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Three Cool Tools for Teaching
Featured Author:
Kelly Tenkely
Kelly Tenkely graduated from Colorado Christian University with a Liberal Arts degree in Elementary Education. She started teaching in 2003 as a second grade teacher in a public school. In 2004 she made the switch to private school and took the only available opening as the technology teacher. Educational technology has since become her passion. She started a web site for her classroom and soon discovered that other teachers were using the site to aid technology in their classrooms.
Kelly also trains teaching staff on integrating and implementing technology into the classroom. Training teachers on the use of technology in the classroom led to her blog, ilearntechnology.com, where she blogs daily about integrating technology into the classroom simply and effectively. When she is not blogging, searching for and playing with new technology, or on theapple.com Kelly enjoys scrapbooking, cooking, and spending time with her husband and dog (Aya).
More articles from this author:
Glogster is a great creativity site who’s tag line is “poster yourself”. A ‘glog’ is basically an online poster web page. Students can combine text, pictures, graphics, video, and audio to create an interactive online poster. Glogster has a very simple to use interface. The final glog can be hosted by Glogster or you can embed it into a wiki, blog, or class web site.
How to integrate Glogster into the classroom: Glogster is an awesome way for your students to display knowledge. Instead of creating a poster for a presentation, students can create an interactive glog to display information. Glogster can be used for history, math, language arts, book reports, science, social studies, and for public service announcements. In fact, I am having a hard time coming up with a subject that couldn’t use Glogster in some capacity. Students can create these online posters to display any knowledge or learning. You really have to see this site, the creativity that it allows for will get your wheels spinning. Once you start using Glogster with your students, you are going to think of all kinds of new applications. Because Glogster has the ability to handle audio, students can create podcasts (using Audacity, Garageband, G-Cast or Gabcast) and upload the content into their glog. So cool! I really love that students can share their school work and accomplishments online with classmates, family, and friends. Give your students an authentic audience and their work will dazzle you!
Visit Glogster
Tips: You can check out a quick sample glog that I created here about Internet Safety.
Zotero
Gosh, some days I really wish for a time machine where I could go back to school armed with the tools that students have access to now. I totally would have ruled the school! Zotero is one of the tools I would bring back with me. Zotero is a Firefox (Internet web browser) extension that helps students collect, cite, and manage their Internet research right from the web browser itself. No hopping back and forth between websites. Zotero automatically captures all citing information from the website, stores pdfs, images, and whole webpages, has flexible note taking options, has an easy to search library, saves and records in multiple languages, has integration with Microsoft Word and Open Office, and best of all…free! Man our students are lucky!
How to integrate Zotero into the classroom: Download the Zotero extension for every computer in your school (at the very least make sure this is on the library and classroom computers.) Teach your students how to use Zotero as they are researching and teach them how to download Zotero to their home computers. Don’t bend on your citation requirements…they have no more excuses!
Visit Zotero
Tips: If you don’t currently use Firefox as a web browser, I highly recommend its download. I have been more than happy with Firefox, it meets all of my needs and requirements for a good browser and once again…free!
Fantastic Contraption
I love Twitter, not just for the ability to keep up with what everyone is doing at any given time during the day, but also because I learn about cool technology like Fantastic Contraption from my PLN (personal learning network). Fantastic Contraption is a fun online game/puzzle, that teaches kids some physics basics. Essentially students are trying to get a ball from one box to another using different tools to do so. The puzzles get increasingly difficult with obstacles between the boxes. This is an addicting puzzle and logic game!
How to integrate Fantastic Contraption into the classroom: Even if you are not teaching your students physics, Fantastic Contraption should definitely make an appearance in your classroom. Even students who have never had a physics class can play this game (3rd-12th grade) because knowledge of physics is not necessary to work out the puzzles. Students can figure out the puzzle through trial and error. What I love about the game is the way that it teaches students how it works through step by step directions on the first two logic puzzles. This is a great exercise to get your students thinking outside the box and using critical thinking and logic skills. Use Fantastic Contraption as a year long go to game for free time, snow days, and brain warm up before math or science. Your students will love this one!
Visit Fantastic Contraption
Tips: If you aren’t currently using Twitter, join today and find some other educators to follow…you will get all kinds of great ideas for your classroom! Follow me at twitter.com/ktenkely.
jonathanwylie
3 months ago
18 comments
I like the idea of Glogster, but it is not perfect yet. Specifically, the integration of tinypics for images. If you browse through the tinypics catalog there are numerous unsuitable pictures for students. Without even searching a category, you only need to get to page three of the image browse before you find a scantily dressed woman. There are also no restrictions on what keywords you use to search for images, even on the edu version. You can search sex, playboy, nude and more if you want. While all technology at school needs to be monitored, you cant see every screen all the time. For this reason, I will likely not use Glogster. I emailed them direct about my concerns but have had no reply yet.