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! If a S’Cool Tool does not have a privacy flag appended to it, it does not require people share personal information to use.
FREE!—Talking Math With Kids—We know it’s beneficial to read to kids every day. Should we do the same with math? Talking Math With Kids provides topics, activities and conversation plans for parents to engage with their children about math and math-related topics as discrete blog posts. The blog weaves together recent research on child development and math education.
FREE!—Infogram—Make infographics, charts and visualize data. A tool for journalism teachers or anyone tired of shoddy graphs in word processors. Infogram offers templates for students to input data and choose the type and flavor of display. Privacy flag: If students register to use Infogram, the site may collect students’ names, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses. It may use this information to promote its services to students.
FREEMIUM—EasyBib—Create source citations. The free version allows students to cite sources in Modern Language Association (MLA) style. Teachers will have to purchase the Pro version for Chicago, APA and other styles.
LICENSE—Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)—Guide discussions of images and pieces of visual arts. VTS provides images for young students to analyze and guiding questions for the teacher. The discussion questions are open-ended rather than being an introduction to art history or visual theory, such as the ubiquitous “What’s happening in this picture?” and “What makes you say that?” Many of VTS’s materials and exercises are available for free on the New York Times’ Learning Network.
