Pottsville Grades 4-6

October 2014

Common Core tasks every student to use technology to produce and publish. Common Core State Standards require that students gain, evaluate, and present increasingly complex information, ideas, and evidence through listening and speaking as well as through media. Tony Vincent showcases free web tools that can help students retell, explain, or express themselves.

Show What You Know Infographic

Slideshows

Google Slides is part of Google Drive. Students can start their own slides from scratch or you can share a template with them. You can copy my Vocabulary Concept Maps slideshow to use with your students.  Be sure to click the Share button after you copy it and either make it and change it to Anyone with the link can edit. Or, share the document with your students' Google accounts with "can edit" selected.

Our example Vocabulary Concept Maps slideshows: Group A and Group B

Tip: Learn about copyright friendly images you can use for free in your projects.

Audio Recordings

RecordMP3.org requires access to a computer's microphone. After granting access, you can record several minutes of audio. When finished recording, you can save your recording and receive a URL. You can paste that URL into a document or website, like a slide in Google Slides. Login not required.

Narrations

Import a series of images into Narrable and then narrate each one. When saved and shared, you get a URL that you can paste into a document or website. Login Required to save.

Talking Heads

Upload a photo, cut out the mouth, and record in Blabberize. When done, the photo's mouth moves to say whatever you recorded. This is great for talking about historical figures, events, and vocabulary. Login required to save.

Comics

Choose background, characters, and speech bubbles into a comic strip with Storyboard That. The free version can only have 3 or 6 frames. Login required to save.

Screencasts

Use Pixiclip to draw and talk at the same time. When done, you get a recording of everything that happened on the screen along with your audio. No login required.

Padlet

Teachers create walls in Padlet where students can contribute text, images, and web links. This is a great way for students to share what they have created on other websites by bringing them together on one page. Our Padlet wall for our sample products is padlet.com/tonyv/potts. No login is required for students to contribute to a wall.

Here's how to make a new Padlet wall with my recommended settings:

• Log into Padlet.com.
• Click the Modify Wall button.
• Under profile, give your wall a title and description.
• Under Layout, change from Freeform to Stream.
• Under Privacy, checkmark Moderate posts.
• Under Address, give your wall an easy to type web address.
• See the QR code under the Share menu.

If you're interested in learning lots more about Padlet (and a similar site called Lino), watch my video.