Newsela is an awesome site that I feel I do not get to use often enough with my students. Newsela is a news curator but better. Not only do they find interesting and relevant articles to keep students informed, but they rewrite the articles at various lexile levels so that they are reader friendly for every student in your classroom. When I taught langauge arts and had a ton of literature choices at various lexiles for guided reading, I felt at a loss for informational text at various lexiles for guided reading. I always had tried to incorporate news and articles into my language arts classes, but so often the text was too difficult for my students. At a workshop, a reading specialist had told us about Newsela and it was a game changer. I was able to print articles at lexiles to match my guided reading groups and conduct guided reading lessons with informational text. The entire class was able to discuss an article even though they had read it at different lexiles - it was awesome!
Today, I teach the 5th to 8th grade Academically Talented classes, and generally speaking, most of the students are above grade level for reading, so the variety of lexile levels is not as necessary. However, I still love Newsela for finding Socratic Seminar topics for my classes or finding articles that go along with different issues or topics we may be discussing in class. I love Newsela so much, that if I lived in California, I would try to work for them!

Spelling City is another site I've used for the past five years or so. I began using Spelling City for social studies vocabulary and then for actual spelling words when I started teaching 8th grade langauge arts. Now that I'm teaching the Academically Talented classes, it is back to social studies vocabulary. I have also used it at home with my own children to study and work with their own spelling words.

Spelling City is awesome for giving vocabulary quizzes or tests. You can quickly print a paper test, or you can easily give a digital test. As I'm trying to go paperless, and trying to reduce the amount of grading I have, I love their digital vocabulary quizzes.

Since my students complete mini-projects with their vocabulary words, I don't assign homework on Spelling City, but did when I taught language arts. Instead of writing their words 10 times, or other rote activities, students were able to play games - on their phones, tablets, or computers - for spelling homework instead. Generally, students have actually enjoyed their spelling homework on Spelling City, although some games do seem a bit childish for 7th or 8th graders. Nevertheless, it helps students learn their words, and if you teach a current series like Reading Street, all spelling lists are integrated into their system, saving you time from having to enter your own lists.

Storyboard That is a site I learned of through one of my students, and is a site I would like to incorporate into more student projects. It essentially lets students create a comic book presentation about anything. They can choose from different backgrounds, and based on storyboards set in 18th Century Colonial America my students have made, the possibilities are vast, if not endless.
The project my students have used this for so far is a social studies vocabulary project. Rather than just write out definitions and memorize terms for a vocabulary quiz, students are required to apply their words through a story/comic book, illustrated dicitonary, or word association webs. Some students have created beautiful comics using PowerPoint, but the comics created through Storyboard That look like professional comics.

Edpuzzle is a site I learned about earlier this school year, though I can not remember where. Over the last two years there has been a lot of talk about flipping classrooms in my school, and the use of video lessons to teach students content. Since I teach the Gifted and Talented classes, I'm not often in Sage on the Stage mode and spend the majority of my time as a facilitator. Students primary learn through projects and self-study, so flipping the classroom hasn't been a priority or focus of mine. However, as my students are responsible for completing their social studies work through independent study, I would like to incorporate more videos into their work. I started to incorporate videos last year and would have students complete a 3-2-1 review. They had to write down 3 facts, 2 questions, and 1 opinion after watching the video. It started well enough, but I felt the students didn't really have to watch the videos and the 3-2-1 assignment was not truly holding them accountable. Also, locating and viewing videos for four different social studies courses at once became too overwhelming.
With Edpuzzle however, teachers are able to embed questions directly into the video. You are also able to trim the video so students only need to watch what is relevent. The video stops and will not continue until they answer the question, and since they sign in, you are left with their responses, and are able to tell what they are understanding and where they need reteaching or discussion.
If I am able to build a collection of videos for my four grade levels, I would like to utilize Edpuzzle to keep students accountable for actually viewing and thinking about the assigned videos.

Socrative is a web-based student response system that provides teachers with instant, visual feedback on student learning - both formative and summative.

Teachers can use Socrative on the fly, writing a question on their white board and allowing students to choose between multiple answers, or by having students type their response. Responses are tied to student names - though you do rely on students typing their real name as they don't have set accounts - so the teacher can see who "got it" and who didn't, and have that feedback saved for later review.

Teachers can also enter questions, quizzes, or even tests into Socrative in advance. This is primarily how I used Socrative with my classes last year. I entered every social studies test for all four grades that I teach. Test-taking on Socrative was great because students were able to get immediate feedback on their tests, although teachers can turn this feature off. I was able to get instant feedback and results for everything on their test that was not an open-ended response, which saved a ton of time grading.

I haven't been using Socrative as much this year, as my district purchased licenses to LinkIt for benchmark data collection. Because of the PARCC-like test features LinkIt has, I decided to move all of my tests over to LinkIt instead of Socrative. But, all in all, Socrative is a great tool for teachers looking to reduce their paper usage and implement technology.

Word Clouds are something that have been around the internet and education for years. They seem to not be very popular anymore, but I found them particularly useful while teaching language arts for characterization. For my current Academically Talented classes, I find word clouds useful for identifying the essentials of a historical event, individual, or time period. The first site that I knew for making Word Clouds was http://www.wordle.net/. I'm actually not very fond of Wordle. The site often has technical glitches and doesn't always work for my students, or if it does work, may lose their word lists. A site my students have had more success with, and provides more creative control over the word cloud itself is http://www.tagxedo.com/. Tagxedo is neat because it lets students alter their word cloud into any shape they want. I used Tagxedo with my 7th grade READ180 class at the beginning of the year to create characterization word clouds for characters in Wonder by R.J. Palacio. Tagxedo provides students with several preset shapes, such as stars or continents, but also gives students the ability to import a picture which provides the basis for a new shape. One of my students imported the image of Auggie on the cover of Wonder for their Auggie word cloud which added another level to their work.

I have been using Animoto with my classes well before my school's 1:1 laptop initiative began. I feel in love with Animoto when I started teaching 8th grade language arts during the 2012-2013 school year. It was perfect for literature-related projects, and is so user-friendly. I like that Animoto lets students create such a cohesive, put-together video montage without having to be as technically demanding as a program like MovieMaker. When the project is suppose to focus on the content, such as a novel or character, I want technology to enhance the project, not take over the project. Animoto is perfect because it has a low learning curve. To help students become proficient with Animoto, I do like to assign a short About Me project that allows them to focus on learning the ins and outs of the site, so that they are able to focus on the content of their literature projects later in the year.

Edmodo has been a lifesaver as I have transitioned away from paper/pencil assignments towards more and more digital assignments. In the Office365 environment, students are able to "share" files with their teachers and peers, but sharing is not efficient for turning in an assignment. For the student, sharing is easy, but for a teacher grading 50 to over 100 assignments, sharing leaves much to be desired - particularly organization and student names.
Edmodo has been a lifesaver for allowing me to easily know whether everyone has turned an assignment in or not in a single screen for each class. It is then a breeze to click right down your class list and open each file to assess. You can even type comments within the student documents and request work to be revised and resubmitted. There was a learning curve for my students, but after turning in a few assignments, they were able to quickly get the hang of Edmodo.
Another bonus for Edmodo - they let students use their school Google or Office365 account to create their Edmodo account. This is awesome because it means their Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive is then integrated and connected to Edmodo, making it easier to hand in their work.

My school has been rolling out a 1:1 laptop initiative over the course of four years, and this year all students have their own laptops. With technology literally at my students' fingertips at all times, I have been actively looking for ways to cut out the paper. Going digital not only saves paper, it also saves me time and stress. I use to think I should go into the copier repair biz. I spent so much time with the copier and could clear almost any paper jam. Now I rarely make copies and am not wasting time with paper jams. Going digital has also saved time with grading. Online tests using LinkIt; they are a lifesaver. Students get immediate feedback on their tests as soon as they are done. They don't have to wait for me to grade because I don't have to grade them! Yes, it's taken some time typing tests for four grade levels into the online system, but that's worth it in the long run because not only do I not have paper tests to grade, but all of the tests are ready to be assigned to next year's students. Grading other digital work is also much more convenient than grading stacks of papers. For most of the year, students turned in work through Edmodo, but we've recently switched over to Microsoft's Teacher Dashboard. With both, I can grade student work anywhere with just my cell phone! I can even leave comments on their work or ask for revisions. The most important effect of changing the tasks I assign to all digital, is the rethinking in what I'm asking students to do. By seeking out sites that are interactive or require creativity and application, my students are being assigned more engaging and interactive learning experiences.