There are several high quality FREE technology for teachers resources you need to know about as an educator. These are sites that offer their services for free in general or free for teachers. These sites are great to use for some of your students or even whole group. Check out this list and links to grab some great interactive ways to reach your little learners.
ABC Mouse– This site is simply amazing. There is so much GREAT materials on this site that I know I haven’t seen it all. My three year old plays this at school and loves the interactive activities, songs, and games. It is a great tool to teach or reteach letters, sounds, and basic reading skills. They have a website as well as an app for Apple products. The biggest downfall is that you have to log in with the teacher email address and password to have the students play, therefore you can’t really use this for your students at home on their own. Teachers can head to this log in here to see if they can get a free account.
EPIC– if you are in need of great digital readers for free, check out EPIC. They have a plethora of non fiction and fictional stories on multiple reading levels. Many readers are also audio making this site and app a go to for listening stations. And yes it is free for teachers! You can click here to find the educator sign up link. I also love the feature that allows me to add favorites to my classroom collection to steer little eyes to books I want them reading or that I think they will find fun. Here is a picture of the favorites in my Epic Digital Library.
Starfall.com is a another great free technology resource for teachers. It is a great website educators LOVE to get their students using computers to help them learn. Notice I said computers. Starfall is mostly free online, but not all the apps for iPads is not free. To play your cards correctly, use Starfall online in your classroom free. (Some content is blocked without a paid membership but you can get TONS of great stuff for free.)
Nearpod– I love using Nearpod to make activities interactive. It is a FREE way to use PDFs and worksheets engaging again, especially if you use school devices and can not buy a good quality PDF writer app like GoodReader. Nearpod is web based, so it can be used on many different types of devices so it is ideal for BYOT. Since I can quickly create great interactive activities, I can use this to turn a standard worksheet interactive. This would be fun for those classrooms that are not 1:1. Everyone can complete the same activities, but some can do it digitally while others do it online.
If you like Nearpod but are looking for something a little different, take a moment to look into PearDeck. It is also web based and also very kid friendly. Please note that teachers and students have to use Gmail to use this, so it isn’t ideal for all classrooms. This also means that it works awesome with Google Apps for Education schools.
And lastly, if you have very limited technology in your classrooms, check out Plickers. Plickers is a FREE resources teachers can use to instantly access their classroom. Each student needs one paper clicker that you can download for free and the teacher needs one smart device that is attached to wifi. You can grab instant data and even get some nice graphs to drive your instruction. If this sounds awesome and amazing, click here to see how you can make this a huge and easy to use success in your classroom. I have used these for years and my students just find it to be a TON of fun!