Three Ways to Host Online Tutoring Sessions

I recently received an email from a reader who was looking for some tools that she could use for online tutoring/ instruction. The catch was that she needed to be able to share a whiteboard with her students. That's not an unusual request because whiteboards can be invaluable when trying to explain a mathematics concept online. These are the suggestions that I offered to her.

Web Whiteboard for Google+ Hangouts. This little tool adds a whiteboard to your Google+ Hangout. You can draw on the whiteboard while still taking advantage of all of the other features of Google+ Hangouts like voice, video, and text chat. To use Web Whiteboard in Google+ Hangouts simply go to the site and click G+ Hangout.

Stoodle is a free collaborative whiteboard tool hosted by the CK12 Foundation. You can use text chat while sharing your whiteboard. Registration is not required in order to use Stoodle. In the video embedded below I demonstrate the features of Stoodle.



Join.me offers a whiteboard tool in their video conferencing system. There is a free version of Join.me available. The free version does limit some of the functions, but you can try the full version for free for up to three weeks. The other limitation is that you do have to install the desktop client or the iPad app in order to use Join.me so it's not an option for Chromebook users.

CK-12 Launches a New Collection of Elementary School Math Resources

CK-12 has long offered tutorials and practice exercises for middle school and high school science and math students. Today, CK-12 unveiled a new collection for resources for elementary school mathematics. The collection is organized by grade level (grades 1 through 5) and skill. The resources are a mix of videos and online practice exercises.

While the CK-12 elementary school mathematics collection offers a lot of skills sections (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, clock reading, measurement) each section appears to be fairly limited in its offerings. I checked five skill sections, one in each grade, and each was limited to one video and one exercise. That said, if you sign-in on CK-12 you can add your own resources to a section.

Applications for Education
CK-12's new elementary school mathematics resources collection could be helpful to parents who are trying to reinforce what their children have learned in a mathematics lesson in your classroom.

CK-12 Announces the Top Flexbooks of the Year

The CK-12 Foundation's FlexBook tool allows teachers to develop their own multimedia textbooks. Those books can be shared publicly with the CK-12 community. This CK-12 released a list of the most used FlexBooks of the year.

This year's five most used CK-12 FlexBooks are Biology Concepts, Chemistry Concepts, Life Science Concepts for Middle School, Physical Science Concepts for Middle School, and Earth Science Concepts for Middle School.

If you would like to try developing your own FlexBooks, the tutorials embedded below will help you get started.