Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: Here Is A Collection of Some New Educational Web Tools and Apps for Teachers August 4, 2015 An important part of an effective integration of technology in your instruction besides knowing the ‘pedagogical whys’ behind the tech choices you make is finding out the appropriate web tools to enhance your teaching. And this is where curated lists such as the ones we provide in NewEdTech series come in handy. In today’s selection, we are introducing you to some new web tools we discovered through Edshelf. Enjoy 1- Sway ‘Sway makes it quick and easy to create and share polished, interactive reports, presentations, personal stories, and more. 2- School Font ‘School Font is a simple writing program. 3- Wixie ‘Wixie is an online publishing and creativity platform that lets students share what they know through their writing, their voice, and their art.’ 4- Lyrics Gaps A fun method to learn and improve your foreign languages like English through music and typing in song lyrics. 5- Youblisher 6-WriteReader 7-PhotoPeach 8- Davinci Note 9- Story Spark 10- Writing Prompts for Kids
Fractus Learning - Keeping Educators on the Cutting Edge Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: Two Awesome Apps for Creating Talking Pictures August 18, 2015 Here are two free iPad apps you can use with students to create talking pictures. Both of these apps allow you to record your own voice to use as a voice-over in your photos. 1- ChatterPix Kids ChatterPix Kids is a very good iPad app you can use with your students to create animated photos and doodles. The app is very easy and simple to use and has a student friendly interface with no learning curve. Animated pictures created by ChatterPix Kids can be shared with others as playful messages, creative cards or even fancy book reports. 2- FaceTalker FaceTalker is another good free app for making pictures talk. ‘FaceTalk is also great for education.
Global Education Database | Your Personalized Education Guide Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: 7 New EdTech Tools for Teachers September 9, 2015 In this month's 'New Educational Web Tools' series, we are sharing with you this selection of interesting web tools and apps we have been curating over the last few weeks. The purpose is to keep you updated about the latest in the EdTech world and introduce you to some useful applications that might be of an added value to your teaching. Enjoy ‘Made with Code is an initiative to champion creativity, girls, and code, all at once. ‘FormSwift is a tool to help you quickly and easily create, edit, sign, and collaborate on documents and forms. Quizizz is a fun multiplayer classroom activity, that allows all your students to practice together. Select one of the public quizzes or create your own.Click "Play" to generate your unique game code.Ask your students to open join.quizizz.com and enter the game code.See students joining on the live dashboard, and launch when ready.The game begins! ‘Feeling stuck?
The A-Z Dictionary of Educational Twitter Hashtags Whether you’re a new or seasoned Twitter user, you likely come across confusing hashtags that probably look like a bunch of nonsense. First, What’s A Hashtag? The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keyword or topic in a Tweet. Any Twitter user can categorize or follow topics with hashtags.Those hashtags (usually) mean something and are a great way to get a tweet to appear in search results or discussion monitoring. For example, the popular #edchat hashtag is used by thousands of users every Tuesday. How To Hide Your Hashtag Chat From Followers When having a Twitter #hashtag chat, if you want to avoid overwhelming your followers, start any tweet you want to “hide” with @HideChat or (one character shorter) @HideTag . You don’t need to do this with all your chat tweets (though you could). Sources That’s why it’s probably helpful for you to check out the following list of popular educational hashtags. The Most Popular Hashtags #edchat – Education, worldwide (lots of US teachers).
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: 10 Excellent Google Drive Apps Teachers Should Try This School Year August 28, 2015 Here is another back-to-school goodie for teachers. This is basically a selection of some of the best educational Google Drive apps to use in your instruction. As is the case with Mac, Chromebook, and Chrome lists, all of these apps have been covered in separate review posts in the past and are also deemed to be among the most popular among teachers and educators based on the feedback we received following their publication. "This extension allow you to save web content directly to Google Drive through a browser action or context menu. You can save documents, images, and HTML5 audio and video all by right clicking and selecting 'Save to Google Drive'. MindMeister is a very good tool students can use to create mindmaps and brainstorm complex topics. 3- GeoGebra GeoGebra (www.geogebra.org) is free dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package.
50 Important Links for Common Core Educators Educators across the nation are working hard this summer to begin developing updated curricula that will fit into the new Common Core State Standards, which will be fully applied in 45 U.S. states (Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, Virginia, and Minnesota have opted out of statewide participation) by 2015. Yet despite the hubbub about the new standards, which were created as a means of better equipping students with the knowledge they need to be competitive in the modern world, many teachers still have a lot of unanswered questions about what Common Core will mean for them, their students, and their schools. Luckily, the Internet abounds with helpful resources that can explain the intricacies of Common Core, offer resources for curriculum development, and even let teachers keep up with the latest news on the subject. Groups and Organizations Useful Resources Curriculum Development Blogs State Tools Some states have created helpful websites for teachers all about Common Core.
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: 10 Awesome Apps to Get Students Motivated to Learn December 22, 2015 iPad provides endless learning possibilities for students. From apps to help with learning math and science to apps for doing 3D anatomy and virtual field trips, you name it, the educational app store has probably an app for it. The theme for our list today is motivation. We believe that motivation is the backbone of learning and with motivation comes engagement and better performance. To this end, we are sharing with you some excellent iPad apps with huge motivational potential. You can use these apps with students to engage them in hands-on learning activities across different disciplines. 1-Book Creator The simple way to create your own beautiful iBooks, right on the iPad. A Gami can be an exciting tweet or status update. 3- Skitch See something that sparks an idea? Write About This is a visual writing prompt & creation platform perfect for classrooms and families! 6- Explain Everything Doodle Buddy Gold is the most fun you can have with your finger!
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: 8 Excellent Blended Learning Tools for Teachers September 25, 2015In its basic and simplest definition, blended learning is an instructional methodology, a teaching and learning approach that combines face-to-face classroom methods with computer mediated activities to deliver instruction. The strengths of this instructional approach is its combination of both face to face and online teaching methods into one integrated instructional approach. In today's post, we are sharing with you a set of some useful web tools you can use for blended learning:1- Blubbr Blubbr is a cool web tool that allows users to create quizzes around YouTube videos. 2- Teachem Teachem is a web service that allows teachers to create lessons around YouTube videos. 3- Educanon Educanon is another powerful tool that teachers can use to design lessons based on videos from both YouTube and Vimeo. 4- VideoNotes VideoNotes is a free web tool that allows students to take notes on a video they are watching. 6- Vialogues
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: 6 Things Every Teacher Should Be Able to Do on The New Google Forms September 14, 2015 As you know, Google has recently revamped several of its Drive services including Google Forms. This latter has particularly been redesigned to incorporate several of the features that were missing in the old form. We have already written a step by step guide to help teachers learn more about the different functionalities offered by the new Forms. Today, we are highlighting 6 more important things every teacher should be able to do on the New Google Forms. Check them out below. 1- Create a form from a spreadsheet in Google Sheets You can easily create a form right from Google Sheets. 2- Where to store form responses The new Google Forms allows you to choose between two destinations where you can save your form responses. There are three ways you can view your form’s responses: A- As a summary of responses: This one provides you with quick overview of your respondents answers. As the owner of a form, you can control how often users submit their responses.
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: Some Wonderful iPad Apps for Organizing Your Class September 17, 2015 Here is a collection of some useful iPad apps to help you better organize and manage your classroom. Some of the things you can do with these apps include: guide classroom discussion using random name selectors, keep track of students behaviour and actions, reduce noise in your classroom, poll your students and do instant checks for understanding, create seating charts with desks on a grid, record and export attendance, choose random students for class participation, make student notes and many more. 1- Stick Pick ‘Pick a student at random with just a tap, swipe, or a shake -- but that’s just the beginning. Stick Pick suggests question starters for learners at different levels and also records how well students respond during classroom discussions. ‘Over a million educators worldwide trust TeacherKit with managing their time and activities. 3- Classroom Timer Lite 4- Too Noisy Pro 5- Plickers 6- Trello 7- Smart Seat 8- Traffic Light ‘Watch or control your own set of lights.
10 Ways to Use QR Codes in the Classroom It has been a while since I have posted any practical ideas for the classroom, and for this I am sorry. However, yesterday I found inspiration, yet again, while preparing for a workshop for my teachers at our school. This coming Friday’s workshop is about mobile learning and I have an opportunity to provide some input on the use of QR Codes in the classroom to motivate young learners. How to create your own QR Codes Application: www.qr-code-generator.com; lets you make QR codes which could then be used in a variety of ways during lessons. Similar application: identical to the website mentioned above. Focus: Creating QR codes for lessons which could include text or links to websites. Level: All levels. Time: 20-45 minutes. ICT skills: Browsing, typing, copy and pasting, and lesson planning. Equipment: A single computer with internet access which is connected to the internet. Instructions: 1. 2. Each student is given a QR Code which contains a question. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: 20+ Educational Tools and Apps That Support 21st Century Learning October 8, 2015 Technology has radically transformed the notion of education to the extent that a label such as 21st century learning is a commonplace in the nascent teaching literature. There are now multiple forms of learning (e.g flipped, blended, synchronous/asynchronous, mobile...etc) that are primarily shaped and mediated by some sort of technology be it web or mobile based. This is, in our eyes, not technological determinism as some prefer to call it but rather an appropriation of the emerging technologies for the service of education. Technology, as we like to think about it, is an amplifier of learning. It enhances, extends and creates learning possibilities that, just a decade ago, would have been unimaginable. The purpose of today’s post is to share with you some of the tools and apps that best epitomize this notion of 21st century learning. 1-Apps and websites for learning coding 2- Tools for curating educational content