In this webinar, I introduce many of the tools I use with my students when teaching Kid’s Box.
Animations
Animation can be a child-friendly way of integrating technology in the classroom. Sedef recommends Go Animate for Schools, Puppet Pals, and PowToons.
Presentations
Biteslide is a good alternative to PowerPoint for young learners.
Video Tutorials
Explain Everything, Show Me, and Jing can be used either to create video tutorials for learners, or by learners to create their own.
Digital Stories
Stories are important for young learners, and these tools – Storybird, Little Bird Tales, and ZooBurst – enable them to create their own.
Digital Posters
KerPoof and Glogster Digital Paper are both good tools for creating digital posters.
Online Whiteboards
Interactive whiteboard tools – like Scribblar, Spacedeck, Sketchlot, and Pixiclip – allow the teacher to create board activities and record what’s done on the board for later lessons.
Podcasting and the flipped classroom
Students can record dialogues at school using tools such as Audacity, Audiboo, or Evoca, and then listen to them at home. Or teachers can use the tools as part of a flipped classroom.
Webquests
Webquests can turn learners into ‘digital pioneers’; use tools such as Questgarden, Zunal, TeacherWeb, or teAchnology, to create them.
Blogs
Blogs are a good way of showing parents what their children have been doing in class. Tools such as KidBlog and Kids Website Creator make it easy to create blogs with young learners.
Learning Management Systems
LMSes make it easier for learners to learn outside the classroom. The LMS for Kid’s Box Second Edition has online activities which enable students to practise more outside the classroom, and teachers can follow their learners’ progress via Presentation Plus.
Texting
Many free services allow teachers to send messages to both learners and their parents. Classpager, remind101, kikutext, SendHub, Swaggle.mobi, and gtext are all good examples.
Video
YouTube has a special education section, called YouTube Edu. There are also many alternatives, including SchoolTube, and Academic Earth. Snagfilms has some excellent documentaries.
Read more from Sedef on her technology blog.