TOO COOL (PERFECT FOR SCHOOL): We've got our favorite edtech teacher and administrator tools for the week right here, as highlighted in our Instruct newsletter. By the way--got a favorite S’Cool Tool you like to use? We would love to hear and share your recommendations! If you’ve got a tool that makes you or your students sing from the proverbial mountaintops, fill out this form to let us know. It might just get featured!
Free! Newsmeister--If you’re behind on current events, your students may be, too. Newsmeister is an app that offers a five-minute daily news quiz hosted by an odd, raccoon-eyed radio host. Students choose from a grid of questions mild to difficult—worth 250 to 1000 points—that will inform them by trial and error of yesterday’s news. Students can see who among their Facebook friends are playing and how they’re doing. Privacy flag: Newsmeister comes with ads but you can purchase an ad-free account. Rated for users over 13 years old. The app collects data for social networking and advertising.
$0.99: Geomoto—Escaping into another world has always been an exciting element of video games. What about creating one? The Geomoto app, created by nonprofit Gamedesk, teaches students plate tectonics aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards. On an iPad or a computer, students populate a waterlogged world with continents to understand how interacting landmasses create geological features. Is your favorite continent subducting? What can you do?! Appropriate for students of all ages.
Freemium: Learn2Earn—With Learn2Earn and its reading tracker tool, Whooo’s Learning, teachers can set up fundraisers based on how much their students read. Students log their hours spent reading on their online profiles and answer a teacher’s questions on the reading. Sponsors donate based on how much students read. Schools keep 80% of the donations. Reading questions, tracking and single-classroom fundraisers are free; setting up a school-wide fundraiser requires an initial fee of $99.95. Privacy flag: Sponsors can see student profiles when invited by teachers and approved by parents. Profiles contain students’ first names, last names and reading hours. The company does not sell student data.
