84 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed Treasure–Chest December 4, 2011

Welcome to this week’s edition of Treasure Chest—84 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 Innovative Educator: 20 Reasons Why Standardized Testing Is Crap–As everything stands now, though, most exams just aren’t making the grade. To follow are some reasons that many believe standardized testing is crap.
• Why #Pencilchat May Be the Most Clever Education Allegory Ever – Education – GOOD–Want some insight into teacher frustrations? Just follow #pencilchat on Twitter
• ICTmagic Advent–Find a new Christmas resource everyday in December up to Christmas.
• 5 Ways to Elevate Technology Use : The Moss-Free Stone–The following suggestions are based upon my observations of teachers and students doing the really cool and powerful things that maximize the potential of our limited resources.
• A Principal’s Reflections: The Flipped Classroom Explained–I still get the sense that many educators are unsure of what this actually means and entails.  I myself have done quite a bit of research as of late to gain a better understanding.
• The Flipped Class Manifest – THE DAILY RIFF – Be Smarter. About Education.–”The Flipped Classroom is an intentional shift of content which in turn helps move students back to the center of learning rather than the products of schooling.”
• Against the Wind: Guest Post: When you REALLY Reflect Upon Awards by Chris Wejr @MrWejr–When you REALLY reflect upon awards, it is quite silly what we force our kids to sit through
• Advantages of Pen and Paper Before Designing on Computer–Tell me, when was the last time you actually wrote using pen and paper? It’s not surprising to know that you seldom use them, as we’re entering the digital age…
• The Best Articles (And Blog Posts) Offering Practical Advice To Teachers In 2011 | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…–What you’ll find here are blog posts and articles this year (some written by me, some by others) that were, in my opinion, the ones that offered the best practical advice to teachers this year
• 5 Steps to More Accurate and Efficient Google Search–Ever wondered how many websites are there in the world right now? According to Pingdom, it’s a whooping 255 million as of December 2010! A total of 21.4 million…
• Why Google Is The Most Important Learning Tool Ever Invented | Fast Company–Here, he shares some of his views on the importance of “just-in-time learning” and the “plummeting” value of traditional education.
• Rewards of Role Reversal: Teachers Learn, Students Teach | MindShift–All too often, schools find that they’ve invested heavily in education technology only to see these tools unused or classroom instruction unchanged.
• Want To Be More Productive? Download Our 24 Free PDF Cheatsheets Today–Everyone wants to feel more productive on the computer and there are certainly plenty of ways to achieve that. Whether it’s using a program launcher, keyboard shortcuts or mouse gestures, there’s something for everyone to shave off that extra mouseclick or tap of the keyboard which in turn leads to time saved every day. As an online worker, I am always looking for something that will enable me to complete my tasks faster.
• BBC News – Today – Should kids learn how computers work?–Alex Hope of the Livingstone Hope Review and the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones discuss a campaign for changes in the education system to promote better computer skills.
• The Evolution of Search: A History of Google Search [Video] – How-To Geek–Internet search has changed enormously in the last decade; this video tour of Google evolving search strategies shows us where we’ve been and where we’re going.
• Points don’t work. Respecting students does. – Crazy Teaching–Ramblings, musings, rants, and mumblings of a crazy science teacher.
• The Nerdy Teacher: What Makes Project Based Learning Effective?–After much thought, I have broken down Project Based Learning into the 5 parts that make it effective in the classroom.
• Why Hasn’t Google Put ChromeOS Out to Pasture?–Google has been on a killing spree the last few months, whacking projects that are non-essential to the company strategy or that haven’t caught on. Even though this …
• 5 Myths About Digital Natives | Upside Learning Blog–Post lists 5 Myths encountered about the Digital Natives, and why they don’t really make sense and deserve to be debunked.
• The Right Technology May Be a Pencil | Edutopia–Tech integration specialist and computer teacher Mary Beth Hertz suggests that sometimes low-tech is all you need.
• Why Schools Need to Get Social, Local and Mobile–Tech startups have a ripe opportunity to tap into the education space. Here’s how.
• Tech Transformation: 10 of the best: Technology as a tool, skill or goal?–Today I had a conversation with someone at school today who told me that technology was “just a tool”.
• Students learn to be better ‘digital citizens’ – USATODAY.com–Schools across the USA are adding coursework focused on Internet privacy, cyberbullying and electronic plagiarism.
• Is Firefox Doomed?–Just a few years ago, Mozilla’s Firefox browser was rising fast as the chief challenger to Microsoft’s stubbornly dominant Internet Explorer.
• The Wejr Board » Using Tech to Meet Parents Where They Are–Nothing is better than face to face communication but many times this is not possible so I believe it is important to provide a variety of ways that parents and families can both receive information and engage in dialogue with the school using technology.
• 5 Free Websites for Seniors on How to Use Computer and Internet || Free Software–Here are 5 Free Websites for Seniors on How to Use Computer and Internet. Learn computer basics, Internet Basics, Computer education, etc.

Tools

• Twitter For Teachers and Administrators – LiveBinder–Resources, tips and tricks for using Twitter in school
• 10 Apps that are Fun and Innovative for the Classroom–Here are some of the apps that I think change the way that students will expect information to be presented in the future
• Top 6 Photo-Editing And Sharing Apps For Android | Redmond Pie–We’ve covered some of the best antivirus apps and custom ROMs for Android, and now, in this post, we’ll be talking about some of the most feature-rich and popular photo-editing and sharing apps on Android.
• Free Technology for Teachers: Android Apps to Watch TED on the Go–The more time I spend traveling the more time I spend consuming content on my Android devices.
• 5 Free Browsers For Kids || Free Software–Here are 5 Free Browsers for Kids that brings in all fun websites and protect children from any undesirable content found over the Internet.
• File Recovery Tools: Recuva, Restoration, SoftPerfect, PC Inspector, DiskDigger | 7 Tutorials–You can find many programs that promise to help you recover accidentally deleted files. However, which program is really good at helping you recover deleted files? To find out, I tested the most popular applications in this niche, most of them free
• Best image editing apps from the Mac App Store | News | TechRadar–Best image editing apps from the Mac App Store A top selection of apps for editing images : TechRadar
• Edit Videos, Take Screen Grab And Create Panoramas With VReveal–vReveal is an application for editing videos, creating panorama images (from videos), and grabbing video snapshots. It comes with many basic video editing…
• Flubaroo is a Google teacher’s best friend | Right ClickEd Tech–Flubaroo is essentially a Google Apps Script (don’t let the word “script” scare you) that processes your form submitted data into individual student reports, scores, and grades.
• 4 Great Online Citation Tools For Students (for MLA, APA, or Chicago Manual of Style citation styles) | Emerging Educat–Guest post by Johnamarie Macias This time of year, many students are knee-deep in writing papers and other assignments that may require citing sources.
• 4 Tools For Tracking What Others Do On Your Computer Behind Your Back–In an ideal world, we’d all be able to keep our computers secure from unauthorized access. That’s not the world we live in however. Roommates snoop, significant others get curious, and family members decide to check up on each other – without permission. If you suspect this is occurring, you can monitor your computer to see how it is being used when you’re away.
• Create Beautiful Timelines with timekiwi–We get to experience moments of joy, sorrow, and success multiple times in our life. Most of them are recorded as photos, videos, or written words to cherish them forever. But how coherent are they? Nine times out of ten, there isn’t a common thread connecting all your memories together. Photos are awesome but they don’t say it all. You create an online journal, but it’s too much of a chore.
• Improve Your Wi-Fi Experience At Home & Outside With These 2 Free Android Apps–When you use an Android phone (or any smartphone for that matter), Wi-Fi becomes an essential way to get online.With the help of this article, I’ll be showing you two different apps designed to make your Wi-Fi experience better so you can get better speeds and a more stable connection. These are both for Android, but you can actually use what you learn from them with any Wi-Fi device, including your laptop.

How-To

• HOW TO: Change Your Twitter Handle–Looking to change your Twitter handle? You don’t have to create a new account — you can simply modify your old Twitter handle and keep all of your followers
• How to Use TweetDeck to Improve Your Twitter Experience–Learn How to Use TweetDeck to Improve Your Twitter Experience.
• Use VLC Player to Convert Videos From One Format to Another–Learn How to Use VLC Player to Convert Videos From One Format to Another.
• SMART Board Goodies » Blog Archive » Facebook & Twitter Guides for Educators–They were released this week so I wanted to share them with you all!
• Edit The Headlines On Links You Share To Facebook–Have you ever posted a link to Facebook, but not been thrilled with the title or description? Now you can edit them.
• How to Use Windows Movie Maker As a Video Cutter–Learn How to Use Windows Movie Maker As a Video Cutter to Cut Out Parts or Segments of a Video Easily.
• How to Create & Delete Your Own Power Plans in Windows 7 | 7 Tutorials–We did not show how to create your own custom power plan nor how to delete any of the existing plans. This tutorial will address this knowledge gap and show how these things can be done.
• How Windows protects your PC | News | TechRadar–How Windows protects your PC Your PC’s defences handle code from many sources : TechRadar
• Free Technology for Teachers: New Blogger Tutorial Videos–I discovered that the Blogger team had just uploaded four new short tutorials.
• How To Record Screencasts Without Paying for Software–Recording screencasts are an effective way to demonstrate technical tasks to anyone. Here is a free service that let’s you do it without paying for software.
• Reading Lessons: 12 Ways to Scaffold Texts for Students | TeachHUB–Student readers, like builders, need a foundation and a blueprint to be successful.
• Make a Web Video: How to Choose Your Gear, Shoot and Edit Video, and Master YouTube–On this week’s episode of Lifehacker, we’re going behind the scenes for a closer look at how you can make your own web video, no matter what your budget. We’ll walk through the gear you’ll need and how to shoot, edit, and distribute web video for your rabid audience.
• Build a Smartphone Projector for Around a Dollar–Projectors can be expensive, but if you’re looking to build one for your smartphone without spending a lot of cash, Instructables user iamaledgend put one together for under a dollar.
• Do I Really Need to Eject USB Drives Before Removing Them?–Dear Lifehacker,Some of my computers (like my Mac) are always warning me about disconnecting flash drives without ejecting, while Windows doesn’t seem to have a problem—in fact, my external USB drive doesn’t even have an eject option. Does this mean it’s safe? How do I know when I actually need to eject a drive?
• HTG Explains: Understanding Routers, Switches, and Network Hardware – How-To Geek–Today we’re taking a look at the home networking hardware: what the individual pieces do, when you need them, and how best to deploy them. Read on to get a clearer picture of what you need to optimize your home network.
• Replace The Terrible Windows 7 Games With The Classic XP Ones–Ditch the shiny and slow. Get old-fashioned but familiar Windows XP games working on your Windows 7 computer.
• A Guide To Setting Up Your Own Podcast Website & Feed Using WordPress & Podpress–I recently had the opportunity to become part of a podcast which I’m sure you’ll hear about soon enough – and it’s all fairly new ground for me. As the only one with enough bandwidth to host, and clearly the most experienced of the group in WordPress ninja-ship, I also took it upon myself to setup the necessary protocols that make an actual podcast, as opposed to being just audio files posted on a blog
• What is the Difference between Sleep, Hibernate, and Hybrid Sleep in Windows?–Difference between Difference between Sleep, Hibernate, and Hybrid Sleep in Windows. Hibernate and hybrid sleep in Windows 7, Windows 8.
• Risks to Watch For When Downloading & Installing Free Software | 7 Tutorials–You can’t be too careful when researching and installing new software. We’re going to use what we’ve learned about finding new screen savers as an example of the risks any new unknown software can pose to your system, and the methods used to minimize them.
• Free Technology for Teachers: Settings Every Blogger User Should Know–This is a post I had simmering in the back of my mind for a while until this morning when someone asked how I was able to publish posts so quickly.
• 20 of the Best Tips and Tricks for Getting the Most out of the Windows Command Line – How-To Geek–Do you use the command line in Windows to get things done? If you are more comfortable typing commands to accomplish tasks than using the mouse, we have compiled 20 of the best Windows command line tips and tricks to help you become a command line guru
• 2 Ways to Download TED Videos Individually or in Bulk–Learn How to Download TED Videos in Bulk or Individually to Your Computer.

iOS

• 8 Hidden iOS Features You Might Not Know–While most people are already playing with iOS 5, few people have taken full advantage of the hundreds of features included in the new iOS. Here we will unveil some of the hidden features in iOS.
• Troubleshooting WiFi Isues on iOS Devices–Losing a WiFi connection on an iOS device can be very frustrating. Here’s a list identifying the troubleshooting to go through to get the problem resolved as quickly as possible.
• Apple iCloud: Share Public and Private Calendars–A cool feature of Apple’s iCloud service is it allows for calendar sharing. Here’s how to share public and private calendars.
• Mobile Learning Research | iPad Studies–Mobile Learning Research iPad Studies
• Using the iPad to Make and Edit Video- Old Dog New Trick Series | PCHSdirectorBLOG–My first “new trick” is using the iPad to make and edit video.
• A Variety Of Calculator Apps For Both Basic & Advanced Calculations [iPad]–For some reason, Apple decided not to include a calculator app for the iPad, as they do for the iPhone. So I signed into the App Store to hunt one down and was a little surprised at the number and variety of apps available in the genre
• Beautiful textbook comes to the iPad – The Professional Chef–Inkling again shows the way with their innovative approach to textbooks.
• Gmail for iPhone and iPad is a must-grab upgrade | TechRepublic–Gmail makes for a great app that any Google Apps user should have on their Apple iOS device.
• An encyclopedia on your iPad | eSchool News–Encyclopaedia Britannica wants students and consumers to have the world at their fingertips—virtually, anyway.
• The 7 Best Storm Tracking Apps [iPhone]–Storm chasing might be considered a strange way to spend your weekends, but if it’s isobars and radar images that get you hot under the collar then this line-up of apps for your iOS device is bound to help scratch the itch. The benefits of using an iPhone or 3G iPad whilst out chasing bad weather are fairly obvious. Apple’s devices both provide GPS functionality and access to mapping information in a flash
• Apps for Common Core Math Standards, Grades 6-8–The Resource for Education Technology Leaders focusing on K-12 educators. Site contains a Software Reviews Database, articles from Technology & Learning Magazine, articles from Educators in Educators’ eZine, Event and Contest listings, Reader suggested Web sites, and weekly news updates on education technology leaders
• Send and Receive Text Messages for Free–When Apple announced the addition of iMessage in iOS 5, iPad, iPod and iPhone users rejoiced. Finally, we can communicate with any iOS user for free. It seemed like a natural evolution in a world of FaceTime and Skype. However, iMessage does us no good when texting non-iOS users.
• How To Edit Video On Your iPhone Using iMovie–The HD quality of the iPhone 4 and 4S video camera app is just as good as many consumer video cameras. While it may be a stretch to shoot hour-long video productions with an iPhone, it’s a perfect in your pocket at all times device for shooting and editing family, event, and documentary style presentations.

Miscellaneous

• iTunes Match vs. Google Music vs. Amazon Cloud Drive–LOS ANGELES — In recent weeks, Apple, Google and Amazon.com have each launched the missing puzzle piece in their wireless mobile music systems. Apple enabled storage and delivery of your songs over the Internet through iTunes Match.
• 4 Ways to Maximize Your Flipped Classroom Videos | Teacher Tech–Regardless of what the purpose is, there is some research out there about multimedia design that will help you prepare these videos.
• Stanford Launching 14 Free Online Courses in January/February: Enroll Today | Open Culture–Two weeks ago, we mentioned that Stanford will be rolling out seven new courses in its experiment with online learning. Fast forward to today, and yet another…
• 10 ways PCs will change over the next 25 years | News | TechRadar–10 ways PCs will change over the next 25 years The future of PCs, components and computing : TechRadar
• Flavors.me Heads Into Tumblr Territory With “Follow” Buttons & Plans To Support Content Creation | TechCrunch–Flavors.me, the dead-simple service for building your own personal profile page, is launching a major redesign on Tuesday, with features that position it to take on the blogging juggernaut that is the Tumblr pageview machine
• Millions using YouTube Editor to enhance videos after posting — Online Video News–As YouTube continues evolving from a user-generated content repository to a haven for professionally produced content, so do its tools. Thanks to the new Edit Video feature in the YouTube Editor, users have the ability to adjust the quality of previously posted videos, even automatically.
• Differentiated Tech Instruction by Flipping My Classroom | School Technology Ideas–In the past, trying to differentiate instruction in a tech class was almost impossible. Take for example, teaching my fourth…
• 50 Christmas and New Year Desktop Wallpapers–I seriously love the month of December every year. It means the end of the year but also the start of another year.
• The Evolution of the Microprocessor [Infographic] – How-To Geek–While the burly CPU gets the press releases and the glory, the tiny microprocessor is the unsung hero of the technological revolution.

Video/Slideshow

• Clip from Harvard EdCast – YouTube–Clip from Harvard EdCast’s “The Celebrity Math Tutor” Listen to the whole podcast at http://hvrd.me/edcastkhan

• You Khan’t Ignore How Students Learn | Action-Reaction–It’s unfortunate that “The Teacher to the World” was only able to mention one study about how students learn. A study which he then dismisses.
• Jason Derulo – It Girl (iPad Remix feat. Freddie Cosmo) – YouTube–All instruments recorded live using iPad apps! East Midwest Music Group is Doug Larsen and Ben Lindell, both NYC based music producers. Recorded and filmed a…

Tagged as: Edtech, Resources, Treasure