8 Cool Online Tools for School

Click on each picture to go to its corresponding website!

Each online tool is given a rating from 1 to 5 (1 = lousy; 2 = fairly lousy; 3 = average; 4 = great; 5 = incredible).

1. MOODLE







Features:

• Blog
• Post and submit assignments
• View recent activity
• Chat in real time with other participants
• Send messages to other participants
• Group participants for cooperative learning
• Access assignment grades and attendance grades
• Organize assignments by week to ensure
• Easily download and view handouts
• Links can be accessed as pop-ups
• Advanced formatting tools (links, HTML, emoticons, images, etc.)
• Post announcements to all participants

Pros:

• Organized, simple interface
• An online classroom
• Password protected
• Environmentally friendly
• Can go back and edit submissions

Cons:

• Only as active as its participants
• Can sometimes seem impersonal

Rating: 4


2. Firefox




Features:

• Customizable interface
• Downloads manager
• Organized history
• Advanced keyboard shortcuts
• Tabbed browsing
• Open new windows from tabs
• Bookmarks and Bookmarks Toolbar
• Predictive browser and search bars

Pros:

• Restore recently closed tabs and windows
• Arguably faster than other browsers
• Personalization
• Warning messages, advanced security, and pop-up blocker

Cons:

• Cannot restore all the tabs and windows from a previous session
• Pop-up blocker cannot be as easily turned off
• Takes a lot of memory to run and sometimes freezes when running multiple applications

Rating: 4



3. Google Apps






Features:

• Extensive search engine
• Wonder wheel for graphically organized search topics
• Search images (with advanced search preferences and mouseover enlarges the image for preview)
• Search videos (with advanced search preferences and preview clips with a mouseover)
• Maps feature for paperless traveling and reference
• Latitude feature for sharing your location with friends and seeing your friends' locations, updated in real time
• Gmail for free email services with more than 7 GB of free storage
• Translate words and phrases in numerous languages with Google Translate
• Search and preview books with Google Books
• Find periodicals and scholarly articles with Google Scholar
• Free blogs with Blogger
• Upload videos to Youtube
• Store, edit, and share documents, presentations, and spreadsheets with Google Docs
• Create and share a free website with customizable templates from Google Sites
• Share and post online discussions in Google Groups
• Google Mobile brings the Google Apps to your smartphone
• Instant Messaging with Google Talk
• Customizable homepage with iGoogle

Pros:

• Extensive apps - for free!
• Advanced mobile capabilities
• Access numerous features using one account
• Personalization

Cons:

• Cannot use more than one account at a time (uses cookies for identification)
• Search engine can be exhaustive, and not as specific (too many results to realistically sift through)

Rating: 5



4. Screencast-o-matic






Features:

• Create screencasts online
• Like recording your online activity, in real time!
• Add commentary with a microphone
• Opens a transparent window that can be resized and placed anywhere in the window
• Cursor works as a circle indicator
• Clicks add emphasis with a glow burst
• Completely mimics online activity, including audio, video, etc.

Pros:

• Completely free
• Incredibly easy to use
• No need to create an account
• No software to download
• Save file to your computer
• Better than screenshots
• Does not slow down browser
• Progress is automatically saved until published

Cons:

• Long download time
• Feedback from microphone, if not adjusted
• Can only work on one screencast at a time (previous files must be deleted from the website to create a new one)
• Sometimes freezes

Rating: 4



5. Eyejot







Features:

• Send video messages quickly and easily via email
• Create a widget that can be embedded on a blog or website
• Visitors to a blog or website can send video responses through the widget
• Videos can be played and viewed from email

Pros:

• Completely free
• Fast and easy to use
• Widget is free, a personal video can be added, and anonymous responses can be enabled or disabled
• Video responses are simple to access
• Send one video message to multiple recipients
• Preview video messages

Cons:

• Recording time is limited to one minute
• Discrepancies with recording time
• Recipient of a video message must create an account to respond to a video message sent via email
• Recording must be perfected in one shot (no editing at different points)

Rating: 3



6. Poll Everywhere





Features:

• Create multiple choice polls, free text polls, or goal polls
• Audiences can respond via text or online using a smartphone
• Results are displayed in real time and charts are updated live
• See results graphically displayed using bar graphs
• Results can be embedded and shared in a Keynote or Powerpoint presentation, website, or spreadsheet
• Responses can be moderated
• Customizable prompts

Pros:

• Great way to engage an audience
• Responses can be reported and displayed instantaneously
• Various means of sharing results
• Responses can be given via text message, for non-smartphones
• Responses can also be given online, for non-texters
• Unlimited number of polls

Cons:

• Limited free features
• Only 30 responses per poll for free users
• Paid features are necessary for larger audiences

Rating: 4



7. Glogster





Features:

• Create an online, interactive, multimedia poster online
• Text, image, clipart, audio, and video capabilities
• Share your Glogster poster by publishing it or embedding it
• Customizable templates
• Drag-and-drop elements
• Automatic scrollbars to accommodate for longer information

Pros:

• Absolutely free
• No software to download
• Simple and easy to use
• Beautiful, media rich presentations
• Great, environmentally-friendly alternative
• Easily navigable and only one page (information at a glance)
• Video and audio can be uploaded and played within the Glogster
• Glogster EDU is designed specifically for education and offers subscriptions for schools and classrooms, making collaboration simpler

Cons:

• Not effective for vast amounts of information that require more than one page and greater organization
• Cannot insert hyperlinks
• Most educational features are not free

Rating: 4



8. Wordle







Features:

• Create word clouds using any text
• Makes visual art out of paragraphs
• Emphasizes important words
• Great visual display
• Customizable themes and colors

Pros:

• Simple and easy to use
• Can be used by students for projects and presentations
• Printable
• Easily shared
• Fast

Cons:

• No multimedia
• No animation

Rating: 3

Images

All images are screenshots, taken by me.