Welcome to this week’s edition of Treasure Chest—79 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 2011 Edublog Awards – voting is now open | The Edublog Awards–Voting is open until 11:59 PM US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, December the 13th – and the winners will be announced at the Edublog Awards ceremony on the 14th at 7pm EST (more to come soon).
- Free Technology for Teachers: Guest Post – Education Technology’s Hidden Ticking Time Bomb–Freemium looks like the future for education technology companies. Yet there’s another side of free education apps and there’s a big, overlooked trend in this space that I want to shine a spotlight on.
- Stump The Teacher: Complaining and Campaigning–It is that time of year…the time to complain and campaign for the annual EduBlogs Awards!
- Professor Disrupting Lecture Hall with Best Use of Skype Ever | edtechdigest.com–For the third time in a row, Virginia Tech professor John Boyer has managed to turn a YouTube video from his World Regions class of 3,000 into a once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity for his students
- When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids – The Answer Sheet – The Washington Post–A school board member takes versions of his state’s standardized tests in math and reading, and realizes something is really wrong with these high-stakes exams.
- Could You Pass a High School-Level Standardized Test? | Hack Education–On Monday, The Washington Post ran a story of a local school board member who took his state’s version of the 10th grade standardized tests — one in math …
- Ideas for Bringing Your Own Device (BYOD) Even If You Are Poor–Students should not only be given the freedom to do what those who have the least can do.
- 5 Best Practices For Educators On Facebook–While it’s been the bane of the school system for a long time, there are some real benefits to using Facebook in the classroom.
- 15 Flipped Classrooms We Can Learn From | Online College Tips – Online Colleges–In a flipped classroom, students watch lectures at home and spend classroom time applying what they’ve learned.
- 4 Things That Really Annoy Me In Tech Today [Opinion]–I’ll admit, I get a little cranky sometimes. I guess we all can, and sometimes it’s a good thing to vent. So here’s a list of the top 5 things in tech that are really getting on my nerves today – see how many you agree with. And whatever you do, please don’t take this 100% seriously, because I’m not really half as cranky as I sound.
- Graphing Comes to Google–Google has added graphing functionality to its seemingly ever-growing list of search bar capabilities.
- How Twitter’s Trending Algorithm Picks Its Topics : NPR–Sometimes a topic that seems hot, like Occupy Wall Street, doesn’t appear on trending lists, leading some activists to accuse Twitter of censorship. But the secret algorithmic formula prefers stories of the moment to enduring hashtags, so it ignores topics that are popular over a long period of time.
- Who is the Best EDU Consultant? « My Island View–What changes could be made to the present management structure of education to make it more effective for educators?
- 30+ Open Wikis Every Educator Should Know About | Edudemic–From wikis on teaching in the United Kingdom to art to web 2.0 tools, there’s a wiki for everyone.
- 25 Signs You are a Future Mathematician Mathematics and Multimedia–The article inspired me to write my own list, only this time, Signs You Are a Future Mathematician.
- Facebook Timeline: The Complete Guide–Now that the Facebook Timeline is rolling out to all users, we thought it time to reexamine just what this new design is all about, and how to best optimize your profile.
- BBC Learning For Adults Is A Treasure Trove | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…–BBC Learning For Adults is a treasure trove of very accessible resources for English Language Learners and others to learn in multiple subject areas.
- Google Currents: Flipboard-Like News Aggregator For Android & iOS–Google Currents is a brand new and innovative way of exploring your favorite news and RSS feed subscriptions on your Android & iOS smartphones and…
- 20 Education Administrator Blogs You Should Start Following Right Now | Edudemic–There are dozens of terrific blogs run by education administrators that you should start following right now. The following list is via the Edublogs awards so be sure to head over there and vote for your favorite!
- The Best Videos For Educators In 2011 | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…–This is always one of my favorite year-end lists to do…..
- Track Santa On Google Maps And Learn A Lot Along The Way–Each year the NORAD tracking gets more and more advanced. There are now a number of ways you can track Santa on his journey through the night
Tools
- Teacher Experience Exchange – Guided tour of web 2.0 tools–With thousands of web 2.0 sites available, how do you choose the best tools for your classroom? Find out here.
- Skylight Turns Your Smartphone Into a Microscope Camera | PCWorld–Ever wonder how powerful your smartphone camera was? Check out what it can do teamed up with a microscope!
- Maximum PC | Choose Your Defender! 10 Anti-Virus Programs Reviewed and Compared–We’ve called to arms a gnarly collection of security suites with the roughest, toughest reputations around. We’re also including three popular no-cost AV solutions to find out how they compare.
- Think You Can Type Fast? Try These 4 Free Typing Test Sites & Find Out!–But having a keyboard (and even a nice layout) is just not going to cut it – if you use a computer for a living, you need to type like a pro.
- 18 Helpful Tools for Better Gmail Experience–Gmail (also known as Google Mail) is one of the top email services that seem to get better with time. Gmail already comes with a set of great features itself…
- Best Free Online Applications and Services–Here we have compiled a list for best free online applications and services—click on related links or product logos and you can start using them right away.
- SkyDrive Introduces New Features: Improved file management, sharing, Drag & drop, etc | The Windows Club–New Features in SkyDrive include improved file management, sharing, drag & drop, HTML5, PDF and RAW format support.
- Apps in Education: 10 Tools for Getting the Most from Dropbox
- Twitter overhauls TweetDeck, releases HTML5 apps for the browser, Windows, and Mac | The Verge–As part of Twitter’s big day of updates, the company’s changing its recently acquired TweetDeck app in a major way. It’s putting the Adobe Air version out to pasture in favor of HTML5-based apps that…
- Apps in Education: 10 Tools for Getting the Most from Dropbox–some of these tools are cross platform
How-To
- Top 5 Most Influential Tech Tutorial Blogs–When it comes to finding great tutorial blogs related to technology, there just aren’t that many. There are literally millions of tech blogs, but frankly, most of them suck. I’ve been blogging about technology for over 4 years now and the landscape has changed dramatically.
- New Twitter: 25 Tips and Tricks for Savvy Tweeters–Streamline your Twitter experience by learning how to use keyboard shortcuts, embed tweets, discover new topics and find new people to follow.
- The Complete Guide to Creating and Using Twitter Lists–Learn How to Create and Use Twitter Lists Efficiently Through This Complete Guide to Creating and Using Twitter Lists.
- How To Download All YouTube Videos From A User, Channel Or Playlist–Watching videos online on YouTube can be a lot of fun, but at times, playlists and user channels can have such massive collections that it may not be…
- 5 Easy Ways To Download & Convert Online Videos–Streaming video websites are such a big part of our lives, it’s hard to remember a time when they didn’t exist. These websites revolutionized our computer video experience – no longer do we have to download every single video we want to watch – it’s all right there! But the opposite is also true. Sometimes sending a link or embedding a video is not enough
- Twelve Ideas for Teaching with QR Codes | Edutopia–Blogger and PBL specialist Andrew Miller offers an array of creative suggestions for using Quick Response codes in the classroom.
- Educational Technology Guy: Using Technology to Organize Your Lessons and Resources–I use a few different tech tools to organize my lessons and resources for school and use a variety of tech tools on a daily basis.
- Google Maps Tutorial – Start Here « Ed Tech Ideas–Recently, Google came out with a great little Maps tutorial called Start Here. The tutorial takes you on a journey through Google Maps showing you how to do things like create maps with locations, photos, and links, get driving directions, use indoor maps, explore street view, and many other useful skills.
- How to Download All Your +1s From Google+ As Bookmark Links–Learn How to Download All Your +1s From Google+ As Bookmark Links.
- Clean Up Your Facebook Profile Timeline Using Facebook Activity Log–Do you want to clean up your Facebook profile timeline and remove junk status updates, tagged photos, videos and other random links? Use Facebook activity log feature to know which of your posts are publicly viewable and control the privacy of older Facebook posts. This feature is enabled by default for Facebook profile timeline as well as for older Facebook profiles
- How to Publish your Blog or Website to Google Currents–Create a Google Current of your Blog or Website using RSS feeds. Publish your blog into Google Currents
- How to View a List with All Shared Network Folders | 7 Tutorials–Where would I be able to see listed all the folders I’ve shared on my computer? We thought it was a really good question and we decided to answer it. We have two alternatives to share: one using Windows Explorer and one using Computer Management.
- 6 Simple & Effective Ways to Speed Up Your Mac–We are all impressed with the smooth running of the Apple Mac OS X as we compare with the contemporary Windows OS like Vista or Windows 7. However, there are…
- Five Ways to Flip Your Classroom With The New York Times – NYTimes.com–Suggestions for how to deliver content at home that students can engage with when they come to class.
- Best codecs for video and how to encode | News | TechRadar–Best codecs for video and how to encode Plus streaming explained and how to build a media PC : TechRadar
- 8 Useful Shortcut Keys Using The “Windows” Button [Windows 7]–Maximize your productivity with shortcut keys. Here are 8 useful shortcut keys using the “Windows” button.
- How to Change the Location of Folders Such as Documents or Downloads | 7 Tutorials–In this article we will explain what user folders are (such as Downloads, Documents, Music, etc), where they are located by default and how to move them to new locations.
- How to Customize Folder Scanning Preferences in Picasa–Learn How to Customize Folder Scanning Preferences in Picasa.
- The Best Photography Tips, Tricks, and Hacks of 2011–This was a great year for all things photography, with posts to help you behind the camera, in front of it, when you’re shooting, and when you’re editing. Here’s a look back at our most popular photography tips, tricks, and hacks of 2011.
- The Simple Way To Enable New Twitter Right Now | Edudemic
iOS
- The 20 best and most useful iPhone apps | TechRepublic–Take advantage of the top benefits that mobile computing has to offer with this list of 20 highly useful iPhone apps.
- Tony Vincent’s Learning in Hand – Blog – How to Set Up Gmail for School iPads and iPods–One challenge for teachers with students using devices like iPad and iPod touch is collecting student work.
- 13 Helpful Apps for Taking Care of Your Pets [INFOGRAPHIC]–When it comes to taking care of your pets, your smartphone can be surprisingly handy. Here are some of the best apps that help you make sure your dogs and cats are happy and safe.
- Proof in Study: Math App Improves Test Scores (And Engagement) | MindShift–Last year, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt released an iPad app for eighth-grade algebra, and conducted a study with 1,000 California students examining how those using the app perform compared to those who don’t. That study should be released next month, but early signs are pointing to favorable results
- Apps in Education: Screencasting Apps for the iPad–Looking for app reviews and technology integration advice?
- Apps in Education: 10 Teleprompters Apps to make you a Confident Public Speaker–There are many teleprompter apps available for the iPad and there are many instances where these would be beneficial for yourself, your students or your colleagues.
- 3 iPad apps to assist teaching mathematics.–3 cool apps for teaching math
- Apps for Common Core Math Standards, Grades 9-12–The high school standards are listed in conceptual categories.
- At Long Last, Flipboard Launches an iPhone App–For iPad owners, the personalized, socially-curated digital magazine Flipboard is one of the absolute must-install apps for the device. Pretty much since it first debuted on Apple’s tablet in July 2010, users have been clamoring for an iPhone version of Flipboard. Today, that wait ends.
- The New iBooks 1.5 for iPad and iPhone Is a Must Have Upgrade–The new iBooks 1.5 is out. It’s great. It has a nighttime mode to make reading books in the dark easier on the eyes and full-screen layout with none of the stupidly gimmicky backdrop. Just beautiful typography
- 3 Free iPhone Games That Are Too Good To Be Free–One of the most surprising things the iPhone brought us was gaming. When the app store launched, everyone knew there would be some cool stuff, but what I do not think anyone expected was just how great the iPhone was going to be as a portable gaming machine. I own a PSP and a 3Ds and I can honestly say that I do more gaming on my iPhone than I do both of those devices combined.
- Apple iOS: Move Apps Into Folders the Easy Way–If you like to keep your apps in folders on your iDevice, it’s tedious dragging each one across multiple screens to the folder. Here’s how to add apps to folders the easy way.
Android
- The best Android weather apps of 2011–Your Android smartphone or tablet probably came with a handy weather app and widget pre-installed, but sometimes they’re just not detailed or flexible enough.
- Personal For Android: A Secure Vault & Search Engine For Your Data–As the life around us accelerates on the digital path, we constantly find ourselves striving for effective, rapid and most importantly, secure online means…
- Facebook For Android App Gets A Major Update With Complete UI Overhaul | Redmond Pie–Android-packing Facebook fans rejoice – you’re now able to download the newly updated Facebook app for your smartphone, and it brings with it a whole new user interface and design. If you’ve played with the iPhone or iPad version of Facebook’s mobile app, then you’re probably already pretty familiar with the changes that the social network just pushed out to Android owners, but here’s the general rundown anyway.
- Free Technology for Teachers: Apps 4 Kids – An Android App Discovery Tool–Searching the Android Market for apps appropriate for your students and children can be a discouraging experience
- App Man: Organize Your Android Apps Under Custom Categories–For all major mobile operating systems, you can find a broad range of app categories, with an umpteen number of apps falling under each.
Miscellaneous
- Top 5 Smartphones to Buy for Christmas 2011–Christmas is right around the corner and we’re going to help you find the best tech gadgets currently on the market so you can be showered with praise when someone gets one as a gift! Everybody can use a smartphone, especially the people who don’t want to give up their own flip phones from 10 years …
- How safe is your Facebook profile – USATODAY.com–If you haven’t checked your Facebook privacy settings lately, it’s time to revisit them.
- Best Sites and Apps for Internet Speed Tests–I’m not sure why, but I’m always testing my Internet connection at home to see how fast it is and if it’s working properly. I never did this before, but after finding some really useful Internet speed test sites and apps for my phone and iPad, I’m always using it! At first it may not seem very us…
- The Nerdy Teacher: Everything I Learned about Education I learned from Christmas Cartoons–I thought the holidays would be the perfect time to share what my favorite Christmas Cartoons have taught me about education.
- Five free comparison-shopping smartphone apps | TechRepublic–These apps will help you save time, money, and aggravation as you track down the items on your holiday shopping list.
- 7 Free Online Christmas Films For Your Festive Enjoyment [Stuff to Watch]–It’s December already, and that means Christmas is just around the corner. What better way of getting in the mood than sitting back and enjoying some festive…
- Pokki: Add web apps, as gadgets, to Windows desktop | The Windows Club–Pokki lest you add cool desktop gadgets to Windows 7 and enables web developers to create and distribute connected HTML5 desktop applications called Pokkies.
- 50 Teachers Who Are Social Media Stars | Best Colleges Online–Here, we’ve highlighted just a few of the amazing teachers, educators, and professors who are taking social media by storm.
- Backupify is a Class Act–I got another email from Backupify, the cloud-based backup company. We have written before about them here. Usually, these emails just confirm that the backups of my Gmail, …
- 10 Ways Twitter Can Make You A Better Leader | Big Is The New Small–Here are 10 Simple Ways That Twitter Can Make You A Better Leader, all in 140 or less.
- Educational Technology Guy: Evernote User Resources–So, how to you learn about all Evernote features and add-ons and how to use them and where do you go for support?
- 30 Incredible Blogs Written By Students | Edudemic–That’s why I am so thrilled to bring you this must-see list of student blogs. Written by students as young as 6 and old as 14, they’ve all got something to say.
Video/Slideshow
- Learning Styles Don’t Exist – The Educator’s PLN–Video from Daniel T. Willingham about learning styles.
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