Please introduce a tool that you can use from Cool Tools for School. Briefly share a learning activity in which you use the tool.
I usually use google hangouts when teaching online. The reasons are firstly, all students can easily get access as they all have gmail account. The second one is because we can share our screens so that we can be on the same page.
Some cool tools can facilitate and boost teaching and learning of writing and reading skills. Examples of these tools include online boards, online journals, blogs, wikis, and e-books. Blogs, wikis, boards, and journals can be used to create digital material or portfolios online are spaces where learners work in collaborative projects. They can also be used for professional development or to summarize learners’ work. Examples of these tools are bloggers, Wikispaces, and Penzu. They can be accessed by following these links:
Another cool tool for school is Second-life (Virtual learning environments). Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) are Web-based platforms that allow teachers and learners to manage and organize their work electronically. Both parents and learners can access these spaces to assess progress. All participants may have their say on the discussion forums or conferencing sections VLEs reduce the social distance between all participants.
https://www.wikispaces.com/content/classroom
Using these cool tools for school is highly significant in the fields of education. It is believed that they can bring our education sector from the dark age to the light age. This is because the implementation of these cool tools in schools can bring about some potential benefits.
Among many different websites and suggestions from cool tools for schools, I like the category "Thing X: Flashcards, Quiz Games, and More" the best. It seems that so far when students can use CALL apps inside the class, games are the first thing in mind that they think about. From all those games database, I like Digital Storytelling the best. These photo-based tools let teachers and students create short videos out of PowerPoint slides. Some include options for words/captions and music. This could be useful in creating any fun project for any art class, making a video representing how students feel about a book or movie, and sharing their past adventure or meaningful stories. Teachers can make use of it to make the class more active and students can engage in the task using these tools not only inside the classroom but outside the learning environment.
Those are https://animoto.com/, https://sharalike.com/, and https://spark.adobe.com/