Curating digital content. 10 Surprising Facts About Students Using E-Textbooks. Turn Any Article Into Cliff Notes With One Click. Only2Clicks. ICT & Web Tools - Section 4. 50 Essential EdTech Tools For 2012. Technology and education are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little bit easier and more fun for all involved. Yet as with anything related to technology, new tools are hitting the market constantly and older ones rising to prominence, broadening their scope, or just adding new features that make them better matches for education, which can make it hard to keep up with the newest and most useful tools even for the most tech-savvy teachers. Here, we’ve compiled a list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher’s tech tool arsenal this year, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the classroom. 1.
Social Learning 2. Learning Content 3. 4. Social Learning These tools use the power of social media to help students learn and teachers connect. Learning Content Khan Academy: 10 Free Web 2.0 Tools And How To Easily Use Them In Your Classroom. Earlier this week I had the opportunity to attend the first Ozarks Education Research Initiative (OERI) Teacher Technology Conference at Willard High School (MO). The learning sessions I attended were all very good and I am going to share 10 of the FREE tools I learned about below.
I will be incorporating them into how I teach and hopefully by using these tools during faculty meetings, PD sessions, and other opportunities as they arise, this will help us all to find ways to incorporate them into the classroom to engage our students even more. This quote from last week has stuck with me ever since it was spoken – “Date the tool. Marry the idea.” I don’t recall who this is attributed to, but it resonates with me still. Engagement is key! Twitter summary of OERI Teacher Technology Conference at Willard High School on May 30, 2012 via Storify This is a summary of the tweets sent out during the conference. Socrative This link takes you to their website. Today’s Meet by Allison Pilley @ajpilley.
Scrumblr - Simple Online Sticky Note Sharing. Scrumblr is a new site that provides an online space to create and share sticky notes with a group. Scrumblr can be used by anyone to quickly create an online space for sharing stickies. To get started just enter a name for your space. The name you choose will be a part of the url for your sticky note space. To add notes just click the "+" symbol in the bottom left corner of the screen. Then double click to edit your notes. Scrumblr sticky notes are limited to text only. In that regard Scrumblr is basically a no-frills version of services like Wallwisher or Spaaze. Applications for Education Online sticky note services like Scrumblr are useful for brainstorming sessions in which students can quickly share a bunch of ideas with each other. H/T to Ana Maria Menezes. What Do You Mean Evernote Could Get Better? Last time I wrote about the way I organize myself completely changed for the better with Evernote.
Really, I can't talk enough about this program and the endless possibilities there are for it. (Just look at the comments from that post.) In that post I gave a few resources for learning about Evernote and even fewer with how to use it in the classroom. Well, lots of people have sent me lots of great resources and I wanted to follow-up and post some more. These are sites, lists and ideas all for using Evernote for your personal use or in the classroom. Get Productive Fast With Evernote- Mark Stout contacted me about this great eBook he created about getting started with Evernote and then some of the more advanced features like integrating IFTTT.com. 10 Tips For Using Evernote Effectively- This recent article from ReadWriteWeb was a great addition to my Evernote resources. The Evernote-Livescribe Connection- Last year at ISTE I was able to get my hands (finally) on a Livescribe pen.
Mindmapping. Beautiful Word Clouds. How Things Changed With @Evernote. I'll admit it. I have to be one of the most unorganized people on the planet. I have notebooks in just about every bag I carry. Multiple calendars and I still miss appointments. Slips of papers as reminders with some string of illegible thoughts on them, that, when I find them, I don't have a clue what I was thinking when I wrote them. I have more than 10 different types of projects going on at anyone time. Organization isn't really in my vocabulary. Well, let me say, it wasn't in my vocabulary. But it is now, thanks to Evernote. I had tried Evernote in the past. Ok, so what is it? To boil it all down. Here is a view of my current notebooks. So I have notebooks for work, personal and other work I do. I keep Evernote open on my computer at all times.
In this notebook are notes for 3 presentations I did at a recent district technology conference. There are lots of uses in Education too. Best thing to do now is go download it and start small. Do you use Evernote? Five Ways to Create Word Clouds. This morning at the Massachusetts School Library Association's conference (a fun conference that I highly recommend) Pam Berger presented some good ideas for working with primary source documents and Web 2.0 tools.
One of the ideas that she shared and others elaborated on was the idea of using word clouds to help students analyze documents. By copying the text of a document into a word cloud generator your students can quickly see the words that appear most frequently in that document. Here are five tools that you and your students can use to create word clouds. ABCya! Tagul is a free word cloud generator that offers the option to link every word in your word cloud to a Google search. Word It Out creates word clouds out of any text that you paste into the word cloud generator. Tagxedo makes it very easy to customize the design of your word clouds. Wordle is regarded by some as the "original" online word cloud generator. Disclosure: ABCya! Move over QR codes… I am quite fond of tweeting and love to use QR codes, but was not aware until last week, that I could chirp too.
Yes, thanks to one of my new teachers at Hill Country Middle School, I discovered the power of chirping. It is quite easy: Step 1: Download the Chirp app on all devices you wish to communicate from and with.Step 2: Decide which media you wish to chirp and share! You can share pictures from your camera and camera roll as well as notes and links! I can see this being a very useful tool for blasting out a message, task, or link to all students in a classroom. Or… let out a cheery chirp over the morning announcements and allow students to receive the unique link or message through the mobile devices… school wide! Chirp sharing features highlighted in PolyFrame app Don’t take my word for it… be blissfully amazed by the following video… Move over QR codes, there’s a new app in town… or in the cloud? Top 10 Sites for Connected Educators.
Every teacher worth their salt knows that education has turned well and truly technological, with a Twitter account and an online profile some of the most important tools for the modern educator. But the sheer volume of contacts, sites and resources online can make it difficult to sift through and find the clearest, most valuable information quickly. Busy teachers don’t have time to surf hundreds of sites per day to pick up the latest news and hot new resources. Streamline your surfing with our top 10 sites for connected educators. 1.
A safe and simple platform to connect both with other educators and with the students in your class. 2. From its fantastically well-stocked education video library to online debates and conversations on teaching, schools and classroom management, Edutopia is a key resource for every 21st Century teacher. 3. 4. 5. 6. Classroom 2.0 is a free online social network for teachers interested in all things web 2.0 and edtech. 7. 8. 9. 10. Online test prep, Study for college :Grockit. 20 Best Photo Editing Software For Free Download. With modern cameras, digital photography can seem very easy with the basic models producing clear and crisp photos. However, there are some issues, such as white balance, lighting and red-eye among others that may not produce the image you’d desire.
This is why it’s a good idea to have a photo editor which can help resolve such issues. You’d also want your photos to stand out but don’t want to splurge money on some expensive software. If so, keep your worries away as there is no dearth of such free tools-both Web-based and installed software-which can do a lot of photo-editing besides enhancement without burning a hole in your pocket. Check out this amazing collection of 10 best free photo editing software. GIMP is often regarded as the best alternative to Photoshop.
After starting the program, you’ll find a window that shows the image along with separate windows for proper organization of the layers and toolbox. 2. Ads by Google Google’s Picasa is a free software which is widely used. 375 Free eBooks: Download to Kindle, iPad/iPhone & Nook. Download 800 free eBooks to your Kindle, iPad/iPhone, computer, smart phone or ereader. Collection includes great works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, including works by Asimov, Jane Austen, Philip K. Dick, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Neil Gaiman, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf & James Joyce. Also please see our collection 1,000 Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free, where you can download more great books to your computer or mp3 player.
Learn how to load ebook (.mobi) files to your Kindle with this video Religious Texts Assorted Texts This list of Free eBooks has received mentions in the The Daily Beast, Computer World, Gizmodo and Lifehacker. WordPress as a VLE or CMS? My understanding of WordPress is that it is a blogging tool, but I have also used it to run corporate, commercial, charity, and special interest websites.
It also runs some extremely powerful (and large) websites that are much more than a blog or news site. But what of WordPress as a learning management system – whether you call them VLE, CMS, LMS, or something else? Well, I’ve heard of it, but haven’t seen it “in the wild” … yet! Here are a list posts and snippets of news I’ve collected from around the Internet over the last few months about WordPress, it’s ability to run as an alternative VLE/LMS/etc, and tools you can use to make it work as one.
I wonder if anyone is using WordPress for their MOOC? WordPress as a Learning Management System – Move Over, Blackboard “We use the BP-Social Theme for the BuddyPress sites. WordPress a Better LMS A Simple, New Way To Run Your Own Online Courses “If you thought WordPress was just blogging software, it’s time to take a second look. Free Virtual Classroom Premium Membership for Academicians on WizIQ. 1. Can I use my free account for commercial purposes?
Yes, you can use your free account for commercial purposes. Offer your courses for free or a fee, it’s your choice! 2. For how long is my free account valid? This free membership is valid for a period of one year. 3. If you still have an email account affiliated with a School or College then you qualify for a free membership. 4. It is likely that the WizIQ support team is still reviewing your request. 5. It is possible that we missed to include the educational email domain that your school/college uses. Screenr | Instant screencasts: Just click record. Web Screenshots - Take a Screen Capture Online. Sketchcast - A new way to express yourself - Sketchcast.com. Groovideo Launches Mobile App To Easily Create Awesome Group Videos.
The mobile video space is heating up, as a number of startups have launched to help users create and share interesting videos with one another. To date, most have been limited to individual users uploading videos and posting them to other social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Maybe they can add filters, maybe automatically edit their videos and stitch them. But the idea of “social” video has been mostly limited to “Here, social friends and followers — watch my video.” Groovideo has a different idea for how to make videos social, by letting users create awesome content together through its mobile and web apps. Groovideo works like this: Users invite their friends to contribute to videos, each shoot their own short clips, which they upload to Groovideo’s servers, and the startup automatically stitches them all together.
According to founder Ron Zohar, Groovideo was created out of a desire to simplify the process of creating videos for special events — like weddings and birthdays. Top 10 Do’s and Don’ts When Flipping Your Classroom #edchat. Produce material for YOUR students to engage them outside the classroom. Generic content works as a starting point but students have greater faith in their own teacher’s input.Decide on a workflow solution and stick to it.
I use Edmodo to set assignments and annotate responses. Students are happy with this solution as it is cross platform and supports learning with library and backpack resources.Set specific deadlines for your students. If they are given a date then unfortunately that can be construed as midnight!! The old hand-in mantra of next lesson doesn’t fit the ‘flipped‘ class idea and as such can present a problem.Provide access for students who aren’t connected to the internet at home. Whether it be provision after school or via downloaded material, there will still be issues for home learning.Write to parents to explain the new style of learning and be prepared for questions.
Expect students to watch/read your material just because you tell them to. Like this: Like Loading... PLE. The Ultimate Dropbox Toolkit & Guide. Dropbox, the app we all (at least many of us) know and love, has a plethora of advanced uses to make life so much easier in managing data between multiple computers and online. We’ve posted several roundups of tips and tricks for Dropbox and now we present our ultimate toolkit and guide.
We’ve pulled all our tips and tricks together and added quite a few more. Additionally, share your Dropbox tips and tricks and we’ll update the list to share the fun with everyone. Dropbox? Not familiar with Dropbox? Let me start out by simply saying, Dropbox is awesome. I mean, it’s so awesome we’ve dedicated more posts to it than any other app and it’s getting its own “ultimate” post to bring together all the amazing things you can do with it.
Is Dropbox a web app? Dropbox is software that syncs your files online and across your computers. Dropbox Tour The secondary component of Dropbox is the web app. So what else can you do with Dropbox? Tips & Tricks Basic Tips List Advanced Tips List Basic Tips LAN Sync Mac. 15 Free Tools for Storing and Sharing Files. 8 Great New Web Tools for Teachers.