Group1

Group 1 wiki page
(Bryan, Jared, Rachel, Stephanie, Carla)

As a group, consensually:
 * Describe two technologies from all those generated by your group members and explain why your group decided on those two
 * Storyjumper.com is a resouce that both students and teachers can use. It helps students learn about the 7 elements of a story by giving them the opportunity to create a story. Progress can be saved along the way, so that as the teacher covers each of the components the students can add to their story. Additionally, this tool can give the teacher another means of assessment. We selected this tool because of its engaging nature, its usefulness as an assessment tool, and the site contains examples of other students' stories. A teacher could allow a student to select one of these stories and assess their ability to identify the 7 characteristics of a story.
 * Museumbox.e2bn.org gives the students an opportunity to create a virtual museum box of artifacts related to a person, place, or event. It's a super assessment tool as students are selecting the artifacts. This tool can be used to launch students into a discussion concerning how to build an argument, appropriateness of artifacts, bias, etc. We selected this tool again because of it's engaging nature, it fosters creativity/expression, and the finished product goes far beyond just selecting "stuff" to put into a box meaning this can be used for high and lower level students.
 * Describe how these two tools could be applied in practice (i.e., as part of an instructional design/lesson).
 * Storyjumper could be used in all grade levels for many different assignments. Students can make their own story, they can view others work, and they can edit their work. This can be used as an assessment for the teacher, or just as a fun end of the year project.
 * Museumbox can be used in many different ways as well. This site is mostly geared towards a social studies, geography, or history class. Students can choose a person, place or event and create a final project. Students could also use this site as a sort of introduction of themselves in older grades, or college. Teachers could also use this as an assessment.
 * Conclude by answering the question, //What could be additional opportunities for teaching and learning using these tools?//
 * Some additional opportunities for teaching and learning using these tools are the fact that they can be accessed anywhere. Students can also work collaboratively on these projects.

Alright all - Looks like we've narrowed it down to: -Story Jumper -Glogster -Museum Box -Witty Comics -Symbaloo -Pinterest
 * I think we should all rate these 1-6 (6 being your favorite so it gets the most points) and then total up the points to pick our top two! Hopefully that makes sense to you all!
 * =  ||= Stephanie ||= Jared ||= Carla ||= Rachel ||= TOTALS ||
 * = Story Jumper ||= 6 ||= 6 ||= 2 ||= 5 ||= 19 ||
 * = Glogster ||= 2 ||= 4 ||= 4 ||= 4 ||= 14 ||
 * = Museum Box ||= 5 ||= 5 ||= 6 ||= 3 ||= 19 ||
 * = Witty Comics ||= 3 ||= 3 ||= 1 ||= 4 ||= 11 ||
 * = Symbaloo ||= 4 ||= 2 ||= 3 ||= 5 ||= 14 ||
 * = Pinterest ||= 1 ||= 1 ||= 5 ||= 4 ||= 11 ||

Story Jumper ** : [|www.storyjumper.com] ** *This looks similar to my tikatok find, but I think this one is more reasonable since you can use it in any grade. I would vote for this one to be one of the final top two! -SG
 * Jared Byrnes**
 * I liked this tool especially for elementary teachers, but it could also be used in middle school and high school for students who struggle with basic writing skills. The goal is to coach students in building a story that contains the 7 primary components of a story. The last thing I found really cool is that students can take the "book" and actually order a hardcopy version through the websit, so this could be a semester or year long project and the book could act as a portfolio.**

This site allows you to convert .doc and .pdf files to HTML5 which means that you can embed any document into a website. I don't know if I'd use this site on its own, but what I do like about it is that it will allow you to use a site like Diigo with PDFs. I get frustrated when we can't highlight and leave stickys on a PDF.
 * Crocodoc: []**


 * Glogster: [|www.glogster.com] **
 * I learned about this tool from a student who was placed on home and hospital. Her illness left her very weak, and she tired easily. Rather than doing a lot of worksheets she'd make a glog for the topics we were covering. Very interactive and the interface is very easy for students to use. **

I learned about edmodo recently. My wife has taken ove rthe Ophelia club at Solanco, and she has begun using this site to organize and carry out the functions o fhte club. It is a great way to foster education outside outside the typical school day hours. Additionally, the site promotes two-way communication between teacher and students.
 * Edmodo: [|www.edmodo.com]**

This site allows you to build some really cool presentations by using still images, video, and audio. Additionally, there is a library for presentations from other users on a variety of topics. I found one someone did on West Africa, which has huge amounts of bauxite used in making Aluminum. However, the region remains poor and there are excellent photographs of living conditions.
 * Vuvox: [|www.vuvox.com]**

1. Kid Blog - [] After looking around the site, it looks like a nice, easy site to use in an elementary classroom for a blog. What I liked about this site was that you did not need student email addresses. I signed up for the site and it looks very kid-friendly! The site allows you to add students so that they can blog and you can edit the comments. I could definitely see students of all ages using this site to begin a simple blog for a classroom.
 * Stephanie Gehman – Participatory Tools**

2. Museum Box - [] This site would be very useful for a social studies classroom/assignment. It allows you to register your school and has a section for teachers where there is lesson guidance and instructions for use. This site allows you to add text, images, video and sound in order to create a “museum box.” I would love to try this for my class’s unit of study on famous people from Lancaster County!

3. Tikatok - [] Definitely my one of my favorite finds for elementary schools! On this site, students can create their own books. They start with text, add pictures, and then have the option of ordering the book. The site is free to sign up, and then after the book is created, there is an option to purchase books in hardcover, softcover and Digital Book download. I am unsure of the price, as I did not sign up for an account, but would love to use this as an end of the year gift for parent volunteers, PTO members, or even students.

4. Prezi – [] Prezi is more of a teacher tool and an older grade level tool. It is similar to a powerpoint, but you can zoom in on different points in your prezi. It is primarily for presentations and I think it is too “high-tech” for my 3rd graders to use, and I’m sure it is capable of doing more than I used it for, but here is a prezi I made at the beginning of the year last year for talking points for our back to school night: [] I could see older grades using this site to give presentations of different assignments.

5. Gliffy - [] While I think this site is used more for companies, just by looking around a bit, I think it is simple enough to be used in the classroom. This site allows you to create flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, and other technical drawings. It looks like a good site to use for graphic organizers, instead of always wasting paper to use them. We use A LOT of graphic organizers in my school, and I think it would be great to have the students be able to create their own. I could also see this site being used in a tech ed. classroom or an engineering class that creates blueprints/floor plans/bridges etc.

Rachel Cangialosi - Technology Tool Briefing.
Witty Comics: [|www.wittycomics.com] Creating cartoons and comic strips can be a good way to get reluctant writers writing. While creating comics you and your students can work through the elements of fiction in a context that is fun and familiar to them. Witty Comics is a really simple platform, which I like. While there are other ideas out there that are a little more sophisticated then this one, kids won't get frutstrated using it and you don't have to worry about machines running slow because of heavy graphics and animations. So, really, it allows them to spend more time focusing on the exploration of the learning topic, whether it be elements of fiction, characterization or plot structure.

Be Funky: [|www.befunky.com] Be Funky is a simple tool for turning digital photographs into digital comics/cartoons. I've used to let students build characters and animations for power point presentations and they really have fun with it. I think it helps them with crativity and visualization as well as helps them give their presentations more of a professional edge/quality. These could be used in poetry units to give life to student's poems.

My Fake Wall: [|www.myfakewall.com] and [|Fake Book] My Fake Wall and Fakebook are tools for creating a fake Facebook wall for a fictitious or historical character. I've used them in the classroom to have students create them on their favorite characters in books we are reading. It helps me check their understanding of the story. It can be used as on on-going assessment tool toosince students can add to their character's walls as we read the story. I think it would be a great tool to use in the history classroom, too for similar purposes.

Symbaloo: [] Symbalook is AWESOME! I love it because it allows me to gather all of my favorite online tools and sites into a webmix about the various topics I teach. Symbaloo web mixes can be published and shared with students. It's a little like pinterest, but with more of an education spin to it. So, I can use other webmixes created by other launguage arts teachers too as resources. I've also assigned students exercises in grammer using other's webmixes. SERIOUSLY LOVE IT!. One additional way it could be used is to have students create their own webmixes on a topic your teaching. I love its layout, too.

NeoK12: [|http://neok12.com] I've used Neok12 for obvious reasons. It is a collection of free online education videos from the Internet and brings them together in one place. One of the best part is it is built and maintained (and videos are reviewed) by educators. It has a School Presentation tool that allows students to create and share presentations online. I have not used it yet myself, but plan to this coming school year. To create a presentation, students choose pictures for Flickr, accounts read an article about the subject from Wikipedia, and then add text to their presentation. When the presentation is finished, it can be printed or viewed online as a slide show. And again, this can be used in many capacities and classrooms. Just about any subject can utalize this tool. One good way to use it might be to allow students to create a modified book report using the presentation tool.

=Carla Rapp - Technology Tool Briefing (Let me know what you guys think!) = =** Pinterest : [|__http://pinterest.com/__] **=

====** I chose Pinterest because I think it is a great collaborative tool, and a great way to keep all your ideas in one place. Many times before I would be copying and pasting links into a GoogleDoc. Now I can simply, or if that is not available I can copy the link and make a pin of my own on my “board”. I can see using this in several ways for a class project. One way would be for students, who have been broken into groups, to create a board on Pinterest that they share. There they will post links to sites that support their research for a video or audio project. In the same vein the students could post video or audio links here to give the instructor an idea of what sort of video they would like to create. **====

=VoiceThread: [|__https://voicethread.com/__] =

====I really enjoyed using VoiceThread, and I see a lot of potential for this tool. I like that there is a lot of room for collaboration, and many modes by which to collaborate. I have seen, and could see this being used by a class to post articles and comment on them, I love that you can call in to do a voiceover. I also think it would be a great tool to do peer reviewing of a paper. The student could upload their paper to the site, and others could post or voice feedback about it. ====

=Yammer: [|__https://www.yammer.com/__] =

Yammer is a tool I use a lot in my job, and I really like it. I chose it because I think it is very user-friendly. Its interface is comparable to Facebook, and as there are so many Facebook users, they would surely see how to use Yammer. I have also been told that people like it a bit more than Facebook, because it is essentially more of a business/corporate driven site (aka more professional). I can see this being used similarly to Facebook for classes, such as making a group for a class, and having them comment on different links or posts. But I think Yammer has a great feature called pages where, similarly to a Google document, they can create documents and edit them together in real time. Also notifications can be set up so it shows up in the Yammer feed, and an email is sent, when the document is updated.

=Google Hangout: [|__http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/__] =

====I am new to Google Hangout, but it was suggested to me for some phone conferences I do. There is the opportunity to have up to nine people conference in at one time to a video chat. There YouTube videos, pictures, and even screen sharing can occur. I think this would be a great tool for distance learning or conferencing, which is how I intend to use it. I also think it would be a great tool to have all the students in a group chat with the instructor about their project. Maybe they are each responsible for a piece of the project, one the presentation, so they share their screen, another video content so they show a YouTube video. ====

=Google Presenter: [|__http://www.google.com/google-d-s/presentations/__] =

Lastly I chose Google Presenter. I chose this because I think it is a very practical tool. It is quite comparable in features to PowerPoint, so those that are comfortable with PowerPoint should be able to transfer those skills to Google Presenter. But, different than PowerPoint, the presentation in Google Presenter, can be shared and collaborated on in real time. I can see many uses for this, the obvious one is to create a presentation to show in class. But the other would be for storyboarding for video projects. As it already has the makings of a storyboard, little blank squares, where scenes can be drawn in, it also has some other helpful features. There is a “Scribble” tool, so students could draw how they want the video to look when they are filming. They can also insert videos, pictures, and text, which will give them a good outline for their video project.