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This Social Networking tool is not as intimidating as it seems. It allows you to connect with other educators and classrooms around the world to share ideas.
Pros: There is so much information and collaboration. Many teacher post about what they do in their classrooms that work and things that don't work. There is a save feature so that if you see a post from about a lesson you'd like to try, you can save it for later! It is also nice to see so many educators who have the same struggles as you as well. This app really builds community!
Cons: You have to be smart about what you post and who you follow. Some people on Instagram seem perfect, because that is all that they post. When using this you have to be careful not to compare yourself.

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This tool is a wonderful and easy-to-use collaboration tool that allows users to interact and cooperate with each other in real time. User can create presentations in power-point style, present concepts by creating concept maps or story board strips, insert videos and pictures to help elaborate on concepts, and share writing pieces they have created together. This collaboration tool is great for students working together, tutors working with students, or teachers working with students. It also works on any device.
I would use this tool as a supplement for exploring story structure, as I find the "story board" option to be very fun to use. Students could explore "beginning, middle, end" or "Problem, climax, solution" story structures by writing their own mini-stories, inserting pictures, or recording a video or audio clip of them reading their story together.
Con: This tool may not be easy for younger grades, and is definitely difficult to use on mobile devices. Students with disabilities may need direct instruction and guidance until they can better understand how the tool works.

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This is a simulation tool for preservice and inservice teachers to practice their pedagogy and classroom management.

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TeachLivE is a mixed-reality classroom with simulated students that provides teachers the opportunity to develop their pedagogical practice in a safe environment

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This tool allows for a different option for assessment. Students log on and can take quizzes and play games together that relate to the content. Teachers can create rooms for students to work together. I would use this for students to practice at home or in the classroom to help review.
Pros: fun games to increase engagement, immediate results
Cons: May have to purchase a plan to upgrade and get all the features

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Review student understanding at the class, individual student, or question-level.

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This tool is intuitive and functions like any word-processor document, except it involves synchronous collaborative editing.

Pros: Not complicated, one can see who is writing live, doesn't require any account beyond gmail.
Cons: Nothing to ensure the students don't write rude words instead of their homework.

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This tool is a simple to use video sharing tool where students can add music, images, and video clips. One pro of this app is that it is engaging. Because Animoto does not allow for narration, it encourages students to put clear and concise writing on the slides and to use meaningful images. One con is that without the ability for students to explain their work through narration, it can be harder to give meaningful feedback to students.

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This tool is similar to youtube, only it is used by a more professional network of artists. The focus is on art and creativity.

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Permits the sharing of videos by teachers to students, in a controlled environment. Has a feature to embed assessments in the video, to make sure the students are paying attention.

Pros: Sharing youtube videos without the awful comment sections and endless distractible content.
Cons: Tricky to set up from the teacher side- publishing a bulb requires some sort of authorization which is tricky if one is short on time.

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It's Monday morning in a small classroom in Orlando, and a teacher is trying to start the day's lesson. Maria, sitting in the back, won't raise her hand - she's too shy to speak. Sean, an energetic redhead who won't stop talking, is monopolizing the class discussion. Cindy pulls out her cellphone to answer a text from her boyfriend and refuses to put it away. The teacher panics, unable to gain control, and suddenly says, "Stop classroom." The children freeze, and the teacher turns away to gather her thoughts.

This is no ordinary schoolroom. This is TLE TeachLivE, a mixed-reality classroom simulator with avatars.

Back in 2005, Lisa Dieker and Michael Hynes, both now Pegasus Professors in the College of Education and Human Performance, had an idea that seemed far-fetched at the time: Could teachers improve their performance - like soldiers or pilots - through simulation?

They took their question to Charles Hughes, Pegasus Professor of computer science. And from there, the three, along with an interdisciplinary team, created a system that's changing how teachers are trained.

It was difficult in the beginning. The technology was expensive and not many people jumped at the idea of interacting with characters on a screen.

But in 2012, the TLE team received a $1.5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to study the effects that occur when teachers use the system. The research found that after only four 10-minute sessions, the simulator bettered teachers' targeted behaviors and transferred the improvements back to their classrooms.

The funding also allowed the team to create partnerships with educators around the world, including Australia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.

Now, TLE is the leading lab in the U.S. using a mixed-reality environment to prepare and retrain future and current teachers.

The patented system works from two ends. On one end, a teacher views a screen on which a simulated classroom is projected. A motion-capture device and camera read the teacher's movements. On the other end, an interactor controls the student avatars in the classroom, speaking through a microphone and using head-mounted and handheld controllers programmed to respond to certain movements.

Each avatar has his or her own personality, portrayed through a mixture of human control and specific programming, says Hughes. "We do a blend of what's called 'agency,' which is programmed control, and 'puppetry,' which is human control," he says. "This provides a paradigm that scales very well because one human, properly trained, can control six characters."

TLE started with five middle school-aged avatars: Maria, Sean, Cindy, Ed and Kevin. Then, high school-aged versions of the same characters were created. More recently, adult avatars to simulate other teachers, counselors or parents were added. Teachers, administrators and even students use the system to address a variety of scenarios that crop up in classrooms daily.

Each avatar has his or her own personality, portrayed through a mixture of human control and specific programming.

The team's newest ventures include creating avatars that represent students with disabilities and designing an entirely new classroom with kindergarten-aged avatars.

Jacqueline Rodriguez '13 PhD, now an assistant professor at the College of William & Mary, was a co-director and principal investigator of the TLE program in its early stages. She says that after teaching in diverse schools in Washington, D.C., she was skeptical that the system could provide authentic experiences for teachers addressing the complicated needs of many students. But that changed when she started to use it.

"I've seen the lab provide vital experiences for new and established educators," Rodriguez says. "You learn how to confidently provide instruction, gracefully react to students' needs and be considerate of different personalities."

Dieker, who holds the Lockheed Martin Eminent Scholar Chair, compares the system to pilots who use a flight simulator.

"We don't give a pilot the whole plane - the passengers, the food carts, the restrooms, the locked door, the announcements, the speakers," she says. "We give them a dashboard, and we say, 'You're working on landing the plane. Here are your wings. Here's the landing gear. Practice.' "

This, Dieker says, is not a system designed to completely replace practice in real classrooms. It's simply a way for teachers to improve in a specific area.

"It's meant for you to come in and practice a skill you're missing," she says. "So if you're having a crash landing in teaching fractions, come and practice here. ... Our avatars are patient."

That's the beauty of this type of system, Hynes says. Educators can use it without having to worry about the impact on real students. "If you don't do well, there are no consequences because the avatars just forget and you can start over again," he says. "But if you did that in the classroom, the kids don't forget."

In 2015, the research team entered a public-private partnership with Mursion, a California-based organization that licensed the commercial rights from UCF to develop further and deliver the simulator technology. With this partnership, the technology has been implemented in more than 80 colleges of education and in a small number of school districts across the country, including Seminole County Public Schools.

But the technology is also being used outside the classroom: to help children with autism develop communication skills, to help hotel clerks develop better customer service skills, to train students looking to become nurses and physicians, and to prepare college students for job interviews. It's even being adapted by the UCF Police Department to train officers in de-escalation tactics.

No matter the application, Hughes says, there is only one goal for the technology they developed: to help people. "That's what we want to do ... to help people reach their potential, whether it's a first responder ... a nurse, a physician or a teacher," he says.

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TLE TeachLivE is a mixed-reality classroom simulator that uses avatars.

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It's Monday morning in a small classroom in Orlando, and a teacher is trying to start the day's lesson. Maria, sitting in the back, won't raise her hand - she's too shy to speak. Sean, an energetic redhead who won't stop talking, is monopolizing the class discussion.

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This tool is a great tool if you are presenting. It connects students, whether in the classroom or online.
Pros: There are many assessment tools that are embedded in the website in order to ensure a positive learning environment. The app is also free which is beneficial to the teacher.
Cons: The teacher is typically in control of the when the slides move. This can be a problem because every student learns differently and if a student needs to go back but cannot, they might struggle more than the rest.