Web Tools & Instructional Applications

1. Web Tools Ideal for Student Generated Work/Student Voice

1.1. Flipgrid https://info.flipgrid.com is a web tool educators can use to create grids or classroom communities where topics are assigned for students to respond to and record their own videos. Check out my instructional activity here: https://flipgrid.com/b839b103. The join code is b839b103. In this activity my grid is my 2nd grade ELL students and their topic is the creation of a Maryland Visitor's Guide in a student video presentation format.

1.2. Mentimeter https://www.mentimeter.com is a web tool that allows students to easily respond to questions and polls. Check out my instructional activity here: https://www.menti.com/r4j5dac2gx where I ask students in a multiple choice poll if they would like to become "experts" in teaching the class about their city, state, country or continent. The voting code 43 22 81 5 is valid now and expires in 2 days. I would then take this information and group the students so that they could work together to research in epic! and Pebble Go and then present back to their classmates.

1.3. Dotstorming https://dotstorming.com/main is a web tool that allows students to brainstorm together and use their link to share with others in a presentation format. Check out my instructional activity here: https://dotstorming.com/w/5fdbadcbb9bc5f052f5aabd7 where I have students work in their assigned teams based on their selections in my Mentimeter poll above. Each student will focus on either physical features, human-made features, important places, symbols or maps and add cards with text and photos within their chosen area of expertise (city, state, country, continent). The group will then present back to the class using the Dotstorming web tool.

2. Web Tools Ideal for Supporting Classroom Instruction

2.1. Weebly www.weebly.com is a user-friendly website creator that allows educators to easily create classroom websites complete with places to upload student e-portfolios as well as allowing links to virtual assignments made with other web tools. Teachers can upload their own images and personalize the website to make a collaborative space for learners. Check out my website complete with instructional activity links here: https://mrsnoorzaiellclass.weebly.com . You will see my student photos, an assignment page with links to ThingLink and Flipgrid assignments and an oral language activity center that links to Padlet.

2.2. Padlet https://padlet.com is an online "post-it" board that allows you and your students to post ideas, images and recordings to share with others. Check out my instructional activity here: https://padlet.com/aliabellenoorzai/nipgnp53s2ctghw2 In this activity I incorporated Padlet into my Weebly website as a web tool ideal for daily teacher and student conversation to take place. In this lesson I ask students to listen to my recorded question and then tell about what they know about the city they live in. They then must ask their classmates questions as well. This tool allows for student voice and collaboration as well as being a place to practice listening and speaking skills critical for ELL students.

2.3. Book Creator https://bookcreator.com is a very helpful web tool for ELL teachers as it lets the educator easily create a book with images and text and even allows the book to be read to the students. Check out my instructional activity here: https://read.bookcreator.com/8HA0jCuGWlciQPa7qMs4k3BKQWs2/Bo4XPfFYTZSP8DylxZxG_A where I created a book for my beginning level ELL students to help them with the vocabulary terms of "human-made features," "physical features" and "climate." This book would be used during my small group ELL time to teach vocabulary concepts needed for the completion of the students' Flipgrid assignment.

2.4. Thinglink https://www.thinglink.com/ is a cloud-based user-friendly web tool that helps you create interactive content to drive learner engagement. Thinglink allows you to tag images and videos in your lessons to make virtual learning interactive. Check out my instructional activity here: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1386836446198890497 . In this lesson 2nd-grade students will access the web tool to learn about their state, country and continents through text, images and videos.

2.5. Screencast-O-Matic https://screencast-o-matic.com allows you to record and share screen images to create teacher-generated content for your students. Check out my instructional activity through my Thinklink lesson here: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1386836446198890497 I used Screencast-O-Matic to record the lesson directions, read aloud the text for the state, country and each continent as well as using screen shots through Screencast-O-Matic to facilitate learner comprehension in order to support ELL students in my classroom.

3. Video Conferencing Tools for Students & Educators

3.1. Google Meet https://meet.google.com is a video conferencing web tool that facilitates virtual face-to-face interaction with other educators, parents and students. In my Google Meet here: https://meet.google.com/fxc-zisy-ywv I plan to meet with small ELL groups to support their language development virtually. We will work on the concepts that are being covered in the 2nd grade classroom geography lesson and work on vocabulary terms such as human-made features, physical features and climate. We will use breakout groups within the google meet to practice our presentations before recording them using Flipgrid.

3.2. Zoom https://zoom.us is another video conferencing web tool that most people have become very familiar with over the past 9 months during the Covid-19 pandemic to connect with loved ones virtually. This week my classmates and I met to discuss and share thoughts on the web tools we have learned about in this course. As this is likely the most common video conferencing tool I have chosen it for conferencing with my ELL students' parents at parent-teacher conferencing: Here is an example meeting invitation I created for the conference: Belle Noorzai is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: ELL Conference Time: Dec 19, 2020 08:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://us04web.zoom.us/j/73481743009?pwd=ZXhLZ3RzZlZEaXZZTGZxM0RJNUFHZz09 Meeting ID: 734 8174 3009 Passcode: w73M6N Belle Noorzai is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: ELL Conference Time: Dec 19, 2020 08:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://us04web.zoom.us/j/73481743009?pwd=ZXhLZ3RzZlZEaXZZTGZxM0RJNUFHZz09 Meeting ID: 734 8174 3009 Passcode: w73M6N

4. Web Tools Ideal for my PLN & Collaboration with Educators

4.1. Symbaloo https://www.symbaloo.com is a terrific web tool to organize all of your must-have websites. In my example here https://www.symbaloo.com/home/mix/13ePC1VR0T I have a collection of all of the web tools for my final project for the course. I can now share this with other educators in the ELL field both within my district/school and around the world!

4.2. MindMeister http://mindmeister.com is the web tool I am using here for my final project to create a Mind Map to organize the various web tools I will use to support my instruction. You are viewing my Mind Map right now but here is the shareable link: https://mm.tt/1727025965?t=ExBNNxccCo. My instructional application of this tool would be to share a presentation such as that of our Final Course Project with other educators in a grade-level team meeting so that they could see examples of these web tools in action and easily implement them in their own classrooms.

4.3. Office 365 https://www.office.com/ offers the familiar Microsoft applications of Word, PowerPoint and Excel in an online format that can be shared with others. In my instructional activity available at this link: https://1drv.ms/p/s!Api5pMNfd6qcacAJcTcg3XYyrHs?e=hB8Ag9 I use PowerPoint to share with my colleagues in a Professional Development Workshop the many great tools that I learned about in our course Transforming Instruction through the Integration of Web Tools.