111 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed–Treasure Chest July 3, 2011

It has been a HUGE week in EdTech this week with ISTE 2011, Google+, Microsoft 365 and the rumor of Facebook’s big announcement next week (can someone say videochat).

I’m writing this introduction before I start wading through everything I’ve collected this past week. Not everything I think is important when I collect it makes it into the final list. However, even before I start the list, something tells me that this may be my biggest Treasure Chest ever.

So, welcome to this week’s edition of Treasure Chest—111 (Yes-111!!!) 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!

Featured

• The Nerdy Teacher: 10 Things I Hate About You (#ISTE11)–A must read for all educators!
• The Innovative Educator: Bring ISTE Unplugged Home – Anytime/Anywhere–If you’re weren’t able to go to The International Society of Technology Educators conference, you can still enjoy all the ISTE Unplugged sessions anytime/anywhere courtesy of Steve Hargadon and his lovely assistant, Carolyn (aka his daughter).  All sessions and materials (including mine!) can be found at http://ISTEUnplugged.wikispaces.com
• ISTE Keynote Fail « Ideas and Thoughts–Given the “T” in ISTE, stands for Technology, it would seem to me that the keynotes should, in some way address technology. They didn’t. That’s not to say they didn’t offer value. Given that only one of them was a K-12 educator…
• Facebook To Unveil Skype-Powered Video Chat Next Week [CONFIRMED]–Facebook’s “awesome” announcement next week has been spoiled. The social network will reportedly be unveiling a Skype-powered video chat platform.
• Free Technology for Teachers: Many Books – 29,000 Free eBooks–Many Books is a service that has indexed more than 29,000 free ebooks that are available in a variety of formats for a variety of devices
• 107 Best Websites On The Web–Here you go, the best 107 websites for all your needs. We’ve taken the effort to categorize the websites and picked only those we believe to be the best ones and which will most likely be useful to you. Spread the word!
• Justin Tarte – Life of an Educator…: 10 reasons to get educators blogging…
• A Digital Social Media Educator in an Analog System « My Island View–Beyond relevance, social media offers an incredible amount of connectivity to educators on a global scale.
• Schools Using Google Apps Receive 25GB Email Boost–Since launch, Gmail has been notorious for offering more space and features than other email providers.
• Google Plus: Is This the Social Tool Schools Have Been Waiting For?–There seem to be three forces at play when it comes to education and social media.
• How To Use Google Plus–Waiting for a Google Plus invite? Google is rolling out the service in waves and you can expect it to become a ubiquitous social option in the coming months. We have been playing with the service since getting invites yesterday and there are a lot of things to like about Google’s new social initiative
• The AppStorm Guide to Google+–A decade ago, most of us had never even heard of the idea of a social network. Today, after the very phrase Social Network was used as the title of a movie,
• Google’s New Google+ Social Network: Hands On | News & Opinion | PCMag.com–Google’s new Google+ social network, currently in a…
• 6 Things Google+ Can Do That Facebook Can’t – Slideshow from PCMag.com
• First Night With Google Plus: This is Very Cool–I thought I’d type up some notes after an evening of using Google’s new social network, Google Plus. This is a really big deal, a super ambitious effort involving scores of engineers over months of near total secrecy.
• Google+: The Pros & Cons–Here are some pros and cons of Google+, from the social network’s early users.
• 9 Reasons to Switch from Facebook to Google+ | PCWorld–Can Google+ steal users from Facebook? Yep. There are good reasons to switch from Facebook to Google+, ranging from ease-of-use to respect for data privacy
• My 5 Take-Aways from Edubloggercon | School Technology Ideas–I am currently hanging out in the blogger cafe at ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia and having a great time with my fellow bloggers
• Stop the tech snobbery | The Cornerstone–If we want to ever get technophobes comfortable with technology, those of us who love the stuff have got to stop being tech snobs
• 50 Ways to Integrate Technology – Ways to Anchor Technology in Your Classroom Tomorrow–Using Free Websites as Learning & Teaching Tools
• Free Technology for Teachers: 9 Places to Find Creative Commons & Public Domain Images–When students create multimedia projects they might be tempted to simply do a Google Images search and use the first images they see. But as educators we have a responsibility to teach students to respect copyright holders’ rights
• Apps in Education: Can you really use Twitter in your Classroom?–So how can you use twitter in the classroom?
• PBS Launches New Resource For Teachers Today | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…–PBS Learning Media is launching today. This is how they describe it
• Tony Vincent’s Learning in Hand – Blog – Apps for Project-Based Learning–I presented Project-Based Learning in Hand at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in Philadelphia. Here are my notes for the session.
• Winnipeg schools ban posting of school videos, photos – CTV News–A little more than a year after it was embarrassed by an online video of two young teachers lap dancing at a pep rally, the Winnipeg School Division is trying to toughen restrictions on posting photos or videos from school events on the Internet.
• “Bubble and Pebble” on AppStore! | Ozge Karaoglu’s Blog–I have been creating  edtech materials for young and very young learners with my kindergarten kids for the last three years at my school.
• Infographics–This site will provide you with links, ideas, tips, and much more for supporting the use of infographics as an assessment option in the classroom. The site has three informational pages, linked on the right.
• What Do You Love: Google’s Ultimate Mashup–Google has launched a new, mysterious service called What Do You Love
• 7 Outlandish ideas for ICT – Articles – Educational Technology – ICT in Education–The Educational Technology – ICT in Education website is aimed at teachers, users, leaders and managers of educational ICT
• The World of 7 Billion—Interactive Infographic–National Geographic Magazine—check out this cool interactive infographic from National Geographic
• Tech Rav: Top Ten Free Educational Technology Applications I Learned (More) About at #ISTE11–For this posting, I will limit my list to new resources I learned about at the ISTE 2011 Conference or innovative applications of resources that I already use. Here it goes in descending order.
• Finding Ways for All Kids to Flourish: 11 Mistakes I Made At #ISTE11–Ok, so I know that I usually strive to share upbeat, inspiring, positive posts, but I think it’s also valuable to share those moments when I goof up.
• 3 Keys for a Successful E-Portfolio Implementation — THE Journal–E-portfolios can be used to do more than just demonstrate student progress toward standards. They can also allow students to show who they are as individuals, while also providing a means to track a student’s growth from kindergarten all the way through high school and beyond.
• Technology Usage Parent Letter and Consent Form–Internet safety and education is always at the forefront of my mind when I work with technology in the classroom.  It is therefore important for me to have my parents have an understanding and some control over their child’s work and image as it relates to usage and access.
• Note-Taking at ISTE : 2¢ Worth–Quite a few people have commented on the note files that I have been sharing from the ISTE 2011 conference in Philadelphia. So I thought I would share some details about my note-taking process.

Tools

• Gazette » 50 Web Applications for Teachers–Here is a collection of 50 web applications that make the grade for tech-savvy teachers:
• Animaps–Create and view beautifully informative animated maps, for free!
• Knovio | Online Video Presentations Made Easy | PowerPoint + Webcam–Knovio: an easy-to-use tool to create interactive online video presentations using a webcam and PowerPoint slides. Powered by KnowledgeVision technology.
• Facebook Engineers Build Google+ Inspired Facebook Hack–With many asserting that Google+ is heavily Facebook influenced, Facebook engineers Vladimir Kolesnikov, Peng Fan, Zahan Malkani, Brian Rosenthal have flipped the switch and taken inspiration from the novel Google Circles design with Circlehack, a much simpler tool to build Facebook Friend lists.
• ZOMOBO – the real-time encyclopedia–Zomobo integrates content from multiple web services to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of every topic. Its articles feature videos, images, news, blogs, books, documents, products, social answers, twitter, and more.
• Blade Runner: Free Portable Office Suite | Free Software–Blade Runner is a portable free office suite that can be used from Flash Drive, Memory Stick or any portable memory. Download Blade Runner Free.
• Show Me – create and share interactive lessons mobile app | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning–Practical tips and tutorials about using web2.0 tools and mobile apps in education for users,teachers, students, leaders, and managers of educational ICT
• Show Beyond – Great online presentation tool for teachers–Show Beyond is a multimedia slideshow creator that allows users to upload images, add sounds (narration) and text to create multimedia stories.
• 3 Tools To Download Facebook Photo Albums–Storing your personal photos and sharing them with your contacts is one of the most popular Facebook features.Today’s post shares three tools to download your and your friends’ photo albums.
• Create your own Facebook Book–The Facebook app analyzes your entire Facebook activity – your status updates, photo albums, events you’ve attended, etc. – and turns them into an elegant printed book.
• Making Web Tools Work in the Classroom
• Google Swiffy–Swiffy converts SWF files to HTML5, allowing you to reuse Flash content on devices without a Flash player.
• Convert Flash SWF Files To HTML5: Embed HTML5 Version Of Flash Files–You can use Google’s Swiffy tool to convert Flash objects and SWF files to their HTML5 version, without installing any encoding software. The HTML5 conversion of Flash files can be embedded in webpages
• Create Tutorials in One Click on Tildee !–Create Tutorials in One Click on Tildee ! – Find How to Do Things
• Google Forms – More Than Just Multiple Choice—Livebinder–Information from ISTE 11 BYOL Session
• PrimaryPad – Superfunky collaborative writing for schools–PrimaryPad is a web-based word processor designed for schools that allows pupils and teachers to work together in real-time

How-To

• Start Your Own Peer-To-Peer Online Educational Course For Free–In past articles we have shared a wealth of free online college courses, as well as courses for free download in iTunes U, hosted by popular universities around the country. But if you have the skills and dedication for sharing your knowledge and collaborating with others online, the newly revamped grassroots website, Peer 2 Peer University allows anyone to start and offer an online course on any subject.
• 10 ways to screw up your spreadsheet design | TechRepublic–How you set up a spreadsheet determines its efficiency, usability, and reliability
• Disable ‘Checking for Solution to Problem’ in Windows 7–When something goes wrong in your Windows 7 such as abnormal termination of a application, we see message ‘Windows is checking for a solution to the problem….’
• How to Save Videos from Browser Cache for Offline Viewing–Many times we come across scenarios in which you want to save the videos you watched earlier so that you can view them later without the need of internet connection.
• Upload to Google Docs Easily from Desktop–If you are using Google Docs to keep your documents online, then you can now easily upload documents to Google Docs right from your desktop.
• How To Find And Watch YouTube 3D content–Love it or hate it, 3D is here to stay. It’s a natural progression of visual displays, and I’m kind of bored of hearing it’s a fad. So let’s take this opportunity to look at something which is in fact, quite clearly a fad – yes, YouTube in 3D.
• How to setup Netgear or any Wireless Router Network | The Windows Club–Follow these guidelines and tips for setting up a secured wireless network through a Netgear or any Router.
• How to Send HTML Emails with Gmail and Google Docs–Meet HTML Mail, an online WYSIWYG editor for composing email messages in pure HTML that you can then send using your Google Docs and Gmail account.
• How To Convert A PowerPoint 2010 Presentation Into A Video With One Click–Converting a PowerPoint slide to a video has lots of uses. It can be used to send a cluster of pictures to someone who does not have PowerPoint or a PowerPoint viewer installed. Microsoft Office 2010 has come in with a slew of user-friendly new features. One of the new features in PowerPoint 2010 helps you create a video with just a click
• How to Setup a System from Scratch? The Best Order for Installing Everything | Windows 7 Tutorials–Do you have a brand new computer on which you need to install and configure everything: from the operating system, to drivers, applications, plug-ins, etc.? Do you need to delete everything from an “old” computer and reinstall it all from scratch? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, then you are in luck!
• Four Dropbox Tips That Are Lesser Known–If you’re using Dropbox, there are quite a few things you can do to make the application a little more useful. Check out this list of four Dropbox tips
• 12 disc burning tips | News | TechRadar UK–12 disc burning tips Squeeze more data onto a disc, burn audio discs and more
• 7 Great Uses For QR Codes & How To Generate Your Own For Free–Quick response codes, or QR codes for short, have been used for a few years now to provide rapid access to URLs, messages or contact information. Marketing and advertising departments love QR codes, as with a simple scan, even more advertising related to their product can be delivered straight to your thumbs.
• How To Customize, Delete & Arrange Photos In Your Facebook Photo Album–The ability to share your personal photos with your friends and relatives is the most favorite feature of Facebook. However as much as we use Facebook, we are still completely unaware of how many of its most obvious features work. The site has numerous options and features and consequently there are quite a few usability issues with many great options being hidden.
• Google Voice: a cheapskate’s guide to cheap VOIP | ZDNet–In this article, we look at how you can make and receive Google Voice phone calls from any old wired phone you may have lying around your house
• Share Google Plus Posts And Updates On Your Facebook, Twitter Account–You can use a google Chrome ectension to share posts and updates of Google Plus in Facebook and Twitter. Cross post status updates and links shared in Google Plus to your Facebook and Twitter profiles
• Use Google Plus Circles With Facebook Friends List Without Google Plus–You can use circlehack to use Google circles with Facebook friend lists. Put Facebook friends into Google circles, create new lists or delete existing circles

iOS

• Game Over: Five Reasons the iPhone 5 Will Dominate | PCWorld–When the iPhone 5 finally arrives, it will be like 2007 all over again, and smartphone rivals will be left scrambling and trying to catch up to Apple’s dominance
• Using Wikipedia on the iPad when you don’t have Internet access | iGo With My iPad–Very few apps on the iPad will work without being able to connect to the Internet
• Virtual Frog Dissection | Educational iPad App–Virtual Frog Dissection – This app for stress free dissections and/or a quick refresher course on frog dissections
• Five free iPhone games you need to play right now | iPhone Atlas – CNET Reviews–Some of them are only temporarily free, so don’t wait to score some of these killer games (only some of which involve actual killing). Read this blog post by Rick Broida on iPhone Atlas.
• The Top 4 Websites To Find Free iPad Books–While not being as fun as paper books or as easy on the eyes as other dedicated eReaders, the iPad provides a good way to read thousands of eBooks without buying another specialized device. Below I mention several websites where you can find loads of free books for your iPad.
• Turn An iOS Device Into A PC With PocketCloud (iPad Review) | iPad Feed–Wyse is a company name that might be familiar to many. Around for the past 30 years, Wyse has been responsible for numerous personal computers back in the 1980s
• Top iPad 2 Tips for Work–You can use the iPad and iPad 2 to get real work done, whether it’s editing Office documents, printing, dictating notes, syncing important data with the cloud, browsing the web with tabs browsing, accessing your desktop, and even using your iPad as a second monitor for your laptop.
• An App That Pretends Your iPhone Is Dead So People Will Stop Borrowing It–Don’t you hate it when your friends with crappy Android phones loaded with crappy games asks to borrow your iPhone to play something that isn’t crappy? Then they bleed the battery dry and you feel like a used tool. Crappy!
• Get Posting With Gorgeous New Tumblr iPhone App–If you are part of the Tumblr Nation, and a growing number of you are, then you will want to download Tumblr’s new iPhone app, redesigned from the ground up with a new interface. It loads up your Tumblr Dashboard stream, but the post button brings up six simple icons for each post type: text, photo, link, quote, audio, and video.And then, of course, you can post photos or videos right from your phone.
• For the iPad, Books That Respond to a Child’s Touch – NYTimes.com–Interactive children’s books for the iPad are becoming more engaging and, in some cases, more visually stunning.
• The Top 5 Websites For iPad App Reviews–Finding good iPad apps in these new fangled app marketplaces is hard enough at the best of times, so let me show you 5 of the best sites I use to find great iPad apps and those little hidden gems, without having to trawl through the entire app store
• iPad Resources for Administrators–Prices change often so please check in the iTunes store for current pricing of apps. You may also want to read the reviews before downloading new apps. Please check out the other pages here, too!
• The Top Five Tips to Get a Grant to Buy a Ipad–While iPads was not necessarily designed to help students with special needs, many special need students have excelled with use of a iPad. Many parents and teachers have found excellent use for iPads with some autistic children and children with eye sight issues. Ipads has also been used with success with whole classrooms, an may in the future replace textbooks. Because iPads can cost close to $500 a piece, grant funding to pay costs is a must for some students. Below are a few tips on how to get a grant to buy a iPad.
• Five Great iPad Apps for Toddlers – NYTimes.com–There are more than 700 apps tagged for toddlers in Apple’s App store. Here are some of the best ones.
• Apps in Education: Elementray iPad: E-mag–Laura Wright was been kind enough to publish her issuu e-book on the iPads in the Classroom PLN.
• EA game sale: 99 cents for most iPhone, iPad titles | iPhone Atlas – CNET Reviews–Got a buck to spare? You can get a killer EA title like Dead Space or Max and the Magic Marker and even get a penny back in change. Read this blog post by Rick Broida on iPhone Atlas.
• iPad Book Apps | Kirkus Book Reviews
• Apple iPad, Day 2: Choosing the Right iPad | PCWorld Business Center–The iPad comes in a variety of models, so today I am breaking down some of the factors to consider in determining which iPad is the right iPad for replacing a notebook PC
• ShowMe – The Interactive Learning Community–ShowMe is an open learning community where anyone can learn and teach any topic. Our iPad app lets you easily create and share video lessons.

Miscellaneous

• Free Technology for Teachers: Notes.io – Quickly Take and Share Notes–Notes.io is a new service that offers a simple platform for taking and sharing notes.
• Is This The Tipping Point For E-Books & Libraries?–The American Library Association (ALA) has just released its 2011 Public Library Funding and Technology Access Survey, and among its findings, 67% of public libraries in the U.S. now offer free access to e-books for their patrons.
• 8 More Word Games You Can Play To Sharpen Your Language Skills–Every wordsmith also needs to sharpen his axe from time to time. One of the best grindstones for that can be the numerous word games avilable online for free. They not only let you play with letters, words, and sentences – but also give you a break from the occasional tedium. Let your creativity flow with these eight online word games while you take a break from your day job.
• Tammy’s Top 20 Favorite Web Tools!
• 7 Free Online Educational Game Sites (Help Kids Keep School Skills Sharp During Summer) | Emerging Education Technology–As summer kicked off in the last few years, I’ve been sharing tips and tools to help young students hone schools skills while having some fun.
• 10 Tumblr Tips You Should Know–Tumblr, one of the best microblogging platform that allows you to post text, pictures, videos, links, quotes, audios to their tumblr blog right from anywhere
• Open Educational Resources: Share, Remix, Learn Livebinder–A set of resources about OER in K-12
• 10 Hidden Features in Facebook – Slideshow from PCMag.com
• Two Cost Free Ways To Sign & Send Digital Documents–With so many online and software solutions for creating managing, and reading documents, there’s little reason these days— especially in computer-centered environments—to use paper and ink.
• Math at Basketball Practice? « Math Teachers Can Write Too–One of the girls is in my math class and we had just spent the last few weeks learning about quadratic equations, so I figured what better time than now to have her apply the concepts we learned.
• The 50 Best Chrome Web Store Apps–Although the Chrome Web Store hasn’t had the instant success Apple’s iOS App Store experienced, especially for developers, it’s still an awesome resource —
• PLN Challenge #4: Making Time To Build Your PLN | Teacher Challenge–This guest post was written by Sarah Poling who is passionate about finding and using technology as a motivator and time saver.
• 23 Websites to Support Math Automaticity in K-5 « Ask a Tech Teacher–Summer is when parents worry about math facts and the automaticity of math skills. The following websites focus solely on that facet of math.
• Thanks to Google Plus, Picasa Gets Unlimited Storage for Photos & Videos, Also Better Tagging–With the launch of Google Plus, there may be some confusion as to how the photos uploaded to the social network (Google+) integrate with Google’s online photo-sharing service (Picasa), especially in terms of storage limits
• Office 365 vs. Google Docs Showdown: Feature by Feature | PCWorld Business Center–With Tuesday’s launch of Office 365, Microsoft is ready to go head-to-head with Google on its own turf. How do the Web-based Microsoft tools stack up against Google’s?
• Opera’s Newest Browser is Amazingly Fast, Offers New Take on Speed Dial–Norway-based Opera has released the newest version of its Web browser today, promising faster speeds, a streamlined and lightweight user interface and several new extensions
• [[Freebie] “Educons” Icon Set (PSD included)–To continue our grateful thanks to our readers and community in general, we are glad to release yet another freebie: Educons, an icon set with 15 quality
• 20 Sites You Need to Know to Get a Custom Twitter Background | blueblots.com–Changing your default blue Twitter background into a fully customized Twitter page makes your account stand out from the rest of the tweeting crowd
• 10 Apps To Make Your Old Windows Mobile Phone Useful–The other night, I stumbled upon my old Windows Mobile phone. Why do I have this great device stashed away in a drawer, when it could be put to good use
• 2011 AP Exam Score Distribution–A list of some of Total Registration’s client schools who are using our AP exam registration service.

Video/Slideshow

YouTube – ISTE Music Video: Say Hey (I Love School)

YouTube – ISTE 2011 Opening Keynote: Dr. John Medina (full-length)–Webcast archive of the ISTE 2011 opening keynote presentation featuring Dr. John Medina with a welcome by ISTE President Holly Jobe.

YouTube – ‪GOOD: 4th of July – the Real Fireworks‬‏–We asked our community, ‘What do you love about America?

YouTube – ‪ISTE 2011 Closing Keynote: Chris Lehmann (full)‬‏–The full-length webcast archive from the ISTE 2011 closing keynote featuring Chris Lehmann.

Related articles

• 70 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed – Treasure Chest May 15, 2011 (jeffthomastech.com)
• 89 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed – Treasure Chest Mother’s Day 2011 (jeffthomastech.com)
• Google+: Its Influence and Impact (benzinga.com)
• How To : Preview Google + without an invite (bharatkashyap.wordpress.com)

Tagged as: Edtech, Facebook, Google, iPad, Resources, Treasure