Edmodo has been used for a few years at my campuses, but as a district we are making a big push for middle- junior high levels to utilize Edmodo for a virtual classroom for teachers. It enables you to blog, quiz, share documents, and provides a virtual backpack for all students. They have added Snapshot, which allows teachers select TEKS objectives and generates sample questions so you can get an idea of what students understand. We will be using Edmodo as we participate in the Global Read Aloud and I am excited to get more students and teachers on board! And FYI they have a free EdmodoCon online tomorrow - check it out!

Last week I started working with our AP students to create a Weebly blog to get them posting and integrating a little more tech into their writing.  I call this lesson, Writing with Weebly.  Weebly is primarily a website builder program that allows for teachers to create monitored students accounts (up to 40) under their accounts, or the students can create their own accounts with an email and password.  It includes an option to setup a  blog page, that works well with their devices for posting and commenting easily to others in class.  We have collected the blog sites using a google form, and then place them as links in a classroom Symbaloo page embedded in the teacher's site.  QR codes to the teacher site are placed around the room for ease of use with devices.  The students are having fun writing with Weebly!

Smores are fun to eat and fun to create!  Now don't get the two confused...there are the kind you make with fire and the kind you create online.  I have been using Smore to create colorful, interactive, and trackable flyers with my teachers for training(see clip below). You can embed or link to them, add videos, audio, calendar events...it's amazing! Teachers are using them for parent communication and students have been able to use them in various projects.  If you have to stay inside due to the cold weather, eat a smore and make one too!  You'll be glad you did!

When you are always finding great resources but would like to keep them all in one place, then share them with students, parents, or colleagues, Symbaloo is the answer!  This tool uses tiles within webmixes to keep your websites, videos, rss feeds, etc. in one place.  You can search for topics made by others and 'borrow' them, or make your own. It really has some amazing uses for your classroom and the possibilities are endless - the only catch is that is will only be as good as you make it.  So set aside some time to look around, create an account, then get yourself organized.  It will pay off in the end.  It may be just what you need to get started for the fall!