Clik here to view.
Getting Kids Engaged with Primary Sources | Cool Tools
I vividly remember being disappointed during my first year of teaching: my students weren’t nearly as excited about primary source documents as I was. Primary source documents, as you know, offer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Best PowerPoint Alternatives for Creating Great Presentations
We’ve all endured “death by PowerPoint.” It’s a painful experience for the audience and probably not all that fun for the presenter either. To help my students deliver effective presentations—free of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Blogging for Reluctant Writers: Have students share their ideas using sound...
For students who love to write, composing blog entries is a natural—and effective—way to share their stories and ideas with a wider audience. Reluctant writers can have great ideas, too—they just...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Summer Project? Six Tools to Upgrade Your School Website
School’s out—and time to enjoy some serious lounging. Summer is also a prime time to reflect on the year past, anticipate September, and consider upgrading for back-to-school. If you’re considering...
View ArticleFrom Scavenger Hunts to Photo Sharing, Fun Apps to Calm the Back-to-School...
Excitement. Nerves. Dread. The first day of school brings out a wide range of emotions among students, particularly those entering a new school. Fortunately, clever uses of technology can help orient...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Teach Kids how to Code, Make Apps and 3-D Models With These Tools
Ask anyone to share a favorite school memory, and it will likely involve making something from scratch. One of my standout experiences from elementary school was learning Logo, a graphic programming...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Resources for Curating Video Collections and Creating Custom Courses
A good video can be a powerful way to help students understand new concepts or refresh their knowledge of a topic. Thanks to YouTube, Vimeo, and oodles of other sites, we can now find instructional...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Animation Made Easy: The best tools for student projects, from stop motion to...
Very often, complicated ideas can be easily explained with simple drawings, as Dan Roam claims in his best-selling book The Back of the Napkin (Portfolio, 2009). Case in point: The popular step-by-step...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cool Tools for Featuring Student Book Reviews
We put a lot of stock in personal recommendations—particularly when it comes to books. Plenty of websites offer tips on great reads, but none will carry as much weight with your students as a site...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cool Ways to Use Google to Inspire Your Students to Create Dynamic Worlds
Thanks to the Internet, we can now see more detailed views of the world than ever before. A student wondering what the Eiffel Tower looks like doesn’t have to wait for that once-in-a-lifetime trip to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Apps for Outdoor Learning | Cool Tools
With spring in the air, students typically clamor to get outside—and teachers would often like to follow. April is an ideal time of year to explore outdoor learning opportunities, and these apps and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pleased to Meet You: Web apps for getting to know your students before fall
From left to right: Namez, Canva, Adobe Voice, Pixiclip, and Narrable. School’s out this month. But before we know it, we’ll be thinking about next year. To jazz up your blog and revitalize your...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Eight Apps to Support Early Reading and Writing | Cool Tools
As we all know, it’s never too early to encourage reading. I regularly Skype with my two young nieces, who live 1,200 miles away. The four-year-old shares her current bedtime book with me, and shows me...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Streamline Your Workflow: Five Time-Saving Tips
It’s back to school and there’s so much to do. If you had more time, how would you spend it? Developing better lessons, talking with students, or collaborating with colleagues? Maybe you’d just relax...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Classroom Management Tricks: Timers and a tool to control noise | Cool Tools
As every teacher knows, good classroom management can make the difference between a great class experience and a poor one. While technology doesn’t replace the need for a solid approach to classroom...
View ArticleClik here to view.
SLJ’s Top 10 Cool Tools 2014
The close of the year is a good time to take stock of the best productivity apps and websites launched over the last 12 months. A quick count of my bookmarks reveals more than 100 newly issued...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Screencasting Tools for Tech Support | Cool Tools
This time of year, a lot of new laptops, Chromebooks, iPads, and other devices appear in the hands of our students and colleagues. While most students adapt to new devices like ducks to water, our...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Five Top Collaborative Research Tools | Cool Tools
The Internet is built for sharing knowledge, but students often research and write in isolation—and turn out papers that cite the same handful of resources over and over. Collaborative research prompts...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Six Top Sources for Free Images, Video, and Audio | Cool Tools
I’ve written about a number of video, audio, and collage creation tools, with WeVideo, Audacity, and PicMonkey topping some of my lists. However, it can be a challenge for students to locate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tools to Engage Students When the Back-to-School Buzz Wanes | Cool Tools
About this time of year, the novelty of “back to school” can start to wear off as students settle into their routines. Looking for some new or improved tools to re-engage them? Tech companies have been...
View Article
