Unique web applications can be a great help for anyone. If you’re in the teaching profession, great web apps can help you get new ideas about strategies and techniques to use in the classroom, and some of the web apps themselves can be classroom tools. To help keep those creative juices flowing, we’ve come up with eleven web applications that can be great for teachers of special education. Check them out for yourself.
For Your iPhone
If you have an iPhone, you have a wonderful teaching and classroom tool. There are already lots of classroom tools and applications for iPhone, and there are certainly many more to come. Check out these five. You’ll also want to recommend some of them to your student’s parents.
- TED: TED stands for Technology, Education and Design. This nonprofit organization that exists basically to enlighten the world. TED can give you tons of ideas for your classroom and even for your personal life.
- Model Me Going Places: This is a tool you can use right in the classroom. It is designed to help children navigate challenging locations in the community.
- Sentence Builder and Question Builder: Geared toward elementary school children, these applications help children build grammatically correct sentences.
- IEP Checklist: Make sure you’re considering every step as you develop an IEP for a child with this user friendly app. This is a great app for parents whose children are on an Individualized Education Plan, too.
- Web Reader: Uses text to speech technology for reading web pages allowed. This may be a great tool for helping some of your children use web pages in the classroom.
For Your Computer
Of course, not every teacher has an iPhone. But, don’t despair; there are plenty of great applications for special education teachers that you can use on your home or classroom computer, too.
- Curriki: This is a collaborative tool that allows teachers to share curriculum and lesson plan ideas. Learn what other special education teachers are doing in their classrooms and share your unique ideas as well.
- Teacher Tube: Originally part of You Tube, Teacher Tube is a focused video sharing site that holds videos of interest to teachers. The videos range from those you could actually use in the classroom with your students to those that are designed to help you solve classroom issues and get new ideas for presenting lesson plans and motivating your students.
- Brain Honey: This application includes instant access for one instructor and multiple students, online content authoring, mapping tools, personalized lesson plans, a student portal and a dynamic online grade book. It’s a tool every teacher can use.
- Class Marker: Generate your own tests and have them graded for you automatically. It can also send grades to parents for you.
- Moodle: Moodle is a virtual learning environment that educators use to create online learning sites. Make your own Moodle sites geared toward your students’ need and abilities.
- School Rack: The app allows teachers to build colorful, customizable websites, while storing mailing lists and moderating private discussions with students and/or parents. You can really make and use a website for your own classroom with this great application.
Teachers of all kinds are always looking for more and better applications and tools for themselves, their students and their classrooms. These are just a few of the many applications out there that can make your job easier and more productive. There are also plenty of applications that can help you keep your students more engaged and more productive.
Don’t stop with these applications! More are coming out every day, and you’re likely to find that a wide range of them will work for your classroom and teaching situation. The internet is one of the greatest tools to come along in decades, and it is a particularly effective tool for teachers because children are so drawn to it and because today’s children, even many of those with special needs, love it and are accustomed to using it. So, take advantage of all the applications you can find to make your classroom come alive for you and your students.
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