For some summertime “play,” here are a few new tools that I found on Karen Janowski’s blog about assistive technology– She has posted a very extensive list of helpful study skill types of tools.

My favorites from her list?  

Bubbl.us is a free brainstorming tool.   We have Inspiration on our district computers, but what about when students get home?  This tool can help them create mindmaps, complete brainstorming activities, and organize their thoughts. 

The added advantage?  They can share their mind map with others, either allowing them to just view their mind map, or granting them permission to also edit it.    One tip–for the younger students, you might want to teach them to press the zoom button in the top left corner to make them larger and easier to manipulate.

PBL Checklists allows you as a teacher to create a checklist for students, like a writing evaluation sheet or an oral presentation checklist.   They have some preset examples that you can select from.  Or you can type in your own checklist items.  When you click on create printable checklist, it organizes your list for printing–a very helpful tool for creating rubrics/checklists.

However, the one from her list that makes me say “wow” is Eyejot,  a video email tool.  So instead of writing an email, you record a video with a webcam.  It is stored until the recipient has time to watch it and record their response.  It works along the same lines as Yackpack for audio.   This has great possibilities for students with special needs, bloggers, teachers communicating across campuses, or families.

Photo credit:  “Pipecleaner Art”  http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobalt/35978363/