World-Shaker

10 Ways to ensure that this year parents won’t even have to ask “What did you do at school today?" →

An awesome list—here are three of my favorites (click through for the rest!):

5. Set Up an Audioboo Radio Station For the Class Audioboo is a mobile app that lets you make up to 3 minute recordings for free. The best part about the app is you can embed a radio station “player” into your website or blog and each recording, or “boo” is fed instantly into your custom radio station, NO uploading required. Have the students sum up the week’s work via podcast and then parents can tune into the radio station or even follow on iTunes and get caught up with class events- and no extra work for the teacher!

6. iMovie Trailers about events coming up in class or at school

iMovie trailers almost make themselves- after picking a theme, filling in the template with some quick video shots and then can be quickly edited on just one iPad. The end result is a 2 minute introduction that leaves the audience feeling as if they experienced something dramatic and amazing. What a cool way to get parents wanting more, just like real movie trailers do for the films they promote. Here’s an example of one trailer we made for our science project last year that took twenty minutes to create, but left everyone who watched wanting to watch it again and wanting to know more about our physics project.

7. Coach’s Eye Reflections

Coach’s Eye is a great app made by TechSmith, that allows coaches to tape what an athlete is doing, then take that tape and reverse it, put it in slow motion, focus in on certain areas and commentate over what is actually happening on the film. Well, during some hands on lessons, why not just video what the students are doing. Then, have a few of the students create some “coach reviews” of what they saw happening durning the lesson and share those commentaries with the parents. It’s an extremely cool app I discovered last year that has great applications for the classroom!

This is one of four new tools on the list. I strongly recommend a click-through.

StudyEgg is a new tool that can be used to augment already existing educational content on the Internet by adding new learning features. With StudyEgg teachers can create quizzes based on YouTube videos like Khan Academy or any other freely available lesson/material.
The student starts watching the video, the teacher can choose to stop the video at a certain time to show a multiple choice test to verify if the student actually learned something.
Each question has a timer counting down. If the student does not get the right answer, they can click on the “Teach Me” button and the video will jump to the section where the answer is given.

On the teacher’s side, you get, of course, detailed reports on the student’s performance and one click lesson assignment.

(via 4 Brand New EdTech Tools For Teachers And Students)

9 Amazing Word Cloud Generators For The Classroom →

Here are three (click through for the rest):

Tagul -  Tagul has some features that Wordle doesn’t, like custom shapes selection and multiple fonts usage in one cloud. It also allows for the use of tagged words that can act as pointers to URL’s if embedded in a web page. It abounds in options but registration may limit classroom use.  Requires a log in with email.

Word It Out  - Much like Wordle, it creates word clouds out of any text that you paste into the text box. This application allows  the word cloud to be customized by size, font, and color scheme.  Word It Out also allows the user to  ignore certain words and thus  keeps them out of the word cloud.  Can be used without a login, although the saving option requires an email. Can work around this option by right clicking to save as jpeg and/or screen print.

Tag Crowd - While it does not give the color,unique style, or layout variation of of Wordle, it does allow one to see frequency of words. It also allows a file to be uploaded or a URL address to be used.  The word cloud creations can be saved as a PDF files or  printed from a full screen print menu. No login or email is required and free use of the product is for nonprofit use listed under creative commons.

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Storybird reverses the process of visual storytelling by starting with the image and “unlocking” the story inside. Students start by choosing an artist or a theme, bringing in the artwork from that artist/theme to create the story.  Storybird is a great tool for all, but I find it especially helpful for struggling writers who have difficulty thinking of something to write about. You can sign up for a free teacher account that allows you to create a class for your students so they can login without having to have an email address. The class account also enables teachers to create assignments, view student work, and in the near future, collaborate on stories with other classes throughout the world.

Click through for two other great tools!

(via 3 Great Storybook Creators « Ed Tech Ideas)

My Top 3 Brainstorming Tools →

I’ve always liked Inspiration and Kidspiration for quick, easy to use ways of brainstorming. But with a $900 price tag for a 20 computer license, there just didn’t seem to be any reason to pay that money when there are several robust, free alternatives. In the past couple of years, these alternatives have come close to matching, and in many aspects, surpassing what Inspiration and Kidspiration can do to help students organize their thoughts. Here are my three favs, with a few honorable mentions thrown in to boot.

1. Diagram.ly

Just discovered this one and it’s already my favorite. Easy to use (really) drag and drop interface. Intuitive tool bar. Decent amount of shapes, lines, and clip art.  You have the ability to right-click on any shapes for editing options. Diagram.ly has a very Microsoft feel to it so if you have students who are used to using Office products, the learning curve with Diagram.lywill be easy. Another great feature is that there is no sign up, no registration and no download. You simply create your mind map and save (.xml, .jpg, .png, or .svg).

Click through for the next two!

Three easy ways to download YouTube videos →

We’re always looking for short video clips that we can use as part of our instruction. But maybe YouTube is blocked at your school, maybe your access is limited or slow, maybe all the laptops are busy being use for state assessments.

And so you’re looking for a quick way to download a handy YouTube clip and store it on your hard drive for later use.

My favorite? KeepVid

It works on a variety of video sites and is fast. Paste in the YouTube url and KeepVid gives you a variety of file formats for you to download onto your desktop. Click the one you want and … there ya go.

(Don’t click the big red FREE Download button. That’s an ad. Click the smaller Download button in the blue just to the right of the url box.) Your video choices are listed in green.

Click through for the next two.

Google's Newest Way to Easily Build Amazing Charts →

thingsforteachers:

I’m very excited about this! New ways to show data to my students!

I’d be remiss to not point out that some of the underlying technology for this came from the outstanding work that Hans Rosling and his team did. For those of you unfamiliar, he’s beloved by the TED crowd and anyone who loves statistics. There’s a list of some of his incredible presentations here.

How to Integrate Social Tools into the Journalism Classroom →

nathangibbs:

My recent post on PBS MediaShift about online tools for journalism educators: Facebook groups, Facebook pages, Tumblr, Posterous, Storify, Curated.by, EtherPad, and MindMeister.

Seven Ways to Build Your Own Educational Games →

I’m a huge proponent of gaming, and think you should look into it.

Here are the first two sites from the article. Click through to read more.

Sharendipity makes it possible for students and teachers to quickly create and share simple video games. Sharendipity’s drag and drop creation tools can be used to create a game in as few as four steps. For new Sharendipity users the tutorials provide clear directions and helpful game ideas. Games created on Sharendipity can be embedded in your blog or website.

ClassTools.net is a free service teachers can use to create their own educational games. Games made on ClassTools.net can be shared via email or embedded into a blog or website. (Yet another reason for having a class website or blog). ClassTools.net provides fifteen easy to use templates with which teachers can make educational games for their students. There are also pre-made games on ClassTools.net which teachers will find useful.

Harnessing the Power of Web 2.0: A free lesson built in SoftChalk →

This is a great place to start if you’re an educator or future educator interested in using technology with your classes.

This lesson showcases a variety of Web 2.0 applications that can be used to enhance digital content offered in SoftChalk. These applications include Digital Corpora, ScreenJelly, Prezi, Youtube, Voicethread, Google Docs, & Poll Anywhere. Feel free to follow the content lock step or move at your own pace to the applications most interesting you. However, I do recommend that you understand a few key concepts (i.e. Widgets, Mashups, Embed Code, & Digital Corpora) before you begin playing with the new tricks. Therefore, the following two pages of this lesson were designed to refresh your knowledge of these concepts.

25 Web 2.0 Sites for Educators →

Here are the first ten:

1. Google/Gaggle - Google Apps are some of the most popular services for document creation and collaboration. Gaggle (for a small fee) filters Google Apps (Zoho as well) to make it an ideal choice for education. Also, Gaggle allows for filtered blogging, chatting, messaging boards, and filtered videos in You Tube, etc.
2. Edmodo - A wonderful free site that creates an educational environment for students that focuses on skills such as blogging and collaboration.
3. Glogster - A great multi-media site for creating interactive posters that can be viewed online. Plus, student accounts can be created by an educator without the need of a student email.
4.  Voice Thread - One of the most popular web 2.0 sites around. An ideal site for creating interactive presentations/slide shows.
5. Myths & Legends - A free site that is wonderful for digital storytelling. All a teacher has to do is get approval from a school administrator to sign a school up for this great service.
6. Animoto - Create dynamic slide shows with one of the most popular slide show creators on the web.
7. Mixbook - A great way to create a safe and secure environment for students to create online or real books (for order).
8. Prezi - The evolution of presentations has arrived with this zoomable presentation creator. Also, there is an educational portal in the works.
9. Aviary Education - A safe, secure way that offers many services for students, such as photo editor, audio editor, and movie creator.
10. Diigo - An ideal site for social bookmarking that allows teachers to create student account for sharing and annotating links.

Directory of Learning Tools →

Over 2,000 tools in 12 categories. Goodbye weekend.

Google Shared Spaces: Create a Space →

Google took some of the features from Google Wave (now Apache Wave) and split them up into “Spaces” that anyone can instantly join.

Here are some new toys to play with today.

Twurdy -- such a cool tool! →

positivelypersistentteach:

This is a tool I’m super excited to share.

The name “Twurdy” comes from a play on words with the question “Too Wordy?”.

The philosophy 

Everyone has different reading abilities. Some people searching the web are university professors and others are 5 year old children. Twurdy has been created to provide people with access to search results that suit their own readability level. 

What does it do?

Twurdy uses text analysis software to “read” each page before it is displayed in the results. Then Twurdy gives each page a readability level. Twurdy then shows the readability level of the page along with a color coded system to help users determine how easy the page will be to understand.

The Goal

Twurdy’s goal is to provide web searchers with information that is most appropriate for them. This will mean that 10 year olds doing school assignments don’t have to click through difficult material to find something they can use. It will also mean that Ph.D. students do not have to click through websites designed for kids in order to find what they are looking for.

Win-win, I love it!

Learning Tools Directory →

gjmueller:

Over 2,000 Tools for Learning - for schools, colleges, universities and the workplace

What a find!