Class Tools

My third period class has over thirty individuals and at times, it can be difficult to hear each student's voice.  My co-teacher and I figured that equity sticks could be the answer to this problem, but feared that physical objects would get mixed up with other class's materials. Therefore, I searched for an electronic version and found the Random Name Picker on the Class Tools website.

Upon further investigation of this website, I found a treasure chest of resources.  For example, the SMS template allows students to create chat conversations between two historical or literary characters.  Other electronic templates include a timeline generator, an electronic Venn Diagram and a hamburger paragraph graphic organizer.  Students can share their work by creating a custom link or embedding it on a class webpage.  

This website also allows teachers to administer quizzes in creative ways.  Students that answer questions correctly earn the right to play Pac-Man or other arcade games.  In addition, students can demonstrate their knowledge through a classification activity or by creating a BrainyBox.

This website is free, but does appear to depend heavily on Flash.  This could prove to be problematic for iPad classrooms.  In addition, this website was developed across the Pond, so students will notice that some of the terminology is a bit different (ex: bin vs trash can).  Check out the video below for more information.