| Tool | Description | Best Used For... |
|---|---|---|
| Document Camera | This is absolutely essential for a secondary ELA teacher! When used with a projector, allows teacher to digitally project a hard copy of a book or piece of written work to the entire class. | Modeling writing, show-calling student work, modeling or sharing annotations on text. |
| Projector | Allows teacher to project their computer screen (i.e. for a slide show presentation, to view video clips, etc) to the entire class. | Explicit instruction on a topic; showing directions or instructions for a task; providing key information during work or discussion time. |
| Tool | Description | Best Used For... |
|---|---|---|
| Google Classroom | Allows the teacher to create, push out, and score assignments to entire classes of students. Assignments are shared documents between the student and the teacher and can be shared more broadly. Automatically creates folders to organize student work. | Longer written assignments or presentations, on which students can collaborate; exit tickets or shorter written responses on which teachers will score and/or provide feedback. |
| Mote | A Chrome extension that allows teachers and/or students to make comments via audio within Google Classroom, Google Docs, and Google Slides. | Giving students feedback on written work or to facilitate conversation around digitized texts. |
| Jamboard | A Google tool that mimics chart paper with sticky notes, used to virtually capture student thinking on topics. | Capturing student thinking to jumpstart and/or synthesize ideas from a discussion. |
| Kahoot | A game-based learning platform. | Review of key concepts, vocabulary, and terminology before major assessments. |
| Padlet (Dotstorming is a similar platform) | A digital pin board software, a virtual wall and collaborative space, that allows users to gather a variety of objects into a single digital place. Users can write text, record audio and video, add links to websites, or upload pictures. Users can “like” and comment on others’ posts. | To prepare for or while facilitating a live discussion; as a space to develop a collaborative wiki-like project. |
| Flipgrid | A video discussion platform that allows instructors to post discussion prompts via text or video, which students then respond to by posting short videos either in response to the prompt or in response to their classmates’ posts. Resembles social media. Instructors to give students public or private video feedback to their posts. | Preparing for or synthesizing ideas from a discussion; preparing for a longer writing piece. |
| Tool | Description | Best Used For... |
|---|---|---|
| Commonlit | Offers searchable texts that each come with CCSS-aligned questions to support comprehension and paired passages; pre-packaged lessons that can be sent directly to students. | Finding rich texts with pre-made comprehension questions on particular topics / levels / genres. |
| Newsela | Offers searchable news articles on a variety of topics. Key feature is its function of automatically adjusting the lexile level for each of its articles. | Finding rich news articles on particular topics; differentiating text so all students experience the topic but through texts of different lexile levels. |
| Readworks | Offers searchable texts of all genres, including paired passages; texts come with pre-written comprehension questions. | Finding rich texts with pre-made comprehension questions on particular topics / levels / genres. |
| Project Gutenberg | A collection of over 60,000 free eBooks | Finding rich texts or text excerpts, mostly for classic texts (ex. Shakespeare). |
| Tool | Description | Best Used For... |
|---|---|---|
| Vocabulary.com | A student-friendly dictionary that can also be customized with word lists and vocabulary review activities. | Supporting student vocabulary acquisition. |
| No Red Ink | An online grammar program designed to support students in building basic writing fluency. | Supporting students with grammar and mechanics. |