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! (Note: If a tool does not have a privacy flag appended to it, the tool does not collect personally identifiable information.)
Free!—Peppy Pals—Social and emotional learning for very young kids. A cast of animals encourages children to express empathy in a number of scenarios—a dog gets his friends’ frisbee stuck or a cat pops a beach ball by accident. They’re simple enough for anyone to understand and work through. There’s no text involved because the app is geared to children below reading age. Check out the in-depth parent testimonials on the website. Privacy flag: Peppy Pals may collect parents’ information from their mobile devices or if they register on the website.
Free!—Chronas—Interactive historical maps (in beta). Chronas integrates the Wikipedia pages of countries, notable people, important artifacts with timestamped maps. For example, click on Rome in 14 AD and read about Emperor Augustus. Students can watch data on societies and nations—major religions, empires, population—fluctuate throughout history in one of the site’s many data visualizations. Did you know 40 percent of the world practiced Confucianism in 1000 AD?
Free!—CommonLit—Texts categorized by theme, grade level and reading type that come with discussion questions. The texts are all free and come as downloadable packets with worksheets and suggested companion texts appended. CommonLit offers text-based questions to test textual recall and discussion questions to encourage critical thinking and engagement between students.
