Seven ClassTools Templates to Try This Year
ClassTools has long been a favorite resource of mine for creating all kinds of fun, online activities for social studies classes. As the new school year approaches it’s a good time to take a look at seven of my favorite ClassTools games and activities templates. Play Your Dates Right is one of the templates that […]
Play Your Dates Right – A History Timeline Game
ClassTools.net has many great online game templates for history teachers to use. Play Your Dates Right is one of the templates that I like to use to create a game that is focused on helping students recall the sequence of historical events. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to create a simple timeline-based […]
Breaking News With ClassTools
Breaking News is one of the many great tools available on Russel Tarr’s ClassTools.net. Breaking News is a template for creating fake breaking news screens like those that you might see on CNN or BBC News. Through the template you can add a news headline, a ticker, a location, and custom background image. After completing the […]
A Fun Timeline Game for History Students
Play Your Dates Right is another great game template developed by Russel Tarr at ClassTools.net. The concept of Play Your Dates Right is that students have to pick the correct sequence of three historical events. The event in the middle of the game template is always the event that actually did come second. Students have […]
A Classic – How to Use Classtools.net to Create a Fake Text Message Exchange
Russel Tarr, owner of Classtools.net, has developed and published a bunch of great tools over the years. One of my favorite of those is the Fake SMS Generator which Russel developed almost a decade ago and is still going strong. The Classtools Fake SMS Generator is free to use and does not require students to register […]
Best of 2021 – Fling the Teacher!
As I do every year, I’m taking this week as a break from publishing new blog posts and will be republishing some of the most popular posts of the year. Here’s one about a fun game created by Russel Tarr. Fling the Teacher is a game that I mentioned briefly in this week’s Practical Ed […]
Three Random Name Pickers
From picking a line leader, to calling on a student during a discussion, to drawing a prize-winner there are plenty of times when we all need an unbiased random name selector. Over the years I’ve tried a lot of random name selector tools. I keep coming back to the following three options. Flippity.net offers a […]
Five Good Tools for Making Your Own Educational Games and Practice Activities
Making online educational games used to be the domain of those with specialized coding and programming skills. Today, there are free tools that anyone can use to create their own educational games for students. Likewise, there are now some excellent free tools for creating online skills practice and knowledge recall activities to share with your […]
Fling the Teacher! – A Fun Review Game
Fling the Teacher is a game that I mentioned briefly in this week’s Practical Ed Tech newsletter. If you’re not subscribed, here’s a recap of what Fling the Teacher is. Fling the Teacher lets students fling or slingshot their teachers across the screen for up to sixty seconds after they correctly answer fifteen consecutive multiple choice […]
A New Citation Generator from ClassTools
Russel Tarr at ClassTools.net has developed another handy tool for students. This time he’s made a citation generator. The ClassTools Citation Generator will create a MLA, APA, Chicago, and HAD citations for any URL that you enter. It will also create citations for books from large publishers. I gave it a try this morning and […]
ClassTools Wikipedia Timeline Generator – Create and Edit Timelines
Russel Tarr, a history teacher and developer of ClassTools.net, recently released a new template called the Wikipedia Timeline Generator. This free tool will take a Wikipedia article and generate a timeline based on that article. That’s not all it does. You can edit the entries on the timeline to correct dates, to edit the information […]
How to Create an Online Game of Connect Four
Twice this weekend I had readers email me to ask about creating an online Connect Four game for students to play to review key vocabulary and concepts. There are a couple of tools that I recommend for creating that type of review activity. First, Flippity.net offers a virtual manipulatives template that will let students drag […]
Vortex by ClassTools – Create Your Own Sorting Game
Vortex is the latest game template published by ClassTools. Vortex lets you create an online game in which players have to sort words or phrases into up to four categories. Vortex replaces the Dust Bin sorting game that ClassTools used to offer but ran on Flash. Vortex doesn’t use Flash which means it can be […]
How to Create Interactive Images With Classtools
A couple of days ago I wrote about a new tool from Classtools called Image Annotator. It does exactly what it says on the tin. I made the following short video to demonstrate how easy it is to use the Classtools Image Annotator. In the video I demonstrate annotating an image of a map, but […]
Add Interactive Annotations to Images With a New Classtools Tool
Russel Tarr at Classtools has come up with another great little tool for teachers and students. The new Image Hotspot Generator on Classtools makes it easy to add interactive annotations to any picture that you upload to the site. The annotations that you add to your pictures can include text and links. Your annotated images […]
Create a Sorting Game With a Free ClassTools Template
In last week’s episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I answered a question about tools for creating sorting games. The Dust Bin game template from ClassTools was one of the tools that I suggested using for creating a sorting game. The template lets you create a review game in which students sort answer choices into […]
How to Make & Play “Fling the Teacher” Games
Earlier this week I wrote a post about a new game template from Classtools called Fling the Teacher. The game lets students slingshot or “fling” an image of their teachers after they answer fifteen multiple choice questions. In the following video I demonstrate how the game is played and how you can create your own […]
Fling the Teacher! – A Fun Review Game from Classtools
Russel Tarr recently added a new game template to the toolbox available on Classtools.net. The new game is called Fling the Teacher. Fling the Teacher lets students fling or slingshot their teachers across the screen for up to sixty seconds after they correctly answer fifteen consecutive multiple choice questions. Try it for yourself with this […]
A Tool to Simulate Text Messages Between Historical Figures
One of my favorite tool on ClassTools.net is the Fake SMS Generator. The Classtools Fake SMS Generator is free to use and does not require students to register to use it. In the video below I demonstrate how to create a fictitious text message exchange between historical characters. As I mentioned in the video, the […]
Create Text Message Exchanges Between Fictional and Historical Characters
The Classtools SMS Generator is one of my favorite tools from the large catalog of free tools offered by Classtools. The SMS Generator is intended for creating fictional text message exchanges between fictional and or historical characters. It is free to use and does not require students to log-in. To use the SMS Generator just click the […]
Try the Random Name Picker on ClassTools
Random Name Picker is a free tool from Russel Tarr at Classtools.net. Random Name Picker lets you input names and spin a virtual wheel to have a name randomly selected from the list. After a name is selected you can remove it from the wheel so that it is not selected again. Random Name Picker is free […]
ClassTools SMS Generator – Text Messages Between Historical Figures
Last week I wrote about three ways that students can create social media profiles for historical and literary characters. Writing that post reminded me of the Classtools Fake SMS Generator. You could have students use the Classtools SMS Generator to create simple conversations between historical characters as way to get them to think about those […]
7 Places to Create Your Own Educational Games for Students to Play at Home
The Internet is not lacking for websites that offer games that students can play online. Despite that fact, there are still occasions when you can’t find exactly what you or your students need. In those cases you might want to just create your own game instead of conducting more fruitless searches. Here are seven places […]
My Ten Favorite ClassTools Templates
There are dozens of great game builders, writing templates, and handy classroom tools on Classtools.net. I’ve tried nearly all of them over the years. My ten favorite Classtools tools are featured below. The Dustbin game is an activity in which students sort vocabulary terms. Playing a Dustbin game can be a good way for your […]
Three Random Name Selectors
If your students are like mine, at one point or another you’ve asked for volunteers and not had any students raise their hands. In that situation using a random name selection tool is an easy way to choose students to call on. And for those times when all of your students raise their hands for […]
History and Literature Text Messages
ClassTools.net is one of my favorite places to find templates for online activities for middle school and high school students. One of the templates on ClassTools.net that I’ve recommended for years is the Fake SMS Generator. Watch my following video to learn how to use the SMS Generator on ClassTools. Applications for Education You could […]
Three Puzzle Templates That Help Students See Content Connections
Russel Tarr publishes a lot of great educational games and instructional templates on ClassTools.net. Among those templates are three activities designed to help students see the connections between events, people, places, and ideas within a subject. The Class Tools Hexagons Generator lets you create an online hexagonal learning activity to share with your students. To use the […]
Use the ClassTools Power Search to Find Educational Games
ClassTools.net is one of my favorite places to find free educational games and templates for creating educational games. Russel Tarr, a history teacher and developer of ClassTools, has made so many games that the site now needs a power search function. You can use this search function to find games and templates according to the […]
How to Create a Simple Timeline-based Game
ClassTools.net has many great online game templates for history teachers to use. Play Your Dates Right is one of the templates that I like to use to create a game that is focused on helping students recall the sequence of historical events. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to create a simple timeline-based […]
Play Your Dates Right – A Fun History Game
Play Your Dates Right is another great game template developed by Russel Tarr at ClassTools.net. The concept of Play Your Dates Right is that students have to pick the correct sequence of three historical events. The event in the middle of the game template is always the event that actually did come second. Students have […]
Classtools Offers a Good Way to Find Teachers on Twitter
Finding people to connect with is one of the most common challenges for teachers who are new to using Twitter. Classtools.net has a free service that can help teachers find other teachers to connect with on Twitter. Teachers on Twitter is a series of lists of teachers who are active on Twitter. The lists are […]
Classtools Offers a Handy Source Analysis Tool for Students
Classtools.net offers dozens of neat tools for students and teachers. Over the years I have featured many of those tools in blog posts and videos. One Classtools tool that I haven’t previously featured is the Source Analyser. The Classtools Source Analyser provides students with a simple template that can help them analyze the resources that […]
Two More ClassTools Templates for Showing Content Connections
Last week I shared the Hexagon Learning Template offered by ClassTools.net. That template is great for helping students make connections between topics in a subject area. The Hexagon template is not the only one of that style that you’ll find on ClassTools.net. The Diamond 9 template and the Jigsaw template will also help students make […]
How to Use the Hexagon Learning Template from ClassTools
On Friday I wrote a post that featured links to blog posts about using hexagonal learning in elementary school and high school classrooms. That post also featured the ClassTools hexagons generator. That tool lets you create online and offline hexagonal learning activities for your students. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to use […]
Hexagon Learning Template
Earlier this week I Tweeted Terri Eichholz’s blog posts about hexagonal learning. In those posts she outlined how hexagonal learning worked in her classroom. It’s notable that Terri also shared the mistakes she made when trying to use visual hexagonal learning lessons with her students. Terri works with elementary school students. Hexagonal learning can also […]
Click to Spin – Best of 2016
As I usually do during this week, I’m taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. Random Name Picker is free tool from Russel Tarr at Classtools.net. The Random Name Picker lets you input […]
How to Create a Vocabulary Sorting Game on Classtools
Classtools.net, developed and maintained by history teacher Russel Tarr, offers lots of great templates that you can use to create review activities for your students. Recently, I received an email from a reader who was having trouble with the Dustbin game template on Classtools.net. To help her out I created the video that you see […]