Competitions and Challenges
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers offers a variety of engineering competitions you can use to inspire a STEM project.
https://www.asme.org/events/competitions
Autodesk Education wants to meet the designers, innovators, and creators of tomorrow through the promotion of worldwide design competitions and events that help inspire and prepare students for careers in architecture, engineering, and the digital arts (secondary level).
http://www.autodesk.com/education/competitions-and-events/all-competitions
Energy competitions can be a fun way to apply students' understanding of science. Students K-12 can compete in many energy-related contests.
http://energy.gov/eere/education/opportunities-k-12-students
Academic Competitions is a web site hosting competitions in all disciplines and for all grade levels.
http://www.duketipeog.com/home/academic_activities
Entry Event Tools
Use the Pro/Con site to initiate a hot topic discussion as an entry event.
http://www.procon.org/
Padlet is an online graffiti wall where teachers and students can have discussions, share web links, post notices, collect feedback, or watch and share videos. Use this tool as a means to collect Need to Know information or as a project wall.
http://padlet.com/
An interesting way to identify pros and cons to an issue using a weighted Pro/Con list. Students can assign a value to a pro or a con to an issue to help them weigh each side.
http://procon.herokuapp.com/
Use an avatar to present a challenge to students using Voki.
http://www.voki.com/
PicLits matches images with carefully selected keywords to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the image, which may represent an issue or concepts. http://piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx
National Archive Experience helps teachers create a challenge by presenting a series of clues that show relationships between photos and documents.
http://www.digitalvaults.org/#/create/
QuotesCover.com turns any ordinary quotations into a beautiful typography art pictures. Use to activate prior knowledge about a topic or to initiate a position about a specific issue.
http://www.quotescover.com/
Check out this site providing teachers with links to podcasts, ideas for podcast use in the classroom, and Web 2.0 tools to create podcasts.
http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com/Audio+%26+Podcasting
Virtual Tours
Mapwing makes it easy to build virtual tours and to share them with a public audience. Turn your digital photos into virtual tours with interactive maps, images, and comments
www.mapwing.com
Create community maps adding photos, videos, comments, and more using Community Walk.
http://www.communitywalk.com/
Simulations
Understanding Taxes Simulation offers 38 Understanding Taxes student simulations divided into two content areas, the Hows of Taxes and the Whys of Taxes and The Hows of Taxes, allowing students to apply tax principles, while understanding tax history and theory.
http://apps.irs.gov/app/understandingTaxes/student/simulations.jsp
Lesson Planet offers many high-quality simulations you can use to get students excited about the learning that will take place in your project.
http://www.lessonplanet.com/search?keywords=simulations&type_ids%5b%5d=357917
Math, Physics, and Engineering simulations teachers can use to help students determine what they need to know and to support learning during the project.
http://www.falstad.com/mathphysics.html
Icivics provides simulations students can engage in to learn about civics. Simulations such as running for president, passing new laws, and arguing new cases.
https://www.icivics.org/
Content Specific Sites
HippoCampus is a free, core academic web site that delivers rich multimedia content--videos, animations, and simulations--on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school teachers and college professors, and their students, free of charge.
http://www.hippocampus.org
Khan Academy is a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/
MathWorks offers tutorials, projects, simulations, research information, and competitions in preparation for the next generation of engineers.
http://www.mathworks.com/academia/students.html?s_tid=gn_ac_sh
Chobani and Discovery Education have teamed up to create a dynamic K-12 interactive program that will stimulate insightful conversation between students and educators about nutrition and innovation in the food production process. The web site provides educators with a virtual field trip series, interactive lesson plans, digital explorations, and school-to-home learning materials, to engage students’ curiosity about where their food comes from, tracing the journey from farm to table.
http://www.recipeforinnovation.com/
Earn a certificate of completion by taking the Library of Congress' self-paced interactive modules. Each multimedia-rich program delivers approximately one hour of staff development.
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/selfdirected/
CK-12 make it easy for teachers to assemble their own textbooks. Content is mapped to a variety of levels and standards including common core. You can start from scratch or build from anything the FlexBooks library.
http://www.ck12.org/student/
Use LiveBinders to organize content specific files and sites.
http://www.livebinders.com/welcome/home
Product Creation Tools
Video Creation
Animoto is specially designed with students, teachers and classroom audiences in mind.
http://animoto.com/
Xtranormal allow users to write dialogue and manipulate figures, settings, and voices to create an animated video.
http://xtranormal.com/
Zaption makes online video come alive in the classroom. Teachers can quickly generate discussions focused on existing videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and private video libraries. Students can demonstrate their learning by creating an interactive video.
http://www.zaption.com/
GoAnimate allows users to make videos easily using animations.
https://goanimate.com/signup
PowToon provides animation create professional-looking animated informational videos and animated presentations.
http://www.powtoon.com/
Story Creation, Digital Storytelling, and Digital Scrapbooking
Storybird has free Class accounts to manage students without email, create assignments and build beautiful libraries.
http://storybird.com/
Capzules is a social storytelling application providing users with the tools to create a story using multimedia--videos, images, blogs, music, and documents.
http://www.capzles.com/
ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that lets anyone easily create his or her own 3D pop-up books.
http://www.zooburst.com/
Narrable is an online storytelling platform that combines images and narrations to engage students and to draw out important higher order thinking skills.
https://narrable.com/
MixBook is an online scrapbooking software that helps you create beautiful photo books and scrap books in minutes.
http://www.mixbook.com/
Webdoc This website is like a digital scrapbook or a rich multimedia blog platform that lets you reuse existing content online, as well as upload and throw your own fresh content into the digital mix a digital scrapbook Posts are quick and easy to create and can be embedded into other sites offering your students to demonstrate their understanding of any topic.
www.webdoc.com
VoiceThread allows people to have conversations and to make comments using any mix of text, a microphone, a web cam, a telephone, or uploaded audio file. Most popular site for interactive digital storytelling.
http://voicethread.com/
Comic Books, Flip Books, Booklets, and Graphic Novels
SimpleBooklet can be used to create multimedia publications such as booklets, brochures and flyers.
http://simplebooklet.com
ComicMaster is an easy to use Web 2.0 teaching tool for creating original graphic novels and comic books. It will appeal to students in all grade levels and can be used across the curriculum.
http://www.comicmaster.org.uk/
Make Beliefs Comix and Scholastic's Graphix allows users to create comic strips quickly.
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ and http://www.scholastic.com/graphix/createcomic.htm
Flipsnack converts PDF files into flip books and emagazines easily.
http://www.flipsnack.com/
Comic Strip Web 2.0 Tools:
http://www.bitstrips.com/, http://www.howtoons.com/, http://www.toondoo.com/
,
Other
BigHugeLabs has applications allowing the end user to create and print personalized motivational posters, calendars, movie posters, magazine covers, trading cards and more.
http://bighugelabs.com/
Letter Pop is an easy to use tool to create professional looking newsletters, invitations, online magazines, etc. using templates.
http://www.letterpop.com/
Glogster is a digital platform with multiple products students can choose from when creating end products to reflect their learning.
http://edu.glogster.com/?ref=com
Interactive Timelines may be used as end products; see the Project Management page for Web 2.0 applications.
Vocaroo a voice recording tool, which can be embedded in a product.
http://vocaroo.com/
Public Presentation Tools
Slideshare is a tool to upload PowerPoint slides and SMART Board presentations and share them with the world.
http://www.slideshare.net/
Prezi throws the slide-show model out the window and presents a giant canvas instead.
http://prezi.com/
Use Picsviewr to export and upload it to Picsviewr and add some unexpected touches.
http://www.picsviewr.com
PhotoPeach allows users to create slideshows with built in polls and quizzes.
www.photopeach.com
Haiku Deck makes it easy to simplify your message using images to amplify emotional impact and keep formatting clean and consistent.
https://www.haikudeck.com/
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers offers a variety of engineering competitions you can use to inspire a STEM project.
https://www.asme.org/events/competitions
Autodesk Education wants to meet the designers, innovators, and creators of tomorrow through the promotion of worldwide design competitions and events that help inspire and prepare students for careers in architecture, engineering, and the digital arts (secondary level).
http://www.autodesk.com/education/competitions-and-events/all-competitions
Energy competitions can be a fun way to apply students' understanding of science. Students K-12 can compete in many energy-related contests.
http://energy.gov/eere/education/opportunities-k-12-students
Academic Competitions is a web site hosting competitions in all disciplines and for all grade levels.
http://www.duketipeog.com/home/academic_activities
Entry Event Tools
Use the Pro/Con site to initiate a hot topic discussion as an entry event.
http://www.procon.org/
Padlet is an online graffiti wall where teachers and students can have discussions, share web links, post notices, collect feedback, or watch and share videos. Use this tool as a means to collect Need to Know information or as a project wall.
http://padlet.com/
An interesting way to identify pros and cons to an issue using a weighted Pro/Con list. Students can assign a value to a pro or a con to an issue to help them weigh each side.
http://procon.herokuapp.com/
Use an avatar to present a challenge to students using Voki.
http://www.voki.com/
PicLits matches images with carefully selected keywords to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the image, which may represent an issue or concepts. http://piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx
National Archive Experience helps teachers create a challenge by presenting a series of clues that show relationships between photos and documents.
http://www.digitalvaults.org/#/create/
QuotesCover.com turns any ordinary quotations into a beautiful typography art pictures. Use to activate prior knowledge about a topic or to initiate a position about a specific issue.
http://www.quotescover.com/
Check out this site providing teachers with links to podcasts, ideas for podcast use in the classroom, and Web 2.0 tools to create podcasts.
http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com/Audio+%26+Podcasting
Virtual Tours
Mapwing makes it easy to build virtual tours and to share them with a public audience. Turn your digital photos into virtual tours with interactive maps, images, and comments
www.mapwing.com
Create community maps adding photos, videos, comments, and more using Community Walk.
http://www.communitywalk.com/
Simulations
Understanding Taxes Simulation offers 38 Understanding Taxes student simulations divided into two content areas, the Hows of Taxes and the Whys of Taxes and The Hows of Taxes, allowing students to apply tax principles, while understanding tax history and theory.
http://apps.irs.gov/app/understandingTaxes/student/simulations.jsp
Lesson Planet offers many high-quality simulations you can use to get students excited about the learning that will take place in your project.
http://www.lessonplanet.com/search?keywords=simulations&type_ids%5b%5d=357917
Math, Physics, and Engineering simulations teachers can use to help students determine what they need to know and to support learning during the project.
http://www.falstad.com/mathphysics.html
Icivics provides simulations students can engage in to learn about civics. Simulations such as running for president, passing new laws, and arguing new cases.
https://www.icivics.org/
Content Specific Sites
HippoCampus is a free, core academic web site that delivers rich multimedia content--videos, animations, and simulations--on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school teachers and college professors, and their students, free of charge.
http://www.hippocampus.org
Khan Academy is a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/
MathWorks offers tutorials, projects, simulations, research information, and competitions in preparation for the next generation of engineers.
http://www.mathworks.com/academia/students.html?s_tid=gn_ac_sh
Chobani and Discovery Education have teamed up to create a dynamic K-12 interactive program that will stimulate insightful conversation between students and educators about nutrition and innovation in the food production process. The web site provides educators with a virtual field trip series, interactive lesson plans, digital explorations, and school-to-home learning materials, to engage students’ curiosity about where their food comes from, tracing the journey from farm to table.
http://www.recipeforinnovation.com/
Earn a certificate of completion by taking the Library of Congress' self-paced interactive modules. Each multimedia-rich program delivers approximately one hour of staff development.
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/selfdirected/
CK-12 make it easy for teachers to assemble their own textbooks. Content is mapped to a variety of levels and standards including common core. You can start from scratch or build from anything the FlexBooks library.
http://www.ck12.org/student/
Use LiveBinders to organize content specific files and sites.
http://www.livebinders.com/welcome/home
Product Creation Tools
Video Creation
Animoto is specially designed with students, teachers and classroom audiences in mind.
http://animoto.com/
Xtranormal allow users to write dialogue and manipulate figures, settings, and voices to create an animated video.
http://xtranormal.com/
Zaption makes online video come alive in the classroom. Teachers can quickly generate discussions focused on existing videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and private video libraries. Students can demonstrate their learning by creating an interactive video.
http://www.zaption.com/
GoAnimate allows users to make videos easily using animations.
https://goanimate.com/signup
PowToon provides animation create professional-looking animated informational videos and animated presentations.
http://www.powtoon.com/
Story Creation, Digital Storytelling, and Digital Scrapbooking
Storybird has free Class accounts to manage students without email, create assignments and build beautiful libraries.
http://storybird.com/
Capzules is a social storytelling application providing users with the tools to create a story using multimedia--videos, images, blogs, music, and documents.
http://www.capzles.com/
ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that lets anyone easily create his or her own 3D pop-up books.
http://www.zooburst.com/
Narrable is an online storytelling platform that combines images and narrations to engage students and to draw out important higher order thinking skills.
https://narrable.com/
MixBook is an online scrapbooking software that helps you create beautiful photo books and scrap books in minutes.
http://www.mixbook.com/
Webdoc This website is like a digital scrapbook or a rich multimedia blog platform that lets you reuse existing content online, as well as upload and throw your own fresh content into the digital mix a digital scrapbook Posts are quick and easy to create and can be embedded into other sites offering your students to demonstrate their understanding of any topic.
www.webdoc.com
VoiceThread allows people to have conversations and to make comments using any mix of text, a microphone, a web cam, a telephone, or uploaded audio file. Most popular site for interactive digital storytelling.
http://voicethread.com/
Comic Books, Flip Books, Booklets, and Graphic Novels
SimpleBooklet can be used to create multimedia publications such as booklets, brochures and flyers.
http://simplebooklet.com
ComicMaster is an easy to use Web 2.0 teaching tool for creating original graphic novels and comic books. It will appeal to students in all grade levels and can be used across the curriculum.
http://www.comicmaster.org.uk/
Make Beliefs Comix and Scholastic's Graphix allows users to create comic strips quickly.
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ and http://www.scholastic.com/graphix/createcomic.htm
Flipsnack converts PDF files into flip books and emagazines easily.
http://www.flipsnack.com/
Comic Strip Web 2.0 Tools:
http://www.bitstrips.com/, http://www.howtoons.com/, http://www.toondoo.com/
,
Other
BigHugeLabs has applications allowing the end user to create and print personalized motivational posters, calendars, movie posters, magazine covers, trading cards and more.
http://bighugelabs.com/
Letter Pop is an easy to use tool to create professional looking newsletters, invitations, online magazines, etc. using templates.
http://www.letterpop.com/
Glogster is a digital platform with multiple products students can choose from when creating end products to reflect their learning.
http://edu.glogster.com/?ref=com
Interactive Timelines may be used as end products; see the Project Management page for Web 2.0 applications.
Vocaroo a voice recording tool, which can be embedded in a product.
http://vocaroo.com/
Public Presentation Tools
Slideshare is a tool to upload PowerPoint slides and SMART Board presentations and share them with the world.
http://www.slideshare.net/
Prezi throws the slide-show model out the window and presents a giant canvas instead.
http://prezi.com/
Use Picsviewr to export and upload it to Picsviewr and add some unexpected touches.
http://www.picsviewr.com
PhotoPeach allows users to create slideshows with built in polls and quizzes.
www.photopeach.com
Haiku Deck makes it easy to simplify your message using images to amplify emotional impact and keep formatting clean and consistent.
https://www.haikudeck.com/