Our Fave 5 Teacher Websites & Free Tech Tools
Teachers thriving in the digital age are pioneers in exploring online tools and apps to help manage their classrooms, curriculum, and time. To help, check our our fave 5 sites that all teachers should be checking out (and loving):
1. WeAreTeachers – This can literally be a teachers go-to online trove of information & resources to help with professional and educational development. There are resources on building curriculum, latest news and hot topics for teachers, grants and contests, and so much more. This site will soon offer a My Binder feature to help teachers manage all of their important information. WeAreTeachers also offers community blogs to help connect teachers everywhere!
2. VolunteerSpot - Quickly and easily manage class helpers, p-t conferences, weekly readers, tutors, class party and field trip helpers, and service learning and exam proctors with free online signups sheets and parent scheduling. Ditch the clipboards and simplify your life getting more parents involved with the convenience of signing up online from their computer or smartphone. Plus, automated reminders keep everyone on track!
3. EduBlogs – EduBlogs is an amazing blogging
service that helps students, teacher and parents communicate in a safe and secure environment. Whether you want
to connect with a classroom elsewhere or create your own classroom blog, EduBlogs ensures
that every blogs content is for education only and no inappropriate ads or
content will be available to the children. Blogging is also a great way to get
the kids engaged and revamp classroom learning for the digital age.
4. Carson-Dellosa - Carson-Dellosa makes learning fun by offering teachers (and parents and students) wonderfully creative products that engage young minds in super fun ways. Activity workbooks, stickers, worksheets, flash cards, puzzles, games and classroom decorations make Carson-Dellosa a one-stop shop for education materials. Commor Core curriculum materials also make Carson-Dellosa leaders in the education field.
5. Twitter - A home for educators all ove the world, Twitter is connecting teachers of all grades and school types in weekly chats and twitter parties. Talking about best practices, blended learning, common core, flipped classrooms and more, twitter is a haven for teachers and school staff to communicate, collaborate and share. Additionally, Fast Follow by Twitter becomes a simple and reliable alert system for teachers to keep students and parents updated. To use it, all you need to do is setup a Twitter account and ask parents (and older students) to text Twitter’s shortcode of 40404 with the message “follow [your Twitter username].” From there, parents will start receiving all of your updates via text message in real-time.
6. Pinterest - (I know we said 5 tools, but we can't leave out Pinterest!) Last month, Pinterest announced the launch of Teachers on Pinterest, a hub where you’ll find everything from lesson plans for different grades, to classroom decorating ideas, and topics like fun with phonics. They are working closely with Edutopia — an online resource an thought-leader for educators—to build out this education-focused community on Pinterest.
