Collaboration
 

Educational Social Networking

• Edmodo is an educational website that allows teachers to connect with students and parents safely. Assign homework, view progress, conduct polls, and share resources. Parents love Edmodo too because it helps them stay connected with what’s happening in the classroom.

• ClassDojo is a class management tool that is absolutely free for teachers and is used in 50% of US schools. ClassDojo can be used to keep parents in the loop with your daily classroom activities. This app allows teachers to track student behavior and provide frequent, visual updates for parents, in the form of instant messages, photos, and videos.

• SymbalooEDU is a visual management tool that makes it easier for students and educators to save, organize, and share resources in the cloud. Teachers can curate content and save to one central location, and because Symbaloo stores all information in the cloud, it’s easy to call up information from multiple devices. Use Symbaloo to customize lesson plans. It can also stand it as a library for classroom of students or a network of educators.

 

Blogs / Wikis / Chats

 

• Edublogs gives you (teacher and student) 100MB of space to create safe, mobile friendly, customizable blogs. Use Edublogs to create a classroom blog where you and your students can all participate. With Edublogs, you can approve student posts, control privacy, and leave private comments for students.

• Kidblog: Create a class set of blogs for your students. Students register using a class code. Nice interface and simple to use.

• ClassChatter: Create a class online with discussion boards, blogs, and private email. Students register with class code.

• tiddlyspot: Create a basic hosted wiki without registering. Not terribly simple to use.

• Blogmeister Create a classroom blog. Instructions for setting up and learning how to blog

• Seesaw video on how to create a classroom blog on Seesaw. It's a great digital portfolio tool for students and teachers. It works on all devices including iPads and Android tablets. The service allows students to draw and annotate items in their digital portfolios. Earlier this month SeeSaw added a tool for creating and maintaining classroom blogs. On SeeSaw students can write original blog posts and or import items from their digital portfolios to display as blog posts. SeeSaw blogs can be public or you can password protect them. As a teacher you can moderate what your students post before it goes live on your SeeSaw blog. 

 

Video conferencing / chat

 

• Appear.in: Video chat with up to eight people without registering. Uses HTML5, so no need for Adobe Flash. Has an iOS app. No ads. Super simple to use.

• AV by AOL: Create a simple, 4-person video chat without registration. Needs flash. Simple and clean without ads.

• Ubiqq.tv: Create a simple two-person video chat. Requires Adobe Flash. No ads.

• Skype in the Classroom allows you to interact with other classrooms, whether across the hall or across the globe. It is the 21st century, after all. Use this tool to aid in remote mentoring with your students. Another fun idea for Skype in the Classroom is to host interactive interviews with experts in a subject you’re teaching.

 

Text chat

 

• stinto.net: Create a simple text chat that you can share with others using a unique URL. No ads.

• Neat Chat!: Create a simple text chat that you can share with others using a unique URL. No ads.

• TodaysMeet: Create a simple text chat room that can be used in projection mode. You can also share with others using a QR code. Download the transcript and set a time for chat to be active. Get an embed code to put in your website or blog.

• Tlk.io: Create a beautiful text chat that can be embedded and used on most devices. No ads.

• Simple Meet: Create a simple text chat that you can share with others using a unique URL. Allows for file uploads and downloading of chat logs. No ads.

 

Discussion boards / forums

 

• Forummotion: Create a discussion forum where students can post messages, links, and images. Requires an administration (i.e. teacher) registration, but students are not required to sign up, depending on administrative settings. Needs a bit of learning at first, but not that complex. Free forums have ads.

• Boardhost: Create a discussion forum where students can post messages, links, and images. Has an RSS feed option and polling options. Requires an administration (i.e. teacher) registration, but students are not required to sign up, depending on administrative settings. Needs a bit of learning at first, but not that complex. Free forums have ads.

 

Online Collaboration

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• Global SchoolNet Foundation Free membership that allows students to connect with students around the world to learn a global perspective. Brings together youth online from 194 countries to explore community, cultural and scientific issues that prepare them for the workforce and help them to become responsible and literate global citizens.

• Collaborative Projects Online Collaborative online projects with classrooms around the world

 

Event Planning and Volunteer Management

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• SignUpGenius.com makes it easy for you to organize school volunteers and activities. Use this free organizational resource to assign field trip chaperones, schedule parent-teacher conferences, collect money for charity drives, create a start of the school year supply list, or more.

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Updated November 9, 2017