MBHS IMC Home Page: Online Digital tools

From Kami: Kami is an online document annotation and markup tool. You can highlight, underline, and strikethrough text in PDF and other document formats. You can also add text boxes, shapes, and images. Kami works with Google Drive and Google Classroom. With Kami, you can easily collaborate on documents in the classroom while avoiding the hassles of printing documents. Also integrates with Canvas.

MCPS Approval Status: Approved
PAID subscription (full access).

Loom is a video messaging tool that helps you get your message across through instantly shareable videos. With Loom, you can record your camera, microphone, and desktop simultaneously. Your video is then instantly available to share through Loom's patented technology.

MCPS Approval Status: Not for student use; Approved for staff use

Screencastify helps users to record Chrome tab, webcam and/or desktop screen, which can be used for video lesson tutorials, video presentations, video coaching and role playing training. It also allows them to edit, annotate, store, and share their creations easily. Screencastify can be used for Chrome, Chromebooks, and Chromeboxes. The premium version features MP4 export.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly / Affirmative Parental Consent

Reach all your students' families In their home languages to build strong partnerships. TalkingPoints is a non-profit organization solely focused on family engagement for under-served and multilingual families. Highest-quality translation includes both human and machine translation. Makes it easy to reach the hardest-to-reach families. Multilingual app supports two-way communication in multiple home languages.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly; Affirmative Parental Consent required for student account creation.

Zoom video conferencing is used by the to provide instruction for synchronous and asynchronous video courses.

MCPS Approval Status: Approved Accounts are only for MCPS staff - students cannot create accounts

An online workbook for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Latin language students. Teachers can access a library of practice activities, with more exercises added during the year by our users.
MCPS Approval Status: No login required; Affirmative Parental Consent for account creation.
PAID subscription (full access).

ExploreLearning Gizmos is the world's largest library of interactive online simulations for math and science education in grades 3-12. Over 400 Gizmos give everyone something to graph, measure, and compare. Even predict and prove.

MCPS Approval Status: Approved

Great lessons and videos for all disciplines. Teachers and students can create accounts linked to their MCPS Google accounts and post lessons in Google Classroom.Students can independently use Khan Academy for test prep lessons in coordination with the College Board.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly | Affirmative Parental Consent for account creation.

Instructional Content Platform with engaging content and embedded assessments. Provides Lexile-scaled articles in English and Spanish - builds an online classroom. Also integrates with the College Board. Assessments are integrated directly into articles to help students engage with the content and to give teachers and administrators actionable insights on students’ reading activity.

MCPS Approval Status: Approved

Common lit is a non-profit website that provides free lessons that support student literacy growth in grade 5-12. All resources are created by teachers and aligned to CCSS. Teachers are able to search for literacy resources by theme or topic and are provided with articles, reading passages, poetry, and more that are paired with both multiple choice and open ended questions. Many resources are also paired with multimedia extensions. Teachers are able to search by lexile level as well to differentiate for students. When students make an account teachers are able to assign readings to them. Some content is in Spanish.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly / Affirmative Parental Consent

Common Sense digital citizenship lesson plans to address timely topics and prepare students to take ownership of their digital lives. Browse lessons by grade and topic below, or learn more about our approach to the curriculum.

MCPS Approval Status: not evaluated (08/27/2021)

Free video labs with related teacher and student guides to help students continue making progress on key science topics. Educators—Learn how to receive unlimited access to Flinn's digital learning platforms through June 30, 2020. The Science Behind– Helping students understand how science is all around us.
We’ve created The Science Behind series to help students connect science with their everyday lives, putting science concepts and theories in an easily understood context. Each topic contains FREE activities, fun videos and a downloadable poster or infographic.

MCPS Approval Status: Not evaluated (08/27/2021)

The Learning Network publishes about 1,000 teaching resources each school year, all based on using Times content — articles, essays, images, videos, graphics and podcasts — and prompts for teaching critical thinking using these tools across subject areas. Three ways to use The Learning Network:
1) Connect the classroom to the world.
2) Give students a voice — and strengthen literacy skills along the way.
3) Promote critical and creative thinking through multimedia.

MCPS Approval Status: not evaluated (08/27/2021)

PBS master trainers and educators recommend tips and techniques to support engaging, effective, at-home learning, as well as share content, tools, and integrations for digital classroom instruction. Compatible with Google Classroom. Some materials in World Languages.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly / Affirmative Parental Consent

The Smithsonian Learning Lab puts the treasures of the world's largest museum, education, and research complex within reach. The Lab is a free, interactive platform for discovering millions of authentic digital resources, creating content with online tools, and sharing in the Smithsonian's expansive community of knowledge and learning.

MCPS Approval Status: not evaluated (08/27/2021)

Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

MCPS Approval Status: not evaluated (08/27/2021)

Browse hundreds of TED-Ed Animations and TED Talks - designed to spark the curiosity of your learners. You'll also find thousands of other video-based lessons organized by the subjects you teach.

MCPS Approval Status: not evaluated (08/27/2021)

30 Quests for students around the world to celebrate, explore and connect with nature.

MCPS Approval Status: not rated (08/27/2021)

Wide Open School Partners Include American Federation of Teachers, Amplify, Apple, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Comcast, Google, Head Start, Khan Academy, National Geographic, Noggin, PBS, Salesforce, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, Time for Kids, YouTube, XQ Institute, and Zoom Video Communications, Inc.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly. Affirmative Parental Consent.

Helps reinforce equity and engagement. Can be used for assessment. A simple way for students and teachers to create online discussion. Easy integration with myMCPS Classroom (Canvas);

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly / Affirmative Parental Consent

Formative makes it easy to understand your students’ progress and adapt your lessons to their needs - whether they’re working in person with you or remotely. Harness the power of live student responses and feedback!

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly. Affirmative Parental Consent.

Unleash your team’s creativity with Jamboard. Sketch your ideas whiteboard-style while benefiting from the access and connectivity of an interactive canvas, on mobile, or right from your web browser. Drop images, add notes ,etc.

MCPS Approval Status: Updated 4/14/2021. Now approved.

Use Mentimeter to get instant feedback and opinion on presentations. Helps students and teachers get a sense of where the learning is and the energy is going. Use Mentimeter to evaluate, get real-time data, and prioritize feeback with ranking tool.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly // Affirmative Parental Consent

Nearpod is an easy-to-use lesson builder for teachers to assemble lessons and distribute them to student devices. Teachers can get real-time feedback from students and post-session reports on comprehension. Nearpod also offers a lesson marketplace for teachers to discover and purchase lessons built by other teachers.

MCPS Approval Status: Approved

Parlay is a unique combination of software tools, curriculum content, and supports services. We make it easy for teachers to bring student-driven discussions to the forefront of the classroom experience.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly: Affirmative Parental Consent

See which students are engaged or confused. Use this add-on to design a new presentation or open an existing one in Google Slides. Just getting started with Google Slides? Upload your Powerpoint or Keynote lessons to Google Slides and get going!

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly / Affirmative Parental Consent.
PAID subscription (full access).

Socrative is your classroom app for fun, effective classroom engagement. Quickly assess students with prepared activities or on-the-fly questions to get immediate insight into student understanding. Then use auto-populated results to determine the best instructional approach to most effectively drive learning.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly / Affirmative Parental Consent

Whiteboard.fi is good for real-time feedback. You use if for quick check for understanding questions during notes/review which is universal across content areas. Students do not see each other's answers, giving teachers immediate and authentic feedback to reteach concepts if needed. Additionally, teachers can set it up so students can also collaborate on work simultaneously (think google docs, but with the freedom of freehand drawings, etc.).

MCPS Approval Status: Approved. No login required; Affirmative Parental Consent for account creation.

Seesaw is a digital portfolio that empowers students to independently document and showcase their learning. Parents can have an immediate, personalized window into their child's day so they can support learning at home. For teachers, Seesaw saves time on organization and communication, makes formative assessment easy, and provides a safe place to teach digital citizenship skills.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly / Affirmative Parental Consent

Buncee empowers educators, administrators, parents, and all types of learners to achieve their remote learning goals. Easily create and share engaging activities, resources, and assignments directly with students, give students the tools to creatively demonstrate their learning, and connect with your entire school community through your virtual classroom.

MCPS Approval Status: Approved

Canva allows you to create beautiful designs and professional looking graphics by building on pre-existing templates. Canva allows you to import your own photos or use existing stock photography and illustrations. Using Canva's simple drag & drop tool, you can create a variety of designs, from posters and photo collages to cards and blog posts.

MCPS Approval Status: Only for 13 and above; Affirmative Parental Consent is required for account creation. Teachers can get a basic account using their MCPS Google credentials.

Lucidpress is a web-based (nothing to install) drag-and-drop publishing and graphic design tool that allows students to create and share both print and digital content. Students also have the option to create a custom or team document.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly: Affirmative Parental Consent

Piktochart is a web-based infographic application which allows users without intensive experience as graphic designers to easily create infographics and visuals using themed templates.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly / Only for 13 and above; Affirmative Parental Consent is required for account creation.

WeVideo is a cloud-based editing platform that allows users of all skill levels the opportunity to create professional-style videos, podcasts and more.

MCPS Approval Status: Approved

Kahoot and Kahoot.it can be used during distance teaching using the equipment teachers and students have at hand. See this short video tutorial for more help.

MCPS Approval Status: Approved // No login required OR Affirmative Parental Consent for account creation

Teachers can use Quizizz for distance teaching to help engage students and create quick formative assessments, pulling from a bank of quizzes or teachers can create their own. Students do not have to participate at the same time, so it's ideal for asynchronous environments.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly // Affirmative Parental Consent

Helpful for teachers and students in all areas; especially helpful for distance learning because of easy to use and share mobile applications. Allows teachers and students to create new sets of online flashcards and modify existing sets. Teachers can use diagrams and images for visual learners or for disciplines requiring visuals.

MCPS Approval Status: Use Responsibly // Affirmative Parental Consent

Groove Pizza is a circular rhythm app for creative music making and learning! It’s also a playful tool for creating grooves using math concepts like shapes, angles and patterns.

MCPS Approval Status: No login required; Affirmative Parental Consent for account creation.

Create, play back, and print sheet music for free. MuseScore is cross-platform, multi-lingual, open source music notation software. It features an easy to use WYSIWYG editor with audio score playback for results that look and sound beautiful.

MCPS Approval Status: Only for 13 and above; Affirmative Parental Consent is required for account creation.

Introductory and intermediate music theory lessons, exercises, ear trainers, and calculators.

MCPS Approval Status: Only for 13 and above; Affirmative Parental Consent is required for account creation.

Noteflight Learn provides a private, COPPA-compliant website designed specifically for music education. All teachers and students have Noteflight Premium composition features plus the ability to organize classes, easily create assignments, get performance feedback and ratings with SoundCheck™, powered by MatchMySound, and use the included library of thousands of popular musical scores and lessons.

MCPS Approval Status: Affirmative Parental Consent.

Explore rhythms and create cool drum beats with this drum machine app including 20+ kits, room effects and lot of individual hit options like buzz rolls.

MCPS Approval Status: No login required; Affirmative Parental Consent for account creation.