10+ Tips and Tools To Keep Teachers Organized “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” ~ Gustave Flaubert Learning online can be an incredible journey but at some point you may feel overwhelmed with the surplus of information and resources. You may feel very excited about a resource you come across, but want to access that resource at some other date. Perhaps, you are teaching your students how to research online and they want to bookmark and create notes on websites. Many free webtools exist to help us quickly save, bookmark, categorize, store, and share information. These tools are very advanced and store our information in the cloud. Googlize It! Jump on the bandwagon and get a Google account if you haven’t already. G-mail – Make the switch to g-mail. Google Drive – If you haven’t already, make the switch from Google Apps to Google Drive. Google Calendar – Create events and send yourself and students reminders. Bookmarklet It! Bookmark It! Go Mobile! More Resources
Turn Pictures Into Stories With Fotobabble This morning I shared an old post about Fotobabble on the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page. In response to that post Stewart Whitney shared his experience of using the Fotobabble iPhone app. Stewart's comment got me to try the Fotobabble iOS app. Fotobabble is a free service that allows you to quickly turn a picture into an audio picture story. Using Fotoabble is easy, just upload an image to Fotobabble, allow Fotobabble to access your computer's microphone, and start recording your voice. You can comment on your photo, explain what's happening your photo, or tell a story related to your photo. Applications for Education The Fotobable iOS app could be a great app for students to use to quickly create short audio stories about pictures that they take with their iPhones and or iPads (the app isn't optimized for iPad, but it works on it).
15 Free Tools for Storing and Sharing Files Six months ago I shared a list of good file sharing tools for teachers and students. Since then, I've come across some more tools to add to that list. Here is my new list of file sharing tools for students and teachers. The tools that I frequently use: I use Google Documents and Google Drive for nearly all of my document storage needs. The other tool that I frequently use for collecting, storing, and sharing files is Dropbox. DROPitTOme is a free service that works with Dropbox to allow people to upload files to your Dropbox account without giving them access to the contents of your Dropbox account. File Dropper is the file sharing tool that I have used longer than any of the tool on this list. Other file sharing tools that I have tried. File Stork is a tool that works with Dropbox and allows you to collect files in two ways. Uploader Box is a free service for sharing large files with your friends and colleagues. Go Pileus is a simple free service for quickly sharing files.
Web -Free Ebook 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web is a new free 61 page ebook from Google about browsers and the Internet. Through the ebook readers will learn about things like plug-ins, malware, phishing scams, HTML and HTML 5, cloud computing, Javascript, and much more. The book includes nice Dr. Seuss-like illustrations and clear explanations. The explanations are put into terms that non-techie people can understand. 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web can be read online or printed using the print button at the bottom of the site's screen (it's kind of hard to see if you're not looking for it). Applications for Education For technology integration specialists, 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web could be a great resources to distribute to teachers you support.
A Fun Way To Make Your Own Newspaper Clippings I stumbled upon a simple web tool the other day that, among other things, animates cat GIFs with speech bubbles that say whatever you want. We all know the internet loves its cats! See example to the right. Upon further exploration of the site, I discovered that they also have a newspaper clipping generator , which allows users to input their own information and the program generates a fairly realistic looking newspaper article which could be used as a part of a larger project or for a stand alone assignment to write a newspaper article on a particular topic. Teachers could use the tool for special events, student birthdays, classroom blogs, or any other timely topics. And don’t forget that you can use the animated cat (or owl, squirrel, flower, etc) GIF generator to send messages to your students!
48 iPad Apps That Teachers Love #FED_ebooks #Apps #ebook #teacher « First Edition Design eBook and POD Publishing Apple’s iPad and other tablet computers have certainly been garnering ardent support from the edtech community. Gadget geek teachers love the thousands of apps available to give their courses a multimedia edge, and students love how so many reach out to different learning styles. For the connected classroom, the following stand out as either great supplements to various lessons or essential, time-saving streamlining strategies. Art and Music Language, Reading, and Writing Math and Science Organization, Productivity, and Learning SOURCE: About First Edition Design Publishing: First Edition Design Publishing is the world’s largest eBook and POD (Print On Demand) book distributor. Visit: www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com Like this: Like Loading...
8 Exam-Prep Activities Students Actually Like After Christmas break students will return to school for 8 days of review prior to taking their End of Course Exams. I can give my students a review packet with hundreds of problems, but that would only lead to them giving up, sleeping, and not even trying. So below are 8 fun activities I created to motivate and engage my students in their final exam reviews. 1. Vocabulary Gallery Walk – Each student will be given a word to define and provide an example for. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. These are 8 fun review games that is sure to get students motivated to review for their final exams! Visit my blog for printables, instructions, and examples! Create Digital Magazines With Glossi Glossi is a new service for creating digital magazines. Glossi magazines can include images, videos, audio files, and links to external sources of information. The magazines that you create are displayed with page-turning effects. Your magazines can be embedded into your blog. Applications for EducationGlossi is still in a closed beta so you will have to request an invitation before you can start creating your own magazines.
This Link Will Self Destruct - Create Links to Share for a Limited Period of Time This Link Will Self Destruct is a free service for sharing links that are accessible for a finite period of time. This Link Will Self Destruct shortens your URL to make it easier for others to copy or remember. TLWSD allows you to specify how long your shortened URL will be active. You can set a limit of just a few minutes, hours, or days. Password protecting your TWLSD links is an option too. Applications for EducationThis Link Will Self Destruct could be a good service to use when you need to shorten and share the long link to a WallWisher or TodaysMeet activity happening in your classroom.
Lesson Plans – Search Education – Google Picking the right search terms Beginner Pick the best words to use in academic searching, whether students are beginning with a full question or a topic of just a few words. View lesson Advanced Explore "firm" and "soft" search terms, and practice using context terms to locate subject-specific collections of information on the web. Understanding search results Learn about the different parts of the results page, and about how to evaluate individual results based on cues like web addresses and snippets. Engage additional search strategies, such as generalization and specialization. Narrowing a search to get the best results Apply filtering tools and basic "operators" to narrow search results. Compare results for basic searches with ones that use operators to discover the impact the right operator has at the right time. Searching for evidence for research tasks Evaluating credibility of sources Consider, tone, style, audience, and purpose to determine the credibility of a source. Culture Culture
Create Trading Cards for Historical and Fictional People, Places, and Events Through one of Tony Vincent's Tweets I learned about a wonderful free iPad app from Read Write Think. Read Write Think Trading Cards allows students to create trading cards about people, places, and events both real and fictional. I used the app to create a trading card about Winston Churchill. To create my Winston Churchill trading card I simply selected "real person" from the list of trading card options, uploaded a picture of Winston Churchill that I found on the web, and then filled in the details that the trading card template asked for. My completed trading card can be shared via email, printed, or saved to my iPad's camera roll. Applications for Education Some of the ways that the Read Write Think Trading Card app could be used by students is to create a set of trading cards about characters in a novel, to create a set of cards about people of historical significance, or to create cards about places that they're studying in their geography lessons.
Make Your Own PBS Cyberchase SMART Board Game Show PBS Kids Cyberchase website offers dozens of educational games for students in grades three through five. The games are intended to help students develop their skills in mathematics, logic, and pattern recognition. Students who have PBS Kids accounts can keep track of the games they've played and rank the games they've played. If you would like to make your own game for your SMART Board, check out the PBS Kids Lucky Star Game Show template. The template contains 150 questions that can be used to create games. Applications for Education PBS Kids Cyberchase games and the SMART Board template could be useful for elementary school mathematics lessons.