The Cool Tools workshops have come to an end. The 2018-19 school year was the last year the workshop was offered. The website content will remain relevant for some time, but won’t be fully updated after 2020.
It’s been an enormous pleasure working with so many dedicated, enthusiastic and innovative educators over the many years I’ve been coordinating this workshop. Close to 1,000 librarians, classroom teachers, administrators and more have participated over the years. Thousands more have benefited from the content shared here and by workshop participants taking ideas back to their schools.
Thank you for all you’ve taught me! Never stop learning!
Workshop Topics
Cool Tools 101 – for first time participants
If you’re a first time participant, please make sure you do the Thing 1: Getting Started lesson first. Beyond that, these first 10 topics might be of most interest to you, though you can also pick from any of the topics below. You choose, it’s your learning experience!
Before you start: READ THE FAQ PAGE!
- Thing 1: Getting Started – Please do this topic first if you’ve never participated before.
- Thing 2: Student Blogging & Writing
- Thing 3: Photo Fun
- Thing 4: Twitter, Facebook & Personal Learning Networks
- Thing 5: Audio Tools
- Thing 6: Digital Storytelling
- Thing 7: Presentation Tools
- Thing 8: Curation Tools
- Thing 9: Research Databases
- Thing 10: Search Tools Ninja
More Cool Tools – for anyone
- Thing 11: Digital Tattoo & Digital Citizenship
- Thing 12: News Literacy
- Thing 13: Augmented & Virtual Reality
- Thing 14: Bitmoji Fun
- Thing 15: BreakoutEDU – guest instructor: Amy Carpenter
- Thing 16: Digital Portfolios for Students
- Thing 17: eBook Creation
- Thing 18: Student Assessment & Feedback Tools
- Thing 19: Screencasting & Screen Sharing
- Thing 20: Social Reading & “Book Stuff”
- Thing 21: Supporting English Language Learners – guest instructor: Diana Wendell
- Thing 22: Teaching & Learning with Primary Sources
- Thing 23: New AASL Standards
- Thing 24: Google Drawings
- Thing 25: Green Screen Fun
- Thing 26: Media Skills
- Thing 27: Note-Taking Tools & Skills
- Thing 28: Anything Goes Google
- Thing 29: App-palooza!
- Thing 30: DIY – You Pick – Have a topic or tool you want to explore? Go for it! You can repeat this one if you like.
- Final Reflection – Everyone is encouraged to submit a final reflection and you’ll receive the same 2 hours of PD credit as you would for the other lessons.
Topics from earlier workshops
These topics are still relevant and very interesting. The content was updated for the 2017-18 workshop and is still be available if you want to explore any these topics. You could use these as the basis for the Thing 30: DIY – You Pick lesson
- Infographics & Data Visualization (updated for 2017/18)
- Coding (updated for 2017/18)
- Create a Resource Guide (updated for 2017/18)
- Emerging Tech: Scanning the Horizon (updated for 2017/18)
- Control the Info Flood with RSS & Feed Readers (updated for 2017/18)
- Evidence Based Practice – Getting Started (updated for 2017/18)
- Evidence Based Practice – Collecting Data (updated for 2017/18)
- Taking the Lead: Connecting with your Stakeholders (updated for 2017/18)
- Annual Reports – Make them Matter & Report More Often! (updated for 2017/18)
- Flash Cards, Quiz Games and more (updated for 2017/18)
- Web Presence (including LibGuides) (updated for 2017/18)
- Makerspaces (updated for 2017/18)
- Online Learning & DIY PD (updated for 2017/18)
- OER – Open Educational Resources (updated for 2017/18)
- Power up your Browser! (updated for 2017/18)
- Global Connections & Collaborations (updated for 2017/18)
- Productivity Tools (updated for 2017/18)
- Geolocation & Mapping Tools (updated for 2017/18)
- Collaborating, Connecting, Sharing (updated for 2017/18)
Great ideas – thanks!
Suggested new topics??
— breakoutEDU
— ELL/Dual Language resources
— Green Screen resources
— Future Ready Librarians/Educators
— Chromebook app https://edu.google.com/products/class-content/index.html
— Interactive lessons, hyperdocs, lesson paths, decktoys
— Other ideas??
Love to see more on BreakOut Edu, Green Screening, Claymation, robots and robotics, makerspace ideas…. and how they can work at the different levels….
Awesome! I’m looking forward to getting started 🙂
I’m so excited that you are doing this for another year! Awesome 🙂
This will be an exciting experience which will be interesting.
Hi Poly,
I’mm getting a late start for the course. I look forward to learning more.
Fran
Just stumbled across! Really awesome ideas! Thanks!
Excited to be part of this PD! Hoping to learn more about “blogging” to use educationally and personally, can’t wait!
Welcome to the workshop Tereza!
Hello all, its taking me some time to get started the lessons are a little more involved than I thought they would be and I am use to everything being in one place or somewhere familiar but that’s not the case. Hopefully I can get things rolling before break is over.
Darlene
Found an interesting possible resource, but I have no idea who made it yet: https://sites.google.com/view/cool-tools-for-schools/home/cool-tools-for-schools
Hello Kolbe and I are working together again. We have done a few new things and now it’s time to get blogging!
One new thing I’m working on is flip grid…
We recently launched elink 3.0 and it’s the fastest content curation tool on the planet and helps over 70,000 professionals curate content to create…
– Beautiful responsive curated email newsletters in minutes.
– Curated blog content in minutes.
– Curated single web pages in minutes.
We’re the best-kept secret out there and would love it if you could share us with your readers in any relevant future blog post.
Here’s a quick video that will show the magic of elink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj7lFiVjVHE.
I would love to hear what you think about https://elink.io.
Patiently awaiting your reply.
Hi, have you used Placeit? https://placeit.net/
This platform has mockups and templates for any need. Students and teachers could create good designs and videos for presentations. I hope you get to try out and maybe added to your list? Stay safe!
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