TOO COOL (PERFECT FOR SCHOOL): We've got our favorite edtech teacher and administrator tools for the week right here, as highlighted in our Instruct newsletter. By the way--got a favorite S’Cool Tool you like to use? We would love to hear and share your recommendations! If you’ve got a tool that makes you or your students sing from the proverbial mountaintops, fill out this form to let us know. It might just get featured!
Our tools of the week are:
Free! Binders, crayons, college-ruled notebooks… TeacherLists aims to streamline stressful shopping for school supplies. Upload your classroom list to the website, where parents and students can combine them across their class schedule and access it on any device. TeacherLists users must be 13 or older.
Free! HelloTalk lets students practice a foreign language while learning any subject—and they make make a friend or two in the process. On the app, users can practice, say, Arabic or Catalan (over 100 languages are available) by speaking or typing with native speakers from across the world. HelloTalk also translates and pronounces text, for early language learners.
Free! Are you making your way through endless online PD reading materials this summer? Hearing student complaints about hefty summer reading tomes? BeeLine Reader uses a color gradient to move your eyes from one line of text to the next, aiming to help you read faster. The browser plugin is currently free; the PDF plugin costs $12/year. Moby Dick, here we come!
Freemium! Kids of all ages (that means you too, adults) are learning about emotions and the brain this week through Pixar’s “Inside Out.” Capitalize on your kids’ interest in the brain through Brain Jump and NedTheNeuron, games for iPhone and iPad that teach brain science through memory games and stories from a new neuron pal. Brain Jump offers a free version and a premium version for $2.99; NedTheNeuron costs $3.99.
