Helpful Tools for the Classroom

Here are some great sites I have found over the past few weeks and I thought I would pass them along to you. Remember that if you are new to the blog, you should check out some of my older posts to see if there is anything you might have missed that could be helpful in your classroom.

Here is a great collection of Digital Storytelling tools collected by Ozge Karaoglu. Ozge is an awesome teacher that has put together some amazing collections of web tools for students to use. Click on her name to read her profile and see her e-portfolio. You should bookmark her page because she is sure to have something great to share with each post.

Jog the Web - This is a great site passed on by Anne Carnevale's Blog. Jog the web allows a teacher to set up a series of web pages the students explore in a set order. The best part is that it also allows the teacher to leave annotated notes that lets the teacher ask guiding questions as the student explores the web page. This would be great to use for Web Quests. There are many great examples on the site, but here is one that was created to provide background on Anne Frank before the students read her diary. This could allow students to have a guided tour of important webpages from their home. This is worth a look.

Awesome Stories is a search engine for Primary Resources. I think this site will be tremendously helpful in Social Studies classes as students look for court cases, biographies, news articles on important events and even video. Students often claim, "I can't find anything good to use." or "Why can't I just use Wikipedia?" Awesome Stories allows students to search a large archive of Primary Resources that should make their research easier and more meaningful. This should be a must have on all Social Studies websites for students doing research.

Here is a great post on Free Technology For Teachers video tutorials on proper citation. As a High School English Teacher, I find that students still struggle with correct citation of information. These guided videos could help teach students the correct way to cite information they intend to use in papers or projects. Little things like this would be great to add to personal website so students can access them whenever they have questions about citation. The videos are geared more toward Upper Elementary and Middle School, but I think anyone that has citation questions could use this and learn.

I hope you take a minute and look through these sites. They could come in very handy in class and really help students and even parents. Pass along these sites and consider posting them on your school site so students and parents can access the information from home.