Friday 28 September 2012

Top 10 Teacher Websites For The Classroom


This is the top 10 most used websites that are often found in my classroom. A web2.0 teachers toolkit if you will. Since making Planning Heaven I am constantly finding new exciting and innovative sites but these are my main 10 at the moment. I am going to start blogging and tweeting more top 10 lists of various web technologies and apps.

1)   Google Drive
This is a fantastic website that allows you to store your files online. It is very cheap and free if you only have the basic 5GB plan (more than enough for most). You can easily download files from anywhere to any device and you cans send links of your files to other people. It links very well with google docs so you can collaborate on documents with others. All in all it is a fantastic free service that I have got all my a-level students to sign up to and no-one has yet missed a deadline (fingers crossed!)


2)   Academic Earth
Academic Earth aims to provide everyone with the opportunity to earn a world-class education by offering free online classes and online learning tools. It is essentially a little like youtube only offering free videos of some of the worlds best lectures form some of the best universities. Essentially offering a free quality education to anyone that seeks it.


3)   Poll Everywhere
This website allows you to do class polls with your students using their mobiles phones and texting answers in. The results appear on screen and with most networks have free or unlimited text messages on even their pay as you go plans this could be a valuable classroom tool.


4)   Prezi
Prezi is an online application that allows you to create innovative, interactive multimedia presentations. You can easily create a fantastic, professional looking presentation. I have found that students love to use it and also seem more focused on my presentations if they are in prezi form.


5)   Code Academy
I love this site. It is a great way to introduce programming languages such as JAVA, Python and HTML. No software is needed and there are easy to follow tutorials. I have never come across software like it and its completely free. From an ICT teachers perspective its great! It would also be great for anyone that wants to learn in their own time.


6)   Class Dojo
"ClassDojo improves behavior in class with just one click of a smartphone, laptop, or tablet. It also automatically logs data and creates student behavior reports so you never have to do any data entry." One of my teacher friends is a big advocate of Class Dojo and I must admit, he doesn't really have any behavior issues so the students must respond to it.


7)   Wallwisher
Wallwisher allows you to use your computer like a notice board. You can create multiple 'boards' and anybody you give the URL to can add to the board. As an ICT teacher I use this for plenaries in my lessons and get students to log onto my board and post comments on the lesson. My screen at the front then displays all of the comments that the students have made. I can even save a picture of the finished article and email it to my students for reference. Create notes in your own workspace wall. You can save your workspace at any time and return to them from the same computer or any other computer. You can also share your notes with others by providing the workspace name (or url) to a friend. Great for collaborative ideas and brainstorming as many people can work on the same page at the same time.


8)   Screencast-o-matic
Screencast-o-matic is a website that allows you to create videos by recording whatever is on your screen. You don’t need to download any software and it is a great way for teachers and students to create tutorial videos, research projects or to complete homework.


9)   Kahn Academy
Kahn Academy is one of the most highly rated web technologies that I know of. It is used by a lot of teachers I know and they all can't speak highly enough of it. A great collection of math, science, and finance lectures and quizzes to supplement their classroom materials. Even though I am an ICT teacher I still use the site to introduce some mathematical concepts to my A-level students.


10) Voki
This is a great website where you can have an avatar (computer generated character) speak any text that you input. This is a creative way present information and could be useful to both teachers and students. I use it to create quizzes for my students. So instead of me reading the questions they can have a computer animated Mr T!

3 comments:

  1. This is a really helpful website. I have already been using some of these sites but others are new and look both interesting and useful.
    Many thanks
    Rob

    ReplyDelete
  2. No problem Rob. Thanks for the interest.
    Dan

    ReplyDelete
  3. planning heaven thanks for explanation Buy Assignment

    ReplyDelete