Free Technology for Schools

19 Pencils is a site that I (David) briefly reviewed a few months back and listed as one of my Top 100 Sites of 2011. Through some collaboration I've decided to revisit this site and check out all the "bells and whistles" 19 Pencils has to offer. After giving it a thorough run through my first impression is, WOW. This site has it all, and Kelly Tenkley of iLearn Technology said it best when she said, "This is a fantastically easy site to use!"

The first thing a teacher will notice when logging in are the abundance of tools that can be found in the online dashboard. This is the "control center" for the educator where they can create: quizzes, a class website, track student progress and more. All this is done in a very user friendly visually appealing way.



Quizzes - are offered as a multiple choice type question w/ one or more answers. This is very easy to do and is built around a "flash card" style system. Also, a teacher can track student progress on a quiz in the "my class" tab.
Class Website - Another great feature is the ability to create a class website which displays assignments, pre-approved websites (in an innovative thumbnail view w/ a summary), or quizzes. Also, a teacher can embed a badge/link into their own website for easy navigation to their educational 19 Pencil's portal.
Playground - This is a unique and sleek place where students can collaborate w/ their teacher in a chat window while still being logged into their "class view".
What makes 19 Pencils so great is that everything is being "housed" inside of 19 Pencils. What this means is that any website that a teacher decided to put up on their class pages is inside a frame w/ 19 pencils border and tools surrounding it. Also, this site is being filtered which is ideal for CIPPA and COPPA compliance. Finally, a user can search through 19 Pencils for other educational content to share and collaborate on.

I highly highly recommend checking out 19 Pencils by clicking here!!!

This was original posted on Technology Tidbits by David Kaluper Ed Tech blogger, consultant, professional development and tech integration specialist with 14+ yrs in K-12 schools.

Free Technology for Schools has not received any payment from 19 Pencils, however they are a paid advertiser of David's blog.