More Free Tools on the Web

Here are a few more goodies that teachers may find useful.

Writely is a web wordprocessor that lets you create and store documents out on the web, download them as a Word document or in another format, lets you collaborate with others on the same document and more.

RapidCite This is a simple, quick way to create a bibliography entry. If we expect our students to use citations, we'd best do it ourselves!

Springdoo Quick-n-easy "podcasting"...just record your message and the site will create a link which it automatically puts on your clipboard. All you have to do is paste the link into....an email? your website? Karen Finter suggests having students read their poems or short stories and letting Mom and Dad hear them perform. How about a foreign language teacher using such a site...or having students create the audio and send it to the teacher?? Want to hear a sample? In one case, a second grade teacher invited parents to send their email addresses in to the classroom. For all who did that, the link to their children's stories was emailed back. The response from parents was very positive indeed.

Other options? The teacher might have chosen to post that link to a blog where students could respond directly in the comment section. The youngsters might record to their own (group blog) section. How might that generate meaningful discourse? How might a teacher then use the comments to generate in-class discussion? Lots of possibilities here, I think.