As time is evolving and technology advances, we, educators, apply technology in class. Living in the post-COVID era, we have learned and implemented technology in online or blended learning. As a teacher who majored in curriculum development & instructional technology, I would like to provide some practical and useful information on educational technology.
Small tips & websites:
IMPORTANT General Resources
Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Digital Storytelling
Tarver Academy: Google Certified Educator (GEG) sources
MrMikeKaufman.com:Cool PD stuff & tutorials for Google Workplace
The Techy Coach: Google tools sections
https://www.educatorstechnology.com
Finding images
- Creative Commons Image Search Tool
- Open Clip Art Library
- World Digital Library: good for teaching history
- National Gallery of Art
Video recording
- Flipgrid: A cool video-making site
- Zoom: Besides the meeting function, it can be used as a recording tool.
- Vimeo: A cool video-making site
- OBS open broadcaster software
- Powerpoint: It has the recording function
Download Video website
Video editing
- Embedding online video clips: share>Embedding>Copy the code
- Safeshare: trim the Advertisement to ensure Internet safety
- Kapwing: edit video and create content online
- Edpoints: add stop points to check students’ comprehension
- VideoAnt: add annotation into a video clip own by UMN
- Edpuzzle: edit video clip and add questions to it
- ZAMZAR : A free video convertion site
Video Converter
Multiple activities platform
- Wordwall: Contains many small activities
- Nearpod
- Boom Cards
- Flippity: Contains many small activities
- Thinklink: Create a cool roadmap with many stations for your audience. It combines several functions and platforms together.
- Mentimeter
- myViewBoard: An individual platform that can be used for many purposes
- Newsela
- Peardeck
- Lumosity
- ClassDojo
Meeting scheduling tools
Mindmap tools
- Coggle: an easy, user friendly mindmap creating website. Go to create mindmap> use presentation mode to present
- Text2mindmap: create mindmap based on texts
- Moro: online whiteboard with mindmap function
- LucidSpark: Online mindmapping tool
Online whiteboard
- Jamboard: own by Google
- Scrumblr
- Padlet
- Whiteboard.fi
Video resources
- WatchKnowLearn: Video resources with age filter
- Chekc123
- Discovery Education
- PBS learning media: Videos resources separated into subjects
- Youglish: A video website for ESL learners
Chart creating tool
Sound resources
- Radiooooo: the musical time machine
- Lofi.coffee
Sound recorder
Survey tools
- SurveyCake: A survey tool most often used here in Taiwan
- Survey Monkey
- Google Form
- Kahoot
- Quizizz
Useful tools
- Quizlet: A useful vocabulary reviewing tool
Fonts
- daFont (http://www.dafont.com/): Thousands of free fonts for both Macs and PCs.
- 1001 Free Fonts (http://www.1001freefonts.com/): The name says it all!
- Calligraphr (http://www.calligraphr.com/): Calligraphr lets you design your own font using a downloadable PDF template. To use it, simply hand-write the individual letters and numbers that you would like to include in your personal font. Scan the paper in and voila – instant font!
- emojimix
Google slide templates/Powerpoint templates
- Slides Go: Find a professionally created Google Slide template complete with custom graphics, charts, artwork and layout ideas.
- Slides Mania: Professional developed Google Slides templates, including some that are designed to be interactive (digital manipulatives, games, etc.)
- PPTMON: a professional website for Google slide templates/ Powerpoint templates
- PPTBIZCAM: Powerpoint templates in Korean
- Slidesgo: Powerpoint templates in English
- Presentation Magazine: Powerpoint templates in English
Online Gallery
- KUNSTMARTIX online show room: A library of exhibition rooms offers a wide range of architectural spaces — suitable for every kind of art. You can choose between wall colors and combine different rooms into a large exhibition. Create high-quality 3D exhibitions of your art. Share them with gallerists, collectors, or friends. Embed them into your own website or blog.
Portfolio-building Websites
- Wix.com: A fancy, intuitive self-build website with lots of templates
- Weebly: A less fancy but intuitive self-build website
- WordPress An open-source self-build website with code
- Strikingly
- Google Sites
- PortfolioGen
- Portfoliopen
- Cargo
- Flickr
- Indexhibit
- Vimeo
- Deviantart
- Behance
- Carbonmade
- Big Black Bag
- Blue Host
- SmugMug
Computational Thinking & Creative Coding
- Code.org: a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by women and underrepresented youth.
- Scratch: Part of MIT’s “lifelong kindergarten” project, Scratch lets teachers and students construct interactive multimedia experiences using images, sounds and coding
- Hour of Code: Hour of Code is a website that encourages students and teachers to use coding to learn more about computer science. This website is can be accessed year round but holds a special event worldwide every December.
- Minecraft: Minecraft is a simple coding-based game which fits perfectly into the classroom. Minecraft offers 14 lessons with examples of how to implement the game into your everyday learning. This is one of the most popular sites so do not be shocked if your students already know how to play.
- Code Monkey: Code Monkey offers standard aligned lessons for teachers and teaches students about computer science while having fun. Students are challenged to be creative while creating or playing fun games. This website has a free trial but to use it in the classroom or at home, a subscription is needed.
- Tynker: Tynker is a website that takes students from the simplest coding games to controlling drones or robots. Tynker has a portion of the website which is free but requires a one-year or lifetime subscription to gain access to everything.
Simple Image Creation Tools
- Big Huge Labs (https://bighugelabs.com/): Offers a series of simple pre-made project templates for creating calendars, trading cards and more!
- Adobe Spark (https://spark.adobe.com/): A simple online tool to create impressive flyers, collages and videos. Projects can be saved to your computer or embedded onto your website or blog.
- Canva
- Scrap Coloring: creative name tag making tool
- Meme template
- Ez Gif.com
- https://instad.io :A revolutionary vectorizer with hand drawn styling
Image remove background tool
- Using PowerPoint to remove background from an Image (See blog for details)
- Adobe Photoshop online AI background remove tool
- PhotoScissors: remove the background of the image
- Designify: remove the background of the image
- FOCOCLIPPING: remove the background of the image
- Promo Image Resizer: Free image resize tool
- Airmore: remove the background of the image
- AI Background Remover : remove the background of the image
- PixMiller: remove the background of the image
- PicWish: remove the background of the image
- ZapBG: remove the background of the image
- PIXLR: remove the background of the image
- PickWish: remove the background of the image
- ZapBG: remove the background of the image
- jpgRM: remove the background of the image
- Watermark remover.io: remove the watermark of the image
- NewProfilePic: personal profile creator
- PhotoRoom: remove the background of the image
Combine image tool
AI Assisted Art Creation Tools
- Auto Draw (https://www.autodraw.com/): An AI-assisted drawing tool for creating simple cartoon-style graphics
- Deep Dream Generator (artwork mashups)
- Artbreeder (https://www.artbreeder.com/):
Digital storytelling-Web-based tools
- My Storybook
- iFakeTextMessage
- Fakebook (fake facebook pages)
- ThingLink
- Make A Meme
- GrammarCatz
- Choose Your Own Adventure using Google Slides (my example from Mallorca)
Character Creation / Ideas
- This Person Does Not Exist
- Character Creator: https://charactercreator.org/ – use a menu system to design a human avatar
- Fantasy Character Generator: http://dmheroes.com/
- Get Avataaars: https://getavataaars.com/ – vector style avatars
Digital storytelling-Apps
- Comic Strip
- Chatterpix
- Story Creator
- Shadow Puppet EDU
- Explain Everything EDU
- Prototype on Paper (POP)
- Stop Motion
- Foldify
EdTech Websites for Future Research
- Free Tech for Teachers: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
- Emerging Ed Tech: https://www.emergingedtech.com/
- Ed TechTeacher: http://edtechteacher.org/apps/#Begin
- Educational App Store: http://www.educationalappstore.com/
- Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything: https://www.schrockguide.net/
- Understood.org (Learning Disabilities): https://www.understood.org/en/tools/tech-finder
- Augsberg College: Class Disability Resources: http://www.augsburg.edu/class/groves/assistive-technology/everyone/
Word cloud/generator
- Word Art:https://wordart.com/create
- WordClouds.com: https://www.wordclouds.com
- Menitmeter text analysis: https://www.mentimeter.com/s/1f97826be868c24cca1efae35ab6f64b/9974ed81cb48/edit
AI tools
- BIgjpg: Enlarge picture by AI CNN.
- Animated Drawing: Once students upload their drawings, the back end of the AI will automatically make animations.
- Rentor: Enhance any face photo to make them clear