Planbook Plus Teacher Hub: Top Ten Apps & Websites in Education
The amount of technology in the field of education leaves most regular and special education teachers overwhelmed with choices and the task of checking out individual apps and websites until they find one that is useful. Fear not! The apps and websites featured below are special education and regular education teacher tested and approved! Additionally, Planbook Plus’ features allow for easy integration! Pick your favorite and integrate it with your next lesson in Planbook Plus!
Announcify helps emerging readers (and readers of all levels) read websites in the google chrome browser. The text to speech application will gray out the text not being read, adding a visual component to an already audible application. This allows teachers to assign texts to all students and implement Universal Design for Learning. Additionally, more challenged readers can use this application to review texts on websites like shmoop.com in order to understand the overall meaning of the text. The application is available for free on android devices and on the google chrome browser.
Grammarly is another free chrome app. Grammarly will automatically make grammar suggestions and corrections anywhere you write on Google Chrome. Built by the world’s leading linguists, Grammarly will correct over 250 grammar mistakes. Grammarly helps adults improve their writing, so why not students too? Consider assigning a journal entry using Planbook Plus and allowing students to use Grammarly to monitor their writing!
My Simple Show allows both educators and students to make video productions that explain theories or concepts. This website allows educators to embed creativity into the classroom in order to flip the classroom, assign collaborative group work, or integrate the video-lesson into instruction. Or, educators can assign students to create their own My Simple Show to explain an assigned concept.
Canva is a free website that allows users to do the things that were once done on applications like Microsoft Publisher, but ten times better. Canva’s intuitive interface and easy-to-search templates allow any user to create an aesthetically pleasing and effective graphic. Teachers can use Canva to create title slides to presentations, graphics to hang in the classroom, and even newsletters to send home. Students can use Canva to create info graphics for their latest “mitosis vs. miosis” assignment, or to create a blog post about what would happen if the Bay of Pigs ended differently. Take a look at a recent lesson in Planbook Plus and try to integrate canva into the lesson!
Quizlet is a study tool that creates custom virtual flashcards. Students can create their own flashcards or teachers can assign cards to study. Quizlet is free and includes an online community of which students can share study cards. Of course, assignments can include creating their own study cards, sharing them as a group to hold each other accountable or assigning teacher-created cards. A Planbook Plus lesson may focus on the online community and learning how to evaluate the available study cards.
Whether it is through a pre-packaged game or a customized game, Kahoot provides the opportunity for all students to participate at once. Kahoot posts questions on a slide and students can submit their answers through their own device. Kahoot not only creates a highly engaged classroom, but provides an opportunity for formative assessment in every question.
Remind 101 is a simple app for teachers and students that provides communication in the matter of seconds. Teachers and administrators use this app to send reminders of assignments, important information regarding upcoming events, and even feedback when needed. Students are provided with the capability to respond to the messages without violating district policies of texting or messaging. This is a safe app that allows schools and students to effectively communicate.
Paperslide is not so much an app as it is a strategy. Dr. Lodge McCammon developed this strategy to assist teachers and students to share research and instruction. McCammon focuses on a “one take” format that allows for mistakes. The aim is an authentic video that provides supplemental information to lessons or even use for a flipped classroom. Students can use Paperslide to re-teach concepts to others or to share research with each other. This is a collaborative approach that can be incorporated easily into Planbook Plus whether it is through custom elements or if it is assigned to students from within Planbook Plus!
Flippity takes google spreadsheets and converts them into quiz games, flash cards, randomized name selectors, mad libs, and even progress monitoring charts. Elementary teachers can take their spreadsheets full of spelling words, convert to a google sheet, and then make spelling word flashcards for their students! A High School special education teacher can take the clunky spreadsheet full of progress monitoring data and Flippity will create progress charts and graphs to present at the IEP meeting.
Trello is a collaboration tool. The platform lets users create individual “boards” that focus on one topic. From that board, collaborators can post links, attach files, and discuss the topic. Multiple boards can be open on one page, allowing multiple conversations to take place at once. This helps co-teachers who do not have a shared planning period, departments who cannot meet regularly or teams of administrators to discuss protocols. Additionally, Trello can be used to assign students collaborative projects both in class and at home.
Excited about these new resources but need some additional assistance with Planbook Plus? Sign up for an upcoming webinar!
