MTI 562 Week 3 - Webtools and Common Core

I looked at several of the webtools mentioned in the class, but the free versions had limited numbers of time you can use them or restricted functions and you have to have an account to use them. Some don't seem to be around anymore – e.g. the link to Pupil Tube pulled up a Japanese site. My younger students (I work with K-5) are too young to have accounts of their own & it’s too hard maintaining usernames, passwords etc. I don’t like sites that have a lot of flashy (and sometimes inappropriate) commercials – we have quite a lot of students who struggle to stay focused and the last thing they need is flashy distractions! I like the tools where we can have a class or school account where we can choose the username and password e.g. Brain Pop, Renaissance Place, IXL Math, PicMonkey, Code.org etc. or where we can download the program and install it – Screencast-O-Matic, Sketchup, Notebeat etc. The challenge with working online is that it isn’t always available - we want to use TinkerCAD for 3D modelling now that we have a 3D printer, but the site has been down every time I checked this week so we will most likely use 3DTin instead. Yesterday our internet was down all day which would have been frustrating if we were solely dependent on online tools. Some of the resources listed look really cool, like Garage Band, but they are only for IOS devices and we are a Windows school (more than half our parents work for Microsoft). The one I found on this course that I found suitable for our needs is Dipity. We are going to get an account and use it to create timelines of important events in the history of the country the third graders are researching for the Cultural Fair. I also thought we could explore using Voki to make the speaking avatar that will read the students poetry. But if I approach it this way doesn't that run counter to how we are supposed to be working - I found a cool tool, now I am trying to find a lesson to use it in?!