Tools for Teachers

One of the great benefits of the internet is the availability of online applications that have the potential to make life so much easier for the teacher. Apart from the obvious learning resources that we focus on at Scoilnet we recently came across some tools that could help with your class work. Please note these tools were all commerical-free when orginally cited.

Befuddlr 
Choose a picture to 'befuddlr' - pieces of the picture are moved around and you have to recreate the image. Pulls images from Flickr groups that have a creative commons licence. Easy-to-use.

Bubbl.us
Brainstorming tool that allows you to save as jpg or html page.

CAST: Book Builder
Create, share and publish online interactive books. Choose a coach (character) to guide readers through your book.

Cloze Test Maker - Oxford University Press
Using American English or your own text this cloze test maker is easy to use and is perfect for offline activities.

Classtools.net
Allows you to create free games and activities in Flash which inlcude timelines, graphs, countdown calculators and venn diagrams.

Create a Graph - NCES
Choose from Bar, Pie, Line, Area, or XY graphs. Includes tutorial and examples.

Educators Technology.com [PDF 2MB]
Comprehensive listing of tools from a website that specialises in providing tips and guides for teachers. Contains over 90 pages of useful tools. Bound to be something here for everyone. (Added 22/1/12)

Flashcard Exchange
Web-based flashcard maker to to view, create, share, and print flashcards for class. Contains millions of cards with thousands of new ones uploaded weekly. (Added 20/3/13)

Fuel the Brain.com
Customise and print your own venn diagrams, line plots, bar graphs and so on.

Ginger Spellcheck
Claims to not only correct and improve spelling but grammar also. Free version available.

Graph Creator (All levels)
Easy to use online graph generator. Includes area graphs, bar graphs, pie charts and line graphs. These can be generated for printing only and don't seem to have any saving capabilities for online use.

Imagination Cubed
Draw shapes and pictures online. Invite friends to draw collaboratively or share drawings.

Langwitches - Creating Infographics with Students
A guide to infographics and how they can be applied to learning and teaching. Shows how they can be created and lists some available tools with which to create them.
 
Magicstudio
Create interactive timelines, drag and drop activities and image explorers. See Scoilnet exmples of its use.

MathsWorksheets World
US site that allows you to create and share Maths worksheets. Covers many areas from addition to word problems.

Plagiarism Checker
Free tool that allows the user to check essays and papers for plagiarism - using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another without authorisation and the representation of that author's work as one's own.

Quizlet.com
Create and share Flashcards or study vocabularly.

Scratch
A programming language that allows you to produce interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art. You can also share your creations on the web. The Scratch lesson plans page will give you ideas for using in classroom.

SEN Teacher
Free printables covering aspects of English and Maths. High quality prints. Aimed at Primary. Requires Flash.

Scholastic Rubric Maker - (All levels)
Free online tool that allows the teacher to grade pupils 1-5 for work on a specific project. (5: Proficient, 4: Capable, 3: Satisfactory, 2: Emerging, and 1: Beginning). Can be used for any subject.

Sketch a Map (All levels)
Allows user to draw on a blank topographical map of the world. Users can zoom in to specific regions or countries and also have the option of viewing satellite or street maps. Really useful for Georgaphy and fantastic for use on an IWB.

Spellingcity.com
Free tool which allows teachers and parents to create and access spelling lists. Students can then be tested on the list or play the list, which presents the audio and sentences relating to each word. Registration is required to access additional services. US spelling only.

Tagxedo.com
Another tag cloud generating site. This one has allows you to pick various tag cloud styles.

Graphic Organizer - (All levels)
Free and very simple to use. Enables the user to print basic organizers, like Pros & Cons; timelines; Venn diagrams, from the web. The free version will not save your work though there is a fee version which does provide various bells and whistles.

Wordsearch Maker - (All levels)
Free and simple to use. This tool allows for a variety of options for the placement of the words or even the shape of the grid puzzle. Great to reinforce concepts and spelling of course.

Wordle
Create tag clouds from the text and words you provide. Commonly used to for brainstorming and words associations related to themes. Note: May require supervised student use as access to and creation of tag clouds based on inappropriate words is possible.

XTimeline.com
Free web-based timeline which allows you to easily create and share timelines with pictures and videos. Contains some advertising.