Home Collaboration & Brainstorming 5 Useful Free Web Tools for Project Based Learning Assignments

5 Useful Free Web Tools for Project Based Learning Assignments

By
Brendan Rowan
-
35
SHARE

The Web provides many tools that can play a fun and helpful role in Project Based Learning

Project based learning is one of many active learning methods, providing students the opportunity to get actively involved in learning, stepping away from being passive receivers of knowledge. “PBL” often involves groups of students who work on a real-life project. Thanks to today's wealth of internet and cloud-computing technology, there are many powerful free digital tools available to teachers and students for use in a Project Based Learning environment. In this article we introduce 5 such tools, with references to web sources discussing the role these apps can play in this hands-on approach to learning.

Animoto

Animoto brings fun and education together under one roof. It combines the environment of academic learning with an element of entertainment. Animoto provides teachers and students a platform where they can upload videos, pictures and audio clips for a project. In this web-delivered PDF, “Creating Animoto Digital Projects”, from the Instructional Technology Services Department in the Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland, we get a formal introduction to using Animoto in a PBL environment. This internet tool has a strong presence in the academic world with over 6 million users around the globe.

Dipity

Dipity enables students to collaborate on a project for subjects like Geography, History, social sciences, etc., by creating a timeline consisting of images, text, and so on. Students can use this tool for any project where they can present the dates of events regarding a subject. In this article on “Helen Morrison's Educational Blog”, we learn how Dipity and other tools can be useful PBL resources.

Google Drive/Docs

Google Docs (more recently renamed Google Drive) is like your hard-drive on the go. It is a cloud-based tool that creates a virtual space for storing data and files. This online app lets students access all their documents saved in a virtual storage device that they can later access with a different computer, smartphone or a tablet PC. With this online tool, students can create, edit and view documents related to a project. For example, students can create a blueprint that others can view from a different computer and make suggestions. There are endless resources on the web discussing the use of Google Drive in a wide variety of education applications. In this article, we learn how Google Drive can also be a useful tool for giving student feedback while working through a PBL effort.

Glogster

Glogster is a cool application where students can create interactive digital posters, and it can play a fun role in Project Based Learning. With this multimedia tool, students are able to share text, images, sounds, graphics and videos. As an example, for a project on ‘Global Warming’, students can present facts by putting carbon footprints of a country with related pictures and graphs while other students can post comments. Here we have an article from Oxford University Press that suggest using a tool like Glogster to motivate learning.

Mindmeister

“Mind mapping” apps like Mindmeister can be a great resource for PBL. Mindmeister helps students generate and organize ideas, and it's an effective tool for unlocking latent creative ideas. This online tool serves as a platform to exchange ideas with fellow students on a project-based task or get valuable suggestions from teachers.

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Teaching Creativity – The Case for Mind Mapping
The Digital Public Library of America – A Wonderful Free Resource for Education
Implementing the ChemDraw iPad App in the Chemistry Classroom

 

Related Posts

35 COMMENTS

  2. What about Spinndle?! Spinndle is a project-management tool for students Gr.3-12 designed by PBL teachers. Instead of submitting work to the teacher at every step, students share their work-in-progress to peers to engage in the cycles of feedback, reflection, and iteration required of any real-world project. This co-learning space mimics that of the professional workplace!

  4. These are great tools and I’m definitely trying the others! I also recommend Phlanx’s Collaboration Portal – you can find a lot of opportunities listed by business owners – small and big brands. Bloggers are also posting on that site to find collaborations. I use this free tool to find bloggers I can collaborate with – to help promote my products and boost my engagement and sales. Hope you can check it out. Cheers!

  7. Thanks for such an informative post.
    I would like to suggest a project based teaching and learning tool for learning international business, these are EIMSO which is export import software, this is international trade research, teaching and training software which can be used in colleges as project based learning tool, other one is GMMSO which is research and strategic planning management tool . A good number of instructors and students from Universities around the world have used GMMSO4 software in international business and management courses.
    Find more at – http://www.janavaras.com/gmmso4/

  11. […] 5 Useful Free Web Tools for Project Based Learning Assignments. (2009-2015, Novemeber). EmergingEdTech, (), . Retrieved from https://www.emergingedtech.com/2013/11/5-useful-free-web-tools-for-project-based-learning-assignments… […]

  33. Great article! Unfortunately Dipity has been having tons of problems lately. I assigned a Dipity timeline for three of my classes and it has been endless headaches because either the students can’t enter dates without it going to Jan. 1, 2000 or the site is totally down. I won’t be using it again for assignments.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here