Stacy Spivey

November 14, 2016

Fall 2016
Website Name

URL
https://www1.chalk.com/

Description of the Site

Chalk.com is a website that teachers can
use to more effectively educate their students by
helping them organize lesson plans and student
assessments. Its co-founder and CEO is William
Zhou. He studied Computer Science at the
University of Waterloo. He previously founded
Design Vetica, and he worked at Datalot Inc and
SugarCRM. Forbes magazine recognized him in
their feature of Top 30 Under 30. Ryan MckayFleming is the Chief Technology Officer, and he
also attended the University of Waterloo.
Chalk.com was designed for K-12th grade
teachers. Its two main apps are called Planboard
and Markboard. Planboard allows teachers to
create lesson boards complete with
supplementary materials (attachments, videos,
photos) and curriculum sets with standards. There
is even an option to reuse lesson plans or create
new ones. Markboard allows teachers to record
their assessments of students. It offers different
styles and ways to individually or collectively
view the classs progress. The website even has a
blog and guides to best utilize the website. An
elementary school teacher could use this website
to create lesson plans and record their students
assessment. It formats their lessons and keeps

their ideas organized, allowing them to minimize

the time they spend prepping for a lesson. It also
makes their lessons and assessments easily
accessible.
https://www.edmodo.com/

Edmodo is a social learning network

specifically made to connect students and
teachers. The website was founded by Jeff O'Hara
and Nic Borg. Ohara worked as a
Systems/Network Administrator at the
Community Unit School District in Wheaton,
Illinois. Borg, works as a teacher at Edmodo High
in San Mateo, California. From their experience,
they realized the need for a site like Edmodo.
Since 2008, it has gained 73,506,063 members.
The site has a framework similar to
Facebook. It allows users, whether teachers or
students, to make profiles. The website allows
users to create groups, ideal for teachers that want
to connect with their students based on their
district or class. Also, parents can make accounts
and access the groups to view information from
their kids teachers. For elementary school
teachers, this website is useful because they could
use this to convey website to parents instead of
printed newsletters. If their students are older,
teachers could also use this to stay connected
with their students if they have questions on an
assignment or want to offer supplementary
materials outside of the classroom. It helps that

https://www.edutopia.org/

Edmodo is compatible with Microsoft Office and

Google Apps (Google Docs, Google Drive, etc.).
Edutopia is an independent website that
offers resources for K-12th grade teachers and
allows them to collaborate. These resources
include informational videos, articles, and
discussion boards. According to their website,
they focus on project-based learning,
comprehensive assessment, integrated studies,
social and emotional learning, educational
leadership and teacher development, and
technology integration. The website was created
by the George Lucas Educational Foundation.
George Lucas founded the nonprofit foundation
in 1991. Edutopia is accompanied by Lucas
Education Research. The discoveries made by the
latter help Edutopia know what models benefit
teachers and students. While known for his
success as a filmmaker, George Lucas also works
at the USC School of Cinematic Arts Board of
Councilors. He has a passion for technology and
helping children pursue their dreams. He is the
head of the board of directors, and he is
accompanied by Executive Directors Kristin De
Vivo and Cindy Johanson.
This website offers thousands of
resources, all of which are organized by topic.
These topics are listed alphabetically, making it
easy to find videos and articles based on the
subject or grade they cover. Some articles provide

http://www.funbrain.com/

extensive amounts of links to external websites

that allow users to further explore subjects. The
Community page has a discussion board. The
discussion board shows how many comments
have been made on specific articles. This allows
users to read the material and interact with each
other in response to it. Similarly, members of the
website can post their own thoughts or ideas that
others can comment on. The articles and videos
target teachers of all subjects from K-12th grade.
For elementary school teachers, they can locate
articles and videos about their specific grades.
The diversity of the topics and the foundations
focus on tested strategies with successful results
benefits teachers. Also, the community section
allows teachers to discuss topics in further detail
and exchange ideas.
Funbrain is an interactive website where
students from K-12th grade can play educational
games and read available books. The website was
created by Family Education Network, a division
of Sandbox Networks, Inc. In September 2010,
FamilyFun magazine nominated Funbrain as one
of the top ten websites for kids.
The website offers a collection of online
games that are sorted by grade. Many of the
games are offered for more than one grade, and
their difficulty level can be selected by the
student. There are games for multiple subjects,
including math and music. The website also gives

http://about.historypin.org/

free online access to certain chapter books like

the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. While the website is
mainly meant for children, it has pages for
parents and teachers. These pages organize the
games by grade or subject, helping parents or
teachers locate games for their kids or students.
There are also activities and printouts available
for teachers and parents to use. An elementary
school teacher could use this website during class
time to allow students to practice concepts taught
in class. A teacher could also suggest this website
to parents so that kids could play games at home
that would benefit them academically. Teachers
can also use the website to make flashcards if
needed.
Historypin is a non-profit website where
users can post historically relevant pictures and
videos. Users can pin their own pictures under
previously created pages, allowing people to find
pictures according to historical significance or
geographical location. The website was created
by Shift. Some of its partners and funders include
Stanford University, National Archives, and Arts
& Humanities Research Council. In 2012,
Historypin won Family Tree magazines award
for 101 Best Websites, and it won the American
Association of School Librarians award for Best
Website for Teaching & Learning.
The website is available for all
individuals that want to know more about their

https://www.literacyworldwide.org/

local or national history. It has a search bar that

users can use to find different collections with
relevant photos or videos. A user can save photos,
pin their own materials, or transfer posts to their
social media accounts. Elementary school
teachers could use this website to find videos and
photos to supplement their history lessons. It is
especially helpful for finding resources about the
states local history. Since users post photos or
videos, there are resources that will not be in
textbooks or on Google Images. The website also
offers articles giving advice to teachers on how to
integrate the materials into their lessons.
The International Literacy Association is
a global advocacy and membership organization
that is dedicated to promoting literacy around the
world. The organization has existed for over sixty
years. Its president is William Teale. Teale is the
director of the Center for Literacy at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2003, he was
honored by the Reading Hall of Fame. Douglas
Fisher is ILAs vice president. At San Diego State
University, he is the professor of educational
leadership. He has received ILAs William S.
Gray Citation of Merit, a Christa McAuliffe
Excellence in Teacher Education Award, and an
Exemplary Leader Award from the Conference
on English Leadership of NCTE.
The organizations website offers
resources for educators and students. For

https://quizlet.com/

members, this includes access to Literacy Today

magazine, Literacy Daily blog, and ILA journals.
There are some free journals that non-member
users can access on ILAs database. There are
also reading lists based on childrens, teachers,
and young adults top picks. These lists are
divided by year, and they have names of
recommended books with short descriptions. For
elementary school teachers, this website would
give them access to reading lists with plenty of
books they could choose from. With fictional and
non-fictional options, these lists would help
teachers find books they could read in class or
recommend to their students.
Quizlet is an independent website that
provides study tools for teachers and students to
utilize. Andrew Sutherland created the website in
high school, and after pursuing Computer Science
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for three
years, he dropped out to manage Quizlet. Since
its creation in 2006, users have viewed over 2
billion study sessions. Also, they discovered that
1 in every 4 high school students in the U.S.
uses Quizlet daily.
The website allows users, mainly
students and teachers, to use its tools to study.
The website allows one to take facts from a
lesson and create flashcards, practice spelling out
answers, learn through matching, and even play
games that help a student memorize the facts.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/

These study sessions can be created for individual

use, or they can be shared to the public. There is
also a feature called Quizlet Live. This allows
teachers to create live sessions with their
students. The teacher posts questions and they
compete via assigned teams to get the right
answers. The website targets students and
teachers of all grade. For elementary school
teachers, they can use the website to create
flashcards or other study tools for students. Since
teachers get to type the content of the study
session, they can ensure that the students learn
and study what they will be tested on. Similarly,
the website makes it easy for them to share the
study session and give their students the link.
Also, elementary school teachers can access
previously made study sessions and utilize those.
Teachers Pay Teachers is a website
where teachers can buy or sell lesson plans,
classroom activities, and more to each other. The
site was founded by Paul Edelman. He used to
teach in a public school in New York City, and
through that, he learned the significance of
exchanging ideas and materials with other
teachers. Teachers Pay Teachers quickly went
from a local business to a global platform.
The site catered to Pre-K-12th grade
teachers of all subjects. The website allows users
to sort through the available products according
to grade level, subject, and type of material. It has

PowerPoints, worksheets, and much more. One

can also sort through the products according to
their price. Some of the materials are even free.
As with marketplace sites like Amazon, each
product has a description, the name of the teacher
selling it, and reviews submitted by customers.
The ratings are very thorough, including points
for creativity and practicality. The website is
especially useful for elementary school teachers
because if they need worksheets or activities to
supplement a lesson, they could purchase one or
search for a free one. It is easy to find effective
materials on the website because of the way it is
set up, and the reviews make it simple to find a
well-done product. Once a teacher purchases the
product, they download it from the site, giving
them instant access to it.
https://www.teachingchannel.org/?national=1
The Teaching Channel is an independent
website with videos for teachers of all subjects
and grades to learn from. The website hopes to
connect teachers. The videos offer new
approaches that teachers can adopt in their own
classroom, benefitting them and their students.
The CEO of the site is George Lichter. He
graduated from the University of California, Los
Angeles with a Bachelors degree in History. He
also attained a Juris Doctor degree at Stanford
Law University, but he joined Knowledge
Adventure, a software company dedicated to
kids education. The company released products
under the name Jumpstart. Eventually, he became

the Vice President of Business Development.

After that, he was the CEO and president of
InfoSearch Media, the president of the
international interface of Ask.com, and more.
Finally, he became a senior vice president of
Apollo Education Group. Also, He managed the
School of Continuing Education at the University
of Phoenix. For these reasons, he is very familiar
with distributing information through technology
and with the field of education.
One of the main features is of this site are
informational videos targeted at teachers. There
are currently a little over a thousand videos. A
user can filter through the videos according to
subjects, topics, and grades, making the
information very accessible. There is also a page
with profiles of members where a user can
follow other members, creating a community
for teachers. There is also a Q&A and Blog page.
The intended audience of this site is teachers. All
of the resources help Pre-K-12th grade teachers
with their lessons and tactics in the classroom.
This website is beneficial for teachers because the
videos show them how to engage their students
and how to successfully integrate technology in
their lessons. For elementary school teachers,
they can easily find relevant videos, follow other
elementary school teachers, and utilize the Q&A
page for specific questions.

http://www.spellingcity.com/

VocabularySpellingCity is a website with

games that sharpen students literacy, especially
their familiarity with vocabulary and ability to
spell. John Edelson is the founder and president
of the site. He graduated cum laude from Yale
with a BA, and he has an MBA from Harvard.
Edelson also founded the websites
Time4Learning and Science4Us. Robert Laundrie
is the sites National Sales Manager. He
graduated from the University of WisconsinLaCrosse with a degree in education. He
previously worked as a sales consultant for
ExploreLearning and the Business Development
Manager at America's Choice in Florida.
The website offers its services to
students, teachers, and parents. It has
downloadable spelling and vocabulary lists that
are organized according to grade and subject.
Also, students and teachers can use the site to
make their own lists. There is also an assortment
of games that students can play. Some are free
and some require a membership. There are even
online word searches and handwriting sheets that
the student can print out to practice with. This
website is useful for teachers because they can
import spelling lists made for their grade. There
are even articles about how to improve students
literacy. The games are also suited for use in the
classroom.