inFocus

Some websites have those annoying advertisements on them (not that my blog is abstained from such...trying to make a little extra money) that can be a distraction for students in your classroom.  inFocus aims to help with that problem by providing users a SIMPLE and EFFICIENT way of highlighting the important parts of websites and darkening the least important parts of websites. 

With inFocus, you easily drag the bookmark tool to your toolbar and when you come across a site that you want to highlight, copy the url and then click on the bookmarklet.  Paste the URL and you will be ready to highlight the area you want to showcase.  It is a great tool to focus on certain areas of a picture as well.  If you use Google Chrome, you will need to get the extension HERE.

Here is a sample image.

Purpose Games

Purpose Games is a website that allows users to create and play their own educational trivia and quiz games.  It only takes a few minutes to create games.  This would be a valuable tool to use for students who are in the computer lab and get done with their work and need more to do.  They could create a game or play a game related to the content that you are working on.

Students can compete against each other or themselves.  Various subjects are available to users of the websites.  You can view previously constructed games in the library as well.  Challenge your students to take first place.  Registering is free and simple.  It does require email verification because the password will be sent in an email.

Gives Games Education a try with Purpose Games.

Readability

Readability is a website/plugin/application that helps remove all the annoying clutter from websites.  This is a great tool for teachers because you can remove adds from websites that you are showing in class.  The service allows you to also save readings for later.  You can also get it as a iPhone or iPad app as well.  If you have a Kindle, you can send it to your Kindle as well. 

For more information, see the video below.

Playfic

Playfic is a website dedicated to creating "games" around pieces of fiction.  The purpose is to allow users to write, remix, share, and play interactive text-based games with the world.  Signing up for Playfic requires logging in to use the service.  All the usual requirements to create an account are necessary.  Want to learn more, check out this Playfic Tutorial to see a sample.  If you want to learn more, check out this cheat sheet that explains how to play the game.  Playfic uses a programming language called Inform 7.  To learn more, click here.

I got to say that I think this is a great way to get students engaged in writing fiction, or for that matter playing games relating to fiction.  It keeps the writing interesting, and catches peoples need for mystery. 

Entri

Entri is a free and simple user friendly collaborative document sharing tool.  The tool allows you to jot down ideas and get feedback.  You can share your document through Twitter as well.  Entri is still new and several features are forthcoming, but if you don't have access to Google Docs, this is an alternative solution.  Getting started is simple and you just share a created link with friends and start working on the document.  If you want to avoid unnecessary edits, you can lock your document so that it can not be written on.