21 plus digital tools for 21st Century learners - more web2.0 tools for 2011, using the e5 instructional model (engage, explore, explain, evaluate, elaborate).

1. 21 + 21st Century tools to:EngageExploreExplainEvaluateElaborate By @brittgow http://brittgow.globalteacher.org.au

4. Engage To Engage students in a new topic, you need to let them share what they already know about the topic in the ways they learn best – verbally, visually, textually or kinesthetically. Tagxedo and Wordle are two text tools that can be used to brainstorm student ideas about a topic. Open a Google Doc. and ask students to type in all the words that come to mind about a specific topic. Then copy and paste the text into the Tagxedo or Wordlepage, to form beautiful word clouds.

5. Engage Video is a great way to stimulate discussion, engage visual learners and present new concepts. Student-created videos can be used as assessment and then shown as examples the next time topics are taught. There are lots of video hosting sites including YouTube, TeacherTube, Blip.TV, DotSub, Viddix and Vimeo. Keep them short, sharp and to the point. The 60-second science competition has some great examples of science concept videos created by students.

6. Engage AnswerGarden, stixy and Wallwisher allow the user to ask a question or post a discussion starter, and have students post text responses on ‘sticky notes’ or on an online ‘whiteboard’. “What do you know about..” “What does XXXX mean to you?”

7. Engage Images, including cartoons, are great ways to engage visual learners. Use creative commons images from Flickr, or upload your own photographs, and then use them to create slideshow presentations or post them on a blog. Comic Life is a fantastic tool for annotating screenshots, adding speech to photos and creating cartoons using your own drawings. This one is not free, but worth the cost!

8. Explore Online bookmarking tools, such as Diigo, Faves.com , Evernote and ZooTool allow you to share all your useful sites with colleagues and students. Tag your links with the topic (#geology, #cells, #plants) so students can quickly and easily locate resources for investigation.

9. Explore Livebinders was selected in the ASSL’s Top 25 websites for Teaching and Learning in 2010. It is a free, on-line tool that allows you to collect, organise and present all your resources for a specific topic. Get students to focus on the appropriate research material instead of wasting time trying to find it.

11. Explain These tools can be used as alternatives to posters, videos or PowerPoint. Ask students to create a digital poster with Glogster, a web page with Wix.comor a multimedia mash-up with Juxio. All these sites allow combinations of images and text that can be used to explain the student’s understanding of a concept.

12. Explain Students can use MyStudiyo to create their own online, multiple-choice quizzes, with images, for revision and to share with their peers. If they can create quiz questions they can usually explain the concept well. Flashcarddballows students to create sets of digital cards for remembering definitions – explaining the meanings of terms helps students to understand the concepts.

13. Evaluate Google Docs, crocodoc and dushare can be used for students to share work with you or their peers. You can highlight, edit, add to or delete sections and return to students. Use rubrics to allow student self-assessment and peer evaluation.

14. Elaborate You want more, I hear you say? To further elaborate on the ideas you have developed with the class, you can connect with students from other schools using Skype (audio), Elluminate (audio and whiteboard), Skrbl, Nota or Titanpad (online, shared whiteboards).