Other"Tools" Assignment

Okay, it's the end of the school year and the kids must be rubbing off on me because instead of exploring three of the Other Tools in the assignment, I went to three categories of tools and explored three of each of those, so bear with me while I cover what I've learned.

First, I investigated the "Quizzes and Polls (Surveys) tools" because Mary and I used clickers a few times in the biology classroom this year as well as taking online quizzes and surveys in the library. I visited "eQuizzes" which I registered for. It's a free web-based quizzing program where you can create custom quizzes and monitor student scores. They had a few sample quizzes on there about snow, the presidents, elemental symbols, and US state capitals. (It's always fun to take the sample quizzes to find out if you're really smarter than a 5th-grader!) Then it was on to "Yacapaca" where you can type in your country selector and they will give you sample quizzes from your country on a variety of subjects. There are file quizzes, but you can create your own quizzes with "Yacapaca". They allow you to choose items from quizzes to share with students online, but it seemed like I had to wait a long time for each question to load. That might be a disadvantage for the impatient student. I also went to "ClassMarker" where quizzes and tests can be used in class or can be embedded into a website. There were free and paid accounts available for this tool.

Next, it was onto the "Presentation/Publishing/Multimedia tools" where I went to "Glogster". I've been curious about "Glogster" since Emily had it on our original assignment list, then removed it. Anyway, with "Glogster" you can use text, images, video, and music to make a "poster" of yourself and link the poster to Facebook, etc. "Glogster" is marketed as the "perfect way to express yourself". "Scrapblog" is an online scrapbook where photos can be published online or in print in order to archive special occasions and events. On "Scrapblog" you choose a project and design then add photos and finishing touches. "MyPhotoAlbum" you can create online photo albums by using your own photos and images from the web. Photo and video storage is available and there are private and public settings for sharing photos and videos.

I also looked at a few "Image and Photography tools". "Flickr" is a site where you can share photos and videos. There are free "basic" accounts are available and the site includes a photo management tool. Using "Picasa" you can import pictures from your camera and make video and photo slide shows. I am going to use this site for my Digital Storytelling assignment since it's a free download from Google. Finally, I visited "SaysIt" where you can create funny photos and graphics like signs (think the funny church signs), seals, badges, et cetera.