Top Ten Cool Tools For School

This is a list of the top 10 tools for teaching that I personally believe are very useful and can be used effectively in a classroom.


1. Number one goes to wikispaces. I have had a teacher that used wikispaces in high school and i thought it gave great help to not just me but the class. http://aliciapierce21.blogspot.com/2012/03/cool-tool-for-school-wikispaces.html


2. In a close second is Dr. Math. I like this tool because it can be used from elementary to college and it's another way to help the students if they don't understand the math. http://demi-hunt.blogspot.com/2012/03/cool-tool-for-school.html


3. Third is finale. Back in middle school I used a program like finale on a project where we had to create a score of music, and it made creating the score fun because we could play back the music we made. So I believe it's a great way for students be creative and explore what their capable of. http://miawnaj.blogspot.com/


4. Wordle is in fourth but strong. There are people out there (me) who have trouble understanding poems, and if I knew about wordle back in high school i feel like I would have liked it more. http://excerptsfromaneducator.blogspot.com/


5. Teachertube is in the middle of the pack. This is a good way for teachers to support and help one another out in a time of need even if they are far away. http://newinsiteonedu.blogspot.com/2012/03/cool-tool-for-school.html


6. Bitting the heels of teachertube is Study Island in sixth. Study Island is another way for teachers to assign study questions or for students to study independently on their own. http://rweducation.blogspot.com/


7. Helping to bring up the rear is prezi in seventh. I like that there is another source than powerpoint to make slide shows because not all computers come with it already installed. http://uniquelynina.blogspot.com/


8. Third to last is Discoveryeducation. Its nice that you can look at other teachers lesson plans, but I don't really like it because it seems like a lot of teachers could use it to copy the lessons on the website instead of making their own. ecks6307.blogspot.com


9. Right behind discoveryeducation is Animoto. I like it because if you had a photography class this could provide a fun group activity for the kids to do. Other than that I think its more of a hobby site.  http://educs12.blogspot.com/
10. And last but not least is LeeSummit.k12. The reason I didn't like it was because it was only geared toward Early Education and wasn't really an universal use. http://bobsedu183.blogspot.com/

Cool Tool For School

Today in our SEDU 183 class we were asked to find a tool that would be useful to us as teachers or to the future students that we will be teaching. I choose to pick a tool that will be useful to the students. Most students, no matter their age, love to hear the teacher say that they're going to be doing group work. I was never really one of those kids, but that was until I recently discovered the tool called Pegby. Pegby is online program that allows people whether in groups or not manage and organize their progress on whatever it is they're working on. The way pegby works is that you make note cards. These note cards allow you about 200 characters per card, you can put hyperlinks on them, and assign a specific task for someone to do. After creating the note cards you can place them into three different categories to do, in progress, and completed. This allows the students to keep themselves organized and also gives the group or the group leaders the ability to assign certain tasks to each individual. Anyone can be invited to pegby through email and can make a card. So teachers can observe how the groups progress and delegate jobs to the individuals.

Above is a short tutorial on how to use pegby.