76 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed–Treasure Chest September 11, 2011

Welcome to this week’s edition of Treasure Chest—76 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!

Of course, today is the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. There is no shortage of resources available to commemorate the anniversary.

• 9/11 TV Coverage Compiled in Internet Archive | PCWorld–”Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive” is a time capsule offering 3000 hours of news coverage from the week of September 11, 2001.
• The Best Sites To Help Teach About 9/11–This list is focused on sites that talk about the day itself. I do, however, include one or two resources that provide some historical perspective.

Featured

• Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value – NYTimes.com–Schools are embracing digital learning, but evidence is scarce that the expensive technology is improving educational outcomes
• Test Scores, Tech Budgets, and Other Reasons to Doubt Ed-Tech | Hack Education–Well kids, it’s back to the drawing board, I guess
• Schools, technology, test scores, and the New York Times | Dangerously Irrelevant–Earlier this week the New York Times wondered whether investments in educational technology were worth it since most schools don’t see any…
• Scott McLeod: Schools, Technology, Test Scores, and the New York Times–Can educators really claim to be relevant to life outside of schools while simultaneously ignoring the technological transformations that surround them?
• What teachers really want to tell parents – CNN.com–A principal who was loved and adored by all told me she was leaving the profession because ” I just can’t deal with parents anymore; they are killing us.”
• Engaging Parents In School… – Jeez, What Was Ron Clark Thinking?–I hope any teacher reading it ends up following the opposite of some of the advice he gives
• Digital schools : software first | Ethan Beardsley–All this investment in hardware doesn’t make sense unless you can provide kids with great software and a structured approach that’s designed to help them master their core skills.
• LiveScribe in the Classroom Livebinder–Resources and ideas for implementing the LiveScribe smartpen in the classroom

• A New Way to Teach Math: Maturely | Knewton Blog–Ultimately, we simply need to teach math in a way we would want to be taught math–that is, maturely.
• The 12 Most Important Things Children Want From Their Teachers – 12 Most | 12 Most–Angela Maiers Shares The 12 Most Important Things Children Want From Their Teachers
• Technology Does Not Equal 21st Century Learning | Connected Principals–As our school embarks on a mission to become more of a 21st Century school combined with the fact that we are now a Google Apps school I have gotten a number of questions about technology and our dependency on it. One answer I gave is that I am sure there were [...]
• Seth’s Blog: Back to (the wrong) school–A hundred and fifty years ago, adults were incensed about child labor. Low-wage kids were taking jobs away from hard-working adults. Sure, there was some moral outrage at seven-year olds losing fingers and being abused at work, but the economic…
• Assessment: Formative, Summative, Punitive? « My Island View–This has brought to light a subject that I often fought against as a teacher, and now have to counsel student teachers on how best to approach the subject. Summer Reading: how do we assess it?
• for the love of learning: My response to Ron Clark–At best the messages delivered by Clark are unhelpful and at worst they may be harmful.
• Father: Why Isn’t Facebook Keeping My Kid Off Its Site? | Techdirt–And now reader Paddy Duke alerts us to the story of a Northern Irishman and his quest to get Facebook to keep his 12 year old daughter off its site. Because, really, who else could possibly accomplish such a feat? He is apparently suing Facebook for negligence.
• The Innovative Educator: Student Inspires Educators to Think Outside the Ban–If his school wouldn’t let him unleash the 21st century learner trapped outside the school walls, he’d take matters into his own hands.
• Technology Does Not Make a Classroom Succesful, the Teacher Does « Cooperative Catalyst–It appears that technology is sweeping the nation as the answer to the “broken” education system in America.  Everywhere you turn school districts are touting their Interactive Whiteboards, their iPads, their one to one systems and anything else tech related.  Since I am techie myself, most people assume that I think this is a good thing.  Well, you’re wrong
• Teaching Copyright in the Age of Computers and Mashups | Edutopia–I wish I could say that teaching students about copyright is easy, because in a world where digital tools are making creating and sharing content easier than ever, understanding copyright is incredibly important.
• Five characteristics of an effective 21st-century educator | Featured on eSchool News | eSchoolNews.com–Today’s educators are constantly evaluating the skills that students need to compete in the global economy. But what are the characteristics or skills needed to be an effective 21st-century educator? We recently posed this question to readers, and here are their top responses.

Tools

• Five Best Note Taking Applications–Whether you’re headed back to school this fall or you just want a better way to keep your notes, memos, and other tidbits of information organized, you have a number of applications to choose from. Some of them just help you get your thoughts down quickly, others sync with online services that organize your notes for you. Here are, based on your nominations, the top five apps or services for the job.
• Screeny Is a Great, Free Screencasting and Screenshot Tool for the Mac–While we love Screenflow for screencasting, it’s not exactly cheap. The built-in screen recorder in Quicktime Player is free, but it’s pretty lacking in features. Screeny is an app that provides you with a free screen recording that provides control over what you’re recording.
• Free Technology for Teachers: Draw It Live – A Simple, Free, Collaborative Whiteboard–Draw It Live offers a free space for you to instantly create a collaborative whiteboard to use with anyone you like
• 20 Tools To Help You Schedule Tweets on Twitter | blueblots.com–These tools will keep your account updated regularly. Happy tweeting!
• 8 Word Cloud Makers for teachers | The Whiteboard Blog–A word cloud is an attractive way of visualising a large chunk of text in a more pleasing way. It shows the most frequent words used throughout the text
• The Top 5 Free Video Tools For Students – Edudemic–Here is a roundup of five free tools which allow users to create, play, convert, edit and burn video files.
• Correlate. A Fascinating New Research Tool From Google–Correlate works in reverse.  Use your mouse to draw a graph, freehand, spanning the time period from 2003 to the present.  Google then looks through its database of searches to find things whose popularity, over the years, most closely matches the curve that you drew.
• 18 Tools to Combine RSS Feeds into a Single Feed | blueblots.com–If you are the type of person who likes to subscribe to a number of blogs, loves to keep track to favorite websites to be updated with information or who wants to read content from different sources then this post is definitely for you because we are showcasing several tools which allows you to combine multiple RSS feeds into a single customized feed
• Download Back to School, Firefox Campus Edition for Students | The Windows Club–The Firefox Back to School edition comes pre-loaded with some useful add-ons for students and parents ready for school.
• 4 More Things You Didn’t Know VLC Could Do–VLC is great. As simple as that. This time round, we have rounded up a few more great features about VLC that you may not know.
• StreamWriter 3 Released, Internet Radio Stream Recording Software–Recording Internet Radio streams is without doubt one of the best ways to increase a music collection legally
• 4 Awesome Online Resources for Creating QR Codes–QR Codes. They look like barcodes that have gotten wet and smudged. You’ve probably seen them. In fact, they’re everywhere: on the web, in print ads, on business cards, and even on the sides of buildings. All you need to do is scan a QR code with your smartphone and you’re either taken to a website or you get some information about a person or a business

How-To

• 6 Tips To Make Google Reader Easier To Use–I know I use Google Reader to catch up on my favorite sites. The hard part is making your experience easier. Usually easier means you will use it more. Here are a few ways to make Google Reader easier to use.
• How To Set your Default Notebook in Evernote–As more and more applications integrate with Evernote, it’s important to have the correct Notebook set as the default to ensure messages and notes end up in the correct one.
• 2 New Shortcuts To Search for Photos and Videos on Twitter–As many of you all be using the new interface, twitter has introduced two new features a week back. They are ‘Photo galleries and Video galleries”. Now you can search for any photos or videos shared on twitter with exact keyword and all the photos, videos are listed in their galleries.
• Learn How to Use Windows 7′s Advanced Search Operators – How-To Geek–While many people feel searching in Windows is less than ideal, 7’s abilities are fairly amazing. The big trick to unlocking them, however, lies in Advanced Query Syntax. Using these advanced operators can make finding files dead simple.
• How to Create a Flow Chart in Microsoft Word–Flowcharts are excellent for presentations and organizing ideas. They can also be a pain to make. The boss tells you to make a flowchart and you dread it.
• Download Videos From Facebook, Vimeo, Metacafe Using Freemake Video Downloader –How to Download Videos From Facebook, Vimeo, Metacafe and Many More Using Freemake Video Downloader.
• Recognize and Tag Faces in Photos Using Windows Live Photo Gallery–How to Recognize and Tag Faces in Photos Using Windows Live Photo Gallery.
• Installing a USB Wireless Adapter on a Desktop Computer | Windows 7 Tutorials–If you want to get rid of wires, you will be tempted to use USB wireless network adapters on your desktop computers. We created this tutorial to guide you through the process of installing a USB wireless network adapter on your Windows 7 computer.
• Free Technology for Teachers: 7 Ways to Avoid Inbox Overload When Collecting Assignments–I’ve compiled this list of good ways to share large files without the need for sending email attachments.
• How-To Use Email to Send Information to Your Evernote Notebook–Evernote is a great tool for productivity and with an amazing price of $0.00 for the standard version, it’s easily in my top 10 of favorite freeware apps.  Although we introduced Evernote to you a few months back, today I will show you how to easily integrate Evernote into your daily routine using Email to send bookmarks, reminders or To-Do’s right into your Evernote Notebook.
• Connecting to Remote Computers via Windows Live Mesh | Windows 7 Tutorials–This guide will show how to make a remote desktop connection, how to disconnect a connection and how to configure details such as the size of the screen using during the remote session.
• 5 Gmail Tips for Teachers | The Thinking Stick–As we move to Google Apps for Education at my school I gave a quick 10 minute talk at a staff meeting on 5 Gmail Tips for Teachers. Here they are:
• Learn Even More Windows 7 Search Tricks to Find Files Easier – How-To Geek–Following our article on Advanced Query Syntax in Windows 7, commenters voiced their frustration with Windows Search. Here, we have a few tweaks you can use to get the functionality you want, but we also consider some alternative search programs.
• How To Cancel Drag And Drop Operations In Windows–Drag and drop operations can be very handy in Windows Explorer. You can use drag and drop to quickly copy or move files to another location

iOS

• 350+ Best Kids Apps Reviewed–Below you can find all of our (350 in total!) best app reviews as well as a list of how to tips for parents. Educational iPhone, iPod Apps for Kids Not all learning happens from books; now kids can learn straight from the iPad, iPhone or iPod. With such a wide…
• Teacher’s iPad Experiment Shows Possibilities for Classroom Technology – Education – GOOD–An Ohio English teacher decided to test whether iPads were a worthwhile investment for his school district.
• 5 Free iPad Games To Amuse You This Weekend–Weekends are for rest and recreation. Though the wise among us would recommend a day out in the country, you really can’t do much if the weather refuses to be sunny and bright. The TV isn’t such a good idea. If you have an iPad, let these cool iPad games take the bad weather out of the equation
• Blogger Finally Releases an iPhone App–Google has finally launched an iOS app for Blogger, giving its millions of users a simple way to write and publish posts from their iPhones.
• The iPad Doesn’t Bite by Vicki Windman–Questions I commonly hear are What are Apps and how do I get them? Where do I find them? and, of course, How do I use one iPad for a whole class? I will address each of these questions below.
• Share Favorite iOS Apps On Facebook With Kinetik–Looking for some cool apps for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch? Perhaps your Facebook friends can help by using Kinetik.
• Free Online iTunes Science Classes–Even if you’ve been out of school for years, there’s no need to feel left out while watching kids head back to the classroom, as you have a free resource to get your learning on.
• Set up or configure Hotmail on iPad / iPhone / iPod Touch using Active Sync | The Windows Club–This article will show you step-by-step how to set up Windows Live Hotmail on your iOS devices.
• The 20 most useful iPhone apps of 2011 | ZDNet–This list of 20 iPhone apps helps you sort through the chaff and find apps to help you work smarter and improve your productivity.
• How to access your Mac on your iPad | News | TechRadar UK–How to access your Mac on your iPad Use your Mac from anywhere via a remote desktop : TechRadar UK
• Free iPad Content: How to Power Search in iTunes U [ Video Tutorial ] | iPad Academy–Apple’s iTunes U offers thousands of lectures, presentations and other learning resources from leading educational institutions. Here’s how to Power Search iTunes U

Miscellaneous

• Can Mobile Phones Help Teachers Manage Classroom Behavior? | MindShift–Behavior management is actually a significant part of what teachers have to do every day, and while there’s a wealth of information to help them with tips and tricks, there isn’t a lot of technology in place to help them with the implementation of best practices.
• 29 Tips to Make You a Facebook Master–Leverage the social network’s might with tips and apps for work and play.
• Record Video Of Android Phone Screen Using Screencast Recorder Free–You can record a video screencast of your Android phone screen using the Screencast recorder application for Android. The app is free and lets you record video of Android screen, without having to install or use Android SDK on your computer
• Why is Safari Browser called Safari! | The Windows Club–So why Safari? Whats so special in this name? Though no official statement as been revealed from Apple Inc regarding its naming convention, Apple wanted its browser to have a name with a ‘verb’ in it, similar to Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer etc – some description which was apt!
• How Do We Get More Students Interested in Math, Science & Tech Careers? [INFOGRAPHIC]–80% of all careers in the next decade will require technology skills. Are we doing enough to get kids interested in math and science?
• 15 Blogging Tips for Students and Teachers | Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom–This post was originally published last year as 10 Blogging Tips for Students and Teachers. As I regularly help students and other teachers set up their…
• Innovate My School – 20 techie problems every student can fix–In schools, there are twenty problems that cause about eighty percent of the tech stoppages. I’m going to tell you what those are and how to solve them [using a Windows operated system]. Trust me, they’re easier than you think to correct. I routinely teach them to children and then they teach their parents.
• Documentary Heaven: Watch Documentaries Online–So whenever your bored, just relaxing or simply in the mood to watch something interesting, why not  pop onto our site and find a documentary that takes your interest!
• iTunes U: Apple’s Unsung Mobile Learning Platform | Hack Education–There’s plenty of hyperbole when it comes to Apple’s impact on education and specifically on mobile learning. Cue claims of …
• Internet of Yesterday & Today: 1996 vs. 2011 [INFOGRAPHIC]–Where were you in 1996? If you were in cyberspace, surfing the World Wide Web, chances are you were waiting a long time for pages to load and suffering through some god-awful graphics.
• Five Reasons Why YouTube Rocks the Classroom | MindShift–Jon Corippo, a Google Certified Teacher and Apple Distinguished Educator, was among the group, and came back with ideas about what YouTube was great for.
• 10 Reasons Teachers should give Twitter a go | The Creative Education Blog–If you can’t decide whether or not to give Twitter a go, here are some ideas to sway you.
• Stump The Teacher: My Issues With Homework–Here are a few of the reasons that I struggle with the idea of assigning students homework
• Judge rules in favor of employees fired over Facebook post, orders them back to work – Engadget–The National Labor Relations Board has weighed in on the role of social networking at the office, determining that employees can’t be fired for what
• SMARTBoards and Fun Word Activities – Teachers Love SMART Boards–These three interactive word games from the Merriam-Webster website are great supplemental resources for the SMART Board classroom.
• Keeping Kids Safe Online at Home–Fun and safe activities kids can do online.
• 5 Ways Twitter Has Changed Education | MindShift–The short, 140-character-or-less messages were once dismissed as recording solely the banalities of life, but Twitter has become an important tool for breaking news and sharing information.
• 10 Things You Can Do For Fun & Learning On The Library Of Congress Online–The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. 33 million books (838 miles of shelves) is quite a lot of reading. Just to boggle your mind with statistics, 10,000 new items are added to the library’s catalog each day. For those of us who have yet to experience something like the majestic Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building, an online peek is the next best option.

Video/Slideshow

• Google Search Tricks by Tony Vincent on Prezi–Use the Google search box to find exactly what you’re looking for, including answers to math problems and the current weather.

• A Principal’s Reflections: Do You Teach or Do You Educate?

Tagged as: Education, Resources, Treasure