Webapps for the (English) Classroom

English 2.0 - the Web is an English Teacher’s Best Friend

This Session's informatin can be found at http://sqworl.com/m80067.

This session explored free and easy to use sites that enhance the classroom. While the course was designed specifically for English courses, the sites will be useful in any classroom.

**Scroll down to the bottom to see a multi-media project that you can assign to students. It is easy to grasp, yet tests analytical thinking and critical analysis skills. Additionally, it is free, uses many of the resources provided, and you can make one in 10 minutes as a demo.**

All of the resources below, and many more, can be found at www.sqworl.com/m80067

   everything here is free

   Links are organized in the same way as this presentation

Collaboration

• Colleagues, Students, Parents
• English Companion
• like facebook, but everyone is an English teacher!
• teachers all over the world
• Book Club
• groups -
• teaching texts
• chairs
• project based learning,
• webinars
• teaching poetry
• teaching Shakespeare
• and more!
• or add your own
• Search Box
• example: A discussion thread on what people are doing on the first day of school
• find anything you want
• Professional Learning Community
• Dropbox
• syncs everything to your computer and the site
• can share folders to other people and classrooms
• can have an English Department folder
• 9th grade folder
• all teachers get this, can use it
• no printing or emailing
• no searching your email for the document
• Eliminates the use of a flash drive
• can install and access on any computer
• Apps on iphone, ipad and itouch
• allows the TEAM TO COLLABORATE
• can also have people email to dropbox (like turnitin)
• do not have to give access to it
• therefore, can have students email to the folder without them seeing the other students' work
• keeps previous version 
• can see any changes made
• Diigo http://www.diigo.com/
• share links
• add tags to help people find your sites
• can highlight great information and add sticky note annotations, so that when you come back to the site, the website is still highlighted
• if students are using this, they too can see the annotations
• can be private, public, or just shared with certain people and schools
• Delicious is another site like this, but it is owned by Yahoo, and they may not be around much longer
• Can use broad terms like "English", "math", "science"
• if someone asks, "What are the best English websites," click on your English tab and share that one link rather than searching for each one 
• edmodo
• Social network you use just with your class
• students have to be invited
• once posted, they cannot delete it
• can create themselves or you can do it
• add links
• post assignments and turn it in there as well
• you can then grade the assignments as you read them, and it enters the grade directly into the grade book on edmodo
• groups
• polls
• students cannot post to each other
• can post to you or to the whole group, but not individual students
• can post videos, links
• can get twitter notifications each time someone posts
• ipad, iphone apps
• can make accounts for parents
• example
• type the first lines of a story for 5 minutes, find someone else's story and finish it
• anything you can do with facebook,  you can likely do here, but it is safe
• twitter
• connect to teachers
• presenter: mia_sarx

Word Study

• Image searches:
• example: word and picture pair; show word, define, show picture, ask students why chose that picture
• http://bigpictr.com/
• all high quality images
• under search, type in the word you want
• go to tag or search box, type in unrequited
• may need to cite if using for a project
• http://www.sxc.hu/
• if Big Pictr doesn't work...
• all free license stock photos
• if those don't work... try google images
• pics4learning
• safe for students
• http://quizlet.com/
• flash card type quizzes
• games to help learn words, definitions, stems
• really worked for SpEd kids
• Idioms
• http://effects.worth1000.com/
• /literalism
• there is a contest
• pictures that illustrate the idiom
• Reverse dictionary
• http://www.onelook.com/
• when you know what you want to say, but can't think of the word
• Synonyms
• http://lexipedia.com/

Literature

• http://shelfari.com/
• TA enters books into site
• tell students to read those
• reading levels
• lexile.com 
• downloading youtube
• under add on for firefox add ons
• video download helper 
• if youtube is blocked, try
• teacher tube
• school tube
• only way a video can be added is if another teacher approves it

Writing

• Works Cited pages
• add on for firefox: zotero
• keeps all of your works in one folder
• fill in the information
• if you download this, when you go to Amazon to look at a book, a book icon will appear. Click this, and it will download it right into zotero
• keep notes
• save articles and images
• can make an annotated bibliography if needed
• once all info is entered, just click a button and it creates the Works Cited page

Multimedia Project

• example project: animate Dickenson poem
• type up the text to the poem
• go to http://www.sxc.hu/ and download all images that relate to "summer shower"
• go to http://www.picnik.com/ and add text, stickers, etc to edit the photo and save to hard drive
• go to http://www.freesound.com/ and save sounds of rain
• use for lessons too (ex. the Bells)
• go to http://www.aviary.com/ and edit the audio
• go to http://www.animoto.com/ and turn this into the video
• make 30 sec videos for free
• longer if do FREE teacher account
• making the video
• upload the elements and reorganize them in the order you like
• can create 50 accounts
• can edit after done 
• DONE IN 10 MINUTES

Sites:

create a list of images http://www.sqworl.com/

website for teachers school loop

more apps for education: http://www.edutecher.com/