Education, Writing

My Favorite Online Writing Tools

Many schools are out for the next two weeks, which gives teachers the opportunity to catch up on their personal lives.  Sometimes, though, teachers like to use this time for planning.  As the number of subscribers to this blog climbs, I am aware that many of you may not have had time to read all of the posts, or might have missed some of the earlier suggestions.  So, I thought this might be a good time of year to summarize and emphasize some of the most valuable resources I have reviewed so far.  Today, I would like to offer my Favorite Online Writing Tools:

#3 – Writing Prompts – Luke Neff provides this site with wonderful writing prompts usually accompanied by thought-provoking graphics.

#2 – Read Write Think – The student interactives alone on this site make it well worth a visit.  But it is also rich with lesson planning ideas and other resources for teachers and parents.  It’s one of the many sites tied to Thinkfinity, which I featured as one of my favorite teaching tools.

#1 – Storybird – I cannot say enough good things about this site, which allows students to create stories from sets of illustrations provided on the site.  Students can comment on each other’s work, parents can view the stories online or even purchase published products of their children’s masterpieces.  I have had several students who thoroughly dislike writing suddenly plunge themselves into weaving tales on Storybird.  One of them even wrote a thank you note to me for introducing him to the site.  This is, by far, one of my favorite discoveries this year.

If you are interested in reading my original posts on each of these resources, please click on the following:  Writing Prompts, Read Write Think (part of my post on Thinkfinity), and Storybird.

Education, Teaching Tools

My Favorite Teacher Tools

Many schools are out for the next two weeks, which gives teachers the opportunity to catch up on their personal lives.  Sometimes, though, teachers like to use this time for planning.  As the number of subscribers to this blog climbs, I am aware that many of you may not have had time to read all of the posts, or might have missed some of the earlier suggestions.  So, I thought this might be a good time of year to summarize and emphasize some of the most valuable resources I have reviewed so far.  Today, I would like to offer my Favorite Teacher Tools:
#3 – Thinkfinity:  This site is a great place to look for quality, standards-based lessons in a variety of subjects.  Many of the lessons are linked to free online printables or interactives that will enhance your own prepared lessons.
#2 – Extend-A-Menu:  This tool is invaluable for any teacher who would like to differentiate by using menus.  By selecting from his or her own online menus, the teacher can create a printable task sheet for any number of topics.  (If you do not want to purchase it, you can use the demo option at the top.)
#1 – Triptico:  Download this tool to your desktop, and you will be amazed at the ease in which you can incorporate it into your daily routines.  Once you load a class list, it will select teams for you, randomly choose names, create word magnets (with 42 different backgrounds to choose from; it’s great for an interactive board!) and many other really neat tasks.  It is very user-friendly, and the students love it.
Here are links to my posts on each of the above in case you would like to read more about them (the above links will take you directly to the sites for each resource):  Thinkfinity, Extend-A-Menu, Triptico