Magazine

Top 100 Sites of 2012

12/28/2012 By: David Kapuler

It’s that time of year again when I get to write my favorite post. This year instead of doing just my top favorite sites, I’m going to include apps, due to the shift in education to mobile learning and the “flipped classroom.” While last year’s post included lots of educational networks, this year’s has lots of curation sites, as well as writing and grammar sites*. I hope you enjoy reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it.

MentorMob: This is probably the coolest site I’ve come across this year. MentorMob is a place where teachers can curate the Web into learning playlists and then share them with their students via a link or embedding into a site.

Pinterest: This is the most popular site on my list and another great site for curating the web. Many educators use this site to share and “pin” great sites for education.

Nearpod: This terrific, free iPad app allows teachers to create interactive presentations and then share them on students’ iPad devices. Students then use their Nearpod apps to submit responses that teachers can then assess on their own Nearpod apps.

Edshelf: This is one of my favorite sites of the year. This site is ideal for educators to find educational technology sites or curate them into shelves.

ClassBadges: This is a fantastic new site that allows teachers to award digital badges to students for accomplishments.

FluencyFinder: This iOS app gives teachers an innovative new way to assess students’ reading fluency. This is a very simple app to use and get instant real-time results for assessing a student’s reading fluency.

PowToon: This is one of the best sites I’ve seen for making stunning animated presentations.

3D Toad: This is an amazing site for finding interactive educational images that a person can zoom into and out of and rotate 360 degrees.

SendHub: This site provides a fantastic way to send free text or group messages to parents and students.

BeeClip EDU: This is a great site with an educational portal (i.e., no student email necessary to register) that is ideal for students, to help them create digital scrapbooks.

The Answer Pad: This is a great site and iPad app combo that allows teachers to create answer sheets online and then assign them to students. The students then use a free app to fill in the answer sheets, show their work, and then submit their work to their teacher. The teachers will give them instant real-time results and graphs.

WatchKnowLearn: This site reminds me a lot of Discovery Streaming and is great for finding educational videos for K-12 students.

Nanoogo: This is a wonderful new site that gives students and teachers a digital canvas to ignite creativity and share lessons, ideas, and work in a new and exciting way.

Class Dojo iOS App: This is a wonderful, free iOS app that interacts with the fantastic behavior management site. Teachers can award or discipline students via a mobile device without having to be worried about being tied down to a desktop machine.

iBooks Author: This is a free iPad app for creating interactive digital books. This could be a game changer in education as more textbooks are being phased out.

SideVibe: This is a great way to take any content from the Web and turn it into an activity for students.

OuiBox: This is a great site for writing. It allows users to cite sources, annotate text, and more, as they write.

Flocabulary: This is a neat site for finding teaching lessons, songs, and videos through the use of educational hip-hop.

Remind 101: This is a great and safe way to text parents and students.

PicMonkey: This is an excellent, free online photo editor where users can upload photos to edit, create collages, and more.

GoClass: GoClass is an excellent, Web-based app for the iPad that works a bit like Nearpod. It allows teachers to manage their classes on the Web and then create assignments that students take home on their iPads. Teachers can then assess student’s work via the Web or the iPad app.

NoRedInk: This is a terrific site for helping students with their grammar and writing skills. Teachers can assign lessons and quizzes as well as track student progress.

MeoGraph: This is an innovative new site for four-dimensional storytelling that includes an educational portal.

Inklewriter: This is a fun site that allows students to write creative stories online for free. It works by adding to a current story or starting your own and then branching off to where you want to go. It’s great for collaborating with others. Once it’s finished, the story is published online and can be shared with others.

9 Slides: This is a fantastic site for adding narration or video to slideshows. This is great for professional development or for explaining and introducing a new concept or subject.

Winged Sandals: This is my favorite site for all things Greek Mythology. It’s also great for finding out interesting facts, images, pictures, and games about this era.

theLearnia: This is a nice, educational, social learning network that is great for students and educators to share and learn knowledge through online lessons.

Playfic: This is a site after my own heart that allows users to create, play, and remix online text-based games. (Zork anyone?) This is a great way to interact with others and strengthen your writing and grammar skills.

Teachers Tech: This is a wonderful iOS app for finding “how-to” videos on all things Web 2.0-related in the classroom.

Trash Chaos: This is a fun, original iPad app for learning about recycling. This app, created by top-notch company Yogome, is ideal for younger kids and has excellent animated graphics.

Humanline: This is one of the best new sites around for finding free educational images. Hello Slide: This is a very cool site that provides narration to slides by simply typing what you want it to say.

Moms with Apps: This is a great place for finding educational apps as well as learning about other great mobile programs such as App Friday.

InSkilled: This unique site allows users to track and share what they learn online through a very useful, self-paced interface.

Musicshake Edu: This app allows students to create music online that can then be downloaded or used anywhere.

List.ly: This app provides a great way to curate the Web into lists and then share with others or embed into a site.

Knowmia: This app is a nice place to find educational videos on thousands of lessons for every subject and is ideal for high school students.

Nulu: This is an innovative site for learning Spanish by reading related articles on a wide variety of subjects that have been translated into Spanish. A user can then select which words are difficult to help guide his or her learning.

Storyboard That: This is an excellent Web tool for students to visually tell a story through a storyboard. This is ideal for digital storytelling as well as brainstorming new ideas.

Snip.it: This is a fun site for curating the Web into thumbnails similar to Pinterest.

Educreations: This is a wonderful site and iPad app for creating a lesson on a digital whiteboard, then recording what’s happening.

QR Voice: This app provides a neat way to add a voice to a QR code.

Backpack TV : This is a nice site for educational videos on a wide variety of subjects.

SpellingCity iOS app: This is a great, free iOS app that goes hand in hand with the SpellingCity Web site. Students can access hundreds of word lists and lots of popular games and activities.

MinecraftEdu: The popular game is now being used in education to build creative worlds and geographical landmarks and buildings.

ClassPager: This app turns your mobile device into a classroom clicker for text messages, responding to polls, and more.

CubertsCube: This is a fun site that allows students to polish their writing skills by working with and getting feedback from others.

ACMI Generator: This is a great place to find or create writing prompts to build a story.

GradeCam: This app allows you to use any Web or document camera to scan in assignments and have them graded instantly with real-time feedback.

Toontastic: This is one of my favorite iPad apps for digital storytelling. Kids select their characters and backgrounds and add their voices to create a story.

Knowit: This is another nice site for curating the Web and saving all sorts of resources to share with others.

Google Cloud Print: This is an amazing way to print from any device anywhere, as long as the printer supports GCP.

Alien Buddies: This is a fun app for young learners where they can take part in many activities such as matching, puzzles, stickers, and connect-the-dots.

History Engine: The History Engine is an ambitious project that puts the student in the role of a historian to create stunning projects. Teachers with Apps: This is a fantastic site for finding detailed reviews with images of educational apps.

Understoodit: This site allows teachers to create a page where students click on topics that they understand or are confused about (in reference to any subject the teacher is teaching) and the teacher gets instant real-time feedback.

Literacy Shed: This is a great place to find resources for literacy on a wide range of topics.

United Classrooms: This is a global social learning network that connects classrooms around the world.

AnMisH: This is a fun site for digital storytelling where you can use your own image as one of the characters.

Every1Speaks: This is a great way to harvest an idea by collaborating with others and introducing into a school setting.

Essay Tagger: This is a stunningly simple way to grade essays through a Web-based tool.

Famigo: This is a fun site to find and download educational apps.

Flash Card Maker: This is a cool iOS app for kids to create flash cards using their own images and text.

QuizSlides: This app allows users to create quizzes from PPTs or PDFs and view results online.

Learnist : This app is just like an educational version of Pinterest with the ability to curate videos, audio, etc.

myHistro: This is a terrific site and app for creating interactive timelines that integrate with Google Maps.

WikiBrains: This is a great site for social brainstorming that is very easy and fun to use.

Chegg: This is a great site for renting, selling, or buying textbooks. It also has an educational portal which is great for finding step-by-step help on homework problems.

Maily: This fantastic, free iPad app is geared for younger kids to teach them how to email in a safe environment.

KidzVuz: This is a fun site for kids to find reviews of videos by other kids.

Share my Lesson: This is a great site for teachers to find educational resources developed by teachers.

Avatar Classroom: This innovative site shows a Web-based classroom hosted in a virtual world, similar to MyLife.

I Tell a Story: This is an excellent, free iOS app for digital storytelling that reminds me a lot of the way Garage Band is used to create a podcast.

Tioki: This app provides a nice network for educators to collaborate and share resources.

DuoLingo: This is a neat site for learning a foreign language by translating different articles on the Web with others.

LyricsGaps: This is a very fun site for learning a foreign language by filling in missing gaps of a song.

Quick ScreenShare: This is a very handy Web tool that allows people to share their screens with no registration needed. This is a great way to help troubleshoot or explain things to people by showing them your computer screen.

Moo-O: This is an entertaining site that puts kids right in the middle of the story and helps nurture their love of reading.

Teach with Portals: This is an interesting site for gamification that uses the award-winning Portal PC game for teaching. This site has a nice help forum as well as lesson plans on how to integrate the games into classroom lessons.

Miracle of Life: This is one of the most beautifullooking iPad apps that I have ever seen. This app is provided in both English and Spanish and focuses on the human growth cycle.

EdSurge: This community is great for educators and has excellent articles as well as product reviews.

Grammar Bytes: This is a great site for all things grammar such as handouts, definitions, presentations, videos, and more.

Problem-Attic: This is a nice site to find and customize educational resources based on Regents exams in math, science, social studies, and English.

Power my Learning: This is one of my favorite sites for finding educational activities on a wide range of subjects.

BusyTeacher: This is a terrific site for finding free, printable worksheets as well as resources for ESL teachers.

Lingt Classroom: This is a cool site for learning a foreign language by creating voice-based lessons.

Storybricks: This is a great site for digital storytelling that uses MMO and gamification to develop a creative, unique story.

C-Fit: This program consists of a series of iOS apps designed to keep kids healthy by engaging in exercise via walk-through videos.

Story Patch: This is a fantastic iOS app for digital storytelling that goes through the step-by-step process of telling a story.

Kindertown: This is a great site and app for finding educational apps for pre-schoolers and young kids.

Creating Music: This is a nice site for learning different terms and composing your own music.

Google Course Builder: This is a new project by Google to help users build their own online courses using Google tools.

ESL Library: This is a wonderful site for ESL teachers looking to find lesson plans and flashcards.

Scribble Press: This is an excellent site and iPad app for creating digital books and stories. This app is ideal for teachers with an educational portal for creating student accounts.

Teachem: This is a cool site for creating an online course by adding flashcard-style questions to YouTube videos.

Infuse Learning: This is a nice student response system that works on a wide variety of mobile devices.

Doodlecast: This is a great iOS app for kids that allows them to create drawings while recording their voices.

Scribblenauts: This is one of my son’s favorite iOS platform games. It allows him to work on his spelling while creating objects.

Mobento: This unique site allows users to search for spoken words inside a video.

SnaPanda: This is a great Android and iPhone app that uses a mobile camera to scan a word and gives definitions.