Online Interactive Learning Tools
Engaging Students in Online Learning

Interactive websites are designed to enhance online learning opportunities and engage students in authentic learning processes. They are designed to interact with the user through a text-based or graphical user interface. There are now thousands available. 
This "Thing" will spotlight some that are well known for their standards based curricular activities.

Pre-Assess your skills for this "Thing"

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Before beginning this "Thing", complete the Pre-Assessment  of  your technology proficiency.

Aligned to NETS-T: 1.a, 1.b, 1.c, 1.d, 2.a, 2.b, 2.c, 2.d

Connections to Marzano Strategies: Reinforce Effort and Provide Recognition; Interactive Games; Non-Linguistic Representations; Generating and Testing Hypothesis

Google Earth

Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places, and share with others. There is historical imagery from around the globe, ocean floor and surface data from marine experts, simplified touring with audio and voice recording. Please download Google Earthto carry out the activities and complete the assignment.

For a tutorial on Google Earth, click here.

For advanced tutorials on Google Earth, click here.

For additional video resources, click here

Check out Google Lit Trips. Using Google Earth, students travel across the country stopping where different events in the book took place. To create the trips, teachers must "placemark" (save a point of interest) in Google Earth. Click here for instructions for creating a placemark. Click here for instructions on how to create a Google Lit Trip using the available tools in Google Earth.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS:  Google Earth takes up a lot of bandwidth, which may mean a tremendously slow "trip" for users with slow connections or dial-up issues. 

An alternative to Google Earth, would be Google Maps. (no download is necessary) When using Google Maps you can get Directions to a location and create My Places. My Places is creating a tour with places that you mark, write descriptions and then save the trip that you can share with others by simply sharing the url.

Quizlet TM

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Quizlet is a fun and easy online tool to create flash card sets and games for studying materials. There are already over 2 million quizzes  created and ready for you to use across content areas, standardized tests, and foreign languages. A tutorial is provided on the main page. It has a multiple-choice, scatter game, and space race. You can import questions and answers from your computer or other websites, or type them in. Students can create their own quizzes and share them with friends and you. There are different study modes provided, Familiarize Mode (to get a taste of the material), Learn Mode (which keeps track of your scores and retests you on incorrect answers), Test Mode (supports T/F, multiple choice, matching), Scatter Mode (matching game to drag and drop questions and answers against a running clock), and Space Race (video game simulation with answers flying across the screen).

21things Hands-On Activity and Assignment:

1. Before beginning this "Thing", complete the Pre-Assessment of your technology proficiency.
2. Go to Google Earth. Type your address in the "Fly to" area and locate your house. Or go to Google Maps and type in your address in the search box and then click on Search Maps. Take a screen shot and paste it into your portfolio.
3. Locate your house or a place you would like to visit and placemark it. Take a screen shot showing that you have created the Placemark(s). Reflect upon how you could use Google Earth in the classroom.
4. Create a set of flashcards in Quizlet and have your students use them. Record your reflections of how you used this tool or plan to use in the future. 
5. Optional assignment: Create a Google lit trip and post a link to it on your web site. 
6.  After completing all of the activities for this "Thing", take the Post-Assessment of your technology proficiency for this "Thing".

Post-Assess your skills for this "Thing"

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After completing all of the activities for this "Thing", take the Post-Self Assessment of your technology proficiency for this "Thing". (This is part of your hands-on activity/assignment).

Additional Resources

1.  A number of interactive sites listed by subject have been compiled on a Wiki by Melissa White.
2.  The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
3.  Don't miss the Online Telescope site!
4.  Don't forget about the Thinkfinity site, which includes Illuminations interactives in math and science. 
5.  Check out another popular flashcard site called StudyStack.

Creative Commons License
21 Things for 21st Century Educators by CCRESA, IISD, MISD, SRESD is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at 21things.weebly.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://21things4teachers.net/. Page updated August 17, 2011