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Tools for Educational Success


Little Bird Tales
Little Bird Tales

Little Bird Tales

www.littlebirdtales.com

This is a site for creating stories and reports using images, text, and audio.

Students can use this tool for educational purposes such as writing stories or creating presentations for class. They can share their creations and read/listen to other people's creations as well. Teachers can  also create lessons through this site.

Little Bird Tales supports students who struggle with writing as it incorporates audio and visual methods of storytelling. Students can record their own voices, and draw or upload pictures. 

This tool is open to all ages, provided that any child under 13 has parental consent to use it. It would definitely appeal to younger Elementary students most.


Grammarly

Grammarly

www.grammarly.com

This tool is a portable grammar checker that can be used in browsers and Microsoft Word. 

Students can use grammarly to check their writing for mistakes and suggestions for better phrasing.

Grammarly can help any student who has a difficult time remembering rules of grammar. It can be used anywhere, including writing online posts, as long as the student is online, so it allows the student to confidently write outside school or inside Microsoft Word.

Grammarly does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. It asks that parents or guardians create any account for their children's use.


Read&Write for Google Chrome

Read&Write for Google Chrome

www.rwchrome.texthelp.com/drive/support/home

This Google Chrome Extension has support tools for writing and reading in Google Chrome including Google Documents.

It can read out text to students, including their own writing. It also incorporates text and picture dictionaries, predictive text, highlighting, and other supports.

This application was designed for the use of students with learning disabilities or dyslexia, or for ELL students. The non-textual supports allow a student who isn't strong in writing and reading to learn and demonstrate their learning without being limited by their difficulties.

This application needs to be downloaded through the Chrome webstore. You need to be 13 years of age to use the webstore, so a parent or guardian would have to download it initially. Children between the ages of 13 and 18 must have parent permission to use the Chrome webstore.

This application is also subscription-based after the first month's free trial. A valid credit card would have to be used to purchase a subscription, so except for a few older teens with a credit card, a responsible adult would have to purchase the service for them.