1. Communicating
1.1. SchoolNotes 2.0
1.1.1. This would be a really handy tool to communicate on a regular basis with parents and students outside of the classroom. This could also be used to upload assignments for students who were absent.
1.2. Celly - Instant Group Text and Polls | Mobile Learning | Text to Screen
1.2.1. Within this tool you can create your own social network which they call a "cell". This would be really useful in the classroom because it enables you are the teacher to send one message and communicate it to parents or students in their preferred method.
1.3. Kidblog
1.3.1. In order to stay in constant communication with parents I think this blog would be really helpful. Within the blog you can post many visually attractive items in order to engage our students and encourage them to keep up with happenings in the classroom when they are home.
1.4. Poll Everywhere
1.4.1. This tool would be very utilitarian for a formative based assessment. Poll everywhere can be utilized by students from any form of technology and easily assess students before, during or after a lesson for their content retained.
1.5. Presentation Software | Online Presentation Tools | Prezi
1.5.1. Prezi is a great resources for students and teachers to put together a professional looking presentation in a very short amount of time. One of the most popular eye catching features in Powerpoint are the transitions but at times they are cheesy and unprofessional. Prezi brings a sort of mature class back into presentation along with the ease of creation it is sure to be a hit among teachers and students.
1.6. Learn all about ClassDojo ♥
1.6.1. ClassDojo is an absolute necessity in my classroom. This web 2.0 tool makes it easy to reward and take away incentive points for students. I classified this as a communication tool because it communicates all of these behaviors on a daily basis with the parent. I have found this to be a huge life saver and great behavior management tool myself.
2. Creating
2.1. brainstorm and mind map online
2.1.1. This is a wonderful tool which would allow the whole class to create a visual representation of their thoughts. This would be useful in brainstorming activities in which the whole class could participate in or even small group brainstorm situations where students are looking to organize their thoughts.
2.2. Bitly | URL Shortener and Link Management Platform
2.2.1. When creating presentations, students tend to cite their sources by simply copying the long url link to their bibliography slide. By using this site students are able to create a shorter URL link which is much more user friendly. Additionally, this can be helpful for creating an easy for students to access a specific site.
2.3. TubeChop - Chop YouTube Videos
2.3.1. Many times my students want to insert videos into their presentation. But, they tend to include the entire video when only a short portion of the video is actually necessary. By using this site students can "chop" out the portion of the YouTube video they are wishing to show. This would be extremely helpful to students for creating dynamic presentations.
2.4. GoAnimate for Schools
2.4.1. Here students can create animated stories to share in the classroom. Personally, i do a comic strip creating every year in which the students get to draw their comic and then develop their own storyline. This would be a fun twist to add to that project and bring it into the digital age!
2.4.1.1. Explain Everything | Interactive Whiteboard App
2.4.1.1.1. This is a great tool for creating engaging presentations. The product advertises itself as a students and teacher friendly presentation tool and the tutorials seem to be extremely engaging. This "interactive white board" would be a very useful tool to jazz up an old powerpoint presentation.
2.5. Storybird Studio: Creative tools for educators
2.5.1. Storybird is a tool I am going to start using in my own classroom. It is a free tool for all classroom educators. This tool shows a variety of renowned images to students in order to spark their interest and inspire their creativity. This would be a great anticipatory set for students or could even serve as a wonderful writing prompt.
2.6. Citelighter | The fully automated bibliography, research, citation, and internet highlighting tool.
2.6.1. This tool is really helpful to break down all of the individual steps in the writing process. Many times all of the steps to the writing process can seem daunting and uninteresting to students. With this web 2.0 tool students are able to be engaged digitally and receive feedback directly from their teacher along the way. Not to mention the organizational benefits that come with this program!
2.7. Create A Graph
2.7.1. Typically, I jump into Excel when I want to make a graph. But, the only reason I am able to do that is through some serious training and trial and error through Excel use. This makes the creation of a graph simple and fast for students. I love that it offers pictorial representations and an easily to download image at the end!
3. Researching
3.1. Diigo - Better reading and research with annotation, highlighter, sticky notes, archiving, bookmarking & more.
3.1.1. This site can help our students to better keep track of their research. They are able to use many tools within this program in order to organize, highlight, take notes and much more. This would be very helpful to them while they are collecting information for a presentation or researching in order to grow their knowledge base.
3.2. Sticky and Photo Sharing for you - lino
3.2.1. This website provides the idea of creating a large bulletin board in a digital sense. Students could easily use this to collaborate with others on a large project by posting their research findings. This would also be a really neat way to assign homework because we could ask that students post on here their research links and a summary of their findings related to a given topic. As a teacher I would be able to provide a few jumping points for the students and collaborate with them on the same level.
3.3. EasyBib: The Free Automatic Bibliography Composer
3.3.1. This is a great tool for students to actually cite their evidence in any given format. By allowing students to individually type in the information and then formatting it automatically for them, many formatting errors are eliminated.
3.4. Pinterest
3.4.1. Pinterest is becoming more and more popular by the day. Students and teachers are easily intrigued by this bulletin board format where everyone is encouraged to contribute pictorial representations of anything and everything.
3.5. TED: Ideas worth spreading
3.5.1. This one is a personal favorite of mine for sure! On TED talks there are a variety of issues covered by professionals in a concise manner. All of these are well captured by their slogan "ideas worth spreading". Many have an overall positive impact which would be a great start for a research project.
4. Professional Develoment
4.1. Skype | Free calls to friends and family
4.1.1. There are a variety of applications for this 2.0 tool to be used in the classroom. One of my favorite uses for this is a virtual professional development experience. By signing into a group chat educators are able to communicate from around the world conveniently.
4.2. The Teacher's Path
4.2.1. There are many opportunities for following WordPress blogs such as this one. By connecting and following along the journeys of other educators, there is certainly a lot of helpful things you can learn. Professional development can occur through the communication fostered by these types of blogs as well.
4.3. LibriVox | free public domain audiobooks
4.3.1. This tool is useful for audiobooks which would be very helpful in the area of professional development. It is always a struggle to find the extra time in our day but this would be a handy tool for using on morning or afternoon commutes to and from work.
4.4. Welcome to Teacherplanet.com | Teacherplanet.com
4.4.1. Teachers planet is a wonderful resource for all things teaching. Here you will find a variety of suggestions, advice, unit plans, and some great stories. This is a great way to connect and learn from other educators.
4.5. Educreations
4.5.1. Lets face it, although our kids seem to think so, we certainly don't know everything as teachers. This web 2.0 tool enables us to be lifelong learners along with our students. Whether you want to share a lesson or brush up on some basic biology this is the perfect site to add to your teacher tool box!