50 Education Technology
Tools Every Teacher Should Know About
Technology and education
are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite
tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little
bit easier and more fun for all involved.
Yet as with anything
related to technology, new tools are hitting the market constantly and older
ones rising to prominence, broadening their scope, or just adding new features
that make them better matches for education, which can make it hard to keep up
with the newest and most useful tools even for the most tech-savvy teachers.
Here, we’ve compiled a
list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly
popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher’s tech tool arsenal
this year, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the
classroom.
Social Learning
These tools use the
power of social media to help students learn and teachers connect.
1.
Edmodo: Teachers and students can take advantage of this great tech tool,
as it offers a Facebook-like environment where classes can connect online.
2.
Grockit: Get your students connected with each other in study sessions that
take place on this great social site.
3.
EduBlogs: EduBlogs offers a safe and secure place to set up blogs for
yourself or your classroom.
4.
Skype: Skype can be a great
tool for keeping in touch with other educators or even attending meetings
online. Even cooler, it can help teachers to connect with other classrooms,
even those in other countries.
5.
Wikispaces: Share lessons, media, and other materials online with your
students, or let them collaborate to build their own educational wiki on
Wikispaces.
6.
Pinterest: You can pin just about any image you find interesting on this
site, but many teachers are using it as a place to collect great lesson plans,
projects, and inspirational materials.
7.
Schoology: Through this social site, teachers can manage lessons, engage
students, share content, and connect with other educators.
8.
Quora: While Quora is used for
a wide range of purposes, it can be a great tool for educators. It can be used
to connect with other professionals or to engage students in discussion after
class.
9.
Ning: Ning allows anyone to
create a personalized social network, which can be great for both teachers and
students alike.
10.
OpenStudy:Encourage your students to work together to learn class material
by using a social study site like OpenStudy.
11.
ePals: One of the coolest
benefits of the Web is being able to connect with anyone, anywhere. ePals does
just that, but focuses on students, helping them to learn languages and
understand cultures different from their own.
Learning
These educational tools
can help you to make lessons fun, interesting, and more effective.
12.
Khan Academy: Many teachers use this excellent collection of math, science, and
finance lectures and quizzes to supplement their classroom materials.
13.
MangaHigh: MangaHigh offers teachers a wealth of resources for game-based
learning in mathematics.
14.
FunBrain: If you’re looking for a great collection of educational games,
look no further than FunBrain. On it, teachers can take advantage of fun tools
for math and reading.
15.
Educreations: Educreations is an amazing online tool for the iPad that lets
teachers (or students) create videos that teach a given topic. Perfect for
studying or getting students to show off their knowledge.
16.
Animoto: Animoto makes it simple to create video-based lessons or
presentations for the classroom and to share them with students or anyone else.
17.
Socrative: Available for computers, mobile devices, and tablets, this student
response system engages students through games and exercises on any device they
have on hand. Even better, teachers can easily assess student progress and
track grades.
18.
Knewton: Adaptive learning has been a hot topic in recent months, and with
Knewton it’s something that any teacher can access and use. The site
personalizes online learning content for each student according to his or her
needs.
19.
Kerpoof: On Kerpoof, students can get creative with their learning with
games, interactive activities, drawing tools, and more that are both fun and
educational.
20.
StudySync: With a digital library, weekly writing practice, online writing
and peer reviews, Common Core assignments, and multimedia lessons available,
this site is a fully-featured tool for teaching and learning that can be a big
help in the classroom.
21.
CarrotSticks: On this site, teachers can take advantage of a wide range of math
learning games, giving students practice while they have fun.
Lesson Planning and Tools
Use these tech tools to
pull together great lessons and design amazing and memorable student projects.
22.
Teachers Pay Teachers: Have great lessons to share? Looking for something to add to your
classes? On this site you can do both, selling your own class materials and
buying high-quality resources from other teachers.
23.
Planboard: Make sure your lessons are organized and that your day runs
smoothly with the help of this amazing online tool designed just for teachers.
24.
Timetoast: Timetoast is a pretty cool for student projects, allowing them to
build sleek, interactive timelines in minutes.
25.
Capzles: There are so many different ways that Capzles can be used in the
classroom, there’s bound to be an application that fits your needs. What does
it do? Capzles makes it simple to gather media like photos, videos, documents,
and even blog posts into one place, making it perfect for teaching, learning,
or online projects.
26.
Prezi: Want to build
presentations that will wow your students? Make use of this online tool that
makes it simple to do all kinds of cool things with your lessons, even allowing
collaboration between teachers.
27.
Wordle: Create stunning word clouds using Wordle, a great complement to
language lessons of any kind.
28.
QR Codes: QR codes (or quick response codes) are showing up with greater
frequency in education. If you’d like to get in on the trend, you’ll need a
tool to create and manage the codes like Delivr and one to read codes, like any of
those listed on this site.
29.
Quizlet: Quizlet makes it easy for teachers to create study tools for
students, especially flashcards that can make memorizing important information
a snap.
30.
MasteryConnect: How are your students performing with regard to state and common
core standards? MasterConnect makes it simple to track and analyze both, as
well as other elements of student performance.
31.
Google Docs: Through Google Docs, teachers can create and share documents,
presentations, or spreadsheets with students and colleagues as well as give
feedback on student-created projects.
32.
YouTube: Not all schools allow YouTube, but they are missing out as the
site contains a wealth of great learning materials for the classroom. There’s
even a special education-focused channel just for teachers and students.
33.
TED-Ed: TED isn’t just a great place to find inspiration anymore, the site
also contains numerous videos that are organized by subject and can help you to
teach everything from how pain relievers work to Shakespearean insults.
34.
Glogster:Glogster is a social site that lets users mash up music, photos,
videos, and pretty much anything else you’d like. It’s a great way to create
learning materials and a handy tool for creative student projects.
35.
Creaza: Want to bring your student projects into the 21st century? Creaza
can make that possible, offering tools to brainstorm, create cartoons, and edit
audio and video.
36.
Mentor Mob: On Mentor Mob, you or your students can create a learning
playlist, which is essentially a collection of high-quality materials that can
be used to study a specific concept.
Useful Tools
These tools can help you
to stay connected, organized, and increase the ease of building multimedia
lessons and learning tools.
37.
Evernote: Capture great ideas, photos, recordings, or just about anything
else on your Evernote account, access it anywhere, and keep it organized. A
must-have tool for lesson planning.
38.
Twitter: There are so many ways Twitter can be used in education. Teachers
can connect with other educators, take part in chats, share their ideas, or
even use it in the classroom to reach out to students.
39.
Google Education: Google offers a number of great edtech resources for teachers,
including email and collaborative apps, videos, lesson plan search,
professional development, and even educational grants.
40.
Dropbox: Easily store, share, and access any kind of data from anywhere
with the easy-to-use and free Dropbox service.
41.
Diigo: Diigo lets you treat the
web like paper-based reading material, making it simple to highlight, bookmark,
take notes, or even add sticky notes.
42.
Apple iPad: One of the most widely used, though expensive, tech tools being
used in today’s classroom is the Apple iPad. With a host of educational apps
being developed for the device, it’s become a favorite of teachers and students
alike across the nation.
43.
Aviary: Aviary is a suite of tools that make it easy to edit images,
effects, swatches, music, and audio or to create and modify screen captures.
44.
Jing: If you’re teaching kids
about tech or just about anything else, a great screenshot program is
essential. Jing is one great option that allows teachers to take screenshots as
images, record up to five minutes or videos then edit and share the results.
45.
Popplet: You and your students can use Popplet to brainstorm ideas, create
mindmaps, share, and collaborate.
46.
Google Earth: From geography projects to learning about geological processes,
Google Earth can be an amazing and fast way to show students anywhere in the
world.
47.
DonorsChoose: Need funding for a classroom project? You can get it through this
site that hooks up needy teachers with willing donors.
48.
SlideShare: With SlideShare, you can upload your presentations, documents, and
videos and share them with students and colleagues. Even better, you can take
advantage of materials that other have uploaded as well.
49.
LiveBinders: Like a real-life three ring binder, this tech tool allows you to
collect and organize resources. Much better than a binder, however, the site
also comes with tools to connect and collaborate and a virtual whiteboard.
