Wallwisher

Sticking with the theme of walls (from yesterday's post), today's app can be very useful for the modern day teacher.  Wallwisher is a place that provides a collaborative experience for teacher and student.  The sleek look of the page reminds me of Pinterest for educators.  You can put sticky notes, text, video, and stickers all on the same wall.  Think of it as a virtual collage of media related to a topic.  I guess that Gardner knew what he was talking about, huh?  All that is needed is an interactive whiteboard for the ultimate experience in 21st century learning. 

Scriblink

I am sure most of you have heard about Khan Academy.  If you have not, I suggest you take a look.  The only issue I have with Khan Academy is that there are not tutorials for EVERYTHING we do in education.  Especially for those of us in K-5.  What if we could use screencasting software (like in my previous post) along with an online whiteboard to create our very own lessons tailored to our individual needs? 

Scriblink does just that.  Essentially it is an online, collaborative, whiteboard that can be accessed 24 hours a day.  Let's say your student e-mails or calls you and doesn't understand the Math homework.  Instead of explaining it over the phone, you can open up this site, invite them to join it, and they can view everything you do while speaking on the phone.  By adding that dimension, the learning can be enhanced.  Or, as mentioned before, record yourself teaching a lesson and upload the file to your PLC for easy access. 

Screencast-o-matic

If you haven't been at least attempting to create online material to share with your students yet, you probably need to start.  As education attempts to catch up with the rest of the world as far as technology is concerned, teachers need to arm themselves with 21st century tools. 

The concept of flipped learning is one I feel very strongly about.  Creating screencasts of lessons and mini-tutorials and making them available on your classroom site or blog on a 24/7 basis is vital in today's classroom.  Your student was snoozing or absent during your lesson?  No problem.  They can access your site and check out the lesson. With Screencast-o-matic, you get a free online application that will record your voice and every mouse movement you make on the screen.  Record Powerpoints, Prezis, and so much more with the click of a mouse!  The best part?  No download or install necessary because it is entirely web-based and creates the file online! 

Thinglink

Tagging everything is just about the most popular thing to do right now.  Everywhere you look, people are tagging pictures on Facebook and putting hash tags on Twitter.  The question is, how can we as educators take advantage of this?  At first glance, one may not feel tagging is useful in a classroom setting. 

What if you could download a picture and make it interactive by adding links to wikipedia articles, online videos and interactives that reinforce the concept?  Now you're talking!  Thinglink does that for you.  With a few simple clicks and copying a pasting of websites, you too can create interactive, engaging digital content that would make even the best Instructional Designer jealous.  Simply create an account, download your first image and you are off and running.  Here is one I created while teaching 5th graders about the Excretory System.

I'm back!

Sorry about that, folks!  For some reason, I decided to go on a little hiatus.  It was self-inflicted, and well-deserved.  I apologize that I have not been bringing my apps to my peeps.  Must have been a change of life!  I will try to update this blog post on a daily basis from now on. 

Today's app I will be critiquing is one I just found recently.  It is called Scoopit.  It works very similar to Pinterest and other social networking sites in that you can share and tag to numerous sources.  Articles and sites can easily be shared with Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn by simply clicking on the toolbar.  You can contribute your insight before posting as well. 

YouTube video converter

If your district is like mine, you cannot access the wonderful digital content that is available for your students. It can get pretty annoying and time-consuming trying to find videos that are not originated in Youtube to use. Many of the online converters have been shut down (like Zamzar) or are blocked through the firewall.  Look no further!  I have found one that allows you to copy and paste the Youtube link and convert the file to a variety of formats (mov, avi, mp4, among others)  You then have an option to download.  Just upload into your Drive and you are ready to share your video with your students.

Voicethread

You want another great tool to collaborate online with your students?  Voicethread is your answer.  Students digital artifacts can be uploaded into the site.  A link is provided in which everyone can access the artifact.  Students and teachers can respond through a variety of different methods via voice or text and then uploaded along with the artifact.  The poster can go back and read or listen to the comments and edit accordingly.  Conversations in the cloud.  Wonderful tool!