Online Assessment Tools
Vialogues can be used for formative assessment of students' comprehension on any topic. As an example, a science teacher could post a video showing different forms of erosion. Adding introductory comments or questions to the video would guide student responses demonstrating their level of understanding of the topic.
https://vialogues.com/
Infuse powerful tools to support (not replace) quality pedagogy and strike a balance between technology and pedagogy. This Web 2.0 tool includes several quick assessment and interactive tools.
http://www.infuselearning.com/
Quizlet students can take practice quizzes made by you or other educators.
http://quizlet.com/
Try also http://quizstar.4teachers.org/.
Temperature Check Surveys and Polls
Socrative lets teachers engage and assess their students with real time questioning, instant result aggregation and visualization, which teachers can use to gauge the whole class’ current level of understanding.
http://www.socrative.com/
Poll Everywhere lets you engage your class anywhere in real time. Use to poll students or quiz them using multiple-choice or true/false questions and receive instant feedback.
http://www.polleverywhere.com/
Writing Tools
Smorie is an exciting, independent and free online channel for kids (3 - 8 years old) to watch great new stories being read by other kids. It is also a place for children's story writers to get their work published online.
www.smorie.com
Storyjumper is another site similar to Smorie.
http://www.storyjumper.com/
Meograph combines maps, timeline, links, and multimedia to tell stories in context of where and when. Authoring is structured into a few simple prompts on an intuitive interface.
http://www.meograph.com/education
Edublogs allows teams or individual students to write blogs about their learning or a given topic.
http://edublogs.org/
Try also www.blogger.com or http://kidblog.org/home/
Quadblogging will Quad you and your learners up with three other classes matching your preferences selected in the sign up process.
http://quadblogging.com/
TitanPad lets team members write collaboratively on one document simultaneously.
https://titanpad.com/
Student can create their own Wikipedia page based on their learning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Starting_an_article
Create a writing workspace using Wikispaces.
http://www.wikispaces.com/
Reading Tools
Newsela is an innovative way for students to build reading comprehension with nonfiction that's always relevant: daily news.
https://newsela.com/
21st Century Skills
Critical Thinking
Visual Ranking Students identify and refine criteria as they assign order or ranking to a list. Items in the list may be represented by images. Students must explain their reasoning and can compare their work with each other in a visual diagram. This tool supports activities where students need to organize ideas, debate differences, and reach consensus.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/education/k12/thinking-tools/visual-ranking/try-the-tool.html
Tuvalabs is a rich site with local and global data students can use to analyze, engage in inquiry, and communicate their conclusions.
https://tuvalabs.com/
Diffen is a tool to compare anything in a visual way. Use this tool to help students think critically about opposing concepts or ideas. This tool helps students to delineate between fact and opinion when making a choice.
http://www.diffen.com/
Mindtools is a web site with many different Web 2.0 applications to help your students in developing critical thinking skills and aiding them in completing tasks for a project.
http://www.mindtools.com/
Visuwords allows students to think critically about vocabulary words; students can work in teams to explore vocabulary words and share with classmates.
http://www.visuwords.com/
The Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools pdf document can be used define critical thinking skills.
Mind Mapping and Brainstorming
Popplet is an easy-to-use mindmapping tool teams might use to create an inquiry plan.
http://popplet.com/
Bubbl.us is a brainstorming tools teams can use to generate ideas about a topic of study.
https://bubbl.us/
Try also http://www.mindmeister.com/.
Creativity
Students can create infographics to demonstrate their learning using one of the following free Web 2.0 tools.
http://infogr.am/
http://piktochart.com/
http://visual.ly/
http://www.easel.ly/
Check out Kathy Shrock's site listing all you need to know about infographics.
Research Tools
Del.icio.us is an online bookmarking site where students can store websites based on their research, tag them, and share them with your team. Teachers too can use this site to share websites of interest with their students.
https://delicious.com/
Diigo is an online bookmarking site that allows students download informational text and annotate their thoughts on the text.
https://www.diigo.com
Academic, Student-Friendly Search Engines
Sweet Search is a search engine that searches only the sites that have been reviewed and approved by a team of librarians, teachers, and research experts.
www.sweetsearch.com
Ref Seek is a search engine designed for academic use. Ref Seek seems to eliminate the advertising and paid links found on Google, Ask, Yahoo, and other commercial search engines.
www.refseek.com
Wolfram Alpha is billed as a computational search engine and this is exactly what it does. If students have any questions involving numbers, Wolfram Alpha is the place to go. Wolfram Alpha can be used for other searches, but it's not nearly as useful for general inquiries as it is for computational questions.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
Google Scholar is one of Google's lesser-known tools. Google Scholar is a search engine designed to search scholarly journals, Supreme Court records, and patent records.
http://scholar.google.com/
Simply ask a question or enter search topics or tools and iSEEK will pull from scholastic sources to find exactly what you are looking for. The search engine is safe, intelligent and time–saving—and it draws from trusted resources from universities, government and established non–commercial sites.
http://education.iseek.com/iseek/home.page
Scirus is a leading search engine for science students on the web. This search engine has a comprehensive database of more than 350 million scientific–related pages including: academic journals, websites, scientists' homepages, pre–print server material, patents and institutional repository. Moreover, the site allows users to locate technical and medical data, find current reports, search through peer–reviewed articles and examine patents through a selective search engine.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scirus/
Try out the following visual search engines as well: http://www.search-cube.com/, http://www.oolone.com/, and http://www.spezify.com/,
Reflection Tools
Students can use Penzu as an online journal tool to reflect on their learning throughout the project, which teachers can then use to assess understanding.
http://penzu.com/
Use word clouds such a Tagxedo or Wordle or TagCrowd or Tagul or WordSift to have teams reflect on their learning of a specific topic.
Use Answer Garden as 3-2-1 summarizer (or pose a question) to help students reflect on their learning. Students will answer digitally and you will receive immediate feedback.
http://answergarden.ch/
Digital Workshops and Webinars
Screencast-o-matic allows users to capture their screens and digitally record a concept or procedure. Use this tool to create mini-workshops for teams or individual students who need a little extra help or use this tool to record procedures using a computer application like how to format an MLA research paper using Word.
http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/
Create live webinar lessons or pre-recorded so students can access the webinar anywhere, any time using one of the following webinar creation sites:
http://www.gotomeeting.co.uk/webinar, https://tokbox.com/, https://tokbox.com/ or
https://meeting.zoho.com/.
Vialogues can be used for formative assessment of students' comprehension on any topic. As an example, a science teacher could post a video showing different forms of erosion. Adding introductory comments or questions to the video would guide student responses demonstrating their level of understanding of the topic.
https://vialogues.com/
Infuse powerful tools to support (not replace) quality pedagogy and strike a balance between technology and pedagogy. This Web 2.0 tool includes several quick assessment and interactive tools.
http://www.infuselearning.com/
Quizlet students can take practice quizzes made by you or other educators.
http://quizlet.com/
Try also http://quizstar.4teachers.org/.
Temperature Check Surveys and Polls
Socrative lets teachers engage and assess their students with real time questioning, instant result aggregation and visualization, which teachers can use to gauge the whole class’ current level of understanding.
http://www.socrative.com/
Poll Everywhere lets you engage your class anywhere in real time. Use to poll students or quiz them using multiple-choice or true/false questions and receive instant feedback.
http://www.polleverywhere.com/
Writing Tools
Smorie is an exciting, independent and free online channel for kids (3 - 8 years old) to watch great new stories being read by other kids. It is also a place for children's story writers to get their work published online.
www.smorie.com
Storyjumper is another site similar to Smorie.
http://www.storyjumper.com/
Meograph combines maps, timeline, links, and multimedia to tell stories in context of where and when. Authoring is structured into a few simple prompts on an intuitive interface.
http://www.meograph.com/education
Edublogs allows teams or individual students to write blogs about their learning or a given topic.
http://edublogs.org/
Try also www.blogger.com or http://kidblog.org/home/
Quadblogging will Quad you and your learners up with three other classes matching your preferences selected in the sign up process.
http://quadblogging.com/
TitanPad lets team members write collaboratively on one document simultaneously.
https://titanpad.com/
Student can create their own Wikipedia page based on their learning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Starting_an_article
Create a writing workspace using Wikispaces.
http://www.wikispaces.com/
Reading Tools
Newsela is an innovative way for students to build reading comprehension with nonfiction that's always relevant: daily news.
https://newsela.com/
21st Century Skills
Critical Thinking
Visual Ranking Students identify and refine criteria as they assign order or ranking to a list. Items in the list may be represented by images. Students must explain their reasoning and can compare their work with each other in a visual diagram. This tool supports activities where students need to organize ideas, debate differences, and reach consensus.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/education/k12/thinking-tools/visual-ranking/try-the-tool.html
Tuvalabs is a rich site with local and global data students can use to analyze, engage in inquiry, and communicate their conclusions.
https://tuvalabs.com/
Diffen is a tool to compare anything in a visual way. Use this tool to help students think critically about opposing concepts or ideas. This tool helps students to delineate between fact and opinion when making a choice.
http://www.diffen.com/
Mindtools is a web site with many different Web 2.0 applications to help your students in developing critical thinking skills and aiding them in completing tasks for a project.
http://www.mindtools.com/
Visuwords allows students to think critically about vocabulary words; students can work in teams to explore vocabulary words and share with classmates.
http://www.visuwords.com/
The Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools pdf document can be used define critical thinking skills.
Mind Mapping and Brainstorming
Popplet is an easy-to-use mindmapping tool teams might use to create an inquiry plan.
http://popplet.com/
Bubbl.us is a brainstorming tools teams can use to generate ideas about a topic of study.
https://bubbl.us/
Try also http://www.mindmeister.com/.
Creativity
Students can create infographics to demonstrate their learning using one of the following free Web 2.0 tools.
http://infogr.am/
http://piktochart.com/
http://visual.ly/
http://www.easel.ly/
Check out Kathy Shrock's site listing all you need to know about infographics.
Research Tools
Del.icio.us is an online bookmarking site where students can store websites based on their research, tag them, and share them with your team. Teachers too can use this site to share websites of interest with their students.
https://delicious.com/
Diigo is an online bookmarking site that allows students download informational text and annotate their thoughts on the text.
https://www.diigo.com
Academic, Student-Friendly Search Engines
Sweet Search is a search engine that searches only the sites that have been reviewed and approved by a team of librarians, teachers, and research experts.
www.sweetsearch.com
Ref Seek is a search engine designed for academic use. Ref Seek seems to eliminate the advertising and paid links found on Google, Ask, Yahoo, and other commercial search engines.
www.refseek.com
Wolfram Alpha is billed as a computational search engine and this is exactly what it does. If students have any questions involving numbers, Wolfram Alpha is the place to go. Wolfram Alpha can be used for other searches, but it's not nearly as useful for general inquiries as it is for computational questions.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
Google Scholar is one of Google's lesser-known tools. Google Scholar is a search engine designed to search scholarly journals, Supreme Court records, and patent records.
http://scholar.google.com/
Simply ask a question or enter search topics or tools and iSEEK will pull from scholastic sources to find exactly what you are looking for. The search engine is safe, intelligent and time–saving—and it draws from trusted resources from universities, government and established non–commercial sites.
http://education.iseek.com/iseek/home.page
Scirus is a leading search engine for science students on the web. This search engine has a comprehensive database of more than 350 million scientific–related pages including: academic journals, websites, scientists' homepages, pre–print server material, patents and institutional repository. Moreover, the site allows users to locate technical and medical data, find current reports, search through peer–reviewed articles and examine patents through a selective search engine.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scirus/
Try out the following visual search engines as well: http://www.search-cube.com/, http://www.oolone.com/, and http://www.spezify.com/,
Reflection Tools
Students can use Penzu as an online journal tool to reflect on their learning throughout the project, which teachers can then use to assess understanding.
http://penzu.com/
Use word clouds such a Tagxedo or Wordle or TagCrowd or Tagul or WordSift to have teams reflect on their learning of a specific topic.
Use Answer Garden as 3-2-1 summarizer (or pose a question) to help students reflect on their learning. Students will answer digitally and you will receive immediate feedback.
http://answergarden.ch/
Digital Workshops and Webinars
Screencast-o-matic allows users to capture their screens and digitally record a concept or procedure. Use this tool to create mini-workshops for teams or individual students who need a little extra help or use this tool to record procedures using a computer application like how to format an MLA research paper using Word.
http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/
Create live webinar lessons or pre-recorded so students can access the webinar anywhere, any time using one of the following webinar creation sites:
http://www.gotomeeting.co.uk/webinar, https://tokbox.com/, https://tokbox.com/ or
https://meeting.zoho.com/.