that give no idea of what you would actually use it for. I was too irritated by that to want to search for specifics.
But hey, at least I found a few things I like. Not easy for a grouch like myself.
Glad you find some things you can use! Flashcard Friends is great in that the kids can access it from home. You can also have the students create cards so you have less work to do.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget that you can print your lists from Ta-Da if you didn't want to convert to electronic versions completely yet.
As far as the other sites, all of them do have free versions. You only have to pay if you wanted an upgraded version.