Flickr
Flickr is a great imaging tool. You can upload and share your images with the Flickr community. It is said to enhance your mobile camera so you can take high resolution photos. It can hold all of your photos in one place with 1000 GB of free storage that you get when you sign up! Flickr would be a great way to share photos with your students on something they are learning or for group projects. You can also use it to show parents what their kids are up to in your class with this tool, which the parents would appreciate.
Self-Destructable Text Notes
These text notes are a collaborative work tool. You put in any information that you want to send to someone, including text, pictures, and links. It can be password protected if you choose. You send the link to the recipient; once they open the note, it will be destroyed. This would be a great way to send grades to students and parents without anyone else seeing the grade. This would also be great to help with group work. My only concern is that students would use this in class to do send notes or inappropriate links or pictures.
DROPitTOme
Drop It To Me is a sharing tool. You can create a unique upload address to share files with others who also have the upload address. It also has password protection so that only those you want to see the files will see them. This is a great collaborative work tool for the classroom. Groups can share files between each other and only their group will see it. This would also be a great way to share student's work with their parents as well.
WordPress
Wordpress is a one of the biggest blogging tools. Anyone could create their own personal blog or business site. Best of all, it's free! There are tons of designs and layouts to choose from. This can be used for students to create their own blog for an assignment, or just to introduce blogging to them. It can also be used to blog about what is going on in your classroom for parents to see and for students to keep up with homework assignments and projects.
WizIQ
WizIQ is an instructor-led online learning experience. You can access the virtual experience and class content from anywhere since it's online. It is also another free tool to use. You can put lectures and homework online for students who were absent to gain access to so they don't have to catch up later. This would also be a great opportunity for homeschooling or educating children who cannot come to school due to extreme circumstances like an illness or injury.
Writing Prompts
Writing Prompts is a blog that has 180 or so prompts for students to write about. The author creates new ones to add on request. You can use these as a daily bell ringer for the classroom. You also can use these on tests for a writing portion if you have trouble coming up with your own writing prompts.
Tip of My Tongue
Tip of My Tongue is a website that helps you find that word you're searching for, but can't quite find in your head. It allows you to search for words based on their meaning, partial words, and even letters in the word! (Where has this been all my life?!) It can be very helpful in finding synonyms for words to also mix your vocabulary up a little when writing a paper. Students can use this on homework assignments, projects, and papers to help them find and use words they may not have used instead of repeating the same adjectives over and over. This is also just helpful for every day life when you can't quite figure out that word you're looking for!
The Free Dictionary
The Free Dictionary is a comprehensive dictionary with tons of different languages to choose from. You can find abbreviations, thesaurus, search engine and more on this page! You can also play a fun game of hangman on here when you're feeling bored. This is good for students to look up any words they may not be familiar with. They can also use this when working on assignments to spice up their vocabulary.
Plagium
Plagium is a plagiarism checker. You paste your original text into the box on the page, and it checks and alerts you for plagiarized passages. It searches the web, news and social media. Plagiarism is a big deal and can jeopardize your grade or even get you kicked out of school. This will keep your students from accidentally plagiarizing anything they write. This is also good for the teacher to just check and make sure they are practicing what they preach as well.
GrammarBook
This is a site for rules on grammar and punctuation. You can find rules on anything from capitalization, spelling, commas, etc. You can also use the free online quizzes to test your grammar and punctuation skill. This is obviously important in writing papers because all teachers want their students to have a grammatically correct paper. This would also be great for teaching the rules in class as an extra aid!
Hopefully my input allows you to gain knowledge on what you can use these tools for and how they can make your life in the classroom and for your students a lot easier!
