Piktochart: A Great Visual Communication Tool!

Create exciting and interesting INFOGRAPHICS with Piktochart!

• Free to join
• Use your Google account to sign up

Create great infographics, reports and presentations to display photos, stats, information, YouTube clips, and graphs with this amazing online application.  Students will find it very user friendly and easy to share their work.  Built in graph maker.  Great for class projects in which data is displayed.  Has more features for reports and presentations than applications such as PowerPoint or Google Slides. Many templates and graphics included.

Infographics are easily shared via email.

Please watch this short video:  Video Introduction

Tiki Toki Online Timeline Generator

Tiki Toki

• Free (one timeline only) Paid version allows for more.
• User friendly
• 3D or 2D timelines
• Can add photos, videos or audio files

Samples:

Tower of London (3D) - click on each picture to reveal more information

Tiki Toki History (2D)

Nearpod - multimedia presentations

Nearpod:  Make your lessons more engaging through interactive multimedia presentations.

Students can use iPods, iPhones or iPads or computer while the teacher runs the program using an iPad.  

How it works:   The teacher uses the Content Tool to create multimedia presentations and then shares this content with the students. The Teacher app allows the teacher to control the activity also. Students receive content and assessments on their device and then can submit answers and responses. The teacher can use the Reporting tool to monitor what the students are doing and collect their responses, assess their learning and gather data.

The multimedia presentations start with a PDF file and then quizzes, polls, videos, activities and more can be added.

There is a bank of pre-made Nearpod presentations, but they can also be made by the teacher from scratch.

Sample Nearpod lessons

TED-Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing

TED-Ed

This particular series is focused on educators and students.  Anyone can submit an audio file that can be animated by TED-Ed, placed on their website and shared with the world.

Take the TED-Ed Tour

Samples:
The Secret Life of Plankton

The Best Stats You've Ever Seen - Hans Rosling

After watching the video clips, teachers/students are asked some multiple choice and open ended questions on the content.  There is also a section to access for more information/resources.

GoAnimate

Make amazing animated videos.

• create an animated lesson for your classs
• make a tutorial video or a demo video
• students can have their plays or stories come to life

It is free!  Requires an email login.  
*make sure that the netbooks in school can play the videos as they require the latest Flash updates.

Here is a sample that speaks about using the ipod touches/ipad in LPSD.
(If you are viewing this on an ipad/ipod, you must use a browser that can play flash such as Puffin Browser. It will play on a computer with no problems)


Suggestion:  Have students write script ahead of time.  They can have 30 lines of text in pre-made templates.  They will have the ability to change scences, characters and voices (limited in free account).

TimeGlider: Construction of Timelines in History

TimeGlider
This is web-based timeline software for creating and viewing history timelines as well as for project planning.  It requires a free sign up if you would like to create your own timelines.  This would be a useful presentation tool for teaching a historical sequence of events.  Students can also generate their own timelines which would incorporate research and writing skills.


Timeline events can contain text and pictures and you can change the size of the event to highlight its importance.  It is very easy to manipulate the timeline by using a slider (zoom in=less time shown, zoom out=more time shown).  Unfortunately, there are only a few examples given on the website: Wright Brothers, World War I, The CIA Leak Case and the History of Idaho (kind of random...go figure...).  Timelines you create are not public and are only shared between people by using a unique URL.

How it Works (overview)


TimeGliders New York Times Explorer: Search by keyword and/or author search from the New York Times in any time period between January 1, 1981 and the present.  Displayed will be the most relevant 200 articles.  Instructions are given next to the search box to provide the best keyword search possible.  For example, if searching for salmon farming, it would be best to use a number of keywords:  salmon+fish farming.  This way you would avoid articles referring to recipes involving salmon or restaurant reviews involving salmon entrees!