89 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed–Treasure Chest Mother’s Day 2011

by Jeffrey Thomas on May 8, 2011

Welcome to this week’s edition of Treasure Chest—89 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed.

It’s really difficult to keep up with all that happens in educational technology. This is my attempt to make it just a little easier. I post a Treasure Chest every Sunday!

My “Featured” section is usually the very best of what I’ve found during the past week. But this week I must point out two posts that are a must read for educators. The following two posts are great ammunition for teachers to get sites unblocked.

Featured

Twitter Chat Schedule–A great Google spreadsheet telling you all you need to know about the tons of different Twitter chats available.

The World Today – Teacher bonus plan gets poor report card 02/05/2011–The Australian Education Union opposes the Prime Ministers proposed bonus system saying it will be divisive An education expert is doubtful all 250 000 teachers will be able to be assessed properly
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries – NYTimes.com–To revamp our education system, blame teachers less and pay them more.
EdTech Toolbox: 8 Ways to Support Teachers Integrate Technology–Implementing Effective Technological Change: What a Classroom Teacher needs
Educational Technology Guy: Technology I Use Everyday as an Educator–Recently, a colleague asked me what technology I use each day and how does it help me or my students. So, here is my answer: (all of them are free)
‘Bring your own device’ catching on in schools | Curriculum | eSchoolNews.com–Mobile devices are now found in the hands of most children, and school leaders are using that fact to their advantage by incorporating devices that students already own into classroom lessons and projects.
Teaching with The Cloud: Five Tips to Differentiating Tech Instruction–I think just about any teacher worth her or his salt is likely to do a lot of differentiation of instruction. Heck, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that some of the better teachers in your school were doing it before it was coined differentiation
Ten things Russell Stannard thinks about technology « Ken Wilson’s Blog–We all seem to like lists and I know that Ken’s recent talk was about ten things he knows about teaching. So I thought I would put together ten thoughts on technology.
It’s not just a tool « Ideas and Thoughts–Saying technology is “just a tool” can be a very dangerous statement.
A-Z Web tools: F | Ozge Karaoglu’s Blog–Here is a new part of A-Z tools. This week’s letter is F. FontDeMusic lets you add sound and movement to the words. You write your text, select font,
Who’s Bin Laden? Kids Born After 9/11 Want to Know – TIME Healthland–President Obama certainly wasn’t taking the sensibilities of West Coast children into consideration when he made his stunner of a speech Sunday night: Osama bin Laden is dead. It took parents by surprise.
Digital Storytelling for Beginners | Stretch Your Digital Dollar–I’ve been searching for digital storytelling tools that are easier to use, both for teachers and for pre-literate students. And I’ve found some great ones.
Cool Cat Teacher Blog: QR Code Classroom Implementation Guide–QR Codes are barcodes of information that hardlink the physical world with the online world. They are considered a form of simple augmented reality.
An Educators Guide To Twitter–Over 150 Resources To Help Teachers Get Started With Twitter
Free eBook and some Twitter talk, do you have a PLN?–Download the ebook with the 30 challenges and all the information and details you need to incorporate these strategies into your classroom and teaching life. It is EXCELLENT, and thought provoking!
Google Products You Probably Don’t Know–Today I’m going to share some of the lesser known products from Google, which can help you. Some of them may even surprise you as you might not even heard about them and yet they’re so useful.
The 21st century skills teachers should have ~ Educational Technology–With the advance of technological innovations into our lives , education has been radically transformed and teachers who do not use social media and educational technology in their teaching no longer fit in the new system
Would You Like Being a Student in Your Own Classroom?–It was a simple question really, “Would I like being a student in my own classroom?” that stopped me in my tracks. Last year when the students had left, the chairs had been put up, and the exhaustion hit, I realized that no, this was not the type of classroom I would have wanted to learn in
Download Windows 7 Power Users Guide eBook | The Windows Club–This free Windows 7 guide is for people who use Windows 7 at home or at work and know it can do more for them, but who don’t know how. The Windows 7 Power Users Guide contains helpful how-to’s, full colour pictures and quick tips to guide you through everything.
Twitter 101 For Students Part 1: What is Twitter? | Tech Academy–Are you a recent college graduate or a current student enrolled in a university? Have you heard the term Twitter tossed around your classroom
Lisa Nielsen: 6 Ways Technology Can Help Tuned-Out Students Tune In
12 Fabulous Flip Camera Alternatives For Education… –Welcome to a post dedicated to helping educators find alternatives to that amazing Flip camera.
EdTech Toolbox: Free eBook on Podcasting in the Classroom–Use this workbook to see how you can use podcasts in your classroom today!
How Do We Prepare Kids for Jobs We Can’t Imagine Yet? Teach Imagination – Education – GOOD–Schools need to prep students to be successful in jobs we haven’t even imagined yet, but we can’t do it if we stick with industrial age teaching.

Tools

3 Freeware File Compression Tools to Look At | Windows 7 News–Even though hard drives have gone into the stratosphere with size. Terabyte size is typical now a days, some may wonder why anyone would need file compression
16 Helpful Online Presentation Tools | blueblots.com–Microsoft PowerPoint is one among the popular offline presentation tool mostly used by students and professionals, but did you know that there are many emerging online tools right now that you can use to present your reports to your co-students and ideas to your clients and co-workers?
The Top 10 Best Dropbox Services, Addons and Hacks – TNW Apps–Everyone from heavy Dropbox users to those who are wondering just what the fuss is all about with this cloud syncing business should be able to find something useful to them in this list.
Convert Videos To Mobile Supported Formats With Mobile Media Converter–Mobile Media Converter (MMC) is a feature rich media converter which supports a huge array of audio and video format, including, MP3, WMV, FLV, MOV, Ogg
Live Photo Editor – Customize Create or Edit your image with Online for free–Create or customize profile photo by image editor
Hands-On: 4 Remote-Desktop Services | PCWorld–Remote access to your home computer can be quick and easy.
Burn DVD, Blu-ray And Manage Media Files With Free Nero Kwik Media–Nero applications have always been an excellent resource for multimedia file management.
Top 10 Free Online Spell Checkers–If you don’t use WordPress, if you want to check the spelling of a web page, or if you want to check the spelling of other languages, you can check out below 10 free online spell checkers.
6 Free Online Diagramming Tools To Draw Any Diagrams And Flow Charts–Top 6 Online Diagramming Tools to Draw any Diagram Anywhere Anytime, this is the fastest way to draw any diagrams and flow charts quickly
Online Photo Editing with LivePhotoEditor–Image editing is one of the most sought after apps and now people are moving more and more to online apps. LivePhotoEditor is one such free online service which

How-To

Three Tips to Improve Your Video Podcast – Chris Pirillo–In many cases, a few simple improvements can make all the difference in the world to a show. Here are five tips to improve your video podcast
21 Great Tips For Using Microsoft Word 2007/2010–I can pass along some sites with tips to help you work with the newer versions of Word. Most of these tips work with Word 2007 and Word 2010.
How to Use Twitter Hashtags Social Media & Technology–A hashtag is used to organize tweets around a single topic so that all related tweets are easily searchable on Twitter.

Techguru Project on Prezi

3 More Ways To Manage Your Dropbox Files You May Not Know About–Our favorite, all-time file sharing service, Dropbox, generously provides up to 2 gigs of file space for free. For many users this might be enough, but now that Dropbox is becoming the central cloud syncing service for shuffling and sharing stuff between computers and mobile devices, the allotted free space may fill up rather quickly if it’s not probably managed and organized.
Use QR Codes and Drop Box to Share Event Photos – Lifehacker–The next time you plan a party or other social event, you may want to try using a combination of Dropbox and QR codes to get attendees to share their photos online
How to Aggregate Music, Video & Pictures in Windows 7 Using Libraries–The Complete Guide to Aggregating Music, Video & Pictures in Windows 7 Using Libraries.
Saving Windows Live Movie Maker Projects as Video Files | Windows 7 Tutorials–After completing our previous tutorials on Windows Live Movie Maker 2011, your video project should be all set and ready to be shared. However, prior to exporting your Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 project, it’ll be saved as a Movie Maker Project file with the extension .wlmp.

iOS

16 Shortcuts to Take iPhone Use to Next Level – NYTimes.com–Knowing a few tricks can make an iPhone easier to use and more efficient.
5 Free Wikipedia iPad Apps | Free Software–Here are 5 Free Wikipedia apps for iPad that let you enjoy Wikipedia on iPad. All these Wikipedia iPad apps are completely free.
Apps in Education: 22 Basic but Useful iPad Tips–Now that I have an iPad in my hands, I’ve discovered some new techniques and hidden shortcuts, and also found myself making heavier use of existing iPhone shortcuts (including a few I didn’t realize were there).
10 Basic iTunes Tips Everyone Should Know | PCMag.com–Even if you’ve lived with iTunes for years, you probably don’t know all it can do. Here are the basics everyone should master.
Welcome to the Ipadschools Wiki!–This Wiki is intended to be a clearinghouse of applications, lesson and experiences using the iPad in the classroom. The intention is that all apps listed have been tested and recommended by teachers using them.
Classroom in the Cloud: 10 Free iPad2 Apps for Teachers–Here is my list of top apps for the classroom.
Cool Free iPad Apps | TCGeeks–Here are some cool free iPad apps that are fairly new to the App Store and they all allow you to explore movies, games, productivity, etc., without spending a lot of money.
iPads for Learning Getting Started…….Resource booklet for schools
Crestview teachers introduce iPads to students | The Des Moines Register | DesMoinesRegister.com–The iPad may be the go-to gadget for the business world, but Crestview Elementary School students are proving the popular computer tablet also has a place in the classroom
30 Interesting Ways to use an iPod Touch in the… – “Google Docs”
5 More Action Packed Free iPad & iPhone Games–I’m back again with 5 absolutely top-quality, action packed iPad games to suit every taste, and this time I have a real variety for you from soccer-based streaking games to quirky trivia and steampunk shooters. Be sure to check out the archives of iPad and iPhone games we’ve covered before too.
The 25 Best Apple iPad Games | PCMag.com–There’s a deep supply of iPad and iPad 2 games in the Apple App Store, but sorting through them all can be quite a chore, so we’ve picked the best casual and hardcore iPad games for you.
How to transfer music from an iPod to your computer | Crave – CNET–CNET’s How To expert Sharon Vaknin explains how to transfer the music on your iPod to your computer
iOS 4.3.3 Kills iPhone Tracking: Here’s Proof | News & Opinion | PCMag.com–Apple’s latest iOS update puts an end to iPhone tracking. Here’s how we confirmed it.
5 Free Sudoku iPad Apps | Free Software–Here are 5 Free Sudoku apps for iPad that let you play Sudoku on iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. All these iPad Sudoku apps are completely free
Magic Piano Released for Free on the iPhone [VIDEO]–Smule, the team behind I Am T-Pain, Glee Karaoke and Magic Fiddle has released an iPhone version of its popular iPad app, Magic Piano
iPad For Dummies Cheat Sheet – For Dummies
Guide for How to Configure and Clone a Large Numbers of iPads | iPad Academy–Guide for how to using the iPhone Configuration Utility for setting up multiple iPads, creating configuration profiles and cloning, including settings and apps.
Videolicious For The iPhone Helps You Edit Quality Videos, Fast–Videolicious for the iPhone and iPad is a free app designed for those of us who aren’t professional video editors but still want to have our important moments preserved in quality video
Setting up a library iPad program–Over the past several months, we have been looking at many ways to proactively help our patrons become more comfortable with new technology, such as ebooks, ebook readers, PDF annotation software, and mobile interfaces.
Apps in Education: Introducing the free iPad 2 Starter Guide
Choosing a Good Stylus for your iPad–If you are looking to buy a good stylus for your iPad, this detailed video comparison should help you decide which stylus would be perfect for your needs
5 Document Collaboration Tools for the iPad–Continuing our series on iPad apps for work, today we’ll look at document collaboration tools for the iPad
iPad Video Tutorial: How to Find Free iPad Guides & Manuals | iPad Academy–How to find free how-to guides for the iPad. In this brief iPad video tutorial, I show you simple ways to find free iPad guidebooks on how to use your iPad.
The Best iPhone And iPad Apps You Missed This Week–Sign legitimate documents using your finger, solve 3D puzzles, and track your family members on a map.
The Top 4 Ways To Listen To Music On Your iPad–When it comes to just listening to music alone on the iPad, there’s a variety of ways you can do it. Whether it’s listening to specific artists or songs of your choice from your own library, from the net, or listening to various radio stations depending on your preferred genre of music. You can even use the iPad as a way to explore and discover new music
5 New History iPad / iPod Apps « History Tech–Keeping up with education-friendly iPad and iPod apps is getting more and more difficult, good ones end up slipping past me. But I have run across a few pretty cool things that you might enjoy.

Miscellaneous

The 50 most significant moments of Internet history | Crave | CNET UK–The Internet has revolutionised the way we live, over almost 50 years of development. In this feature, we detail the 50 defining moments we feel are most significant to the Web
13 Essential Twitter Tips | TechnoBuffalo–Think you know all there is to know about Twitter? You probably should think again
For More Students, Working on Wikis Is Part of Making the Grade – NYTimes.com–Students in Singapore are being asked to build their own wiki pages as a way to learn to deal with the public, and other editors, online.
The 5 Coolest ‘Google Search Hacks’ You Probably Never Realized Existed–Search results are only as good as the query you enter! While there are many operands or search operators that the general crowd is aware of, such as quotes or some calculations, there are several cool Google search hacks and tricks that most people have never realized existed, let alone used consciously.
3 Great Sites That Help You Read Books By Email–Maybe the single most important reason for reading books by email is convenience. Come to think of it, when we spend most of our waking hours staring at a computer screen and reading all sorts of stuff like emails, tweets, social scraps, and feeds – why should books be left behind?
The 8 Most Useful DOS Commands That You Should Memorize–Windows 7 still features a command prompt window. so there’s still a place for DOS commands. So for those of you that like the idea of typing in a few commands to avoid the hassle of several mouse clicks, I’m going to review eight of what I consider to be the most essential and helpful DOS commands that are still available in Windows 7.
Syllables—Livebinder–Activities and resources about Syllables
The Past, Present & Future of Email [INFOGRAPHIC]–Our reliance on social media, instant messaging, texting and especially email is growing at a rapid rate, according to a new study.
Live Online Web Collaboration With Channel.me–An easy and convenient way of sharing a browsing session with friends without using IMs, Skype, or similar tools is the Channel.me service
The WordPress Blogging Tutorial Series | Mathematics and Multimedia–The WordPress Blogging Tutorial series is a series of step by step tutorials on how to blog in WordPress.com. This tutorial is dedicated to absolute beginners, so it is easy to follow.
Pimero: Free Alternative to Outlook | Free Software–Pimero is a free email client that can be used as an alternative to Microsoft Outlook. Download Pimero Free.
Top 10 math help sites :: squareCircleZ–Here are some of the best places to ask your math questions, each at zero cost.
9 Unique and Useful Ways to Use Evernote | Mac.AppStorm–Evernote is one of my favorite apps. It’s simple, useful, and the take it has on notebook apps is pretty unrivalled by any other piece of software
20 Best Websites To Download Free EBooks–Design weblog for designers, bloggers and tech users. Covering useful tools, tutorials, tips and inspirational photos.
10 Educational History Podcasts To Subscribe & Listen To–A lot of us left history back in the classrooms. For some it made for ponderous reading. Thanks to the many history podcasts available for free on the web, listening to it is both entertaining and educational. Now, with the help of these ten history podcasts we try to combine the best of both worlds.
25 Websites To Have Fun With Your Photos–Design weblog for designers, bloggers and tech users. Covering useful tools, tutorials, tips and inspirational photos