EDIM 514: Discovering Something New

eduTeacher is now one of a multitude of sites that I wished I had discovered long ago.  I found this to be such a great resource this week that it has been added to my fiance's and my shared "Teaching" bookmark folder! While I only had to evaluate three sites for my assignment this week, I continued searching for more and intend to spend some time finding even more resources before school starts in September.  In the meantime, here are three new websites that were recommended to me by eduTeacher.

GrammarBase
www.grammarbase.com
GrammarBase is a free online spell-check and grammar-check site that anyone can use. It is a snap to enter text (simply copy and paste into the text box), and after clicking "Start Checking," it identifies spelling and grammar mistakes in your writing.  This would be an easy tool for students, teachers, or anyone to use.

There are several features that make this website ideal for students.  First, this seems to be a user-friendly and fairly secure website without a lot of ads or external links to questionable websites.  It's also private in that only the person entering the text can see the results of the spell- and grammar-check.  Nothing is saved, so no one else on the web can search or find a student's writing.  There is also a Statistics section that identifies the average number of mistakes and most popular mistakes the writer has made.  This could be a beneficial tool that allows students and/or teachers to see if there are any common or repeated errors.  Finally, the part that I liked best about GrammarBase was that students can click on individual mistakes that have been highlighted and instantly get a mini grammar lesson that explains why they were incorrect.  This takes grammar-checking a step further by teaching instead of just correcting all of the mistakes with no explanation.  In the long run, this would help students learn to avoid making this same grammar mistake in the future.

While the grammar instruction aspect of the grammar-check is appealing, this website did have some drawbacks.  It did not catch all of the grammar errors that I purposely put in a sample paragraph (as you can see below).











It caught all of the spelling and subject-verb agreement errors, but it did not identify the blatant run-on sentence or the fact that I ended two questions with periods instead of question marks.  This was really disappointing because even Microsoft Word picks up on these types of errors.  The website claims to go "deeper than some word processing programs," which it does with the grammar lessons that pop up, but it misses major grammar issues.

Another drawback was that the site does try to push their paid editing service on you by inviting you to "Let us fix all your mistakes!" and prominently displaying ads for Tutorsville.net.

I would give this website the thumbs up and recommend it to my students if I was confident that it would identify ALL of their grammar mistakes and not just some.  Because of that, I am hesitant to recommend this for use.  In all honesty, I think Microsoft Word (which most of my students use) does a better job. If only it would include an explanation of the error and how to fix it!

uClass
http://uclass.org
uClass was an exciting find for me that reminds me a lot of Edmodo.  As soon as you create an account, you are greeted with the familiar Facebook-style profile page with your photo in the upper left corner of the screen.  This site is definitely geared toward classroom use too, just like Edmodo.  uClass seemed easy to navigate for teachers and students alike, without an overabundance of options or things to click on.  I like that it clearly displayed the teacher's name (the sign up process asks specifically, "What do your students call you?"), school name, and class name.  Students are also given a straightforward username in the form of firstname@classname.  The teacher can set the security/privacy settings for the class by disabling the ability of others to view class assignments or message students privately.












uClass had some neat features for educators to use on their own, too.  Teachers can search for assignments by filtering by grade level, subject, common core standards, and/or the duration of the lesson (day/week/month). Most assignments come with a formal lesson plan, worksheets and reproducibles, and links to related online content.  If a teacher wants to share the assignment with his/her own class, all they have to do is click "Assign."  They edit other options, such as which of the attached worksheets and extras are available to students, due dates, and additional instructions.  And just as teachers can search for assignments, they can share their own great ideas too!

Another cool option on this site is for teachers to seek out pen pals for their class.  By clicking on the "Community" tab, I was able to see posts from teachers across the globe seeking other teachers or classes that wanted to connect as pen pals.  This is an activity I've wanted to take part in for years, and so I know I will be using this once the school year starts to find a pen pal class for my class to connect with!

While I really did like this site, I would use both uClass and Edmodo with my students.  There really is no need for both when they share many of the same features.  More than likely, I'd have my students use Edmodo accounts and I'd use uClass for my own research and lesson planning.

Picozu
http://picozu.com

I chose to try out Picozu because I enjoy photography and thought this might turn out to be a fun online photo-editing site for me to use in addition to or instead of Picasa.  I had high hopes for this website, but in the end I just found it too confusing. If I were to recommend this website to students to create or edit images with, I believe many of them would be confused by it as well.

The homepage advertises some of the fun things you can create using Picozu, such as collages, color palletes, and "motivational posters."  However, I spent a good 15 minutes or so searching through the photo editing menu and toolbar, as well as the tabs on the homepage trying to figure out how to make these things.  Finally, after searching through the help table of contents, I found that you needed to download separate plugins ("extensions) to your internet browser for each of these fun creations.  This was a huge turn-off, because I don't want to slow down my browser with a bunch of unnecessary plugins, and I certainly wouldn't want students thinking it's okay to download things just because a website suggests it.  That's a whole other lesson in internet safety!

I tried downloading the plugins anyway, just to play around with them, but I kept getting an error message. Probably for the best! I did want to try out the Palette-o-matic, which identifies each unique hue in a picture and sorts them into a color palette.  Maybe I'll go back again and try to get it to work.

While I couldn't play with the extensions, I was able to upload a photograph of my darling dachshund-chihuahua mix and add some fun visual effects and filters to the photo.  It was entertaining for a few minutes, but these effects really weren't anything unique or different from what I'd find in any other photo-editing website or software. I guess that's all you can expect from a free website.  I think I'll stick with Picasa, since it's much more user-friendly and easier to navigate, in my opinion.

While this website would definitely appeal to the "Instagram generation" with all of its filters and ability to change colors and add text, I don't think it is necessarily appropriate for classroom use (except for maybe in a high school level digital arts or graphic design course). Plus, true professionals and those looking to get into photography are more likely to use a professional program such as Photoshop that has more features available.