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Teachers' Online Toolbox
Tools to create classroom materials
Title: AOL@SchoolURL: http://school.aol.com/teachers/tools/index.adp
Description: This site contains tools to create classroom Web sites, gradebooks, teacher email accounts, Webquest builders, and more.
Title: Discovery School's Teaching Tools
URL: http://school.discovery.com/teachingtools/teachingtools.html
Description: Create and print customized word searches, crossword and math puzzles using your word lists. Build your own maze, or print our specialty hand-drawn mazes created around holidays and classroom topics. Add graphics to your next project, choose from hundreds of original clip art pieces, includes animations.
Title: Worksheet Generators
URL: http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/
Description: This site has basic generators for rubrics, diagrams, and much more. If you have skills with Microsoft Word, you may not save time with these.
Title: Pics4Learning
URL: http://pics.tech4learning.com/
Description: A smaller collection of pictures put together by teachers and for teachers.
Tools to help you get organized
Title: Bookmark Storage--BackflipURL: http://www.backflip.com/login.ihtml
Description: This service allows you to save your bookmarks and favorites to the Web, so that you can retrieve them and add to them from anywhere. It also includes lots of added features.
Title: Thinkwave Gradebooks
URL: http://www.thinkwave.com/
Description: This is an online gradebook that allows students and parents to check grades and other classroom information online.
Tools to communicate online
Title: ePALSURL: http://www.epals.com/index_en.html
Description: ePALS provides members with the collaborative tools, ideas and community needed to communicate worldwide.Connect with other ePALS members around the world, in ways that are both fun and educational. Whether at home or school, by engaging in projects and creating new friendships, members can learn more about their world.
Online Educational Activities
Title: FunbrainURL: http://www.funbrain.com/
Description: A fun site for online educational games.
Title: Trackstar
URL: http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/index.jsp
Description: This site allows you to collect and annotate Web sites on a particular subject for your students, or to use a site someone else has created.
Title: Filamentality
URL: http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/
Description: Filamentality is a fill-in-the-blank interactive Web site that guides you through picking a topic, searching the Web, gathering good Internet sites, and turning Web resources into learning activities. It helps combine the "filaments" of the Web with a learner's "mentality". Support is built-in through Mentality Tips that guide you along the way to creating a Web-based activity you can share with others even if you don't know anything about HTML, Web servers, or all that www-dot stuff.
Title: Quia
URL: http://www.quia.com
Description: Create your own online learning activities (flashcards, matching cards, "concentration" and word search)--or use some of the hundreds of others listed on the site.
Evaluating Free Online Tools for Teachers--Some Thoughts
- Is there advertising on the pages? If so, what kind?
- Is the educational content worth it?
- Technical issues:
- How long does it take to access your page, process the request?
- Are there missing pages or page display errors?
- Is there any technical support or customer service available?
- After any initial set-up, does it really save you time?
- What alternatives do you have in place if you can't access the service, it goes out of business, or it starts charging a fee?
- What kind of privacy is guaranteed?
- How much information is required to register?
- Is there a privacy statement?
- Will they be sending you email--can you opt out?