Flippity.net: A most useful tool

If you haven't already, you should check out Flippity.net! It's a very useful tool. It is part of Google Drive and uses spreadsheets to create all sorts of tools for your classroom. 
A few of the highlights: 
*Jeopardy style Board: Ask questions with point values. All sorts of different ways to use this, other than the boring jeopardy style version. 
*Spin the Wheel: Spin the wheel to randomly choose something
*Tournament: Enter teams and Flippity will create a nice looking bracket for you
*Flashcards
*Memory game
*Hangman
*Crossword puzzle
*Bingo

User-friendly interface, which provides a demo, instructions, and template for each tool. 
You do all the work in Google Sheets and Flippity does the rest! 

Check it out and spice up your classroom a bit! 

Interactive Timeline - "Sutori"

If you are looking for an interactive, engaging timeline tool, look no further than Sutori.com. This tool works great for engaging students in new learning or in a review of content. It's many features provide a unique, interactive experience for the students. Let's explore what these features are:
*Text: students can add text to explain, describe, share, etc. 
*Pictures w/captions: Students can add a picture/image to go along with and support text
*Video: Students can embed a video to reinforce what they are working on
*"Did You Know": These "Did You Know" facts can be inserted throughout the timeline to provide extra, interesting facts about the topic. 
*Forum: Students can engage in dialogue with the forum feature. Post a question or discussion prompt and the viewers can add their thoughts/ideas to the forum and have a discussion. 
*Questions: Students can include questions that the viewer must answer throughout the timeline. Question options are multiple choice and matching. 
*Audio: Students can insert audio clips to add to the multimedia experience. 

My Life - Sutori Example
(Click Link for example)

Educaplay-Review Tool with potential

If your review game has grown a bit stale, perhaps Educaplay is what you need to inject some new choices into your world. I love the internet for review games because it provides students with a plethora of review games to play, which they can continue to play after the school day ends and late into the night! Though Educaplay is not my favorite review game, it still can certainly serve a purpose in your world, potentially. There are a wide variety of types of games, some stronger than others. I would encourage you to check it out and perhaps you will find a spot for it in your classroom. I would not recommend creating online review games and just letting the students play them for a significant amount of class time-instead, do more interactive review together. Computer review can be very isolated--better for when they are by themselves. But what I would recommend is create online review games and encourage the students to play them when they have free time in study hall or at home. They will. They are drawn to games. 

Here's an example of a type of game you can create/play with Educaplay

Memorial In-Service

Edpuzzle: Get more out of videos! With Edpuzzle, you can add dimensions to the video that allows the students to hear you explain things, answer questions, and create their own video experience.  Don’t just have your kids watch a video, make it an enriching learning experience.
Full Edpuzzle Tutorial


Quizizz: A great quiz option to add to your arsenal. Like the popular Kahoot!, Quizizz allows you to involve the entire class in a multiplayer battle of knowledge. However, unlike Kahoot!, Quizizz allows you to assign it as homework so the challenge can continue outside of your classroom.

Build with Chrome: Let kids build with Legos.

Get more out of YouTube Videos

YouTube is an immense collection of videos, we know that. We also know that YouTube is a wonderland for educators to find quality, interesting videos to help teach a concept or illustrate a topic. But, what we may not know is EDpuzzle. Edpuzzle is a tool that lets us get more out of youtube videos. It beefs them up, it gives us options, it gives us the ability customize the video viewing experience. Instead of simply watching the video, or watching the video and answering questions, Edpuzzle allows you to orchestrate a dynamic viewing experience. Free of charge, Edpuzzle allows you to set up a class with a "class code" so your students can join with their Google account. With your students joined in, you can assign videos for them to complete--whether for reinforcement, learning, review, etc. 

As mentioned, Edpuzzle allows you to create a more dynamic viewing experience. It helps you get more out of the video. Here's the deal: Get a Youtube video that you want to show. "Upload" it into Edpuzzle and from there, you can choose what the students do while watching. You can ask them MC questions, open ended questions, or have them comment. You can add a "voice track" which is a audio recording of yourself explaining the video the student is watching. You can also trim the clip to focus on just the part you want.
You assign these to your class so you can see how your students did on the questions, comments, etc. so it is a quality formative assessment piece. You can also share it with the world with the link, though you do not get individual results unless they are part of your Edpuzzle class.
Not only can  you use YouTube videos, but you can search for other videos from Khan Academy, TED, Vimeo, National Geographic, and many more. You can search these other video sites from within Edpuzzle.
Check it out! I think it could be a great piece to add to your classroom puzzle.

Create Infographics with Photovisi

I'm a big fan of Infographics. I think infographics are a good way for students to learn, review, and share what they know. Creating infographics is not busy work, its work that requires thinking and planning, not to mention writing and reading. An infographic is simply a product that has information and graphics. Some might call this a collage, but a collage is more of a "picture only" type of thing. I by no means invented the idea of Infographics or any of the infographic creating tools. However, I do like to search for infographic creating tools other than paper/pencil. Unless a student is an awesome drawer, computer infographics are way more effective. Photovisi is a great tech tool that students can use to make an infographic. 
Great things about Photovisi: it's free. Students do not need to log in. Students can easily save their project. Students can pick from a wide variety of templates and options. Students can use pictures off the internet. Students can add typing/captions. Students pick up on how to use photovisi quickly, so instruction time is minimal and creation time is optimal. So, find a computer lab and give Photovisi a try. Students will enjoy using it and get something out of it. Photovisi's can be as in-depth as you want to make it. General overview of a topic or a dynamic, in-depth project. 
Application for Education:
-students research a new topic and create a photovisi
-students create a photovisi as a review tool
-students share their photovisi with their classmates to learn about new topics through their peers
-teacher creates a photovisi to present information/new topic

Examples:

Tackk.com: great teacher tool

I was talking about technology in education with a colleague the other day and we were discussing tech tools that allow students to create. We both agreed that technology in the hands of the students is a must because we want them to discover, create, and explore. We were talking about having students make websites but it's such a time commitment with a lot of explanation so it gets to be a daunting task. I told him that I have a website making tool that the students can learn how to use and make a website in just one class period. He didn't believe, so I said, "Do you triple dare me to show you?" and he said, "No, I quadruple dare you to show me." So I did. I showed him Tackk.com and it blew him away. 
Tackk.com is a dynamic web 2.0 tool that allows you to create webpages quickly and easily (and without knowing any coding). Along with blogger and remind101, Tackk.com is right up there with my favorite tech tools. It is an especially good tool in trying to implement CCSS in your curriculum, no matter what the content. Tackk.com offers you and the students the ability to create permanent websites. This seemingly monumental task is actually quite simple. Tackk.com provides you with only the basic/necessary tools to create your website so you don't feel overwhelmed with too many options. There is no code writing. You do not have to be a tech wizard to use Tackk.com. As with every tech tool, there are two options: you use it or have your students use it. In my opinion, it is always best if the students can get their hands on these tech tools and use them. Tackk.com. 
Application to Education: Create a tackk on a topic that you are studying. Post an article or write the article yourself, then make it available for students to read. With this angle, you can implement Reading Informational text. 
Having students create tackks provides them the opportunity to work on the writing portion of the CCSS. Have the students create a tackk to go along with a short research project, compare/contrast, write opinions, or any number of writing standards.
The great thing about Tackk is that the websites are easy to share, so all can benefit from the projects being created. 

 Example of Tackk.com

Flippity.net: Google Drive Review Game

Can Google Drive get any more awesome? It seems everywhere I turn, there is something new and innovative being produced by Google-things to make our jobs as teachers more efficient and effective. Flippity.net is a tool that allows you to create review games/tools through Google Drive. Flippity.net provides flashcards, completion certificates, progress meters, and my favorite, Game Show templates. At flippity.net, download the template you want to use, make a copy for your Google Drive and edit it to produce your custom review game. The game show uses the spreadsheet feature of Google Drive. Simply enter your questions and answers, publish to the web ("File"--"publish to web") and then the spreadsheet will kick out the link to share (the link you give to your students). 

Application for Education: This tool/game can be used for all types of content/classes. It's great to provide for kids to use when studying on their own, as it keeps track of your points so you can see how well you are doing or what you are weak in. I've also used it for students to partner up and play against each other. It can also be used as a whole class review game. You can anywhere from 0 teams to 6 teams when keeping track of the score. 

Click Here to see an example of Flippity.net (ancient Greece)

Google Drive Strikes Again! Review Games with Google Drive

Can Google Drive get any more awesome? It seems everywhere I turn, there is something new and innovative being produced by Google-things to make our jobs as teachers more efficient and effective. Flippity.net is a tool that allows you to create review games/tools through Google Drive. Flippity.net provides flashcards, completion certificates, progress meters, and my favorite, Game Show templates. At flippity.net, download the template you want to use, make a copy for your Google Drive and edit it to produce your custom review game. The game show uses the spreadsheet feature of Google Drive. Simply enter your questions and answers, publish to the web ("File"--"publish to web") and then the spreadsheet will kick out the link to share (the link you give to your students). 

Application for Education: This tool/game can be used for all types of content/classes. It's great to provide for kids to use when studying on their own, as it keeps track of your points so you can see how well you are doing or what you are weak in. I've also used it for students to partner up and play against each other. It can also be used as a whole class review game. You can anywhere from 0 teams to 6 teams when keeping track of the score. 

Click Here to see an example of Flippity.net (ancient Greece)

Purposegames.com: Games with a Purpose

Recently at Sharapalooza, I shared some tech tools that teachers could start using now. I would like to share them here since I know many of you wanted to come but were unable to make it. 
Purposegames.com allows you the opportunity to create review games in which you want your students to identify something. It is a user friendly set up in which all you need is content, an account, and an image to upload.
Application for Education: This review game would be a great option in many content areas. A few examples: Upload a picture of the United States. The students are then given the capital and they need to click on the correct state. In science/anatomy, students could identify the parts of the body, nervous system, rocks, clouds, etc. How could you use this in your class? You can also search the site for games that have already been created. The game is "timed" giving it a bit of a competition feel to it. Kids can challenge others or themselves to see who can do it the fastest.  In my class, I have my students identify the countries on a map of Europe, the different pieces of armor on a Knight or the various tools of mummification. The example below is a review on Greek Mythology. Try it out! 

Click to View Example of Purposegames.com

Thinglink: Create and share interactive Maps

"Thinglink" is a tool that you can use to create interactive images. It allows you to create an image that students not only can look at, but interact with. I've posted an example of a thinklink I created for my students to help them review in preparation of the Map challenge coming their way. The map is a blank map of Mesopotamia that I just found on Google Images. I uploaded it into Thinklink and then attached "tags" to various places on the map. The students can see the "tags", think about what that location is, and the hover the mouse over the tag to see if they are right. It's an easy, fun way to review. You can also link the tags to external websites, making it even more interactive and dynamic. The possibilities and uses of this tool are endless! Create one with a plant, an atom, a battlefield, a scene from a story.. You can sign up for free with your google account. 

Timeline Maker: TimeToast

TimeToast is a great online timeline maker that is easy for both students and teachers to use. Timelines are very effective tools to allow students to "see" when things happen in relation to other events. I know with my students, the concept of time and when things happen in relation to each other is a difficult concept. Want to see blank stares? Just try explaining BC and AD to a bunch of 6th graders without a visual. But with TimeToast, you can create a timeline and help illustrate what you are trying to explain, whether it's important events of the civil war, events of a story, the development of a vaccine, etc. in chronological order. Have students create a free account and assign them a timeline to show anything you are learning about! You can share a link or embed the timeline right onto your website.

TimeToast Example (Civil War)

Canva: A great option for creating Infographics

Canva is a great option for creating infographics. Infographics are just that: information and graphics. Students can put together the two elements to create a dynamic learning or review piece. Students can do this on paper but many students struggle with drawing, so their pictures are often times unrecognizable, which takes away from the learning. Using infographic makers online gives the students a much richer experience in creating a product. Students can use pictures off the internet to add a greater dynamic to the learning experience. Canva gives the students a wide variety of templates, options and capabilities in making an infographic. After registering for a free account, Canva guides you to choosing a template to get started. You can use a pre-made template or start from scratch. With your project open, you can design your canva/infographic with images from canva or uploading your own. You are given many different types and styles of text boxes to add information to your project. You can change the background and also add "pages" to your infographic so you can add more detail/information. Many other infographic sites limit your work to just one page. Canva gives you more space. 
Application for Education: Canva can be an online tool that your students use to show you what they know about a certain topc: Battle of Shiloh during the Civil War, character profile of Tris is from Divergent. Helpful tips and tricks to solving math problems, etc. As a teacher, you can also create your own and share them via the web for your students to benefit from. Sharing options include a link, and image, or a pdf.

Example of Canva

You're/Your grammar quiz with Quizbean

Quizbean is another online quiz tool that is smooth, sleek, and easy to use. Create a free account in seconds and you are ready to make your first quiz. With Quizbean, you can set up a class and add your students so they can log into the quiz, which allows you to track their progress. Students can take the quiz without logging in, but you will not see their results. This is an option if you just want to provide some online practice for review. With Quizbean, you can quickly add students to your "class" by having them click a unique link and enter your teacher code. This saves you the time of entering each student's email address yourself. Quizbean gives you many options of sharing the quiz. You can email it, send it to a class that you have set up, provide a url/link, or post it to social media like Facebook or Twitter. The free version of Quizbean allows you to create 6 quizzes and add 52 students. For $5/month, you get 26 quizzes and 101 students. For $10/month, you can unlimited everything. With the budgets coming due soon, this may be something you would like to request. 

Click to take a practice quiz on QuizBean 

(grammar quiz on "Your/You're")

Great Concept Mapping tool: Bubbl.us

Here is yet another great concept mapping tool providing by my good friend "internet." Bubbl.us allows you to create sharp, fresh looking concept maps that help organize thoughts, opinions, outline a plan, show what you know, develop, create, discover, etc. With it's easy to use interface and sharp looking colors, your students will be begging you to assign more and more concept maps! Bubbl.us is a free service. Create an account in seconds and you will be on your way. Bubbl.us saves your work automatically, so you can work worry free that you will lose everything. Once your product is finished, you can export it as a JPEG (image) or a webpage outline. You can also work on concept maps as a "team" to create collaboration experiences that enrich the curriculum. This could be a tool you might want to try using with colleagues as well, if there is a event to plan, a special day to organize, or if you want to bounce ideas off each other. Bubbl.us is a tool that should have a spot in your teacher aresnal. Below is an example of what you can make with Bubbl.us.

Study Online with Cram

Cram.com is a great online study tool that gives the student a variety of ways to study/review for upcoming tests, quizzes, or any other type of assessment. Cram.com is a free service that allows you to use facebook, twitter, or google to create an account. It allows the teacher to input their own questions and answers. The teacher can then "share" the flashcard set with the students via a link on their website. Students could also get their own account and make their own flashcards to help them study. The student has four "modes" that they can use with the flashcard set. Flashcard mode allows the student to use the traditional flashcards. Memorize mode gives the student the question, then the student thinks of the answer, then clicks to reveal if they were right or wrong. The student then clicks if they got it right or wrong for tracking. If the student has their own account, they can save their results/progress. Test mode gives the student all the questions and answers and they have to match them up. Finally, there is Game mode, which gives the students the questions/answers in the form of a game equipped with a timer and high scores leaderboard. Another cool thing about Cram.com is there is an app for iPhones, which means you can download cram.com on your phone and review on the go, at anytime, anywhere. However, I caution you to try avoid using the Cram app while you drive because if you are not paying attention to what you are doing, you may drive over a median, or worse. 

Click here for an example of Cram.com

Kuizza: A great online quiz/flashcard option

Last night, while I was just sitting on a chair, in the dark, starring, I thought about how it would be cool to find an online quiz/flashcard option that kept track of stats. So, after starring for a moment longer, I opened up my Chromebook and did some searching. I found a tool called Kuizza and I am excited to tell you about it. It is of course a free tool. It has a very clean, fresh look and is very easy to use. With your account, you can create quizzes and share them with your students. I will be using Kuizza for review tools, not formal quizzes. Kuizza allows the student to either take the quiz or get the flashcards for the questions. The one thing I really like about Kuizza is that it keeps track of the stats for the students. Students have to simply create a free account (don't even need an email!) and it will keep track of the quizzes they take and how well they do. I think the students will like this because it almost makes it into a video game because they can see how well they are doing and can see the improvements based on statistics. Students do NOT need to create an account to take the quiz, only if they want to keep track of their stats. For the teacher, Kuizza also keeps track stats for each of your quizzes that you create. So you can see the average score, high score, low score, times taken, etc. It does not keep track of individual students though.  Kuizza has many pre-made quizzes to search for, but you can also make your own custom quiz. So, my suggestion for you: go sit on a chair and just stare for a while and think up some good ideas to use Kuizza for. Your students will appreciate it. 

Take a Kuizza quiz HERE

Classmint: An option for note-taking and sharing

No matter the technology or latest educational catch-phrase, students need to be able to take notes, write things down, organize their thoughts, explain answers, etc. In the past, paper/pencil was the only option, now, however, there are many options out there to help students take notes. Classmint.com is a great note-taking tool for students and teachers to use. With classmint, you can take notes about a topic and virtually "fold" the note over to cover up the writing part, to allow you to see if you can remember what you wrote about the certain topic. You can share these notes, which would allow the teacher to get notes to students who may need a little extra help. Sharing them online is key because then they can't "get lost" and the student can access them. Classmint will also read the notes to you. Classmint allows you to upload documents from your computer as well. If we ever get 1:1 in this district, this could be a very useful tool in taking notes for students. 
 I have posted an example of classmint notes below. If you click on the link, you will see some "notes" that I made about the rise of Mesopotamia as a powerful civilization. I would provide this to my students as a review tool, as we have already discussed these "events" of Mesopotamia. The students can click "fold" and the note will fold over so the "answers" are covered up. Some might say, "Why can't they just use their paper? Why do we need this?" The answer is simple: the ability to share and edit together is a big thing. Also, having the "notes" on the internet makes it easily accessible anywhere, even on the way to practice or grandma's house. Check out classmint and perhaps you could find a couple other ways to use this in your classroom and help to integrate more technology into your curriculum.

 What Allowed Mesopotamia to Rise and Prosper?

Create and share reviews with Quizdini

Quizdini is a free web tool that allows you to create and share two types of online reviews. With Quizdini, you can create a review quiz or a matching-type review. Simply go to Quizdini, sign up for a free account, and begin creating. Once you have created your review, you can share the link on your website for your students to easily access it. When students access the quiz, they can either do a "practice" round in which they only try to answer the questions or they can "race" in which they are timed and try to do it as fast as they can. Quizdini is a nice tool because it is simple to use and simple to share. 

Try Quizdini Quiz HERE

Try Quizdini Matching Game HERE

Another classtools.net product: Fakebook

Click HERE to see an example

We've all heard of Facebook obviously, and perhaps you've heard of Fakebook or even tried it. Either way, I thought I would share this tool in case it is something you could use as a review tool or learning tool. Classtools.net provides a "fakebook" template. Students do not need an account to use this tool, yet they can save it and work on it at a later time, which is nice. To get started, go to the link and start filling out the "required fields." Students enter name, bio information, choose facebook friends, write wall posts, etc. I have done something like this on paper and online and students do get into it and enjoy making fakebook pages about a famous person they are learning about, famous place, building, etc. They do not have to be people. Students could make a facebook page of the Colosseum, Hunger Games arena, anything. 
This could be used as a learning tool or a review tool. The option of saving it gives students the chance to share their work with their classmates. Play around with it and see what you think!