Web 2.0 Tools In the Classroom
My StoryMaker
My StoryMaker allows students to pick animated characters of their choice and use other props, as well as action words to create their own story. Depending on the action or emotion that the student has chosen for his or her character, the character itself will act this out. The tool also writes down what the character is feeling and what the character is doing automatically. The students are also able to edit and add to the text that has been automatically created for them.
This tool could be used in elementary language arts as a project where the students must create their own personal short story using this tool.
This is a great tool for children who need a visual representation to produce a better product. It also benefits a child who may have an attention deficit problem, by engaging them for longer periods of time. It also helps children who may need some precurssors in order to allow their creativity to fully flow. Another neat addition is if you click on the blue person on the right hand corner, it will provide the students with helpful questions to help the expansion of their stories ex. "why was the genie sad?".
This web tool does not have any terms of usage to begin with, therefore there is no minimum age required to use this tool. It is mainly geared towards a younger audience and therefore there are not alot of restrictions one has to worry about when using this web tool.
I have attached a You Tube video that describes all of the benefits of My Story Maker as well as how to use it. Please click here if you would like to view it.
Math Glossary
Math Glossary provides math definitions from grade one, to grade 8 for students accompanied by visual examples which represent the definition. They have provided users with underlined words within the definition that the person can click on if they don't understand what it means and further their knowledge on that particular topic.
This could be a useful tool in a classroom setting, because the teacher could incorporate this tool as part of their lesson plan and help their students understand the concepts they are learning.
The visual aspect that goes along with the definitions would be extremely useful for children who learn better through visual representation or children whose reading abilities may be behind developmentally. The visual example that this tool provides is a great way for students to get more context and clairity behind the concept the teacher is trying to explain.
There are no requirements for age of users. This is most likely due to the neutral content of the web tool and the fact that it is geared towards children grade eight and under.
Read Works
Read Works is a tool that allows teachers access to different types of reading material for their classes (available from K-12). After each passage there are also mini quizzes, activities and questions the teacher can use to test their students understanding. There are also lesson plans the teacher can incorporate in their lesson.
This tool can easily be incorporated into language arts or english for all grade levels. It provides not only great reading material for teachers and students, but also free testable material for teachers to use.
This tool is great for providing different mediums of assessment that teachers are able to choose from. This way teachers are able to provide a more accurate assessment of their students, based on their different strengths and weaknesses.
Even though this tool does have terms of service it does not state anything within the terms of service about the required age of users.
If you would like to find out more about Read Works, you can click here to watch a You Tube video containing more information on this great tool.
Conclusion
Throughout this e-book, we have explored three different UDL educational tools that could be used in the classroom.
First we looked at My StoryMaker. This tool allows students to create their own stories using cartoon characters. The downfall I believe this tool has, is that it may not be age appropriate for all grades. Some of the older kids may be able to use it to create a rough draft, which would be a fun way of implementing this tool, but it is geared towards a more elementary subject matter.
Next we looked at Math Glossary where teachers and students could incorporate it into their teaching and learning environments. Teachers can use this as a learning tool and students can use this to study and further understand the concepts they learned in class. One thing I really liked about this tool is the age range of this tool is open up until grade 8 which provides a wide variety of use in an elementary setting.
The last tool we looked at is Read Works. This tool provides teachers a ton of reading material, such as short stories as well as quizzes to use in the classroom. This tool is my personal favorite, because of the wide variety of material that can be found. This tool can be used from elementary all the way up to the secondary level.
All of the tools I have included in this e-book were free to use and fairly easy to access or sign up for ! I would recommend these tools to any teachers looking to enhance their teaching through technology.