Scoop.It

Scoop.It is a great way to organize any content that you or your students could ever possibly want to organize. The idea is simple. Scoop.It creates a fairly cookie-cutter, magazine-style layout for any relevant items that you may uncover whilst scouring the vastness of the internet so that you may keep them altogether in a single location for sharing, viewing, or just fun.

It's totally free, so all you need to do is register and follow a few simple instructions to add your "Scoop.It" bookmark button to your browser, and you're ready to go.

How does it work in the classroom?

If your students are trying to find a way just to organize countless resources regarding a particular subject, have them create a Scoop.It "topic" for that subject to serve as a cache for any online locations that relate to the unit, lesson, class, or topic.

Math: Have your students create a topic for trigonometry or the Pythagorean Theorem or solving two-step equations or whatever. Every time they come across a relevant or useful web page that would make the process of solving those problems a little bit easier, Scoop It. If they find an instance where those principles come into play in the real world, Scoop.It too.

Science: There is a mountain of information about topics like the Periodic Table, binomial nomenclature, food chains, physics, etc. that students could see to better understand the real world implications of what they learn in science classes. Have a Physical Science Scoop.It or a Biology Scoop.It.

English: Any time a student encounters a cool critique of Hamlet or The Lord of the Flies, then Scoop.It.

History: You think that maybe there are a few online resources about World War II out there?

The usefulness of Scoop.It doesn't end there. Theoretically, any teacher in any discipline could create a Scoop.It just for the sole purpose of promoting what he or she has done in class all year. It's also a cool way for a coach to show off his team's accomplishments using online newspaper articles and photos. This site is just a tremendous way to create a chronicle.

Click here to see an example Scoop.It that I created for my baseball team's 2012 season.

enThread

If you're looking for a quick and easy image editor that requires little to no knowledge about anything other than the internet, then enThread may be just what you need. There is no software to install or anything. Just visit the site and start editing. It's all in your browser. In order to use the service, you simply drag your photo that you wish to edit into the interface which is a simple script embedded into the webpage. Using the provided tools for color, hue, saturation, etc., you can improve your photos and give them semi-professional quality.

In order to save your edited images, registration is required, but never fear. Users aren't even required to enter any information at all beyond an email address, and it's totally free. This is definitely a cool little web app that is worth a look. It takes hardly any time at all figure out and master.

Below is a look at the clean design of the interface. Controls for editing are categorized on the right.