Rarely do I come across a tool that I feel I should share with the entire faculty at my school. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about sharing things with others, but most of what I find is best shared with specific groups or departments, or simply too difficult to figure out for some. Also, because of the barrage of emails that teachers get on a daily basis, I don't like to diminish the significance of those tools that I do share.
Classtools.net is one of those teacher tools that I immediately made a note to share with my colleagues. For one, the simplicity of the site is wonderful - everything you need is right on the home page. Classtools.net provides flash templates (17 of them) that teachers can easily use in their classrooms to supplement their lessons. From Venn diagrams to flash card games, teachers can either save the template to their computer as an HTML file or even embed the tool into their class web page or blog.
Truly, if it wasn't so easy to use, I wouldn't bother sharing. There are over 20 subjects with sample templates from other teachers on the site. There is no cost or account to set up in order to use the templates.
Having just taught a lesson the other day on comparing and contrasting, I would definitely use the Venn diagram tool in a follow up lesson. Also, since I do a lot of cooperative learning, I would use the student selector often. The tools at this site allow low-tech teachers to use high-tech tools, which is what the students of today need.
Give this great tool a try at http://classtools.net/
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