Class+Tools

Create free educational games, activities, and diagrams. Host them in your blog, website, or intranet. No sign-up, no passwords, no charge.
 * Class Tools**

__ Resources Links and Class Examples __ Burger Diagram Tool View Lesson Ideas and Samples Virtual Book Tool

Virtual Book Tool

Post It Tool


 * Strengths**
 * FREE
 * Don't even have to sign up
 * Easily accessible to all
 * Easy to use
 * Includes lesson ideas and examples for each tool
 * Completed files can be saved, or embedded in blogs, wikis and/or websites
 * Many already created templates to choose from


 * Weaknesses**-Without training, it might be difficult for students and teachers to make the most out of all of the different tools. There are screen casts on the site homepage to instruct users with strategies for creating tools. With practice, and a little time, useful and engaging tools can be created that are likely to benefit teaching and learning and engage students.


 * Opportunities**- These tools aid in the creation of visual tools for teaching and learning. They can be used by both the teacher and students. They are customizable for ones teaching, learning, and/or presentation purposes.


 * Threats**-If a file is not accessed over a 12-month period it will be deleted. The site owner claims that the site will be permanent. The author or the site hosts a related site that is approaching ten years in duration.

Ideas for the Classroom Teachers might use the **arcade game generator** or **flashcard maker** to use in actively guiding students through a review of recently studied concepts. The **hamburger tool** can be used to help students to visually work through the creation of an essay. The **countdown timer** might be used to encourage students to pay attention to timeliness by giving them a visual representation of the time that is remaining for a project or task. The **Venn diagram** tool can provide visual help to the whole class, small groups, or pairs of students when making a comparison of two or three things. The **animated book** tool is a powerful way for students to publish their writing.
 * Post-its** might be used to allow students to label geographic regions on a map, parts of a body, or reading strategies that they use as they read a digital text.
 * Time lines** can be created and annotated using the time line tool. This allows for additional comments to be included that might not fit easily on a paper time line.

__**​ A Few Bugs/Difficulites With Creating The Arcade Games: **__

1. __ Wordshoot __- The information prompter at the beginning of the creation process asks you to give ten inputs in order to create an arcade game. However, there are only eight items to "shoot" and this throws off the correct matching of questions and answers. There may not be a correct answer choice to shoot, which defeats the purpose of the game. In addition, the player is not given an option to move to the next question which may make the game frustrating for students.

2.__ Manic Miner __- This game takes a huge amount of hand-eye coordination because the player uses all the arrow keys to move the "miner" around. This game did not give an option to move to next question either. The pace is fast and was even difficult for an adult to play; again probably frustrating a student trying to play.

3.__ CannonBall Fun __- Unable to figure out how to make this game work. The object is to make the cannon balls land ON TOP of the correct answers, but the cannonballs don't bounce around the screen at all. If the player misses, the canonball goes off the screen. The cannonballs don't ricochet off the top walls either which would seemingly make them come back down and land on top of the answer.

4.__ Flashcards __- The answer appeared on the first flashcard and the question appeared on the second one. This seemed backwards. Maybe by reversing the input section the flashcards would come up correctly.