Free Tech Tools Tuesday Year-End Round Up (part 1)

@LisaBerghoff/@Joe_EdTech

This is a funny time of year. By funny I mean strange or odd, definitely not laugh out loud funny. We are frantically trying to "wrap up" this school year while simultaneously planning for next year. This is a time when I find myself reflecting on where I've been and try to set myself on a path so I have some clue where I'm headed. In my reflections I often think about how far my students have come this year and I try to cut myself some slack for the things that I intended to do or try that just didn't pan out.

This week I'm taking a look at the free tech tools that Joe and I have shared with you this year. It's quite a list and there are definitely some common themes among them. I know that many of you have tried some of these with much enthusiasm and success. I also know that many of you have put these in the "maybe next year" category. This post will highlight and refresh your memory so that you can begin next year off and running.

This is part one of a two part series. This week I will round up and highlight the free tech tools that we rolled out during first semester and next week we'll round up the second semester tools. As a reminder, all of the Free Tech Tools posts on Giant Ed Tech are archived so you can always look back and find them. As you are reflecting on your year, I hope you will remember a time that you tried something new. Even if it was an epic fail, it was worth it because you learned something and modeled that for your students. I also hope that in your planning you will consider giving a few of these a whirl.
Enjoy!

August:

How To Manage Multiple Accounts In Chrome: Please, please, stop clicking on your picture to switch accounts! Read this post to see the correct way to change back and forth between your school and home accounts.

September:

Kami for annotating PDFs

My Homework App for chrome: digital assignment notebook

Teach kids how to limit distractions with Stay Focusd chrome app

BookTrack Classroom: Make your own soundtrack to set the tone for a piece of text

Actively Learn: Turn any text into interactive text to help struggling readers

October:

MyHistro: Interactive Timelines

Symbaloo: Manage your resources in the cloud

Vibby: Share specific YouTube content with your students

November:

Dualless: For those of us who don't have multiple monitors

Thinglink: Using interactive images

Wizer.Me: Make boring worksheets interactive

Coggle: Concept mapping

December:

BeeLineReader: Makes screen reading easier on the eyes. Good for dyslexic students. 

Grammerly: Better writing made easy

Quizizz: Fun, interactive, multiplayer classroom quiz games that can be played anywhere. 

January:

Text2Mind Map: Create mind maps from outlines

Google Calendar Appointment Slots: Have students sign up for appointments with you. 

Google Classroom: Updates as of January 2016, 

Next week's list will have all of the free tech tools from second semester. Do you have a favorite that we didn't highlight this year? Share it in the comments section or send me an email. I'd love to hear about fantastic tools you are using!