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Reach & Teach ALL Students

This week's tech tool features make learning more accessible to all students. View an archive of our OK2Ask® session about accessibility using Edge and Bing, find tips to work with ESL students, and more. 

Grades 2-12

OK2Ask (archive): Microsoft in Education Day - Can't Miss Tips & Tricks with Bing and Edge

Explore the robust features of Microsoft's Edge browser and Bing search engine. Discover the power of online annotation, accessible text for all students, and strategies for improving online reading. Bring the world into your classroom!

Grades K-12

Top Ten Tips for Working with ESL/ELL Students

Explore these ten tips for teachers working with ESL/ELL students to differentiate instruction, make minor adjustments for the individual student, and maximize the benefit of having these new students in the class.

Grades 6-12

MoocNote

Personalize the videos that you share by adding comments, links, and questions to online videos from YouTube or another playlist! Add videos from DropBox or Google Drive. The notes link back to the appropriate spot in the video, making it easy to find.

Cool Video & Voice Tools for All

This tech tool trio will help students easily create video responses, voice record, and cleanup the clutter on YouTube videos.

Grades 2-12

Flipgrid

If you haven't tried this video discussion tool, don't wait! It's amazing, with capabilities for sharing student responses through video. Flipgrid has joined with Microsoft and now unlimited Flipgrids are FREE! Students simply click the + sign and talk.

Grades K-12

Toogles

Help students to focus! Remove the clutter of comments, ratings, and other distractions as you search YouTube videos. Browse by category or type your search term to begin. Results display in easy to view boxes including the title and length of video.

Grades K-12

Online Voice Recorder

To use this simple recorder, push the record button and follow screen prompts to allow the application access to your computer's microphone. Talk as long as desired. Then listen to the recorded playback. Use to practice spelling and reading aloud skills.

Reading Tools for All

Find a triple pack of helpful reading tools! Two of the tools offer summarizing larger chunks of texts (each with different features) and the other tool is a fabulous text to speech resource. 

Grades K-12

Text to Speech Reader

Help your weaker readers, visually impaired students, ESLs, and others. Drag, upload, or paste text files to instantly convert your text to speech. You can choose the speed of the text readings and pick the voice and language options for replay.

Grades 3-12

SMMRY

This is a simple tool to summarize larger chunks of text, without many bells and whistles. No registration is needed! Simply copy/paste the text or insert the URL and click to summarize. Choose 1-7 sentence summaries. Make learning easier for all levels.

Grades 5-8

Skimcast

Choose your summary from 1-99% of the original text. You will get back the entire document with the summary highlighted, but also see a list of clickable theme words and phrases to the right of the document. Click theme words to find in the text.

This Week at TeachersFirst

This Tuesday is an all-new OK2Ask, Social Media Literacy: Purposeful Practice in Every Classroom. Learn more about Microsoft Translator in our recent blog. And take a minute to answer our weekly poll. When you click your answer, you can view the replies of others.