Sunday, October 31, 2010

Treasure Chest-100′s of Resources, Ideas & Videos for EdTech!

Just a small taste of my weekly edition of Treasure Chest! I scour the web for the best educational technology resources each week and post them every Sunday!

Amplify’d from jeffthomastech.com

Treasure Chest-100′s of Resources, Ideas & Videos for EdTech!

Here is this week’s edition of Treasure Chest–the best resources and information from the past week on the web!

Tools

  • 10 Ways to Get More From Google Voice | Maximum PC–If you have any interest at all in turning your normal mobile communications into a supercharged environment boosted by the best of what the Web and a mobile network could possibly offer… it’s time to go Google Voice.
  • How to Teach with Tech Tools–In Western Civilization class at The John Carroll School, freshmen grab plastic chairs from a stack against the wall, gather around the room in different areas and jump online with their tablet PCs.
  • Using Creative Commons Images from Flickr–Flickr is an excellent place to find images that are available under a Creative Commons License but it won’t let you properly attribute CC work.  Here’s how!
  • The Complete Guide to Watching Video on the iPad–With the iPad’s large screen and light weight, it makes it the ideal device for watching movies and TV shows lying in bed, on the go, or pretty much anywhere you want to. That said, Apple’s embargo on flash makes it difficult to find a lot of content to stream online.
Cartoon #4048 - 'How come Lewis and Clark didn't just use MapQuest?'
  • Facebook Instant–Browse the Facebook Instantly like never before !!. Search in your friends’ posts, status, comments and much more… Visit to try it out: (No registration required, Just type and search)
See more at jeffthomastech.com
 

Friday, October 22, 2010

Videos – I hate my teacher

I am wondering how many teachers will actually watch these videos or dismiss them without a thought. Many teachers have their students provide feedback about their course at school via a survey. I have never found these to be particularly useful. Instead, what students really think about your school can really assist in changing the atomosphere.

Amplify’d from dangerouslyirrelevant.org

Videos – I hate my teacher

Do you know what your students are saying at home about your school? Is this something that educators should care about or just ignore?

WARNING: Language often is not safe for work or young children.

See more at dangerouslyirrelevant.org
 

Sunday, October 17, 2010

11 Funny Graphs About Twitter

It's amazing how true most of thee graphs are when describing the behavior of Twitter and how it's used/viewed. Enjoy!

Amplify’d from www.11points.com
11 Funny Graphs About Twitter
Who's Big On Twitter?
The Most Played Out Jokes About Twitter
The Best Thing About Celebrities Being On Twitter Is...
Twitter Follower-Following Scatter Plot
The Conan O'Brien Paradox
Things You Do On Twitter That Annoy Your Friends
If I Click On a Trending Topic, What Will I See?
Use of the Word "Your" on Twitter
Reaction to a Celebrity Death, Twitter vs. Mainstream
What Happens When You Introduce Someone 55+ To Twitter
Who's Making Money Off Twitter
See more at www.11points.com
 

Saturday, October 16, 2010

7 Fantastic Free Social Media Tools for Teachers

I'm familiar with 6 out of the 7 choices given here by Mashable. To my surprise they have listed EDU 2.0 first! Why am I surprised? EDU 2.0 has been around for a while but has not received near the attention of other sites. It has great features, great security and it's free! If you have not tried EDU 2.0, you should give it a try!

Amplify’d from mashable.com

7 Fantastic Free Social Media Tools for Teachers

Even when people say they want to incorporate social media, they don’t always know the best ways to do so. It’s especially daunting when those efforts can affect the education of your students.

1. EDU 2.0

EDU 2.0 is a lot like online course management systems Blackboard and Moodle, but with a couple of distinct advantages. First, teachers can share their lesson plans, quizzes, videos, experiments and other resources in a shared library that currently hosts more than 15,000 pieces of content. Second, a community section allows teachers and students to network and collaborate with other members who share the same educational interests. And third, everything is hosted in the cloud for free.

2. SymbalooEDU

The popular visual organizing and sharing tool Symbaloo launched its “EDU” version last month. According to the company, 50,000 teachers are already using Symbaloo to organize classroom resources. The new EDU version comes with academic subject-specific resource pages or “webmixes” and top tools like TeacherTube, Slideshare, Google (Google) Docs, Flickr (Flickr) and more are fully embeddable. Teachers with a “Free Plus” account can add their school logo and customize the links. The site also allows students to easily share their Symbaloo pages and projects with classmates.

3. Collaborize Classroom

This app gives teachers four discussion format choices. Students can either agree or disagree with a statement, answer a multiple choice question, post responses, or have the choice between adding a new response or voting for someone else’s response. Teachers can add photos or videos to their prompts and all of the discussions take place on one class page.

4. Edublogs

Common uses for blogs in classrooms include group projects, reflection journals, school newspapers, class web pages and parent newsletters. But, as evidenced by the winners of the 2009 Edublog awards, there are plenty of other creative options for integrating the blogs into curriculum.

5. Kidsblog

Kidsblog is a bit more specific than Edublogs. There are fewer options to adjust the appearance of the main page, and it’s hard to use the platform for anything other than as a system for managing individual class blogs. The homepage serves as a catalog of student blogs on the right with a recent post feed on the left.

6. Edmodo

Edmodo looks and functions much like Facebook (Facebook). But unlike Facebook, it’s a controlled environment that teachers can effectively leverage to encourage class engagement. The platform allows teachers and students to share ideas, files and assignments on a communal wall. Teachers can organize different groups of students and monitor them from the same dashboard. Once they’ve organized classes, they can post assignments to the wall and grade them online. They can then archive the class groups and begin new ones.

7. TeacherTube and SchoolTube and YouTube

As the name implies, TeacherTube is YouTube (YouTube) for teachers. It’s a great resource for lesson ideas but videos can also be used during class to supplement a lecture. For instance, you can let Mrs. Burk rap about perimeters if you like her idea but lack the rhyming skills to pull it off yourself. This site also has a crowdsourced stock of documents, audio and photos that can be added to your lesson plans. Unfortunately, every video is preceded by an ad.

Read more at mashable.com
 

60 Sites in 60 Minutes

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Saturday, October 2, 2010

10 Movies to Make a Man Cry

Without a doubt, my Number 1 is Brian's Song. As long as were being honest here--don't even want to think about watching Born Free.

Amplify’d from holykaw.alltop.com

10 movies to make a man cry

The Pride of the Yankees

Rudy

Saving Private Ryan

Dead Poet’s Society

Brian’s Song

See the full list at BuzzFeed.

Read more at holykaw.alltop.com
 

Google Tools For Schools

Check out this SlideShare Presentation: