The title says it all: "Inspired Picture Writing!" Use this free drag and drop literacy tool to create great sentences inspired by beautiful pictures. Alternatively, add inspirational or humorous captions to pictures. "Lesson Plans" provides learning opportunities and examples for creating captions, compound sentences, or paragraphs. Video tutorials can be found under the FAQs tab. "Explore the Gallery" to see already-created PicLits as well as comments and ratings. After selecting a picture (or using the one they provide) and dragging a word onto the screen, choose different forms of the word by using the drop-down menu next to the word. Move your words anywhere on the screen for creative writing. You can also click "freestyle" instead to type in your own words instead of choosing from their list. Word lists change, depending on the image selected. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

Registering for a PicLits account requires the use of an email address. PicLits can be used without an account but you are unable to save or blog about their creation without an account. A class account can be created instead of individual student accounts. However, it does not show which work is attributable to which student. You may want to require that students initial their contributions in order to get credit. All work on the site can be seen without a login. All projects are public. NOTE: Our editors regret that PicLits occasionally allows advertising on their home page to include images that are not classroom-friendly. Teachers should preview to determine whether or not your students can ignore the ads.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): creative writing (121), digital storytelling (142), images (263), sentences (22)

Internet Polyglot offers language lessons for many languages, available both with the translation from English and also from Spanish. The English lessons also include items for "regular" English classes, such as SAT words. A "widget" to embed lessons in your web site or wiki is also available. You can even share many of the lessons on mobile devices, such as cell phones. Some of the languages include Spanish, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, German, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, French, Latin, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, and numerous others. You can choose lessons to translate to and from any language (for example, Hebrew to Dutch or Japanese to Russian). Everything on the site is free, and there are many lessons for each language, categorized by usage. Most of the lessons start by having students learn vocabulary words: seeing them frequently on online-style pictorial flash cards, hearing them spoken, and then completing review activities using them. In addition to traditional language categories, students can also collect and create their own lessons, modifying lessons of others, and sharing what their friends are using. The site offers a free registration and log in which allows you to keep score results and create and modify your own materials. This site does have some unobtrusive advertisements.

tag(s): arab (11), arabic (13), chinese (44), french (74), german (48), greek (33), hebrew (16), italian (28), japan (56), japanese (47), latin (22), spanish (105), vocabulary (236)

ScreenPal is your old Screencast-o-matic but with lots of new features, and an easier name to type! Use this simple and free tool to create a video recording of your screen to upload and share on a teacher web page, wiki. blog, etc. This is an easy way to create a tutorial from your own computer screen. When you visit sites that have tutorials on how to use their software, you are looking at a screencast. Use this site to communicate specific directions on how to use different applications in and out of the classroom. Audio is not necessary for the screencasts but may be beneficial, depending upon the tutorial. Free features include: unlimited recorder (videos), full video editor, audio recording & editing, access across devices, share and host unlimited videos, publish video channels, and automated captions.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): communication (136), tutorials (53), video (258)

Plurk is a microblogging platform for quick 140 character "plurks" about what you are doing, thinking, or mentally asking. Plurks show as a timeline along with those of your friends. Comments to plurks are attached to the original and conversations are easy to track and continue. Plurk brings interconnectivity between friends and is more like a social network than a blog. Registration with an email is required and managing login and password is necessary. Instant messaging and mobile blogging options are possible.

tag(s): chat (42), communication (136), microblogging (18)

This online tool creates a highly visual "home page" that can incorporate multiple elements simply by dragging and dropping them in place. Not unlike Google's personalized homepage, the elements look like little sticky notes or boxes, but there is far greater flexibility and a wider variety of content readily available. You can also make the page local (simply use it as the "home" on your classroom computer), shared by a select group (passworded), or completely public. You can easily make a theme or unit page for quick access of resources, complete with directions.

tag(s): resources (88)

Discover a visual search engine that pulls in latest sites of today related to any topic, from professional to curriculum-specific. Enter your own search terms in the box at top right. See a map of the latest new sites. Use this site without registering, or register to customize the results. Education Eye maps the innovations and displays these visually. Once registered, view your history, a custom login page and widget, and receive email newsletters.

tag(s): maps (207), search engines (50)